Greetings. I'll be getting a TSX pretty soon and will want to upgrade the sound quality, prob starting with a budget of $1500 - $2000 max including cost of a pro install. However, it sounds a bit easier said than done. Silly Honda integrated electronics! At any rate, here's what I'm looking for, which does not include brands or models since I can search the forums for that type of info:

* Quality over quantity; my current 4speaker system consists of an Alpine HU, Boston Pro 6.5's with tweets on dash and Kenwood 3-way 6.5's in rear (twas a noob mistake but they work for fill) running off of an Eclipse 4x50 amp with full range to front and EQ'd rears to give proper imaging. A quality 50w - 75w per channel is plenty for me.
* Smooth, full range sound (as much as possible) with no sub in the trunk as this will (eventually) be a family car
* Factory head unit and stock speaker grills, though dash tweets and modifying the stock grills are ok

Questions:
1. Can an aftermarket amp (e.g., 2ch for front components) be added and work along side the factory to continue powering 6 speakers or is this just looking for trouble/noise/distortion?
2. Can a good 4 ch amp use 2ch to power the front speakers and 2ch to power the rear door and 6x9s both or will this either not work or destroy the amp?
3. Other than under the passenger seat, which, based on eldude's install, requires some minor modifications to the vehicle, are there other good places to mount an amp that will not interfere with everyday use of the car (i.e., can't mount to rear of rear seats since those may get folded down)? Amps are so large these days.... My dream is that there's space out of the way for a 6ch amp in the trunk
4. If it has to be only 2 pair of speakers, am I correct in saying that unhooking the 6x9's and powering rear door full range speakers will make it more difficult to image properly for the driver, but would provide good sound for rear passengers, whereas unhooking rear door speakers and powering 6x9's would provide good imaging and bass, but would likely give rear passengers a headache?
5. Anyone's guess as to the quality of the factory HU vs. my 4-5 year old Alpine HU?

Many, many thanks.

 

I have my 4 channel amp installed under the rear deck. It's the perfect place to put it, IMO.







I had my setup "professionally installed", and the shop did a horrible job. I recommend you do the research and install it yourself. Worst thing that will happen is you'll blow a fuse.

 

there is really no reason why you should have to pay anywhere near 2 Grand if you're not going to be incorporating subs into your setup. I am currently running everything off of the stock HU and it sounds excellent.

 

jiggaman,
what are you running from the stock HU to your amps? I imagine the HU doesn't have RCA outs, so are you using speaker level and it still sounds good?

 

Actually, the head unit doesn't have speaker outs... it has preamplified signal outs with now RCA's on them, and you hack them off and connect RCA's to them and voila!

 

Wow, good questions.

First, I would ignore the R door speakers because they DO foul up the image, because they are closer to your ears than the F speaks (if you're tall, anyway.) I don't miss mine at all.

The Navi H/U output is surprisingly clean all the way to 40 on the volume. No experience with non_navi. The Navi is an Alpine and has the exact same OP level as an old-school non-4V Alpine on the bench.

To answer your amp question, you can parallel the speakers and not destroy the amp, but it's still not a bright idea.

Run 6x9 woofs, man.

Here is my recommendation (exactly what I have in my car):

1 JL Audio 300/4 amplifier - $399.00 + shipping

1 set Alpine SPX-F13M or SPX-F17M (made by Scan in Denmark) $229 or $239 + shipping

1 set MB Quart RCE-269 6x9 components - $249 shipped on eBay.

Damping for doors Cascade Audio: Read how Joerckt liked his in his post.

The amp sounds great, and fits under the 2004 TSX passenger seat with teh removal of some foam under the carpet (can be replaced after) and the insertion of three washers under each rear seat mount, tilting the rear of the seat up about 3mm. It could go under the rear deck too. It's fully regulated and very well built, but I am recommending it specifically 'cause it fits under the passenger seat.

Read my post on building spacers in the door to see pics of the 13M's. I think I could get the 17M's to fit... it's be close. The 13M's for SURE, and they sound great. I mean frickin' great! You will spend $30 at Home Depot for rubber roof vent conicl gaskets to make water shields for them...

The tweets are like little dome mids up in the dash. They throw voices up there extremely well.

In the rear deck, just use the MBQ woofers. Sell the tweets and xovers on eBay (I got $50 for mine!)

Run the amp in 4-channel mode. Run some kinds twisted-pair RCA to the amp from the facotry amp signal wires, and run F and R so the fader of the factory HU becomes a subwoofer level control : )

You are under $1K for parts. You can get a really good install for the balance... or if you have the right place to do it I'll come help you, maybe...: ) If you really want to, you can come to Portland, bring your CD's, I'll buy you a beer and you can listen and look at what I did to my wife's car.

Maybe by then my prototype amp interface harness samples will be in from Taiwan : )

 

eldurino, so you think it's better to eliminate the rear door speakers from the equation and only run front door speakers and the rear 6x9s?

 

I'll answer that question in two ways:

1) I personally hate rear mids/tweets. So in my cars I've stopped installing rear fill a long time ago. If I were doing a Dolby Digital/DTS system I would use it... but I am not a huge proponent of that processing in a car yet.

2) If I had a car, and a lifestyle, where I thought I would often have adult rear-seat passengers, AND I had a large enough budget, I could justify to myself installing rear door speakers in our TSX. However, I would have to A) be able to do it without diluting the budget for the rest of the system - I won't compromise the quality of any other component just to have rear door speakers, and B) I would need a sub level control up front, now that I've used the fader as a fader, and not as a sub bass level control like I am now.

I should point out that if it were my car alone, I would be running a single 10 or 12 in the trunk and NOT the 6x9's either. Of course, if it were my car alone, I'd probably have some Morel 8's in the floor.

 

I should also point out the the SQ competitor freaks I know tend towards 6 drivers in their systems. Tweets in floor-mounted kick panels or horns under the dash. Midbass drivers in enclosures in the floor/kick panel. And subs as far forward as they can.

The formula for a while was 2 horns, 2 pro-audio 10" mids in the floor, and 2 12"s in the trunk.

While the relative positioning is out of the reach of most of us, the architecture is noteworthy.

 

"Wow, good questions." - thanks

I find the people on this board (a few in particular - and you know who you are) to be an absolutely invaluable resource.

sl007 - what amp is that (esp. interested in the dimensions)? about how far down does it "hang" into the trunk?

elduderino - awesome info. i am leaning toward an amp under the seat. prior to raising the rear of it, do you know what the dimensions are underneath? between the rails? depth? height? I'm also leaning toward a similar set up that you have (in part because of you!), figuring that if I have rear passengers in the future (say me or my wife when we eventually have a kid) we can just fade the volume to the front so as to not give the rear passenger an ear full of bass. While I like the idea of MBQ's or Focal's up front, I'm a little concerned about their tweets not going low enough (based on this forum I know they'd have to be adjusted to -4.5 so as to not be harsh), so soft dome tweets, like on my current Boston's, are appealing.

Searching this forum I found that the non-navi HU is made by Panasonic. Hrm. ~$2k for navi (which I don't need or particularly want) to get Alpine is a lot of cash. Pisser. Panasonic.... grrrr.

Additional question: so powering 6 speakers with a 4ch is not a good idea, what about powering all the door speakers with a 5ch amp and powering the 6x9's in mono with the 5th channel? (e.g., Alping MRV-F450) No 5ch amps would prob fit under the seat, though.

 

The only one that usually sits in my back seat is my GF's 6 year old son. Personally i don't think he cares how i have my speakers set up. All i know is that he likes the "boom boom" that my subwoofers make! With my current set up being front and rear door speakers and NO 6X9s i am very pleased. I feel as if the music is coming at me and i cannot really "hear" the rear door speakers playing although i know that they are fuctioning. One thing i did discover this weekend was that one of my tweeters broke off of the grill that goes in the dash. I was wondering why the hell it seemed like my music was only coming from the left tweeter and apparently that is why! It seems that the glue that the installer used to "custom" mount it to the grill came loose, probably because of the rough ride with my stock shocks and pro kit set up. So i got some heavy duty epoxy from Home Depot and reattached the tweeter to the grill. That puppy ain't going no where now!
Music perfection once again, ahhhhh.

 

thanks.

The JL 300/4 is 13.4" long, 9-1/4 deep", and 2.36" high. I think slo007's amp is the JL e4300. Note that the JL 300/4 has all the connectors on one long edge. The 4300 has connectors on the end like most amps.

This is important for two reasons:

I think the flat floor between the rear seat brackets is about 13.5" long. The JL was a perfect fit and no longer amp than 13.4" could go there. Also, there couldn't be any wires coming out of the ends - all the wires come out the forward edge. This means that the 4300 layout would not fit, even if the footprint did.

Most amps now are squarish, so finding one that is around 9" deep will be difficult. I considered many amps on size before choosing the 300/4. I only considered JL in the first place because I liked the original xtants so much, and I know that some of the same folks that launched xtant helped JL with their amp line.

The reason I has to tilt the seat up in the back is that it slides back and down, not parallel to the floor. There is a brace that juts down and across the seat. If I was a metalworker, I could have made that brace go straight across and be just as effective, but I'm not...

So the longer an amp is past 9-1/4", the more you would have to tilt the seat UP in the back. The shorter it is than 9.25, the less you would have to.

Think of it this way - you're not spending the money on the navi function. You're spending it on a better stereo and for an 8" color display in the dash, which you'll do something cooler with later. I didn't think we'd use the Navi much, but actually we do, and it's great on road trips.

I thought about this a bit. Here are my objections:

1) The 6x9's are oriented longitudinally fore and aft at the outer edges of the rear shelf. This means they are pretty far apart. (It also means that Honda had the depth to use 8" instead, but never mind). I think there's plenty of opportunity for stereo separation between them, and there's not a compelling reason to lose that separation. I personally have never felt that localization stops at 300 Hz - I think it goes down to around 50 Hz, based on my experience.

2) I have 75wx2 going to my MB Quart 6x9s. Since they are freeair and I don't have an adjustable subsonic filter, if I drive them HARD with heavy bass content, I can get them to flap. I don't drive tham that hard and they sound fine, but when tuning it I did check to see how far I could go. Strapping them to the mono channel of the 450 would worry me for that same reason (I don't think the subsonic folter on the 450 is adjustable, but maybe it is. The 4-ch 540 has an adjustable subsonic filter, and I considered it, but it was just too damned big!) If you do end up with an adjustable subsonic filter, hi-passing the by-nines at 40 or so would be cool.

Instead, I would suggest using the factory amp to drive the rear doors like Joerockt did... if ya just gotta. You could also try it without and if you find you just gotta have it, you can buy some little used 2-CH amp on eBay.

 

Thanks again, as always, for the info elduderino. Unfortunately, I'd have to decide between getting navi now and living with the stock system for 2 - 3 years (we're saving for a house, etc.) before upgrading, or upgrading what's there within a couple weeks after buying the car.... which means I'll probably be "enjoying" a "nice" Panasonic HU. Which means that JLAudio may be overkill in terms of quality (though why add anything worse that will just further pollute the signal, I suppose), unless someone knows how good the signal is coming out of the Panasonic HU into the amp.

I might try powering the rear doors with the stock amp, but I am concerned about destroying a decent field of imaging, so would prob eventually get a 2ch amp if need be in the trunk.

Sounds like the Eclipse I had in mind as a possibility would be too long (10.82" deep) even though it's got great height of 1.97". The JL Audio does seem to be the best fit - which does not surprise me coming from you. :-)

 

: ) The Alpine and the Panasonic have the same Pioneer amp, so I suspect their outputs are similar in voltage and such... it's the D/A converters to wonder about. You may want a line driver.

 

I have the Panasonic HU and I had to use line drivers to get the system sounding right after I replaced the stock amp. With the line drivers though the system cranks. I hit about 140 DB at the dash and my highs and are clear as hell.

 

jiggaman - sweet news to my ears. did you use the phoenix line drivers recommended by elduderio in some other thread, or do you have your own set of favorites? all i'm looking for is clarity and no interference. thanks!

 

actually i'm not sure what line drivers my installers used. all i know is that i have two of them and they cost about 100 bux each, hehe. the great thing about line drivers is that they make it possible to have the gains way lower on your amps because the signal is already being boosted before even getting to the amps.

 

i'm sure you'd have good luck with the Phoneix GOld ones though.

 

if you are looking to spend ~2k and dont really want a sub I suggest you use most of the money on the install. by that i mean maybe making some custom door pods, try to fit some 8inchers in the doors, and some 3-4inch tweets high up on the doors also. that should really be a nice setup as all your sound is coming up front. =D it be a really simple setup as you wont need a sub, and can use one amp.

 

Well, the less I can spend the better, but not without sacrificing a lot of quality :-) As of now, I'm leaning toward stock HU, line drivers, MBQ RCE 6.5's up front with tweeters on the dash (properly adjusted) and MBQ 6.5 mids in rear doors, unhooking the 6x9's for now until the day I can afford a 2ch amp in the trunk and some quality speakers (which might be at the same time, don't know yet), and running the door speakers on the JL 300/4 under the passenger seat.

In short, going for sq and imaging over more kickin' bass. I'm used to this from my current vehicle, so I won't be missing anything. I'm hoping the MBQ's have a touch more bass than the Boston's I have, but are still smooth in the vocal range. I hope to be able to compare in the store with the Alpines mentioned earlier.

All this and I don't even own the TSX yet! (hopefully in a couple days).

 

If you want to hear my car before you start wrenching, let me know...

 

hell, i wanna hear your advice

 

Good stuff. Good stuff.

OK - I pick up my new TSX on Tuesday. I think I'm going to get some MBQ RCE216's up front and maybe also in the rear doors (buy 1 pr. speakers and can get 2nd pair 1/2 off... at a good retail store). Sticking with the stock Panasonic HU and likely getting line drivers as well.

Would leaving ANY brand (e.g., anything from Kenwood to MBQ, etc.) 6x9's hooked to the stock amp simply muddy up the sound? Wonder if there's a 2ch amp small enough to fit where the stock one is - everything is so square these days....

EDIT: forgot to mention i'd get a 4 ch amp under the passenger seat (prob jla 300/4)

 

Check this out - the guy has like 6 of them...:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...HNICAL%20SPECS

 

Well, ended up getting:

* Front components: Boston Rally's (got a great price having worked with sales person before, and that's what I had in the car I traded in)

* Dynamat in front doors

* Rear 6x9: MBQ Reference (no tweets)

* Eclipse amp for under the passenger seat (was able to rescue my existing amp)

Using stock HU. May keep the door speakers on the rear channel through stock amp for fill, unless it sounds bad at higher volume.

In other words, similar to what elduderino described elsewhere. :-)

Splitting the install over 2 days next week.

 

Sweet! I was going to PM you but I can't... if you have any questions during the job you can contact me.

I sat in the back pass side on a long trip this weekend, and my feet got cold. Couldn't figger out why. Then I remembered that the pass amp location blocks the heater vent under the seat.

So FYI. Not the end of the world or anything.

 

Hmm. Well, finally broached the subject of amp location with my wife (who'd rather I didn't do anything to the stereo but will tolerate it ) and she'd prefer having it in the trunk against the sidewall rather than under the seat, add the heater vent info in and tomorrow I'll be checking out what can fit/be done in the trunk location if the Eclipse amp won't work or if I want to just go ahead and get an upgraded amp - still AB class.

 

Upgrade is FINALLY finished (the installer had me keep bringing it back until he was happy with it). Ended up with MBQ 6.5 Refs in front and 6x9's in the rear deck, powered by an amp in the trunk mounted on the opposite side of the gas cap. The installer did a superb job hiding the amp with molded plastic and carpet with fold down hinges a grill for heat.

The front speakers I had mounted in the stock areas, and the crossovers are not attenuated at all because it just sounded way to dull (so they're set at 0db).

The 6x9's just kept picking up too much low frequency and thrashed too much with electronic music especially, so the installer threw in a slightly used AudioControl 2xs to hone the frequency to the 6x9's to between 50 and 100. Wow. Made all the difference in the world - no more having to choose between muddy bass with driver flap or having tight low bass but lacking mid-bass. He also left the rear door speakers hooked up and I can still fade from front door speakers to the rear 4 speakers using the deck.

Price for all speakers, amp, dynamat for the front doors, parts and labor (with some free labor and parts thrown in): just under $1500.

 

There's still more work that could be done, primarily in reinforcing the rear deck so it doesn't rattle. There's that darn piece of plastic in the center of the deck that has a piece of rubber pressed against the metal. Have no idea what it's for, but it rattles like heck when the volume gets cranked up. The installer recommended reinforcing the deck and using dynamat, possibly also enclosing the 6x9's. I can also make the passenger door buzz with the new speaker in there, despite the dynamat... might have to take it in to Acura and see if they'd address it or not (because of the work that was done they may say to take it to the stereo installer).