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You will find some user reviews of the Magellan Roadmate 700 here:
http://www.circuitcity.com/rpsm/oid/85055/rpem/ccd/productDetailReview.do#tabs
A friend of mine has one and likes his. But he had no choice of getting a factory installed Honda Navigation system.
You basically have three options:
1) Find extremely efficient speakers and use them as direct replacements for your factory ones. You'll probably have to find some that are paper cone, or paper cone / impregnated and coated or whatnot. You will need VERY efficient speakers to coax decent sound out of your stock deck.
2) Get individual small amps to run each speaker. If you can find some small reasonably priced low wattage amps that accept speaker level inputs then you can use one for each speaker you have in the car and you can either use your existing speakers or throw anything you want in there. This will make running the cables very easy and will keep you away from noise.
3) Find a 4 channel amp with decent power and speaker lever inputs (they still exist). If you run decent speaker wire and keep it away from power lines you should not pick up noise. I have run very long lengths of good wire in cars and there was no noise in the system after all was said and done. Honestly, you are more likely to get noise from a bad amp ground, running interconnects along with power wires, or something similarly stupid.
Good luck.
I think by sticking with stock speakers and then adding an amp + sub, you will just end up drowning out the mids and highs, which will not do much to help overall sound. It also depends on what kind of music you are most likely to listen to. Buying an amp and sub if you primarily listen to rap and techno might not be a bad idea, but if you listen to certain types of rock, jazz, or pop then a sub might not be your best bet.
Personally, I would try to find some easily driven speakers with a sound that you like and then go from there. My girlfriend did not want a lot done to her car, so I swapped in a Pioneer deck that I used to use (Deh-P7000R) and use it to directly drive her stock paper speakers. Her car is surprisingly punchy in the bass department and sounds quite good. A friend with a Blaupunkt headunit, 6.5 inch Blaupunkt shallow fronts, and some Infinity Kappa 6x9s was disappointed because it sounded better than his setup. There is a lot to be said for sound deadening and speaker placement as well. Cars like my girlfriend's Pontiac Bonneville seemed to actually put some effort into acoustically isolating the car, and it shows in the sound.
Perhaps putting some effort into isolating yourself from road noise would be a better bet? Less road noise means you won't need to turn it up as much.
Good luck.
Of course, in a convertible spending tons for an Über stereo is waste of money anyway
Dennis
What went wrong? Bad speaker selection? Should I be replacing the front speakers at the same time?
I was hoping that I would get an overall improvement in sound quality with the replacement, I am not looking for window shaking bass, but still want to have rich sounding lows. Playing the radio at 1/3-1/2 level is plenty loud for me, but the factory speakers sound too muddy for my tastes.
Suggestions?
Thanks
I think the fact that I have matching front and rear speakers from the same brand, with comparable specs, does make a big difference. The power requirements also should be comparable between the front and rear's, and I bet your swapping out just the rears has caused disporportionate frequency response and wattage requirements.
I have been very pleased with my swap, as it has delivered improved bass and treble response, and overall more volume (I don't have to adjust the volume up as much as I used to). In fact, my bass response is now stronger than before, so I have to tune the bass down a skosh to avoid too much vibration with bass-heavy tunes.
http://www.collegehillshonda.com/accordsedan/03_05_exterior.htm
As was mentioned something from Boston or Polk might work better. One thing to note is what someone else tried and had luck with. For example, a lot of folks on the S2000 board had used the Polks that I used and reported good results. I had used Polks in other cars and was pleased, so I purchased and installed them.
For true bass, you will need a sub woofer. You might can get by with an amp for the 6x9 rears to make them louder. If the sound it too muddy, then you should be replacing the front speakers since not much of the highs or midrange is going to hit your ears from the rear speakers firing straight up.
To get really better sound, you will probably need to do a little more than just swap speakers. Find a good stereo shop, tell them what you want, and set a budget. Also remember that everyone has different tastes, and what might sound OK to me might sound crummy to you.
Dennis
For you, I would recommend checking out some different speaks or think about amping the ones you have to get some bass. No bass = not enough power to your speaker. It's as simple as that.
good luck
Also, I haven't attemped on removing the front speakers yet. Any tricks to get at them? Do I need to remove the whole door panel, or just the grills? If just the grills, do they just pry off?
Thanks
With an Amex card you can get $10 off of $50 and free shipping right now too.
If you never have ordered from them, their "refer-a-friend" deal will get you $20 off your first order if someone (like me) refers you.
They may not always have the best price, but they do have the best service before and after the sale.
I got an XM Direct unit from them for my wife's new Accord. This lets me connect up her SkyFi2 into the factory antenna. I e-mailed them to ask about getting the radio out - since they didn't include any instructions as I didn't order a new radio - and the tech e-mailed me a PDF of the radio install/removal instructions. Using those it was simple to get to back of the radio to connect up the adapter - and I didn't have to actually remove the radio.
Dennis
Replacing the headunit is not an option for me, I have the navigation accessory in my Accord, and the radio is incorporated into the navi unit. I guess my only option there would be to add external amps.
Thanks
- FM transmitter
- installing tape deck and using tape deck mod?
Can you run just the fogs and not the headlights?
or
http://www.logjamelectronics.com/auxacurahon.html
Dennis
The Accord ones appear to give you a switch in the dash, one of the blanks left of the steering wheel I would guess.
If you look at the installation instructions, it does require carving up the bumper. There is no knock-out panel in the bumper.
I'd be concerned that they would just be another target for a "rogue road rock". (say that 3 times fast!!!)
If you wire them according to the specs, they only turn on in conjunction with the headlights being in the "on" position. That's a safety precaution to prevent someone from driving without realizing the headlights are on, along with reducing the odds of liability claims against Honda.
http://www.handa-accessories.com/accord/03-4drfogs.pdf
It does say that they are linked to the headlights, so I stand corrected there.
Road debris broke one of my lenses but I found acrylic sheet from Home Depot to be an inexpensive ($7) fix. Got an aftermarket kit for $120 (now sub-$100) from eBay whose functionality and quality are, as best as I can tell, similar to the OEM. Installed it myself using OEM instructions, and other than the switch backlight color (pale green) that doesn't match the coupe's orange lighting, everything's good.
I recommend it.
Installed these are about $500?
I'd agree with dwynne about Crutchfield. Not having an '04 Accord, I can't tell you much about mounting speakers. Most of the time though, to get the fronts replaced you will need to remove the door panels, unless the manufacturer was for some reason very kind with their design. At the very least, you will have much more room to work with should you need to run wires, mount external crossovers that may come with certain speaks (esp Infinity Kappas), or some other unforseen difficulty. Crutchfield just also happens to have excellent detailed speaker information. Carreview.com and sounddomain.com are pretty decent resources as well, since they have a lot of user reviews. Crutchfield is NEVER the cheapest place to buy stuff, not by a long shot. But what you get for the extra money is no hassle returns, lots of help for newbie installers and basically unlimited support via phone. I'd recommend it if you want to make things easy.
Also, I'm sorry but $200 for 4 speakers is cheap. High end speakers for car audio are nowhere near that. Expect to pay well over $200 simply for a set of good component speakers in the front. You want your fronts to be your better speakers and the rear are only really supposed to be to fill in the sound. Some people have different opinions, but where do you sit most of the time?
This is also why budget is important. How much you can spend will ultimately determine how good things sound, unless you are very resourceful.
Also, since you are a DJ, highroller, you ought to know that "max output" doesn't mean a damn thing. There are plenty of 1000W amps that can be beaten by a 100W Adcom or a/d/s amp. Some amp manufacturers get their figures from one note that was belted out before the amp blew in a room that you could leave snow in and it wouldnt melt...all the while being fed 14.4 volts. There are just too many variables in measuring Wattage figures to have that be much of a meaningful figure. Most decks are only going to give you about 18W per channel if you are lucky, I don't care what number they put on the faceplate. There are some exceptions, but you'll know them from the large price disparity. And anyway, the person asking the questions can't change his headunit.
Some things highroller said are just plain wrong:
1- You can drive speakers over their recommended wattage and have success. Just because you give a speaker rated for 50W RMS a constant 70W does not mean that it is going to be blown. Most likely nothing at all will happen to it. How often do you seriously listen to your stereo set at it's max volume anyway? Just to prove something to a friend of mine, we took some 4" pioneers rated for 40 W RMS (80W MAX) and bridged my amp to provide 75, 150, and then 300W to them (obviously I did not care about these speakers). At 75 and 150W they were fine for quite a while. At 300W apiece and at about 2/3 volume you could smell the coils beginning to melt. More wattage just means more travel for the speaker and more heat that needs to be dissapated by the speaker. At some point it will either destroy itself from overexcursion or burn itself up from not being able to dissipate the heat effectively, but this is often WAY above recommended wattages. If you are spending like $100 on a pair of speakers that are name brand (even Pioneer, Sony, or some other lower end maker) you will be safe driving them anywhere near or likely even well above their RMS wattage ratings.
2- A failing amp or speakers that blow are not going to destroy your headunit. Possibly the exception is if the amp for some odd reason starts to draw tremendous current through the remote turn-on lead to the headunit....then maybe your headunit will die. But blowing speakers or even an amp has little to do with your headunit.
3- Having individual amps for each speaker means you will not be able to afford 4 amps with enough power to blow your speakers, so I'm not sure why that was even mentioned. If you are doing individual amps, you will be getting (at most) amps that output about 75Wx1 channel. I don't think you are going to drop like $400 for 4 100W monoblock amps just to drive your 4 in-car speakers...that would be insane and stupid. If you are keeping the factory speakers and getting individual amps the downsides are that: it will be complicated, you have to match the amps to the low power factory speakers, and there is obviously increased chance for something to fail with all those amps and wiring.
Personally, I would spend your money on very sensitive replacements for the factory speakers and then keep everything else the way it is.
If you find out later you need more clarity at higher volumes then you can always get an amp that has speaker level inputs and just integrate it into your system. You still have your sensitive speakers and they will make the most of the new amps power.
Good luck.
Mrbill
Actaully, it is not crazy. The easiest and least expensive way to improve the sound is to replace the OEM speakers with higher quality speakers of the same power rating. Obviously, if you install speakers that require substantially more power than the stock head unit provides you will not obtain improved sound quality and may actually worsen it.
Crus'n in 6th,
MidCow :shades:
P.S.- you do realize that power is logrithmic. Therefore to double the output for example from 100 watts you would have to go to 1000 watts. Increasing the power from 100 to 150 watts only gives you a 17.6% increase. Simliarly going from 100 watts to 200 watts only provides a 30% increase.
Hmm, thats exactly what I said.
Another thing, where exactly do you propose to find an aftermarket speaker with the same power rating as his stock speakers? Stock speakers are firstly made to be cheap, that's all. The emphasis is NOT on sound quality.
Assuming that most aftermarket headunits put out about 18-22WPC (which is about right) how much power do you think that stock headunit is outputting? How many car speakers have you run across that have RMS ratings of 18-22W? Cause I haven't seen many. My point is this, just about any aftermarket speakers he gets are going to be beyond the range of what his receiver is outputting. This makes it doubly important that he get speakers with a high sensitivity rating to maximize the limited power he has.
My other suggestion, which was to better soundproof the interior, also allows him to make more of the limited output he has and will improve the general driving experience in the cabin.
Yeeees, power is logarithmic and? If you are trying to say there is no appreciable difference between 22WPC from a stock deck and 50WPC from a dedicated amp then you are sorely mistaken. It's not even the wattage difference so much as the power conditioning, delivery, and audio flexibilty differences you get with an amp. But anyway, he most likely isn't even getting an amp.
I just bought a 2005 Accord EX V6 and have a lab. Has anyone used the hammock style backseat cover or perhaps another type in your Accords?
Any experience you have had and can pass along is appreciated. Thanks
Rich
The acrylic material is probably more shatter-resistant than the original lens glass due to its resilient nature. Because it's not exposed to direct sunlight, the lens material doesn't have to be UV (ultra violet ray) - treated.
On another post, someone stated that the AUX input is used up by the XM radio. Is this true?
Are there any other options for connecting an iPod to the stereo?
I'd honestly much rather have my iPod connected than the 6-disc changer.
Thanks
-Ken
http://www.logjamelectronics.com/ipodacura.html
or
http://www.logjamelectronics.com/auxacurahon.html
You can also go with a wired in FM modulator - it inserts the FM signal and cuts off the antenna from the radio when you have it "on" and connects the antenna to the radio when "off". Works quite well.
You could also get the accessory tape deck and use a "fake tape" - sounds quite good, but is spendy.
Dennis
Do you have a reference for the wired-in FM modulator?
is the one I used in my wife's Accord, but it REQUIRES an XM tuner to work.
http://www.xmfanstore.com/showproduct.php?id=skyfimod
This one will work with anything - but you may have to wire a "load" with a switch to the 6v output to similar the XM tuner being on - this is what makes it connect/disconnect the antenna lead. I have seen this sell for $10 or so cheaper other places. I like this one since it works on 87.9 MHZ which is outside the broadcast band (minimum frequency allocated now is 88.1 MHZ). So not only will interference be reduced since it disconnects the antenna when in use, it also modulates on a frequency that no one can legally broadcast on. I have not checked the Accord's tuner, but every other one I have checked will tune 87.9 MHZ.
If you look at Crutchfield or other car stereo shop they have other models that do not require you to "fool" it into switching. You may also be able to find someone with an FM modulated CD changer that they no longer use. Normally the modulator is separate and can be used w/o the changer.
Unless you are planning on getting a changer later (why would you with an ipod?) I think I would get one of the direct input connections I mentioned before.
Dennis
There's a very simple solution. Always wear your safety belt.