Sooo what about a stereo?

[Stoney126]

Hey all, I ask This question because the 8 year stock speakers have finally decided to pop. Not bad for stockers I suppose. Anyway I was thinking about which way to go as far as repalcement?

Now I ask here because of 1 there isnt anything specific on the forums for it and I drive a FULL SIZE:coffeedrink: and 2 Everywhere I look its big amps and crazy builds for insane sound, which is cool Ive been there and done that. Im thinking alot more simple and wonder if there may be any issues with other systems involved with our activites.

Right now I just have a clarion deck that came with the truck. It has an aux. port for an ipod or other device and works fine for me. Also I have 2 6 1/2's and two 1/14 tweeters with a 2 way passive crossover from another truck I had and are in good shape. Now I know nothing about stereo installs. I do know I will need an amp to run these speakers and whatever ones I want to replace the rears.

Then I was kicking around the idea of a small subwoofer like an 8 inch sub. But that most likely would need an Amp as well. Now Im not looking to knock off my rearview just a bit of bass.

Now the 2 issues I can think of off the bat are space and more electrical wiring which means something else to go wrong.

Now my truck is stock except the deck. I do plan on adding a cb and would like to have no issues with it, and should that be something that should be addressed when installing the stereo speakers.

I would love to hear you guys and gals input and pictures would be great.

 

[lstzephyr]

I have a couple small subwoofers, a small amp, and some 6x9s and its actually quite good. Its probably all cheap stuff, but somebody installed it in my old farm truck before I bought it. I can go poke it and take pictures of it if you want to see, but in all likelihood it is all quite old.

I would just buy some random amp, a couple small subs, and replace anything else that looked like it needed it. If you don't need the "best"(which is subjective, and mostly bs advertising anyway) most anything decent will do. Pick a reputable company, or some un-reputable company, and run it.

 

[TheAlmightySam]

I posted some of this in my build thread, but I run a fairly basic system in my rig. Much of it I got wholesale many years ago, and I finally had a rig nice enough to install it.

The head unit is a Kenwood KDC-X794. Fairly basic, not too flashy, has an iPod hookup.

Under the seat I ran a 0-gauge cable to a generic distro block. One nice thing about a monster power cable is it's a great spot to tap for power for any interior accessories. I also have it feeding an auxiliary fuse block and a power inverter. Amps are a Diamond Audio D3 400.4 powering the door speakers (a pair of semi-****ty Eclipse 5 1/4"s) and a D3 600.1 to the sub.

I was not about to give up a ton of valuable cargo space (or leg room for the occasional rear passengers) with a wall of subwoofers. A single Diamond D3 10D4 serves me fine. I build a custom box with a carpeted grille to kinda hide the sub.

It's a relatively simple system, all-in-all. With a single 8" or a less-powerful 10", you could omit the mono amp and run a single 4-channel with two channels bridged to the sub. Alternatively, you could get a mono amp and power the door speakers with the deck.

It may seem a little superfluous to have a biggish sound system in a camping rig, but for me, it makes those long drives so much more pleasant.

 

[bftank]

honestly i am not much of a stereo guy but for some reason the cars i have bought have still had cassette decks in them. i usually replace the head unit with a cheap walmart radio that i can hook up a usb or ipod to and replace the broken speakers. thats about it. the dust is really hard on stereos i have found so i won't spend more than $130 on a unit. and that set up sounds good enough for me.

 

[bfdiesel]

My vote is. Get a nice head unit and replace the speakers with descent ones and call it good. The space for an amp and sub is space I would rather use for storage or seating.

 

[chilliwak]

Stoney, what size are your rear speakers? The ones that are blown. Most decks have 40 something watts per channel, so it is enough to power most speakers. I recently bought a pair of Alpine 6by9s for $80. They sound great and do not need an external amplifier. Also there are sub-woofers available now with a built in amp. So the need for an external amp is unnecessary. The only thing you need to check is if your deck has connections for a subwoofer. They should be clearly marked on the back of your deck and have something like a `sub´ or other marking that is similar. I hope this helps....:ylsmoke:

 

[Stoney126]

Talking it over with myself lol. I've pretty much decided to go the route recommended. The big thing is space. I'm gonna check the stereo output . It says 50 watts with megapower button on or whatever they call it, I wanna see what normal output is. I believe I can get a small self powered sub and not take up much space.

I haven't done it yet but I'm going to go over the cab and look for normal unusable space and see what I can do.

So it looks like regular output is 20 w with a max of 50

 

[Cy-Gor]

With component speakers i would still go with an amp, though a sub isnt all that necessary.

In my truck i have 4 coax speakers and just the head unit, worked fine for years.

In my miata however, i went with a pair of components and an amp, so when i drop the top i can still get crystal clear sound at higher volumes. No sub because its mostly useless in a convertible with out taking up the entire trunk with an enclosure.

My next truck will be a crew cab and i will likely go with 4 nice speakers and a 4 channel amp and call it done. On top of that a media deck with no CD player is likely to be installed as well. no moving parts and all that.

 

[Stoney126]

Ok question. If the speaker says 90 w or 120w max or even 60w is it going to sound crappy or even work with 20 w running it?

 

[TheAlmightySam]

Ok question. If the speaker says 90 w or 120w max or even 60w is it going to sound crappy or even work with 20 w running it?

They will sound fine whether you feed 1W or 120W to them. More watts = more volume, not more sound quality1 (though it's worth noting that the human ear tends to perceive more volume as greater quality - one of those little tricks of the mind). Two caveats, however. First, aftermarket speakers tend to not be particularly sensitive in comparison to stock speakers. Sensitivity is essentially a measure of how efficiently power from the amplifier is turned into racket. Greater sensitivity means more volume from lower power. Less sensitivity means you need more power to get the volume you want. You may find you cannot easily reach the volume you desire without turning the head unit up to a point where the amplifier starts adding a degree of distortion. Second, if you're feeding your speakers with power from the head unit's onboard amplifier, it will never be as clean of power as will come from even a small external amplifier. In other words, 22W from the CD player will be a little noisier and sound a little worse than 22W from an external amp.

All that said, were it me, I'd plug the door speakers into the CD player and see if it sounds okay to you. You can always add an amp later on if you want. Honestly, in my noisy Dodge, the sound quality difference from running an aftermarket amp is totally consumed by the racket from the Diesel and the hum from the tires. That said, the extra volume from feeding them 50W instead of 22W is much appreciated!

1. Obviously not including the affects of setting the gain on an amplifier, overcoming external noise, etc. etc. etc. Dissertations have been written on this subject, so it's hard to cover it all in a single post.

 

[Stoney126]

Good info Sam, thank you.

 

[john101477]

i used to have to have the biggest and baddest in stereo and boom. Being an installer, your almost required lol. no a days I am more into keeping stuff working. A few years ago I went through 3 CD receivers in just 2 weeks. all different brands. The culprit? dust and normal off road jerk and jar. now i run a simple alpine AM/FM/Ipod receiver. No CD player at all. Ironically I have also saved money on CDs lol. I also have a large 12 with a 1400 watt power supply for when I want to go deaf for a while.