I'm kinda confused. What, exactly, is wrong with the Protegé5's stock stereo? I gotta say that I'm pretty pleased with it. I mean, the sound stage is almost directly front-centre and the imaging sounds good. The CD player isn't fabulous (it doesn't like scratched discs) but it's relatively powerful (unless you're deaf ).

The only improvements I can see would be improved bass response (subwoofer) and high-end (components, waiting until the 2003 comes out to buy the grills in the mirror covers).

What does everyone think?

 

nothing is wrong with it, works excelent well.. when i had it

it played CDRW's too! but the thing is, its only 25w?4 PEAK so its kinda gutless, but its a perfect match for the 25w speakers,
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Vaporizer review

 

What's "wrong" with the stock sound system all depends on who's listening to it. For me, I felt it's sound was decent, but the power was crappy - having the windows down drowns the stereo out almost completely.

Plus, I like it LOUD!!! Personally, I like any car stereo I own to be almost too loud at full listening volumes - like where it makes you wince and blink when a snare drum hits - POP! BAM!

For someone looking to keep the stock deck, a simple speaker upgrade is very worthwhile investment. The stock deck is not a bad unit - but the stock speakers are paper-cone pieces of SHI-OT! Simply swapping them out for a good set of coaxials or components (with the highest sensitivity rating you can find to take the most advantage of the meager power from the deck) will give a vast improvement.

As far as the "imaging" and "soundstaging" being good - well, I think I really disagree. The speakers are far too low in the doors for any really good imaging or staging, and the rears don't even work well for fill (in the P5 - door speakers) - the sound path is nearly completely blocked by the front seatbacks. If you want to see what it really sounds like, pump the stereo and then drop your head down to the center console - sounds MUCH better there = bad image/stage. Things might be a little better in the 2002.5 refresh, with the sail panel tweeters, but not much - I orginally had my aftermarket tweeters there, and it was better, but not a huge improvement.

So - I compensate by just being as loud and clear as I can!

~HH

 

actually the basic system is better than many in use as stock manufacture units. The radio is clean, the CD is good, while not complex it has good controls. The stock speakers are standard car fare from the factory- paper speakers, as cheap as they can be had. They do not sound awful, but don't do very good reproduction of sound, and distort easily.
I would replace the speaker in any car pretty much automatically. But that is me-
Folks love to customize cars- it is an attempt to individualize a machine we use daily to define it as uniquely ours. Some do it with tires and rims, so with engines, others with brakes (brakes? yep- there are threads on this board all about them).
Truth is a Protege is a >20K, that no amount of customization will make into a 40K BMW, but folks will customize their Mazda with irrational amounts of money compared to the base car's value and be very very happy with the results-
So- most of us on the audio threads do car audio as out customization, but pratically all of us have done other things to the car also, as our primary method of making our cars uniquely ours.
I have to admit that I have done the system of my Protege, but knowing myself, I will fiddle with it and replace or trade out some stuff within the year, because I love to play in audio. It is great hobby, situates me to meet some really cool people with similar love of audio, and give me and my 7 year old daughter a hobby to do together.
Nothing is wrong with the base stereo, we all are just folks who like our music and toys!!