firstrayz

i was looking to upgrade my sound system to something more modern. i normally rip all my music from cd to flac files so i would like a sound system that would take advantage of the higher quality audio files. does anyone have any suggestions, i want to spend between 1500 and 2000 on the system. any thoughts would be greatly apreciated

Kansas

Everything you need is in the audio thread: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls4...up-thread.html

There is no need to spend anywhere near $1,500 on upgrading to a modern system unless you mainly listen to music while parked with the engine off.

lexmoose

I've too RIP everything to FLAC for the house, but for the car I didn't find anything better than an old iPod classic and a deck with an iPod USB interface (Digital stream). The trick is to transcode the FLAC you want to put on your iPod to ALAC (transcoding from FLAC to ALAC is still lossless).

If you are willing to go the single din route, the Pioneer DEH-80PRS is an excellent choice and will give you important tuning capability features (Active crossovers, Time alignment and 16 band EQ)

If you're after good sound, forget the rear speakers. You want to upgrade the front speakers and sub. Stock location will have to do for the budget.

Here's a setup example that would fit your budget

Deck: Pioneer DEH-80PRS 300$
Amp: Pioneer GM-D8604 160$
Tweeter: Factory or Tymphany OC25SC65-04 40$
Midbass: Dayton RS180P-4 110$
Sub: Dayton RSS265HF-4 140$

You're now at 750$ in hardware, next you need to make sure you sound deaden you door and "seal" them by covering as many hole as you can. Small holes can be block only with sound deadener , but lager one will require something solid to block the hole (alu plate, thick plastic cutting board...) and then add the sound deadener. Failing to do this will result in poor low frequency response due to cancellation of the back wave coming back into the cabin. For both doors and the rear deck I would estimate around 250$ of Dynamat.

Then add another 200$ for the 4awg amp wiring kit, dash kit, speaker and misc wires for a total of 1200$ +installation if you're not doing it yourself

You will need to have fabricate 2 baffles to replace the factory plastic box in the doors, these are 7" speakers, make sure they have enough clearance fro the window and factory grill. Sub is an 8" from factory, but you can have a baffle build that mount underneat and attach the 10" sub to that baffle.

Since you will be running active (no passive crossover) with the Pioneer deck, each speaker will have is channel of amplification.
Tweeter from the radio and use a HPF of 2.5kHz @24dB
Midbass from the amp channel 1-2 at a HPF 80Hz @ 24dB and LPF 2.5kHz @24dB
Sub from channel 3-4 (bridge) at HPF 20Hz @ 24dB and LPF 80Hz @ 24dB

A 10" sub will be enough to overpower the front speakers, if you're a basshead then you can go crazy and fit a larger sub(s) and add more power.