I have a 01 TA and wanting to upgrade all speakers. Any suggestions on good plug and play ones? I understand some might need some modification but what are your suggestions?

 

http://www.keeaudio.com

 

Appreciate it!!!!!

 

Bear in mind that NOTHING in the aftermarket will be completely plug-and-play... nobody has the factory connectors on their speakers so you will have to modify the connectors.

 

x2 for Kee Audio. I bought his 4th Gen package almost 15 years ago and the car still sounds great.

I had a recent issue with my headunit he helped me diagnose. I bought a new HU and an additional amp for my CDT sub.

I can't recommend him enough.

 

Just got a local shop to put a new system in my 1998 Firebird…Pioneer HU and Audison speakers with stock Monsoon amp. Sounds good, but would like a little more bass lol. Got thinking….HU has front, rear and subwoofer outputs. Is there any way to feed the amp to utilize these. Use front for front door speakers, rear for hatch speakers, and subwoofer output just for sail panels. Can the monsoon amp be configured this way?

 

I would upgrade the head unit, too. On my son's sti we did one thing at a time. First the spearkers, and the sound improvement was marginal. Then we added a sub and amp. But the system didn't sound really good until putting a quality head unit in.

 

Yes, upgraded head unit to a Pioneer DEH-S6220BS. The audison speakers sound great, would just like a little more oomph.
The HU has separate adjustments for front, rear and sub, but adjusting rear hatch speakers also adjust sail panels (I think).

 

Sorry about that. I see you had posted that already.

 

Simple answer... no. The Monsoon amp is designed to take four speaker level inputs as is found on all OEM style and almost all aftermarket head units. It has no pre-amp input like the sub channels on your Pioneer. The amp takes those four full-range inputs and divides and filters them into eight output channels with specific signal ranges to match the unique speaker configuration of the Monsoon system.

That's where I suspect you lost your bass. The original configuration has dual voice coil (DVC) subs in the sail panels - each sub uses two of the eight output channels of the amp, low pass filtered to provide only bass signal. You don't specify which speakers were installed other than the brand, but if your shop made the typical mistake of installing full-range or coaxial speakers in the sail panels, you would be giving up a lot of bass. Even if they installed subs there, you would have lost about half of your bass power because Audison doesn't make DVC 6.5” subs, so you gave up an amp output channel on each side.

One solution would be to replace the sail panel speakers with the proper DVC subs. There aren't a lot of good DVC 4-ohm subs on the market, but Bazooka and CDT make popular models. Another option would be to install a separate sub and amp in the rear, perhaps in a stealth box, using the sub output from your new head unit. That would make the biggest difference, but would be more expensive and more work to install.

 

Thanks for the info.
Yes, when he installed the sail panel speakers, he used both sets of wires on one connection on speaker. Is that ok, or should one be taped off.
The speakers installed were:

Doors. AUDISON APK165OHM2 2OHM COMPONENT SPEAKERS with crossover.
Sail Panels. AUDISON AP65 SET 6.5 INCH WOOFERS 4OHM
Hatch. AUDISON AP4 4 INCH MIDBASS DRIVER
AUDISON AP1 TWEETER SET WITH CROSSOVER

With the Pioneer DEH-S6220BS head unit, it has front, rear and subwoofer outputs. Subwoofer not being used. Do the front adjustments affect door speakers, and rear affects sail and hatch speakers?
Could I use the subwoofer output to feed an amp which feeds new DVC subs in sail panel, or is that just a minor upgrade?
Sometimes I think there are too many speakers in this monsoon system lol.

 

It is not a good idea to connect the two sail panel channels to a single speaker (other than a DVC speaker designed for that) because the Monsoon amp is not bridgeable. You may get away with it for a while but eventually, especially if you use high volume, you will destroy the output circuit for those channels. You may actually find that you get better bass response from using only one channel and leaving the other disconnected. This is because connecting the two output channels effectively lowers the impedance to a level that tends to cancel out each other.

Also, the installers should not have used the crossovers included with the speakers. The door and hatch area tweeters are wired directly to the head unit (Firebirds only) with an inline high pass filter to protect them. Connecting them to the new full-range speakers via crossovers is again giving up individual channels of power that were already there.

Yes, the fader adjusts the balance between the front (door) speakers and rear (sail panel and hatch) speakers. In the factory configuration, the hatch speakers are intended only for rear fill and not as a primary audio source and the subs get twice as much power due to the extra channels, so combining them doesn't really impact the overall sound. The factory head unit allows for increasing the bass via the graphic equalizer rather than using the front-rear fader control. I'm sure your new head unit has similar capabilities.

Yes, technically you could add a separate amp to power sail panel subs from the sub output from the HU. But you wouldn't gain enough to really make it worthwhile. The sail panel speakers are only 6.5" and are actually mid-bass speakers rather than true subs. You could modify the sail panel openings to allow installation of 8" subs as some members here have done. But most members here who have retained the Monsoon amp have had very satisfying results improving bass output using a separate amp as you suggest, but using it to power an 8" or larger sub in a stealth box in the back. The hatch shape seems to help propagate the bass to new strength (sometimes to window shaking levels) while the sail panel mid-bass "subs" fill in the low end between the sub and the full-range door speakers... all without costing a fortune to redo the entire system.