I just bought a SSM non-navi 6-spd TSX from Acura of Mobile, Alabama. The dealership was fantastic from start to finish. Anyway, love the car but hated the "premium" sound system. The two stock 6x9 woofers just sucked. My dilemma was that I did not want to give up ANY trunk space to improve the sound system - so boxes of any type were out of the question. SO, I replaced the stock 6x9's with two DB690 Polk 6x9's and noticed an immediate and noticable improvement to the sound. It still wasn't quite there yet, so I added a Sony XM-2100GTX 2 channel amp (100 Watts per channel rms). I mounted the amp under the rear deck using the mounting holes that are for the navi system dvd player (which I don't have).

The amp tapped off the the signal to the rear door speakers so that I could bypass the stock LPF. The output of the amp powered my two new Polk 6x9's. I used the variable 40 hz bass boost and variable cutoff low pass filter on the Sony amp to dial in the sound the way I like it. My current setup has the amp 40 hz boost set midway (max is +10db) and the LPF cutoff at 300hz. The headunit treble is at 0, the bass is at +1, and the fader is at +1 towards the front.

If you are looking to share your beat with other cars at intersections, this setup in NOT for you. However, if you just want the "lush sound you can feel in your bones" as promised by the TSX brochure and don't want to give up any cargo space, this will work.

In my next post, I will describe what I had to endure at Circuit City to get this reletively simple install accomplished.

 

I decribed my stereo upgrade in the previous post so I won't repeat it here. Bottom line: I (Circuit City) replaced the stock 6x9's and added a 2 channel Sony amp to power them. The speaker replacement was so simple even Circuit City could handle it. The amp install however...

My first confrontation with the installers was over amp location. They insisted that the ONLY place they could install the amp was on the back of the fold down left rear seat. I told them that I would not give up ANY trunk usability so this was out of the question. They said they wouldn't do it anywhere else. With this impass, I went home, picked up some parts from Lowe's and in about an hour I built mysef a bracket under the rear shelf. I used the navi system mounting holes, so I didn't have to drill or cut the car at all. I should have called off the who thing at CC at this point, but didn't. Instead I went back and told them to wire up the amp.

I explained to the installers at CC that I wanted the amp to get its input from the signal that goes to the rear door speakers because I wanted to bypass the stock LPF and bass boost and dial in my own using the Sony amp. I even supplied a print out from the TSX tech manual of the pin diagram for the head unit I got from this message board. It was clear they didn't have ANY technical documentation for the TSX at CC and were happy I provided them with the info.

Even so, the installers did not seem to believe me that only bass was getting sent to the rear deck 6x9's. SO, instead of doing what I said, they did the lazy thing and hooked the amp up to the stock 6x9 speaker leads. When they listened to the result, they discovered that I knew what I was talking about afterall. To get this far in the install took them FIVE hours! A little embarassed that they would have to redo the inputs to the amp, they told me it would take 40 minutes to fix it to how I had originally requested. 2.5 hours later, they said it was ready. I turned it on and immediately realized something was wrong. I shifted the fadar all they way to the rear and then all they way to the right and couldn't hear the right 6x9 at all! I called the installer over, he looked in the trunk and said that they had forgotten to hook up the right rear 6x9!!!! So, it was back in the install bay for another 15 minutes. By this time, it was 9pm and they had been working on my car since around noon! Keep in mind that I had done all the mounting work for them. You would think they would give me a discount on labor for that....

I got my TSX home and the next morning I noticed that the rear seat cushion had not been snapped back into place. I was unable to fix it myself, so it was back to Circuit City AGAIN. Fortunately, they were able to get it back into position....

A couple of questions / helpful tips for Circuit City:

1) Do you supply installers with technical info on car stereo wiring diagrams? If so, some of your stores aren't aware of this. If not, why not? I mean really, a TSX is not a Ukranian / Soviet import. It's not THAT rare!

2) Do your installers optest systems before turning them over to customers? Making sure that speakers are actually hooked up should be part of the procedure.

3) When a customer actually hands you a wiring diagram from the car's tech manual, maybe he just might know what he is talking about.

4) One last thing, if you disassemble a car during the install, make sure you completely reassemble it before you give the car back to the customer.

 

Excellent posts.

I had similar experiences with two audio shops in my area. After it was all said and done, I wish I had done the entire setup myself. I would have saved over $200 and probably have less headaches.

Note to self: stay away from CC.

 

The saga with Circuit City continues.... I went a day without driving my TSX (say it isn't so!) and when I tried to start it, the battery was DEAD!!! It turns out that Circuit City attached the remote start wire for the amp they installed in my car (see my above posts on this thread for the rest of the story) on a connection that is hot even when the car is off. That means the amp is on even when the car isn't running. Since there is no signal from the headunit, the drain on the battery isn't enough to kill it in one day. However the drain IS enough to kill it in two days. So it is BACK to Circuit City for them to perform the FOURTH correction to this completely straightforward two channel amp install!!!

I will NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER let Circuit City install ANYTHING in any of my cars EVER AGAIN!!!!

 

I use CC all the time. I guess it depends on the knowledge of the installer. The guy who does mine also competes his car in auto shows and knows his stuff well. I have never had a problem. But I am sorry to hear that you did.

 

The Saga continues:

I took my TSX back to CC and they verified that the remote wire was connected to a source that was hot even with the car turned off just like I had discovered. In about 30 minutes, they moved it to a accessory source that is only on when the head unit is on - which is where it should have been in the first place.

I wrote a complaint to CC on their website and it seems that someone at corporate contacted the store and told the manager to give me a call. He was very apologetic. I told him that three (or more) installers had a hand in this install at one point or the other and screwed up every part of the install except for physically mounting of the amp (which I did myself since I did not wanted it mounted on the rear seatback).

Ortiz posted on this thread that he has a great installer at his local Circuit City. I don't doubt him and he should continue to use that installer. But here is the deal: Given that Circuit City is a nationwide chain, they should have better standards of Quality Assurance and Training for their installers so that it isn't a roll of the dice when you take your car there. If a Circuit City installer has a question about a specific car he hasn't worked on before, Circuit City should have a central technical assistance center to provide for their installers tech manual wiring diagrams or procedures for taking a car apart and reassembling it. I saw no evidence of this at my CC.

If I wanted a crap shoot, I would have taken my car to the local hometown car audio install shop instead.

 

With all due respect to workingmen everywhere, car stereo installers tend not to be the brightest bulbs in the drawer.

If you take your car to the average installer, you are subjecting your vehicle to risk of substantial mechanical and electrical mayhem.

 

i brought my TSX to two different installers and both of them were supposed to be "top notch". And they both fucked up several times. So don't think it's just Circuit City.

 

NEVER ever take your car to CC or BB. You are just asking for trouble. I concer w/ Mark that most installers aren't to bright and don't know what they are doing most of the time. The best way to avoid this is just read online and learn how to do it yourself. Its not too hard and if those CC or BB guys can do it somewhat right(and that is a stretch), why cant you?

 

I talked to the installer at my local CC. He told me exactly what you said. "when ever you take your car to an audio install shop, you are rolling the dice. Even if the guy knows what he is doing, it doesn't mean he won't do it haphazardly."

 

let me add my .02

firstly ill say i have been a professional installer for about 8 years of my working life. i havnt done installs professionally for about the last 8 years of my working carrear.

i had many positions through my installation carrear, not because i got fired but because most of the places i worked most if not all the installers i worked with had no real clue about what they were doing.
granted i had the advantage because i had taken several years of electronics and understand electronic equipment and sound on a totally different level than most the people i worked with.

now let me point out somthing that is quite obvious:
what exactly is an installer?
the answer is a person usually becomes an installer for 1 of a few reasons.
either they have a true love for audio, cars and are willing to open their mind and pour their heart and soul into this carrear. or they are usually some kid looking for a job and likes carstereos. this is the most common type of installer, this is also the kid that usually dropped out of highschool because he didnt like it very much and his grades sucked.
this is also the same person that has done a few stereo installs in his backyard and now professes to be a professional at it.

now lets look at circuit city with reguards to other shops. i can tell you that any shop that offers free installs like Best buy or i think circuit city does them at a fairly affordable rate, you get what you pay for.
as an installer working for a reputable shop it is easy to make upwards of 60K a year. i would be suprised if an installer working at circuit city makes more than about 25 k a year.

in any setting there are very distinct types of installers.

the first type is a guy who works for best buy or circuit city. this guy just knows how to install stereos. they dont do any custom work, they often are clueless on anything other than very simple. most dont do alarm installs because they dont understand the basics of electronics to be poking around under the dash of a car where with a test light could deploy an air bag or cause serious damage to your car.
these installers are exactly the type you had doing your install.

the 2nd type are guys that have a very basic understanding of electronics and are capable of diagnosing problems because unlike type 1 they have been doing it for a while and have seen enough problems that they can usually figure out whats wrong and have also developed a system to installing to get them done fairly fast and correct with few problems comming up later on.

the 3rd type is a guy who has some years of experience behind him, knows how to do custom fabrication work and has a strong understanding to electronics and theory. probly is MECP certified and at the drop of a hat knows exactly what to do for an install, can plan out and reccommend equipment based on a customers needs, wants, budget and can put together a kick ass custom installed system in a short amount of time. he is hard working, dedicated and knows a lot about subwoofer design, sound, xovers, actually knows electronics theroy and isnt fooled by all the gimiks in caraudio that have been passed down to the consumers to try to boost sales.

the 4th type of installer is a guy that is just like type 3 but does only custom systems, his minimum install probly gets 8-10K in labor and his jobs take weeks, months to complete because they are compleatly rebuilding the car to make it a superior sound machine.

it's obvious to see that experience demands better income as with any industry. i would easily classify myself as type 3 because i know a hell of a lot about electronics, subwoofer design and troubleshooting has always been a strong point for me.
i stay away from jobs that take a long time because honestly in the long run there arent that many people with that type of money to afford me for months doing their install, and i have a limit of how much hacking up of someones car i will do for the love of a good system.

ill also say that you would never get someone like me with my experience to work at a shop like circuit city or best buy for the pay they give. nor work with the kids that mess up everything they touch and then i have to undo and redo everything all over again. (ive been there before)

out of these 4 types you always have installers that think they are types 3 or 4 and will occasionally make an attempt to prove it to themselves on your car but the end result shows they just arent capable of that level of installation.

some arent even capable of a type 1 or 2 but because the simple installs of a stereo and speakers could be taught to a monkey to do for the most part they are usually successful at doing thoes installs. truth be told though with todays installation accessories just about anyone can install themselves a simple head unit and speakers because everything is color coded on the wireing and is standardised in the industry. you can buy an installation harness for almost any application. just ask the people who buy from crutchfield. there are thousands of people installing their own equipment.

as for your experience i would say that if you had the ability to build a custom mount for your amp and had the wireing diagrams to hook up the inputs to the amp you should have just done it yourself. im willing to lay a 100.00 bill to say that you are probably more knowledgable than the guy that did your install.

 

I agree with you Bass, but how many guys are category 3 and 4? I can honestly say that a few months ago and I knew absolutely NOTHING about car audio or audio, but after a few months of buying books, searching, asking, and lurking around many audio enthusiasts' sites I can honestly say I know alot more than most so called "professional." There is just so much more work than installing speakers and doing nice fabrications. Things like building the thickest possible spacer for an IB setup so youll have less resonace, placement of speakers, and fine tuning, which are rarely done at ANY professional install place. It simply takes too long. Not many places will run an RTA to find peaks in your systems that causes unnecessary resonance. There is just so many steps to make music sound right, especially in a car. Ive been to many "High End" shops in town that carry the best speakers, amps, wires, and do wonderful looking installs for professional athletes, but those guys simply didnt really know anything bout AUDIO itself. I rather take the time and learn myself and do it right. How many installers do know you bench speakers and read graphs? I can honestly say I can bench any speakers w/ a mic connected to my laptop and tell from the graph if they sound good or not. Maybe Im just nerdy or have too much time on my hands. Who knows? Maybe I am one of the extremes. kakaka

 

Bass Mechanic,

I think your analysis of the different levels of installers is right on the money. And, in hindsight, I could have installed my amp better than CC did. However, you are wrong about the price for the install. Labor and the price for cables that were not included with the Sony two channel amp totaled $130!!! Occassionally CC and Best Buy will do a free install for a product that just won't sell, but that is the exception. It seems to me that CC owes me at least the labor part of the install price after all of this....

In any case, I did not mean this to be a rant against expert installers like yourself. If anything, this experience tells me to look next time for reputable independent car audio shops since they probably have far better installers than the chains do. I just wanted to pass on a warning to fellow TSX owners that you are rolling the dice when you take your baby into a Circuit City.

 

no offence taken Swobert, just shedding a little light on the subject, i wish when i hear stories like this that i could share my abilities everywhere just to help people out, thats they type of guy i am. i like to help folks when i can.

Tuan, im glad to see your learning, just be cautious of one very important thing, as you learn always keep an open mind, things you think you know really well you will find there is a whole new element to thoes subjects you still dont fully understand.
if you ever hear someone say they are an expert on caraudio they better have a resume to back it up.
unlike other industries in audio there are so many rumors and unproven statements that are used to sell equipment in this industry its hard to sift through the BS and actually learn the facts. make sure your knowledge of this industry is proven with facts and formulas before you belive it.
because we can neither see electricity or sound many of the theroys in this industry are totally false and make false claims. they never get challenged because the general public is easily fooled by shafty sales tactics.
also when it comes to sound everyone has a different opinion about sound. most people wouldnt know good sound if it hit them on the head. as a result you can ask 5 different people what sounds good and get 5 different answers.

even though i mave been in car audio as a professional and as a hobby for the last 16 years i can honestly say i learn new things all the time. as long as your understanding of this industry gets better with time you will eventually learn a lot and be able to talk about it like you really know your shit. when you get to this point you can call yourself an expert.

having said that i like your idea of testing the speakers on an RTA before using however as soon as you mount that speaker in anything all bets are off and when you put it in a car its not the same speaker it was before.
this is one of the reasons i always question when people say 1 speaker sounds better than another. i can take the cheapest subwoofer made and make it sound awsome in the right enclosure. does that mean its a good speaker?
you get the idea...

many things in this industry are gimiks people actually buy more with their eyes rather than with their ears.
ill give you an example. i had my own line of subwoofers about 2 years ago. i would have really liked to use Neodymium magnets because they have a lot more lines of flux than a ceramic magnet does. they can be a lot smaller and cheaper than ceramic magnets. but if i had a ceramic magnet magnet and a neodymium magnet sub side by side which do you think the public would be willing to spend their money on?
they make their choice before they even hear it.

 

very intresting post , firstley let me introduce myself , i own a car audio , preformance parts shop and have abour 17 yeras of experance of selling installing car audio etc .
We have the same problem in the uk we have one large group of company called halfords , who claim to be proffesoninal installers of car audio.
i for one have herd of many a horror story of them installing car audio wrong , breaking trim parts etc and one shop even set of the whole air bag system .
it all down to experance and care you have some young kid who is emplyed buy them to fit audio and who has no expernace , he is then thrown in to the deep and and asked to do work he clearley has not got the expernace to do .
my advise
find a small local derler and pay him a vist ask to see pictures of his work , if he has none start to worry , ask to see his demo car and above all ask to see hios work shop is it nice and clean ?
if it is clean he must have pride in it therfore he should have pride in his work
DIRTY WORK SHOP = DIRTY WORK

anyway just me thoughts .
does any one have a sick , big install in a acura tsx over there ?
i am planing to do one in my tsx ( called a honda accord 2.4s over here ) i am planing do do a full insatll using prescion power equpment.
i will post some pictures when done .

Thanks ian @ voodoo sounds @ styling

 

no TSX installs but from one installer to another i have a few of a S2000 i did 2 years ago. can you belive i did this install in about 2.5 days?




here is a pontiac grand prix i did

 

how do instert an image

 

Bass Mechanic,

Awesome pics!!! Thanks!

 

Without reading the entire last few pages, the problems you guys listed is why i don't want some schmuck who has no install trainer tearing up the TSX! I think I will add two 6 x 9 speakers that are 2 or 3 way, cuz those subs in the back suck! and it should be a 5 minute install with no one from best buy or cc getting involved!

 

dont say i didnt tell you so if you install thoes 6x9's and find you have less bass than you started with. thoes speakers are designed to work with the crossover frequency and output of the stock amp.
trust me i have already tried!

 

damn bass mechanic. you got skills bro. those are some sick installs.

 

pk guys how do you post pictures on here
and i will show you some sick installs i have done in the u.k

 

you have to host the pictures on another site first. like www.cardomain.com

 

Bass Mechanic,

I disagree with your last post. Simply replacing the stock 6x9 woofers with the Polk 6x9's did result in moderately better bass. It still wasn't the bass I was looking for, though, so that's when I added the Sony 2 channel (100 watts per channel RMS) to just power the 6x9's. The system won't disturb other cars at traffic lights, but I finally have the "premium" sound that was promised in the TSX brochure. I just wish it hadn't been such a pain in the ass to get to this point!

 

i agree
i changed my o/e 6x9 for a set of orion coax and they sound much better and the paly full range .
it seems to me acura put the o/e 6x9 in with out any x/over and used the natural roll of of the speaker as a filter

 

swobert- do you ahve pix of the amp mounted under the trunk?

 

I'll take a photo of my amp install in my trunk and post it as soon as I CAN. Hopefully by tonight....

 

Ok thanks