owlpuff

Was told by the guy at the audio shop round here that the monsoon output will never be of any quality... Curious how true this to be? I have replaced the monsoon amp with 2 amps, one for subs, one for other speakers... He is saying i need a sound processor or an aftermarket radio to get any quality.... How much truth does his words hold? Or is he full of crite, just trying to make more money.



(P.S. Im trying to keep the stock head because i love having a physical EQ... So far i only seen shitty digital 1/2 din ones )

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

Yes, he's right. The biggest improvement you can make to a Monsoon system is to replace the head unit - the factory one is a distortion machine. The next best thing is to replace the speakers. The factory ones aren't really that bad when they're new but they are made of cheap materials and don't last very long (especially trying to handle the distortion if the volume is turned up a lot). The only really useful part of the Monsoon system is the amp. It's not particularly powerful but it has eight channels with filtering and it produces clean sound if given a clean signal.

You would have ended up with a much better sounding system if you kept the Monsoon amp and replaced the head unit rather than the other way around.

owlpuff

Know of any good 1/2din Slider bar EQs then? I own a very good alpine deck that i can pull out of my v6....

wssix99

iTrader: (5)

If you get in your time machine and go back to 1998. The radio is great.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

Surprisingly, the Monsoon system with a few tweaks can hold its own with more recent factory "premium" systems. After replacing the head unit and the speakers (Kee Audio package), my Monsoon sounds better than the Harman Kardon system in my BMW 330Ci, better than the Bose system in my wife's Envoy, and better than the Shaker 500 system in my '11 Mustang.

Fastride500

iTrader: (2)

I love the monsoon, exactly as said, just have to tune the kinks out.

tuffluck

iTrader: (4)

i personally never had any luck with the monsoon system, but this was before kee audio was around. i had an aftermarket head unit and i switched out the front speakers, but overall the sound improvement was marginal at best. when i replaced my entire system i ended up with CDT components in the doors, which is also in the kee audio package. when the majority of my system was stolen, i put in a factory deck and hooked up the CDT components to that deck directly (no monsoon amp), and it was shocking how good the quality of the sound was compared to anything i ever hooked up through the monsoon amp. i don't doubt those speakers would also sound good through the monsoon based on evidence from whitebird and others, but i kind of think it comes down to the speakers more than anything.

still, if you're replacing amps in your car, it's really a shortcoming to not also be replacing the head unit. who cares about an EQ when there is no setting on the EQ that's even going to get it remotely close to sound as good as a solid aftermarket HU? bad logic.

Double Aught

iTrader: (5)

Now I am completely confused about the monsoon stereo. One poster says the amp is actually quite good and the h.u. is crap, while another says he bypassed the amp and the h.u. made the speakers sound great. Which is it?

eseibel67

iTrader: (10)

WhiteBird00 is the Oracle of automotive electronics.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

The two opinions are not necessarily mutually exclusive. An all aftermarket system (HU, amp, and speakers) can sound far better than a system using stock components. Basically, the more money you spend, the better you can make it sound (provided you research your purchases).

However, the Monsoon amp is the one part of the factory system that does a good job. It isn't particularly powerful (about 240 watts RMS into eight channels) but it's better than just using the head unit alone and it's much cheaper and easier to set up than a complete aftermarket system. Most people don't need an audiophile system in their car (especially since a car is a noisy environment) so upgrading HU and speakers while keeping the Monsoon amp can be a great option. You can even add a sub in a stealthbox if you want more bass.

tuffluck

iTrader: (4)

the key difference between what whitebird and myself said in this thread is that i went to a completely aftermarket system first and totally bypassed the monsoon amp. when my system was stolen, it was too much trouble to rewire the monsoon amp into the loop, so i just went directly to the HU for simplicity's sake. and like i said, with good speakers--and i mean really good components--hooked up directly to the stock HU with nothing else in the loop produced a surprisingly good sound. it definitely sounded better than the stock setup unadulterated.

so i guess our only disagreement here is that the stock HU is garbage, because with good speakers the sound it produced couldn't get too loud, but the distortion was nothing compared to what i got from the stock setup. i can't confirm the amp is the problem, and it doesn't sound like it is, but to me it doesn't seem like the HU was the main problem either. before my complete overhaul i had an aftermarket HU hooked to the stock system otherwise, and it did not sound much better (if at all) than the components hooked directly to the stock HU, so it's hard for me to believe the source of the problem is solely the HU.

i personally think at the end of the day the biggest thing that will make a difference is good quality speakers. then again, if you're going to replace speakers, chances are you'll wind up replacing the head unit one day anyway.

just to note, the components i had in the door...unfortunately i can't remember the model, though they were CDT's. but those were the only speakers in my car other than 2 subs in the back. a good set of components in the doors, powered properly, are the only non-sub frequency producing speakers you actually need in a complete aftermarket setup in an f-body. so because those components were of such good quality, i think they would probably sound decent hooked up to just about any amp/HU.

Double Aught

iTrader: (5)

Ok, I think I am understanding it a little better. I know aftermarket components typically are much better, but with the stock H.U., I can use my steering wheel controls which I really like. I have read the Monsoon faq and there seems to be an adaptor that allows the use of the controls with aftermarket H.U.'s, but I am wondering if the selection would be limited. At this point, I would begin with the Kee audio speaker upgrade and see I like that enough. If not, I would start looking at an upgrade at the H.U. .