With Boxing day just around the corner.. i'm thinking about sale prices on a good stereo to put in the car...
I don't know a lot about what's good.. what's not in terms of mechanics.. but in terms of sound i feel like my P5 stereo sounds muffled and i want to replace it with something around
200-300 cdn (~130-220 AMERICAN)... any reccomendations??

 

Are you upgrading just the deck or the speakers? Or both?

Anyways for decks definitely check out Panasonic and JVC. Both are great value and sound awesome. Pioneer is good but too much $$ for features you don't need. And stay away from low-end Clarion, I have seen too many get returned for defects.

For speakers I have Panasonic coaxials and they are awesome for the money. Check them out

 

I'm planning on keeping the stock speakers for now... probably will upgrade them a year or two down the road. Anything i should know about units not being compatible with the car ?? (complete novice if you haven't noticed) and am i asking for trouble getting a friend whos done a lot of stereo work to do the installation?

 

i would suggest changing the speakers before the head unit if your only getting one upgrade. Even a stock stereo can sound ok, with good speakers....

adding an aftermarket deck to your stock speakers, will sound ok too, but your still going to have the handicaps of the stock speakers and overload them with too much power anyway.

 

I haven't not changed the speakers but from my experience, if you only do just one upgrade, replacing the head unit provides a greater noticable difference than changing the speakers.

I know most people will say that i'm wrong and say the speakers are the weakest link. But me and my friend has noticed that changing the head unit makes quite a bit of difference. For my previous 95 civic and his 93 corolla, we both changed our head units without changing the speakers. The sound improved significantly and there was way more kick to the music.

Besides, the sound on the factory head unit is acceptable, BUT it skips like crazy and it annoys the hell out of me! That's why it has to go! (as soon the wiring harness becomes available)

Obviously the best thing is to change them both.

 

In all the cars I've had I've replaced the head unit (except the pro) And that has made a noticable difference. I woudl look at soem of the cheaper models of Kenwood and Pioneer. I personally like Kenwoods. I purchased one abotu 6 years ago and it has worked great in a couple of different cars. The price has gone down greatly for it. I purchased it for about 330 and just recently purchased one for my wife's now deceased MX6. It was only 150 with detachable face and all the goodies. Sounded great. Anyway lots of companies are making great models for 150 to 200. Play around with them and find ones that fit you best ie controls and features. In wattage look for abotu 35x4 or bigger as anything less won't do much more than you're head unit. Also look for RCA outputs/inputs if you are thinking about expanding to a subwoofer or other items later on. One feature I woudl definitely get woudl be a detachable face or other security feature.
(what a great smilley!!!)

 

I haven't not changed the speakers but from my experience, if you only do just one upgrade, replacing the head unit provides a greater noticable difference than changing the speakers.

If you're looking to make the biggest difference in terms of sq, then the head unit is definitely more important to upgrade first. Getting good speakers will help the sound a little, but the stock head unit probably doesn't have enough power to optimally utilize the speaker's ability. But then again, if you're going to buy a cheap head unit, then you might as well wait and get the speakers because you're gonna wanna upgrade later anyways.

 

I'd say to go for the speakers first. You can buy speakers that blow the crappy stock ones away, and come in well under budget. Upgrading any part of the system will improve it, but I do think the speakers are the weakest link in the Pro5.

If you do upgrade the speakers, go for the higher sensitivity rating. This will give you the most volume from any deck, stock or aftermarket.

I bought TWO pair of Kenwood 6-1/2" for the doors for $54 shipped from eBay. Crutchfield sells the same ones for $59 a PAIR. They sound awesome for the money, and I'm not into spending a ton of cash on the stereo. If you'd like, I can put you in touch with the person who sold them to me. They had 29 pairs up for auction, and only sold a few. I actually bought two more pair for my girlfriend's Jeep - did it privately, after I got the first two pair. I'm sure (s)he's got more to sell.

IMHO, spend some cash on speakers, and put the rest aside to get a deck later on. I think you'll get the most sound difference from new speakers. Again, just my two cents opinion.

 

i guess hihoslva has his point. A reasonably good head unit costs around 150-200 USD, so cost wise, upgrading the speakers first might be cheaper and you might get more "bang-for-the-buck". But then again, some speakers are not cheap too.

Anyway, about speakers, I know the USA P5s uses 5x7's in front. But I heard some people try to fit 6.5's there. what's the reasoning behind that? do round speakers sound better? Or there are more choices for 6.5's? Just wondering...

 

Okay, your question interested me (especially since I am one of those owners replacing the 5x7s with 6.5"s) so I got out the calculator and the geometry formulas and here's what I came up with:

Let's assume that the 5x7 and the 6.5 speaker are identical in all respects except for shape; power handling, materials, sensitivity, etc. I think we can also assume that output, especially bass, is a factor of speaker surface area, among many other things. Thus, all other factors being equal, speakers with larger surface areas can put out more sound - especially lower frequencies. This has limits, of course, but for the sake of comparing 5x7s to 6.5s, this should be valid.

That being the case:

area of a circle = radius squared X Pi (3.14)

area of an ellipse (oval) = short radius X long radius X Pi

SO, the 5x7 speakers' area is: 2.5 x 3.5 x 3.14 = 27.475 sq. in.

and the 6.5 rounds' are: 3.25 x 3.25 x 3.14 = 33.166 sq. in.

So the rounds have about 17% more surface area than the 5x7s. That should be significant.

Whew - I'm glad the math worked out to support my choice of 6.5"s!

OK, that's enough math for me tonight - I'm going back to the TV.

 

Hehe, i was kinda hoping i would get some feedback from some audiophiles regarding the speaker shapes, but i must say that you really got some interesting reasoning and math there hihoslva.

 

anyway, someone in another board has shown that my suggestion is correct (replacing the head unit provides a greater noticable difference than changing the speakers):

 

While I can agree that both the deck and the speakers are a bit on the weak side (as stock systems usually are), what to change first is really a matter of opinion and equipment.

While the author of the post you quoted may have changed to high quality speakers, those speakers may have required more power than the stock head unit can provide.

I don't claim to know all that much about car stereo, but I do know that you can install the best speakers in the world, and if you don't have enough juice to push them, it is a waste. And in my experience, Kappas need the juice.

There are a lot of speakers on the market that can't even operate well when being powered by a high-power head unit. Some just need a separate, powerful amp, period.

Other speakers are of good quality, and are designed to run at low to mid power, such as that from a head unit. The Kenwood speakers I bought can run in a wide power range; somwhere between 5 and 130 watts MAX. So they can sound good at many different levels of amplification, including deck power. They also have a fairly high sensitivity rating - 91dB. This means that they can put out good volume at modest power. Now if you go and buy a $300 pair of speakers, you might have to get a $300 amp to push them. Sure, it'll sound incredible, but at a price.

I have found that changing only the speakers is usually the best value to START with on a stock system. Just putting a pricey pair of cones in your doors won't do it though. Truth is, if you do a little research on what you are buying, and pay attention to the important numbers (RMS power NOT PEAK OR MAX, and sensitivity), you can do really well for a great value, and be even more pleased when you change your deck later on.

Don't get me wrong, changing the deck will DEFINITELY get you better sound, no question about it. I'm just trying to steer you towards my OPINION, that is: New speakers first will save you some cash up front, and get your sound quality up for less $$ than a deck first. Your stock deck is putting out power that your stock (paper!!) speakers can't handle well. I think you'll be surprised how good it can sound with the right cones.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

 

It's not really a matter of opinion on whether the HU or the speakers are going to give you better sound. It is fact that the HU will give you better sound. It's a question of how much you want to spend to get the better sound. And yes kappas do need juice. I have them running off the stock unit and they're not near their potential because of the lack of power. I chose to go with the speakers first because the HU i wanted was too expensive.

 

The opinion part was what to change first, not what will make the most difference. It also was a matter of money. If the guy has $200 to spend, he can probably get more out of that $200 (less than $200, actually) by changing the speakers.

It was not my opinion that changing the head unit isn't a more powerful upgrade. Of course it is. But working with limited funds, I feel the speakers should go first.

Okay?