VZ audio
Ok, read several threads on all of this but one thing escapes me: what is the major cause of the blunt/muddy sound the audio system is producing?
Is it mainly the speakers or the quality of the h/unit's amp? It's probably both but as I'd like to take one thing at the time in upgrading the system, I'm wondering what should happen first. Thanks
P.S. I'm aware of low output mod
Last edited by shrapnel; 08-02-2006 at 10:48 AM.
Well i've replaced all the speakers in my vz, and i gotta say mate... the quality of the factory speakers was quite poor! On the rear of the cheap paper cones is printed "15W Made in Korea". So i think that speaks for its self. And as for the head unit, i can't imagine they would be the greatest of quality keeping in mind each head unit cost about 20 bucks to manufacture.
Drive it
Like ya stole it!
Thanks. Any recommendation as to replacements? Front/rear doors?Originally Posted by jaisvz
Pioneer
I replaced my head unit first, which instantly made the sound a lot better quality. I amped a set of Pioneer REV 6x9's in the parcel tray which gave a little bit of rear thump. Then i replaced the rear door speakers with pioneer 6" coaxials and just ran them with the factory wiring. And just yesterday i replaced the front splits with the Pioneer REV series splits. I ran all new speaker wire into the front doors which wasn't the easiest of tasks to get the wire through the rubber grommet tubes connecting the body to the doors. But as a result, the finishing product is loud sharp and crystal clear sound quality that i can enjoy all damn day! All i am waiting for now is the construction of a custom dual 12" sub box to house my Pioneer subs to get a bit of junk in the trunk.
Drive it
Like ya stole it!
Jaycar system
I have just replaced the front splits with 6.5s, added some 6x9s on the back shelf and I have left the standard speakers in the back doors (because I can't be bothered to take them out).
The fronts and rears are driven by a 4x50 Watt amp. The signal is supplied by one of Phreddys 4 channel RCA out kits.
All the speakers and the amp are from Jaycar, for the price they the best thing I have heard. Unfortunatly I don't think that you can judge the speakers on the board in the shop, so you need to either hear them in a car or take the advice of others. 12Volt King and Phreddy have both suggested Jaycar products and they were 100% out of 100 (appologies to Fatty Vautin).
There is better stuff out there, but not for this price IMHO.
My 2c worth. Steve
Update
I went the other way round-- this afternoon I've replaced the Korean paper speakers in the rear doors with Jaycar's Precision Response' coax 6.5" speakers. The difference in quality is quite noticeable, even though I still have the stock head unit in.
What I've noticed though when I disassembled the door panel is that the paper speaker had no crossover to drive the integrated tweeter. Quite bodgy, no wonder it sounds so bad.
Next weekend -- the front splits, again with Jaycar's gear, but first:
Q1: how do you get to the tweeter located near the windscreen, are you able to lift up the plastic cover/grille from the top or do I have to disassemble the dash by getting to it from the bottom.
Q2: Where are the stock crossovers located for the stock front splits, as I'll need to replace them with Jaycar's instead?
Any info is appreciated.
A1: leave the stock tweeters in there because there is no need to remove them due to the fact you cant fit the jaycar tweeters in there anyway.
A2:the "stock" x-over is just a capacitor on the back of the stock tweeter. just mount the jaycar x-overs under the dash or in the glovebox.
i can show you a few pics of where i have mounted everything in my car if you want.
and also make that 3 people who have recommended jaycar. (jaycar 4x130 to a set of nak splits and alpine splits and the 400Wrms monoblock running a CV 400Wrms sub -sounds good)
Not a valid input....
huh? how did you figure that one out?
You put you left foot in, your put your right foot in , you take your left foot out and you slide it all about!
hang on... so ts possible to fit aftermarket tweeters in the stock locations(eg undernieth the pastic vent covers on the dash)?
but really unless they tweeters are resonable for off axis us then then will sound worse than if mounted directly firing towards you. yes?
Got JL VR600 series 6 inch splits in a 2005 vz ute... tweaters are mounted on the original bracket under "vented" facia, are smaller in all dimensions and are directed straight out the vents... no dramas with high end sound even when ya tone them own -3db via the crossover, awesome sound for where the systems at right now. powering it is a 6 stacker blaupunkt factory head unit set on Rock eq with no additional boost!
ok i think i have stuck my nose in something i assumed would be the same as a vr-vx...
so are these vents in the same place as a V_ series car?
must be a shit (not saying its the worst) place for the imaging.
Tweeters in V series commodores.....
Hey there Garfa, I have been installing tweeters in these models of cars for quite some time now....and i have never come across a set of tweeters that would not fit under the vents just below the windscreen...
I found that the best place for tweeters as far as imaging was concerned was to mount them on the A pillar close to the windscreen pointing slightly towards the windscreen, as to how far to point them is a matter of trial and error, depending on the tweeters frequency dispersion....although mounting them in this way doesnt look the best unless you do alot of custom work to integrate them with the interior.
yes i gathered i stuffed up but i still think that for most tweeters it would be a less than ideal place, under the vent that is.
VQXTC, how 'bout sharing that knowledge with me in relation to my question #1?Hey there Garfa, I have been installing tweeters in these models of cars for quite some time now....and i have never come across a set of tweeters that would not fit under the vents just below the windscreen...
I found that the best place for tweeters as far as imaging was concerned was to mount them on the A pillar close to the windscreen pointing slightly towards the windscreen, as to how far to point them is a matter of trial and error, depending on the tweeters frequency dispersion....although mounting them in this way doesnt look the best unless you do alot of custom work to integrate them with the interior.
there should be some screws there in the vents? and a clip or 2?
to access "vent" area to modify/install tweeters.
1 if youre say working on the driver side drop the fuse box area (passenger - glovebox)to access 2 screws (all phillips head) holding the side vented trim that sits between the door and the dash unscrew those along with the remaining 3rd screw inside the vent itself and remove trim.
2 with the side vented trim removed you will see toward the top of the dash a screw to remove that retains the top vented trim.
3 with that removed u will notice it will resist comming apart... very cautiously but firmly pry upward the trim - holding it underneith is 4 sprung clips, be very careful not to damage these.
4 you will then see the tweeter 1 phillips head screw to undo that is holding the bracket to the dash with that removed you slightly slide outward along with unclip the plug for removal.
i mounted my tweeters to the bracket once i removed the oem tweeter and ran new cable from that to the crossover.
with the tweeter wired up and installed.... step back thru the steps given n u should be laughin.
please note with the top trim carefully to locate all 4 clips and firmly press into place
VQXTC, how 'bout sharing that knowledge with me in relation to my question #1?
Hey there shrapnel, Ok depending on your financial situation and the sort of sound that your after, i would upgrade the speakers first if money is tight a good set of splits 6", or if you still wanted some bass in the front then a good quality set of 6" coaxials, i have used and recommend MTX 3 way coaxials especially off an amp they sound sweet
Lets work as a TEAM and do it MY WAY!!
Hey there shrapnel, Ok depending on your financial situation and the sort of sound that your after, i would upgrade the speakers first if money is tight a good set of splits 6", or if you still wanted some bass in the front then a good quality set of 6" coaxials, i have used and recommend MTX 3 way coaxials especially off an amp they sound sweet
Lets work as a TEAM and do it MY WAY!!
Well dont i feel silly nowI completely went to the top of the thread and anwered that question....(Mental note to self, need to read all responses not just the first one
) At least u will know what to do when u decide to upgrade the factory headunit....
Lets work as a TEAM and do it MY WAY!!
Excellent, thanks for this. I've looked in a few 'manuals' but none of them actually go through the process. Just in time for weekend! Thanks again.
Haha no problem. The fact is I've started with speakers as I'm still undecided about the head unit, leave it stock and get the phreddy's line-in + amp done or go with a new one, the new JVC KD-AVX2 is so tempting as I also need to buy an mp3 player as well and it wouldn't bother me burning mp3 DVDs... and if I could get a hold of the european version (plays DIVX)...Well dont i feel silly now
Lets work as a TEAM and do it MY WAY!!
Last edited by shrapnel; 26-05-2006 at 02:05 AM.
cold_carve, i had some spare time today to replace front tweeters and front door woofers with jaycar's. Thanks for your info, all worked out great.
BUT, I'm at the point of wiring the crossovers to the stock h/unit. How do you get the *cradle* for the h/u out? (I got the h/u out, no dramas). I presume you've wired the crossover's input to the outputs of the Blaupunkt h/unit but as you know it docks into special connectors in the cradle, so you must have removed the cradle and did the wiring behind it. Correct?
as for wiring the crossovers all i did was jus utilise the existing wiring under the dash. u shouldnt need to remove the cradle or anything else other than what u had to access the vented trim described in my writeup, if u feel u want more room to move u can remove the kickpanels - to do this properly it starts back at the "B" pillar unscrewing the sill trim cross the bottom of the door, firstly u have to make sure u have "tamper proof torx bits" cant remember the size, there is one at the "B" pillar 3 under the centre strip on the pannel... that removed a phillips head screw lives under it and remove that along with another phillips head screw on the side of the kick pannel.
as for the cradle no need to touch that unless u are considering rewiring the lot - in this case get phreddy's rca mod and wire in an amp!
wires.. simply trace back the woofer wiring from the door>gromet>under the dash extracting these 2 wires from the loom install the crossover inline with these wires make sure these are correct colour tracing before u cut them... the side commin from the HU use as the crossover input and side goin to the woofer install as the woofer keeping note of the polarity of the wires u cut... ADD new cable goin from the cross over to the tweeter on each side as the stock crossover wire is exactly the same HU output - wiring the new tweeters to this will result in crap sound production = damage to the tweeter
Thanks, I was about to start destroying the dash
So the signal going to the stock tweeters and stock woofers is exactly the same? I did notice the outputs on the head unit are only FL, FR, RL, RR, so I presume Holden splits the signal somewhere in the loom and feeds it to both the tweeter and woofer. Then the stock tweeter has a capacitor on the back of it to filter out bass. Correct so far? If that's the case, the easiest for my setup would then be, as I've run new wiring to the front door woofers (I left the stock wiring uncut), to get the h/u signal from the stock tweeter wiring, feed it into the inputs of the crossover, and from then on is obvious...
run new wiring or cut the exhisting and put the x-over inline and run new wires for the tweeters
Spot on Garfa, yeah i came cross the same mud puddle when i did my install, i thought there may have been a crossover but the only thing doin signal filtering on the stock system was the capacitor on the tweeter.
i had the woofer nutted out easy so all i needed to do was stick the crossover in between run the new wire for the tweeter to the crossover.
couldnt be a better thing, till i get money for the headunit mods - sorry phreddy its takin ages mate, slowly gettin money up for it tho!
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