Results!!! ... Premium Audio Upgrade!!
10-08-11, 11:31 PM
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Results!!! ... Premium Audio Upgrade!!
I just finished my vehicle/soundsystem upgrade about 2 weeks ago, here's how it went. (Starfire Pearl 2011 premium w/Nav/Premium audio).
I come from a very extensive audiophile background, both home audio and car audio. Even back in the late 80s, when I was driving a well used '79 Toyota Celica GT, I had a wonderful soundsystem.
At that time I went with an Alpine 7909 in-dash CD ($1200), Soundstream D100 & D200 Mk II amps, KEF fronts, (4) AVI 8" subwoofers in a sealed enclosure, etc. The soundsystem was worth far more than the vehicle. ;]
Later I moved up to a '93 RX-7 Twin Turbo, Xtant amps, Soundstream 12" sub, 3-ways up front.
At home I currently run a Sherwood Newcastle P-965 pre-amp, Rotel 1077 class D 7x100 digital amp, Klipsch reference speakers (oldies but goodies!)
Ok, now on to the CT200h. I'd hoped to pull my soundsystem from my previous vehicle intact and just migrate it over to the CT200h. It was a Zapco 5000.1 7-channel amp, CDT audio 3-ways, and a JL audio 10w6v2 subwoofer in a ported enclosure.
Simple, effective, all SQ system.
My car audio shop, very high end, whom I've used for about 20 years now, said I wouldn't be satisfied with the SQ coming out of the head unit and then going into the Zapco and my speakers.
The problem is, the head unit does some sort of equalization, the amp has some built in, it's all made to work well with these mystery bamboo speakers.
We could do a high-to-low conversion on the highs, high-to-low on the mids, high-to-low on the mid-bass, and high-to-low on the sub, run it through a JL Audio Cleansweep and then feed that to the Zapco, but they said I would likely be disappointed in the SQ due to equalization already built into the various parts of the system.
It was either replace the factory sub with a real sub (and junk my Zapco), or rip out the head unit and replace it with a 'real' one. (Expensive, time consuming, but fantastic SQ at the end).
They recommended we try just the sub first, and if it wasn't good enough SQ, then they'd do the whole system however I wanted.
In the previous vehicle I used a larger ported enclosure, but this time we went with a box about 1cu-ft, sealed, with HEAVY bracing internally. The Zapco 7 channel wasn't appropriate, so we used an Arc Audio 500.1 single channel class-D subwoofer instead.
Here's the weird part, the woofer is mounted DIRECTLY behind the driver's seat and also serves as a great seat massager. ;] This vehicle is a work vehicle, we do on-site computer repair and drive about 30,000 miles per year per vehicle. I had the shop remove the rear seats and install a custom cargo box in it's place, along with a nice sliding tray system in the rear. This leaves me a very organized way to carry every type of RAM, every type of hard drive/SSDs, power supplies, cables, connectors, a new Dell desktop, a new laptop, and a new 22" monitor, all with plenty of space to spare for the woofer, and it's all locked and sealed away from thieves pretty darned effectively. Without the remote it will be very time consuming to gear at the gear.
So, how did it sound? In a word, FANTASTIC. Much, MUCH better than I was expecting. It's not as good as a pure audiophile system with a very high end head unit, high end amp, and high end speakers, but it's just a notch down from that.
With the sealed enclosure for the 10" and a serious excess of power, along with it being parked right up my bum, the bass is absolutely amazingly taut, accurate, perfect. It's the best bass (for SQ) that I've heard outside of the home.
The surprising part is the rest of the 'Premium Audio' system is actually very, very decent. I feel like there's just a bit of a hole in the deep mid-bass range, but I might be able to dial that out with some work.
Of course the amp comes with a remote control mounted by my left knee that allows me to dial the bass up or down as appropriate for the source material and volume.
I am very, VERY satisfied with the result, and don't feel any need to improve beyond this point. There is a bit of distortion from the highs/mids at VERY HIGH VOLUME LEVELS, but honestly I don't listen at those levels.
So, that's the deal with the Premium Audio system. Replace the stock woofer with a quality woofer and amp, and you might be just as happy. Of course I don't expect others to be able to locate the woofer where I was able to, and I don't expect folks will want to lose any space from the already small trunk, but my situation is a bit different than most.
Please feel free to ask any questions, I'll probably post photos later, but the color scheme is black on black on black, and rather difficult to photograph. ;] (Windows are tinted at 5%, which also makes it hard to see in).
.............................
P.S. My apologies to my in-laws who are staying with us from India for 3 months, they loved riding in the CT200h, but no more back seats for them! =]
I come from a very extensive audiophile background, both home audio and car audio. Even back in the late 80s, when I was driving a well used '79 Toyota Celica GT, I had a wonderful soundsystem.
At that time I went with an Alpine 7909 in-dash CD ($1200), Soundstream D100 & D200 Mk II amps, KEF fronts, (4) AVI 8" subwoofers in a sealed enclosure, etc. The soundsystem was worth far more than the vehicle. ;]
Later I moved up to a '93 RX-7 Twin Turbo, Xtant amps, Soundstream 12" sub, 3-ways up front.
At home I currently run a Sherwood Newcastle P-965 pre-amp, Rotel 1077 class D 7x100 digital amp, Klipsch reference speakers (oldies but goodies!)
Ok, now on to the CT200h. I'd hoped to pull my soundsystem from my previous vehicle intact and just migrate it over to the CT200h. It was a Zapco 5000.1 7-channel amp, CDT audio 3-ways, and a JL audio 10w6v2 subwoofer in a ported enclosure.
Simple, effective, all SQ system.
My car audio shop, very high end, whom I've used for about 20 years now, said I wouldn't be satisfied with the SQ coming out of the head unit and then going into the Zapco and my speakers.
The problem is, the head unit does some sort of equalization, the amp has some built in, it's all made to work well with these mystery bamboo speakers.
We could do a high-to-low conversion on the highs, high-to-low on the mids, high-to-low on the mid-bass, and high-to-low on the sub, run it through a JL Audio Cleansweep and then feed that to the Zapco, but they said I would likely be disappointed in the SQ due to equalization already built into the various parts of the system.
It was either replace the factory sub with a real sub (and junk my Zapco), or rip out the head unit and replace it with a 'real' one. (Expensive, time consuming, but fantastic SQ at the end).
They recommended we try just the sub first, and if it wasn't good enough SQ, then they'd do the whole system however I wanted.
In the previous vehicle I used a larger ported enclosure, but this time we went with a box about 1cu-ft, sealed, with HEAVY bracing internally. The Zapco 7 channel wasn't appropriate, so we used an Arc Audio 500.1 single channel class-D subwoofer instead.
Here's the weird part, the woofer is mounted DIRECTLY behind the driver's seat and also serves as a great seat massager. ;] This vehicle is a work vehicle, we do on-site computer repair and drive about 30,000 miles per year per vehicle. I had the shop remove the rear seats and install a custom cargo box in it's place, along with a nice sliding tray system in the rear. This leaves me a very organized way to carry every type of RAM, every type of hard drive/SSDs, power supplies, cables, connectors, a new Dell desktop, a new laptop, and a new 22" monitor, all with plenty of space to spare for the woofer, and it's all locked and sealed away from thieves pretty darned effectively. Without the remote it will be very time consuming to gear at the gear.
So, how did it sound? In a word, FANTASTIC. Much, MUCH better than I was expecting. It's not as good as a pure audiophile system with a very high end head unit, high end amp, and high end speakers, but it's just a notch down from that.
With the sealed enclosure for the 10" and a serious excess of power, along with it being parked right up my bum, the bass is absolutely amazingly taut, accurate, perfect. It's the best bass (for SQ) that I've heard outside of the home.
The surprising part is the rest of the 'Premium Audio' system is actually very, very decent. I feel like there's just a bit of a hole in the deep mid-bass range, but I might be able to dial that out with some work.
Of course the amp comes with a remote control mounted by my left knee that allows me to dial the bass up or down as appropriate for the source material and volume.
I am very, VERY satisfied with the result, and don't feel any need to improve beyond this point. There is a bit of distortion from the highs/mids at VERY HIGH VOLUME LEVELS, but honestly I don't listen at those levels.
So, that's the deal with the Premium Audio system. Replace the stock woofer with a quality woofer and amp, and you might be just as happy. Of course I don't expect others to be able to locate the woofer where I was able to, and I don't expect folks will want to lose any space from the already small trunk, but my situation is a bit different than most.
Please feel free to ask any questions, I'll probably post photos later, but the color scheme is black on black on black, and rather difficult to photograph. ;] (Windows are tinted at 5%, which also makes it hard to see in).
.............................
P.S. My apologies to my in-laws who are staying with us from India for 3 months, they loved riding in the CT200h, but no more back seats for them! =]
10-09-11, 04:21 AM
#2
Lexus Connoisseur
Very nice and congrats on your project! Show us some pics when you can.
10-11-11, 09:45 PM
#5
Moderator
Congrats and would love to see pics. Keep up the great work.
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