I was just looking at the rear of my zed while the panels were removed to fit the TEINS (yippee) and had a look at the shitty standard speakers. The foam all around the edge has turned poo brown and simply crumbled away. I got JB HiFi to put the good speakers in the rear mounts of my last zed but they weren't very good at all really. So, what do you think are the biggest/best (I'm no audio buff so I just use my standard Pioneer DEH something or other, no external amp) speakers for the rear of the zed? I think I remember on the old forum that someone put much larger than standard speakers lower in the mount? Does this sound right? Cheers and thanks Geoff
I wouldnt worry about the rear speakers too much I personally wouldnt be too concerned about putting top quality speakers in the rear - you sit in the front , therefore you should put good speakers in the front. I put a pair of $50 2nd hand 6"X4" speakers in the rear which just slotted straight in. This of course is just my opinion. If you want to take the extra time and effort to put a bigger better speaker in there (such as a 6") it will definately sound better. However I feel for the extra effort, your time would be better spent putting some decent splits in the front doors with the tweeters mounted up the top of the door on the triangular black plastic part on the inner side of the morrors. Jaycar sells some decent splits for under $150. spend a couple of hours pulling the door trims off, mounting the woofer in the stock location (make an mdf ring to mount it with) and use the supploied mounts to mount the tweeters up higher. You'll be amazed how much better this will sound compared to stock. cheers pete
Depends if you want quality of SPL. I'm more for the quality myself and I'm planning to get some infinty perfect 6.1's for the front and the infinity kappa 693.7 6x9's in the back...run them off the infinity REF7541A amp and you have an awsome setup. This is the same setup I put in my g/f's car a yr or so ago, sounds insane. She has a pioneer DEH-7700MP deck to round it off. Only cost around $1500 too. If you then want, grab a 10" or 12" kicker sub and a mono block amp to round it off, she hasn't got to that point yet. ;P
why not go 350Z styles and put some 8" subs behind the seats if you have a 2seater. Even though your not an audio buff Amps make a massive to sound quality. My reccomendation too would be for 6" splits in the front and maybe two custom mounted 8" subs behind the seats - nice 500wrms amp to power it all - would sound mint.
I think just one good quality 10" would be just as good IMHO. and would take up less room. Do you have a 2+2 or not? cause since it's a hatch, doesn't have to be as loud . And bass isn't directional so you can stick it whereever.
Can't say I would agree that good speakers in the back would make ittle difference. Providing you have setup the fader control properly you can really fill the void behind your skull. Rear speakers, especially good ones like 6x9" will make all the diffrence, especially if you are playing a music DVD in 5.1
/agreed, the back speakers are there to "fill the void" like you said. Sound should come from the front, but there needs to be back else it sounds crap. I hate when I only have sound coming from the front of the car.
Geoff.... There is no need for rear speakers in the zed. I have what I would consider a pretty good sound system, and I am running some good quality front speakers and a subwoofer. No rear speakers. At one stage I managed to squeeze some 6x9's in the rear location (an engineering feat), but I would always fade the sound forward as your sound stage should be at the front of the car. In the end, I removed them as they served no purpose for me. So, yeah, dont bother with the rear speakers. I would get a quality set of front splits (mid bass woofer and high frequency tweeters) and just run them off the headunit.... if you wanted to get more fancy, you could get a small amplifier and use to run the front speakers and a small sub in the boot... As for brands, there are heaps of speaker brands.... Try looking at : Alpine Focal Polk MB quarts Jaycar Lots of others around and good quality, there the only ones in my mind at the moment.. Cheers
Agree 100%. Rear speakers are too close to your head. The Z's small cabin makes plenty of it's own rear fill
Car audio stuff.... ...is dirt cheap in the USA, and all 12 volt so no power issues. Check a power seller on ebay.com not ebay.com.au will save heaps. Egg
indeed no rear speakers on the z, as it's a teriible waste of money you shoould be getting some nice fronts 6'' would be nice and fit them with some modification regarding brands i like focal a lot for the rear get a nice 12'' sub, a soundstream would sound nice
beware of buying car audio on ebay!!! I know this from first hand experience... 1) this may not be known to most, but all the major audio companies (alpine, pioneer, Clarion etc etc) will not repair units bought overseas, either under warranty or even if you pay them.... I discovered this after I bought my headunit off ebay.... luckily, nothing has gone wrong yet and hope never will.... but if it does, Alipne Australia will simply refuse to fix it and I will have myself an expensive paper weaight... This is clearly stated on their website (which I conveniently found after my purchase) 2) Even powersellers on Ebay can be dodgy.... I am currently involved ina dispute with an overseas audio company called IndoAudio. PayPal and ebay are currently investigating the issue. Basically, after I ordered a dual voice coil subwoofer, they sent me a single voice coil version which just isnt compatible with my amplifier. After constant emails, and photographic evidence of there mistake, they stopped replying to my emails. Finally, PayPal got involved and hopefully it will be resolved soon. But even with the photo's I sent them, they claim I am making it all up. So beware who you buy from. These guys are rated one of the biggest sellers on ebay, but closer examination of some of there negative feedback comments and other ausio forums shows that they are dodgy... Also, they scrub and remove all serial numbers of the product, so manufacture warranties are void. For now, I have bought the subwoofer I wanted here in Australia for $200 more than what I paid on ebay..... just hoping I get my money back from the dodgy ebay purchase.. Cheers
A (Boom with a) View Hi Geoff, I would suggest your biggest immediate gains are in the head unit and front speaker areas. The rear speakers are really less important. Start by working out what you want to use it for - listening to the radio, play some CDs, watch some DVDs, have 5.1 surround sound, and how much you want to spend. You can exceed your budget in this area in the blink of an eye. If you're in the market for a head unit, (sound only - radio/CD) I would suggest a MP3 player as the head unit. This will allow you to store 10 or so albums on a single CD. You should be able to pick one up for a couple of hundred dollars these days. ALDI even sell these on the cheap from time to time!! Then again, you could go as far as a separate in-dash video screen and DVD player for a fair bit extra. You could also go for separate screens for the driver, passengers and even one for the hatch if you want to make it a mobile cinema. Assuming you're not going to become a cinema projectionist, splits are probably the best for the front. These consist of a 6.5 inch speaker in the door panel and tweeters mounted usually in the kick panels (i.e. next to the fuse panel on the kick panel - drivers side and equivalent passenger side) so that when the doors are closed, the splits are together with the 6.5 inch speakers. This would cost somewhere between $100-$500 retail for something reasonable. $100 would get something pretty basic and $500 would get you Focals (French speakers and the best IMO). Regardless of your choice, the tweeters will give you clear high frequency sound direct to your ears. The door speakers will compliment these and cover the midrange. Next comes a big step-up in $$$ (at least a grand, probably greater than two) if you want to markedly improve. I would add some power and some bass. To do this, a power amp for the front speakers and one for a sub, say a 10", and of course this would need a sub enclosure. Advantage is that you can achieve a quite reasonable level of volume without the head unit running out of power to drive the speakers and add a depth of base to fully round out the sound. I would upgrade the rear speakers last and power these directly from the head unit i.e. not through a power amp. These don't add a lot to the total experience IMO. Something like Boston 6x4s. If you're ever back in Canberra again, I'd be happy to demonstrate the system in my grey N/A. It's over the top in terms of cost (about $5k) and has a reasonably old Sony head unit (but with very nice tonal qualities) and a 10 stacker mp3 player (no DVD). This system has been designed to be unassuming but deliver real sound quality ..... and I am always pleased to drive this car. btw None of these estimates include labour. Just my experience. Cheers, Peter
Splits That may be true, however modern splits and any recent headunit with a decent sound processor projects the sound to give the impression of 5.1 without actually using the extra speakers its called staging. i believe u guys may actually be refering to dolby digtal in regards to the sound from your dvd player rather than 5.1. it wouldn't exactly easy to run 5.1 in a car without having to resort to a complex system. I think for this particular setup, an inexpensive set of 6" in the back pods, and a set of 6x9 or 5x8 (i forgetwhat ones actually fit) in the front doors and run it from the headunit. or if he wanted to splash out maybe a small cheap amp like a sony to run the fronts.
Think you got it back the front, 6" in front and 5x8's (I think) in back. Though it's usually cheaper to get 6x9's as they are alot more common and will likely have better quality per $. Though then you have extra work to get them in. I just put my 2 6x9's in boxes (the generic sort from supercheap or whereever) and sat them on that shelf behind you in front of the cargo cover. Worked well, just need to find a way to get them to stay there when i brake or accelerate hard.
Unlucky Jedi Stuff like headunits are usually pretty good, not the most prone item to malfunction, and speakers likewise. Strange, I bought a Kodak LS443 for $600 on eBay years ago. (half price) and Kodak had no issues replacing a faulty power suppy, and I also bought a titanium seiko chronograph from Hong Kong on eBay and that was replaced under warranty... and I got a Dremel from eBay USA that needed to be fixed, no problems again. Yes it's a risk for sure, but if you buy from a Power Seller with say 98%+ feedback you're pretty safe. I'd personally rather pay half price or less. Egg
