This is a system for my 1988 Nissan 300. This is my first real aftermarket system. Any good/bad comments on it?

Receiver:
Alpine CDA-9833
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-hhzBDZh...0&I=500CDA9833

Front fill:
Infinity Kappa 63.5i
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-hhzBDZh...=400&I=108635I

Rear fill:
Infinity Reference 6002si
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-hhzBDZh...00&I=1086002SI

Amp:
Kicker KX550.3
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-hhzBDZh...0&I=2064KX5503

Sub:
Infinity Kappa Perfect10 VQ
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-hhzBDZh...0&I=108PER10VQ


I'll be running the front speakers off of the amp and the rear off of the receiver. I didn't pay Crutchfield prices, I just linked over to their site for the descriptions.

 

Run the amp at two ohm stereo on the front and rears. It will sound like **** running the rears off of the stereo and the front off the amp. It will get clean power to all four off of the amp. Otherwise you do have some good equipment in the works.

 

Good Set-up. Should sound real nice. Sub is a Great Sound Q piece. I really like the accuracy of it plus it goes loud.

Kind of in agreement with 01WS6/tamu. You can run the rears off the Amp also. The only consideration is that the equal power running to the Front's and rears will pull the Sound Stage rear-ward.

If you are bigger into Sound Quality and accuracy I recommend running the Rears off the Deck. (Choice seems to indicate so)

If you want it just loud, Put the rears on the Amp.

My Choice would be the Rears off the Deck. You can then control the volume of the rears speakers and tune the Whole system more accurately.

 

Looks pretty good. You might want to add a good EQ so you can customize your sound to your liking.

 

I'm 50%/50% on that. Most people get EQ's and don't use them correctly. They are suppose to smooth the Repsonse of a system. Tone Controls (bass and treble) are for making it sound like you want it to.

 

i would use the amp for the fronts only.

imo it would sound alot better to give the front speakers 70 dedicated watts instead of splitting 80 watts between the fronts and rears.

 

he's definitely right. rear fill is for those who don't know all that much about car stereo and just think they're supposed to have it

 

Junk the rears all together. You are not losing power by putting the rears on the front if you must have them. The amp will then drop to 2ohms and the power output will increase negating the addition of the rears CLEAN power is the thing to remember not wattage. Distortion is what kills speakers not power.

 

I definately plan on running the system in 4-ohm and keeping the fronts at 70W each and the sub at 210W.

01WS6/tamu, I couldn't quite understand what you meant in that last post. Are you saying that by running the rear speakers off of the receiver I'll somehow make the amp drop to 2-ohms?

 

He meant that running the Amp in 2 ohm makes for more distortion.

As for Rear Fill, I always run it. Most of the Time it doesn't even seem to be on even sitting in the back. But it helps center the stage and bring it upwards. Rear Fill is truelly needed for good imaging in MOST systems, but not all.

It comepletly depends on alot of stuff, but Most like to have it.

 

For a nice overall sounding system most people will stick with rears. Me personally I have a set of focal utopias up front in custom kick panels and no rear fill. Then a zapco 2 channel up front and monoblock on two tens in a ported custom enclosure By dropping the amp to a 2 ohm load the rated power of the amp goes up. By dropping the amp down you get more power to drive all four of the speakers cleanly. The amp dropping to 2 ohms does not increase distortion. For a straight sound quality system that is being judged they do not have rear fill in most vehicles. But that is a system that has some hella expensive compnents and tons of time invested in speaker placement etc. For everyday listening though a good set of components in the doors on a amp for front and rear will sound very good over factory stuff. Your average person does not know what to listen for and most anything over factory will sound better. In another post earler they were comparing diamond audio dyn audio, and mb quart. All three of these component sets sound different. They are all very good but have different sounds and since sound is very subjective I may love it and you may hate it. I for instance like a soft mellow tweeter with components that will blend in and not just say I'm right here above your mid cant you hear me. But others may love that exact sound. Bottom line there are many different methods to approaching audio installation there are many ways to skin a cat. The best thing to do is to tinker with it for a while. If It were me run it in 2 ohm mode lf,lr to channel #1 rf, rr to channel#2 put it all in and it will sound good and you will be happy with your choices of equipment. Power output from the headunit is dirty power that gets high levels of distortion and clipping in the upper volume levels.

 

I think you made really good choices. The Alpine HU is really nice and the speakers that Infinity makes are good quality and have a nice clear sound

 

Yeah, and if they do run rear fill it's surround speakers most of the time.

 

rear fill certainly is not needed. to say "it's needed to have good imaging in some systems but not all," is incorrect. in fact, i can assure you that if you buy a nice set of components for about $400 (or more) and power them right, you most definitely won't be able to say that you need rear fill.

if you think you are going to achieve the same sound that 2 $400 components will offer by buying 2 cheaper components and then rear fill coaxials, then you are sadly mistaken, because car audio doesn't work that way. you get what you pay for. you want good sound, you buy the good stuff. you can't buy 5 mediocre parts and expect them to sound as good as the $400 components you should have bought.

don't take my advice though; go to a competition where stereos are ranked and see for yourself. come back and report how many non-surroundsound vehicles have rear fill. if you've ever listened to a system in an fbody with rear fill and then listened to a system without a rear fill (and with a strong front fill), you'll see the pointlessness. it's truly a waste of money.

those that say it isn't a waste of money and say it's necessary or that they "prefer" and "like" to have a rear fill probably don't have quality components up front nor have they probably ever heard a front stage only setup. if they have heard one, then they're just plain crazy

 

I'm not sure if you were directing that at me or the guys arguing for or against rear fill. I'm not going for a competition sound at all. I just want something clean sounding that isn't going to sound like **** (like the stock system).

 

all i will say is i run fronts only in the stock locations with the addition of some cdt image inhancement tweets in the apillars with a little time correction and it sounds extremely good.

also, if you bridge the fronts and the rears with the amp specified, and those specs listed at crutchfield are correct, you will be losing output. 70w/channel to the front alone will sound better than splitting 85w between the front and back. also, consider that at whatever level one set of speakers begins to distort might not be the same level that another will, so you may be handicapping yourself from tuning your system to its optimal level by running different front and rear speakers from the same power source.

but really, thats all nitpicky audiophile stuff... i'm pretty sure if you ran your fronts and rears off the amp it would still sound pretty nice.

 

i was just talking in general. you'll save more money and get better sound by spending more money on good front components ONLY as opposed to spending the same amount of money on front AND rear fill speakers together. there is more common sense than anything to that statement. i'm not even talking competition, but the competition comparison was used to generate an implication of, "oh, if the pro guys do it, then it must sound better," but apparently you are thinking this, "if the pro guys do it, i don't want to," which makes absolutely no sense.

 

No, I'm thinking that I don't really give a **** what the pro guys do, I just want to be able to hear my CD. The fact is that I am not going to install a component system, I am going to use a 3-way speaker that will fit in the stock location and sound okay.

 

which is the same as "if the pro guys do it, i don't want to."

do what you want dude, it's your car. we're telling you to do 2 components instead of 4 coaxials for many reasons, and the biggest of all is that we've experienced the coaxial thing before, and it was well worth it to skip that stage and do it right from the start.

i first did components without a sub - just 2 components up front, and those 2 cheapish components were powered decently, and they sounded better than the ENTIRE monsoon stock system. that sound would have never been possible with 4 coaxials because those components were built to sound better (most components are).

the best way to think of this is horsepower. you don't go buy 5 honda civics and expect to be faster than an Z28 ls1, do you? no! you buy an ls1 from the start to get the more speed, not 5 independent cars that individually can't stand up to the Z. the speakers work the same - you buy better speakers in fewer numbers and you get much better results.

but like i said, it's your car, so go ahead and do that which you want. i am offering advice and my own experience so that you can not make the same mistakes as i (and others) have done, not so you can get defensive for why you think you're right and i'm wrong

 

and btw, running a front stage via amplifier and a rear stage via deck is going to severely limit the volume level of the rear stage. you'll have to fade to the back to hear the rears all that much at all, and if you fade to the back, you'll *lose* power to the front (not literally, but you won't be playing them as loud as you could).