Pioneer decks are great, JVC has been killing the head unit game for the last couple of years though. The features/specs that JVC offers is equal to what other brands offer but in the last couple of years they have been offering it for about half the price of other brands. I was a big pioneer guy until I noticed I could get the same **** for half the price.

Sorry to hear about your pops, get the time in while there is time, and hopefully your dad will fully recover and live a long full life. My dad had a lung transplant in 2016, and he passed late last year so I know how you're feeling.

Hands down Michelin blades stomp all others for the money, they are $7 a piece at Walmart and they work very well and last a very long time. I've tried em all and the Michelin work just as good or better than $30 blades, and last longer than any other i've tried.

Most people are happy with Pioneer or Sony etc because their base $50 speaker is 100 times better than a stock speaker. I went through 5 brands of 6.5" speakers JUST LAST YEAR and I've been playing with audio for over 20 years. And we've already talked speakers, the polks I sent you are $50 too. But with pioneer you pay $50 for a $20 speaker with plastic tweeters. Most have never compared basic pioneer to something like Focal or any higher end front stage speakers and wouldn't know the difference in a basic speaker and a really good one. The polk is a $100 speaker for $50, the pioneer is a $20 speaker for $50. If you want something that sounds the same as a 50-60 dollar pioneer, JVC has some you can get for about $20 a pair, I put them in my wifes car when I did a full setup in it and she loves them, they really aren't bad at all, and don't sound any better or worse than my Infinity Reference I junked last year, but the polk are without doubt better. If you want to over pay for what you get in a speaker buy Infinity, I wasn't impressed for the ridiculous price I paid.

Here are the cheap *** JVC that sound just as good as those pioneer and sony door speakers others have told you about that'll cost you at least 50-60 a pair. Look at the rating, 4.2 stars from nearly 300 people. They are $20. They have an awesome range 35-22000 hz, and a 92 db efficiency (sensitivity) rating. They will get loud on low power, perfect for a headunit (no amp) only build.

 

Good info man. Thanks for sharing

 

Yeah, excellent info for us guys who aren't hard core audiophiles....

 

I'm needing some new sail panel speakers and hatch speakers. I used boston acoustics last time. They sounded decent...definitely better than stock but they're buzzing now. I wonder if the polks are better? Or the others he listed for the $. The ba's were reasonable priced.

 

Pooter- Thanks for coming in and shering some knowledge. Here is my question for you. Your FIRST choice would be polk speakers? Then after those JVC ?

 

Update- I cleaned and scrubbed the carpet today for 2 hours. Finally got the carpet looking back decent using different cleaners such as dawn soap, tuff stuff, awesone and water acourse. Carpet looks totally different. Also I stopped by Auto Zone today and picked up some chevy floor mattts to top it off.

Then I got the chrome trim on the fenders off as well. After that I turned my attention to the dash. It was pretty dusty/dirty. The dash also got some TLC from dawn soap, awesome and mothers VLR to finish the job. I'll snap a pic for you guys soon.

 

Dawn- the soap that CLEANS! Good stuff!
You're getting that truck spiffed up pretty good!

 

No problem, I'm not necessarily a guru I've just been playing with stereos and doing peoples systems for them for a little over 20 years. I still have plenty to learn, Jmilz28 is really knowledgeable as well if any of you know him on here.

Most people would be really happy with the JVC speakers I posted, but it is possible to get a lot better without breaking the bank. My last build taught me that i'm just not a plastic or metal tweeter guy, in the future I will try to only search for speakers that have silk tweeters. Plastic and aluminum tweeters tend to be hissy and hit all the s's and t's. It's that piercing high frequency. Silk gets up to that 20k hz range but is a bit more gentle on the ears and a little more filling/smoother.

As an example of what I mean in the above, speakers that are $70 or so pair of 6.5" are not really any better than the $20 JVC if they are built of the same type of materials. It's all super cheap components that still sounds better than stock.

But if you compare a $50 pioneer to a $50 kenwood and a $50 rockford and they all have the cheapest components they pretty much will sound the same. If you want to see change, get a speaker with different material (plastic vs silk) or component sets with high end drivers and individual crossovers. At some point you gotta realize you're comparing vinyl to vinyl instead of vinyl to marble (flooring example lol). However you can get some for 50-100 that have some marble in em.



I told tusky in PM that one of the most important things for good sound is building a speaker ring or buying them. On any high quality car stereo system you will see rings from the front of the speaker to the door panel. What happens is the sound comes out of the speaker and half or so of it goes into the panel instead of out and into the cabin. I made my rings with window seal foam I got at walmart for around $5. There is a company called fastrings that makes them if you prefer to purchase them.


Here's a couple of pics of what I did. Also it's important with speakers to block the sound waves from the rear of a speaker from the front, that's why a subwoofer makes no bass held up in the air. So if you have a gap from your speaker to the door, foam it caulk it whatever. I taped up the holes in my door panel too as you can see in the pic with the 4x6 and you can see the foam around the edges of the 4x6. This didn't make much difference, it helped a little (and every little change adds up), but I did the ring on the front of the speaker after that and made sure it made contact with the door panel. BIG difference after that, we did my sons car a couple days later and also made a very noticeable change to his car, not necessarily bass wise, but everything wise. Louder, clearer, more accurate. I want clarity first, loudness second, I cannot stand a muffled or distorted system.


I did it quick and ugly since I was experimenting, and left it this way too lol.

 

Anytime man. It depends on the build. In my boat I used $30 a pair 6.5" coaxials because they aren't going to last long and someone might kick one or poke one or something. The wife's car, it's a gold kia, with dings etc, it's strictly an A-B car that we wanted better but not crazy, the truck I just sold, it had 0/1 gauge 100% oxygen free copper wiring with an upgraded alternator, battery, 150 amp high current fuse holder, custom box etc etc etc list goes on way too long.

However, looking back, if I had found that I could get last years Polk with high db ratings and silk tweeters I would have used them in every build, but I found them a couple months back after all builds were done.

The polks come in almost every loud *** boat you hear at the lake in party cove, they have great ratings online and it's polk, they're up there with any other big name and if you compare them to others you get a lot more for the money.

I would actually love to try NVX, they are highly rated, have great specs, large (20-25mm) silk tweeters and are around $50 a pair.

If I were you I would get the polks I sent you and not look back though.

 

Thanks Pooter, the truck isn't go be a daily driver however I want it to be nice when I do need to use the truck. It's a spare vehicle/tow rig. The 6.5s in the doors is the main speakers you hear but the truck do have some 4×6s behind the seat.

Today I bought these.......

 

Good info on the tweeters. I hate that tunny sound.

Any particular polks you recommend for fcars?

 

Yes, but it's to speak to the price point I mentioned earlier. (I can't say which 6.5 is best for the car, the best you can afford is best for the car). I mentioned $50 6.5" polk, to be clear that is for last years model the db651, realistically it may be $59. If you google polk db651 you will see on the first page alone roughly 2000 positive reviews from users from various websites. I haven't tried them personally but really want to. I've heard them on boats and they get real loud and take a lot of power, but most boat guys don't set amps/eq properly so I usually hear them being over played but still sounding pretty good. So obviously they would sound better being setup properly. That being said they obviously take some abuse pretty well.

I think at this time the polk are best for you dollar. Best period are something like upper end focal that reach into the $$$$ range for one set of speakers.

The Polk db652 (last I checked a couple months back) is the current model and a couple months back it was $99

Look into NVX also. They are a speaker I've been watching a little lately.

I feel like I'm locking you guys into polks, I don't want to do that, everything is an as needed basis, but for a general recommendation the polk db651 is a lot of speaker for a low cost since it's last years model and they aren't completely sold out yet.

However NVX current model speakers are of the same build quality and their every day price is low for what you get. So far I've seen good reviews, but haven't heard them in person yet.

 

LOL! Funny how this thread went from gas-guzzling 6.0's to sound systems.
The evolution of a thread.....

 

The DB651's are great speakers for the money. I also looked into the JVC's that Pooter mentioned and they sound like a good speaker for cheap as well. I was looking to upgrade the speakers in my DD Saturn SL2 and didn't want to spend a bunch on them.

I personally have always liked how Pioneers sound. We put Pioneers in our boat on a pinch (old speakers were shot) and they sound very good for what they are. We just bought some off the shelf ones at Walmart. Eventually the boat audio system will get an overhaul but for now they work great.

Sound quality is extremely subjective to each person. What someone may think sounds good the next person may think it sounds like crap. I think for what you are wanting, Tusky, anything will be a nice upgrade.

 

Whatever you guys do DON'T skip the speaker rings I keep mentioning on the front of the speaker. Hell do it on the ones you have now.

Tusky, you'll hear those 4x6's loud and clear with new speakers especially if you run an aftermarket headunit straight to them.

Some stock stereo systems (bose whatever) limit sounds to certain speakers. I don't know what yours does stock.

But an aftermarket radio sends full signal to all, so with the new headunit and speakers it'll be loud from them all so make sure you replace all with quality speakers.

 

I agree with all of that man, off the shelf pioneers are fine. At some point when you really start pushing things and want perfection then you'll want a little more than the pioneer, but if that's not you then absolutely nothing wrong with any of the speakers we are referring to. However, you probably paid the same for the pioneer that you would for the db651 and the 651 is surely superior.

 

Y'all ever notice how luxury car stereo systems sound so amazing, and some random vehicles and then some sound like absolute crap?

The cars I've had in the shop that surprised me, when I pull the door panels they have foam rings on the speaker to meet the door panel.

I googled Lexus door speaker for example

 

This will make a dramatic change even for a crap speaker.

This is out of an avalon, if you haven't heard an avalon you'd be amazed. Crap speakers with high end installation makes them sound like high end speakers.

 

What about those cups that ho behind the speaker? Are they effective at making speakers sound better?