I like alpine type R component speakers. Good bang for the buck.

 

I'm not sure about the new cars, but my bugeye had the tweeter option, so the factory six speaker system + an Infinity Basslink (~$150 on Amazon) sounded great. I had a Pioneer head unit as well.

I had a plan to eventually upgrade the door speakers to decent components, but that never panned out.

 

It has tweeters in the front doors as well.

Would you plan on adding some sound dampening? Where do you plan on mounting the AMP? Also Sedan, Hatch or Wagon?

Sound dampening would be later down the road maybe. The amp would probably have to mount under one of the front seats, unless you have any good ideas? It's a wagon.

 

Would you plan on adding some sound dampening? Where do you plan on mounting the AMP? Also Sedan, Hatch or Wagon?

 

So going that route, a pair of components for the front doors and a pair of 2-way for the rear door, and a 400 watt 4 channel amp would do pretty well? Sounds like this will turn out to be easier/cheaper than I was expecting. Hopefully Best Buy or somewhere will have these speakers on display for me to check out.

 

Sound deadening will help bass response quite a bit. That's all I've done so far and it sounds good to me.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

I should have clarified my questions sedan wagon 02-07 wagon/hatch/5dr 08-13 but as seeing your pics and previous topics you have the latest body style.

I can understand wanting to maintain as much space as possible those reasons are your own. If you wouldn't mind installing an amp under the seat (I did on mine and have had no problems as long as you take your time to tidy up the wires) why not get a low profile powered sub for under the other seat? Another option would be to get an 8" powered bass tube wire some quick connects. You could even add another connection point one in the trunk area and another in the in the passenger foot well. That way if you need to transport something large and you require to fold down the sets you could still have some bass.

With my set up I am in the process of sound dampening my car to hope get rid of some rattles. I didn't spend a ton of money on my stereo set up (should have probably swapped the HU before speakers). I am happy with the result so far. I play a wide variety of music during the 2+hrs a day u spend in my car. The reason I have yet to install a subwoofer is because I plan on fabricating my own fiberglass enclosure since i have a couple of extra kenwood 12" colecting dust and would rather not spend 300+ for a pre made one.

 

I do agree that the sub takes up some space, but that being said, I have experienced having subs in my cars in the past (both of my past cars had them installed). Head unit, front component speakers, and sub/amp will sound a lot better than just door speakers all around. I think it is worth the loss in space. They do make sub boxes that can be tucked right up in the side of the trunk (although not super cheap if you buy brand new).

 

There are stealth enclosures (e.g., inside spare tire) that would allow you to run a sub and not lose trunk space.

 

rsutton has 2 13" JL shallow mount subs in the spare tire well. you can check out his setup.

I'd make sure to seal the speakers in the door, and double dynamat(or whatever brand) the doors. Depending on the speakers you choose, I'd suggest one of the Sundown 4 ch amps.

Speakers, i've heard the type-r's are good (type-x is ehh for the $$), image dynamics, rockford, focal, rainbow (if you really want to spend som $$). and components up front with coaxials in the back.

could always try to stick some 6.5 subs in the kick panels if you feel daring.

 

Thanks for all the advice guys. I'm probably going go with a low profile sub under one of the seats. I'll keep everyone updated as to what and when I get my parts, going to be a long project though. Here's the order I'll probably proceed in: 1) replace the HU, 2) add a sub, and 3) probably way down the road replace the door speakers, add 4 channel amp and do some sound deadening all at once.

Also, do those harnesses at ae64.com work pretty well with keeping all of the steering wheel functionality? If this harness is not used, will the cruise control work still or is it all or nothing?

 

1.) the order is good, you may not even need a 4ch amp if all your going to get is the basslink. so i'd get the speakers and just see how you like that setup the balance should be decent volume wise.

2.) usually rattling, vibrations, etc contribute to the ability to perceive the origin of the bass (without these its hard but not impossible to use sound differences between the ears to get an idea where the bass is coming from) below 80Hz its hard or almost impossible to tell where its coming from, unless you have the rattling etc. this is a main reason why the 80Hz is a general starting crossover point between subs/component speakers.

3.) i just ordered from ae64 today. sent him my payment, i got an email saying it was shipped today as well. The cruise control is handled by the ECU (despite what uninformed people at the dealership will say: i had a guy try to tell me that i couldn't change the headunit cause everything was run through it.)

His site can be kind of confusing, so you'll need:

20 pin forward harness with 3 SWC cables (blue tooth phone interface i think)

axxess aswc-1 module (if you want the volume, mode, etc buttons to work)

metra ax-subusb (to retain stock usb location, his site also gives other options)

depending on head unit you can get a parking brake bypass from him (to allow eq settings and DVD while moving)

AUX Jack (if you want to retain the stock AUX location)

^^^but if you buy the ipod wire with your headunit they usually take up one of these, but if you email him he'll tell you what will/won't work for you.

4.) another option is you could get a decent 8" sub and just throw it in a small sealed enclosure. it will take up room (usually 0.25 ft^3 or less though).

if you have any questions about setting gains (which is NOT a volume knob, it's more like a voltage from the head unit (through the RCA's) sensitivity knob), or crossovers send me a PM

 

I've got the Subaru underseat powered sub in my car. Its not terrible... But its not great either. It was already installed in my car when i got it, so i can't say how much better than stock it is. However, i can tell you that my stock radio sounds better than my wifes '11 outback stock radio.

 

On the bugeye, I went from no sub, to the Subaru underseat sub (same one across all model years), to the Infinity Basslink.

The difference between the Basslink and the Subaru sub was night and day. The biggest complaint I had with the OEM sub was how directional it was. I had it under the passenger seat, and you could always tell the bass was coming from there. It really ruined the sound stage. I was also frustrated at how difficult it was to adjust the gains. The tiny pots were oriented toward the FRONT of the car, making adjustments annoying.

I replaced it with a Basslink in the trunk. While I did lose a bit of trunk space, it wasn't as much as a full amp and sub box would require, and sounded great. The sound was far more omni-directional, the bass more punchy with no distortion, and all around a cleaner and more full-sounding bass. I paid $100 for the Basslink, and I'll never go back to underseat subs.

 

no problem! i just spent the last month doing all the same research your probably doing. so if you have any other questions let me know.

also, just as an fyi, he might take a couple of days to get back to you after you first email him. he does it on the side and said he's been getting a lot of requests lately. and it's a paypal payment.

 

I went with the avh-x5500bhs th only "problems" I have with the HU is when playing from iPod it takes a few sec to load the artwork and for those few sec you cank skip forwrd or backward. Also it only has one usb rather then 2 (x8800bhs) but anyway I ordered the axxess, 20 pin revers harness and the USB adapter. I didn't worry about the aux since I wired my xm directly to the rear aux of the HU. The wiring wasn't bad a bunch of forums have walkthroughs. The axxess worked in auto detect. I ended up manually programming it since I wanted the pick up hang up buttons to work. The only one that didn't work was the voice command. I ended up keeping it as a mute button. I didn't have to wire as much sine I already had an amp and speakers

 

just an update, ordered my harness and all the other stuff on monday. got home today and the package was in my mail.

happy customer

 

Awesome, let me know how it works out

 

soldered everything up according to the information on his site, but pretty much all the wires match so that was relatively easy. I got a kenwood so i just soldered the parking brake wire to the rest of the ground wires (effectively doing what a parking bypass would do. i looked at the diagram and saw all that happens when the car has its emergency brake on is that the wire gets grounded, so that's what i did.)

make SURE to have the right bracket/harness on/removed from the headunit before connecting all the wires up.

but then i pulled the old HU out, plugged up the USB, the AUX, the 20-pin harness, routed the microphone to on top of my steering column, plugged in the antenna, and made w.e. other connections i can't remember right now and was good to go.

a pretty damn easy install to be honest. hardest part was routing the microphone cable up to the steering column.

in the next couple weeks will come all the other goodies. but just have the new HU is a pretty big difference in sound quality!

 

Sounds like a pretty typical HU install. Does the radio sound better? The stock HU seems very under powered on the radio, but sounds pretty decent with bluetooth audio. Can't wait to get mine now!

 

i only listened for a second cause i finished around 8pm, but it definitely has more power tuned in to the radio. I could actually hear some of the "low" frequencies which were all but non existent with the stock unit. Could have been me but it also sounds more clear as well.