Quote Originally Posted by WarrenM View Post
Thanks for that. Very helpful! The connection diagram is terrific!

I don't have your budget but I have decided to do it properly, at least to some extent.

Here is my initial plan:

I've bought a pair of superseded Hertz HSK 165 splits for the front, for $110 delivered (really) and unless I have a sudden change of heart I'm getting a pair of Infinity 652i coax speakers for the rear doors, at, I hope, $77 delivered and leaving the rear, although the more I think about it the more sense it makes to use 2 sets of superseded HSK 165s since they are so ridiculously cheap and a pair of the Infinity 6.5" coax speakers in the rear shelf. What do you think?

Given that I do not have anything like the money for a DSP and a $500+ amp, what are my options for amplification and for taming the treble and upper midrange? I have no idea what different car amps are like. You might laugh, cringe or throw up your hands in despair, but I saw something on eBay which may be worth a look (or may be worth avoiding at every turn). A Chinese "pseudo brand" of PowerVox is being sold on eBay by a few importers. As shonky as the ads are (they talk in music power or some other meaningless measurement) the specs are actually OK if not particularly spectacular: 140W RMS per channel (4 channels driven, probably at 10% THD) but even if this translates to 35W RMS at a reasonable distortion reading, it would drive my speakers at the volumes I listen. This sells for $86 delivered from one supplier, $155 from another. Is there any point in trying an amp like this or am I just throwing away money?

There are also 2nd hand name-brand amps on eBay which look OK.

When you finally replaced your sub, where/how did you mount the new one? Having already modified your environment substantially, was the sub a massive improvement or just a modest one?

BTW, in my plans, I will be sound-deadening the front doors (at least).

Cheers, Warren
Hi Warren,

I'm afraid I have never had any faith in the Audio hardware for sale on e-bay. Some of it might be genuine, particularly second hand items. New stuff however, even brand name, are more often than not fakes and copies that can be of very poor quality.

I understand however that with a tight budget these e-bay items seem very attractive. For the amplifier though, I would suggest that you at least have a look at what Jaycar are offering for a 4 channel amp. You may find that their prices are comparable, and you get local support as well. Adequately driving the speakers is the secret to a great sounding system, so try to get an amp that can deliver at least the 'nominal' rating for your speakers.

Controlling the awful equalisation in the CU2 though is a much bigger problem. With some component splits it is possible to attenuate the output to the tweeters via a switch on the crossover. If that is not possible then you can get an attenuator that can help reduce the tweeters output. Once again Jaycar should be able to help with this. To see what the equalisation curve on the standard system is like have a look at the images of my PDA running the Rockford Fosgate software in this link: http://www.ozhonda.com/forum/showthr...cessor-upgrade The red line shows the standard EQ. You can see that is adds 3 to 5db between about 1k to 3kHz, then drops back to flat until about 5kHz where it takes off again with greater than +10db from about 10kHz and upwards!! No wonder it sounds so harsh.

I ran the system in my car for a while with just the Focal speakers and the tweeters set to their maximum attenuation, and still I found the sound way too bright and harsh. All you can do is suck it and see. I decided to incorporate the DSP because I simply could not get the system to sound warm enough for my liking. Subsequently I also added a separate sub-woofer which certainly resolved any lack of bass.

The new sub is a powered enclosure from Focal called a BombA 27V1. This pre-built system comes with its own amp so I was able to drive all my component splits from the Focal 4 channel, and the sub looks after itself. I mounted it using special tie-down straps directly behind the rear seats. It still leaves plenty of space in the rest of the boot.

The performance improvement was massive! Way better bottom end. I was able to stop trying to over drive the components with bass, trying to get them to fill in the lower frequencies. If you can stretch to a subwoofer I would certainly recommend it. The factory sub is damn near useless, and once you fit new spilts etc you probably won't be able to hear it anyway.

Hope this helps,
Cheers.