Car Stereo People

[taekwondokid]

lol yea Nakamichi probably. That doesn't clue me in to the size of the wiring though. You don't know any Lexus forums that would have that info in a sticky maybe? Since the shop is doing all this you might as well buy a spool of wiring for them to run through the car, better safe than sorry.

As far as a wiring kit for the amps, I really like the Knukonceptz kits. You can find them on their site or on their eBay store. A 4awg kit should be like $35. You don't need the 1/0 kit since you won't be running that much power.

 

[puddlemonkey]

I totally forgot about the lexus owners forum I'm registered to. That should have the wiring info, I'll see if I can find it. Its in my favs at home but I'm at work.

 

[taekwondokid]

Alright, just check that out later. It'll save you a bit of money if you don't have to run a new spool of speaker wiring.

Any preferences as far as number of subs and sizes? How many inches of clearance do you have from trunk floor to the rear deck/speakers, i.e. how tall of a box can we fit in there?

 

[puddlemonkey]

My brother has one really nice 10" sub under his seat and it sounds pretty sweet. I don't think I need 12"s, but I wouldn't object to a couple 10"s. not sure I can get away with just one 10" if its in the trunk. Its fairly deep, I'll have to measure to get exacts, I'm not finding the forum I was looking for.

 

[cboogsrun]

I want to get a new stereo and speakers for the Lexy but don't know what to look for. I know I don't want a hidden cd changer. I have one in the trunk now and I've never used it in all the years I've had the car. What are some in dash stereo brands to consider, and what ones should I avoid? Same with amp and speakers. I don't care about radio, there are no radio stations I listen to anyway. Its gotta be mp3 player friendly. Do I need to worry about some high school fuck up installing this in my car? I've penciled in about $1500-$2000, am I even in the right ballpark?

My best bud does marine and car installations for a living. He swears by a brand named FOCAL. He says they are durable and extremely high end speakers. I have 4 6x9's in my truck and it screams at 140decibals. Which in a truck is crazy loud. He got 2nd at a world competition in KC. He has a trophy that is 6' tall. He was only 19 at the time. I spent 1500 but thats cost only, so probably about 2500 in value. Diamond audio is also good, he still preffers focal over diamond.

 

[taekwondokid]

Focal does make very nice high-end gear, but they are also known for their harsh tweeters, which is mostly install-dependent, but since OP is having a local shop install the gear I know they won't bother spending a couple dozen hours finding the perfect install location for the tweets and than tuning them with the equalizer to get them to sound clear and to tune out the "harshness".

And yea Diamond is also good, I wouldn't consider it high-end, but definitely better than mainstream gear you see at local shops and Best Buy.

4 6x9s at 140dB would make you lose a lot of your hearing very quickly. You sure you hit that off the 6x9s?! I'm assuming you had them doing sub duty (<80Hz) because at higher frequencies I'm not sure a human ear can take 140dB at say like 10000Hz without hurting the eardrum real bad.

 

[taekwondokid]

My brother has one really nice 10" sub under his seat and it sounds pretty sweet. I don't think I need 12"s, but I wouldn't object to a couple 10"s. not sure I can get away with just one 10" if its in the trunk. Its fairly deep, I'll have to measure to get exacts, I'm not finding the forum I was looking for.

So you want a pair of subs than? If we're not going with SPL you might be better off spending money on say a single 12" instead of two lower-end 10's. It all depends on the budget I guess. I'll be back on tomorrow to drop in.

You gonna stop by a shop and listen to some speakers

Any preferences as far as amp brands? I was thinking of maybe recommending the Alpine PDX line, depending on trunk space. If space is an issue their small footprint really comes in handy. I also really like Soundstream, never failed me in the past, although some people find the spider logo on the amps ricey.

 

[juiceddreadlocks]

man, not sure anyone's said it, but a 4 channel amp driving your speakers will sound a lot better than just letting the head unit doing it. I don't know your setup well, but I had a 1032 watt tested 4 channel (175 watt RMS) driving my components up front, 6x9s in the back for fill and it rocked my jeep like mad. I had 2 shallow air 12'' subs in a sealed box I built by hand and ran it off of a 2x300 amp bridged down to mono. I ran a pioneer premier 860 head unit, had a custom 185amp alternator, and 2 tractor batteries. I'm not a big fan off bass only, mine blasted old zep as well as it would play any (c)rap...

Of any speakers I've ever demoed for components for front speakers FOCAL's mid range ones, I think they were K2's or something sounded better than anything else I ever tried. I never did justify the cost.

EBAY is where I got all my wiring kits, usually for a lot less than buying a kit from a shop, and the wiring never failed me. I did upgrade to a 150 amp breaker instead of fuse for my 4 channel amplifier...

 

[puddlemonkey]

You gonna stop by a shop and listen to some speakers

Yeah, about 20 minutes and I should be checking them out.

 

[heavy_duty]

one high end 10" with its own amp can make a car flip right over but I mean HIGH end.