[SupaSupraSE]

Im gettin ready to get into a new daily driver, and I figured now would be a great time to ask for some audio equipment for christmas.

Anyways, im audio-dumb and really don't know where to start. I definitely want to start with the head-unit, because i'm not sure if i'm buying it all at once or if i'll piece it together...

Anyways, heres my question. I've been thinking about one of those head units that have the pop out screens (5-7"?) but i dont know much about them. Do people only buy those with the intention of watching dvd's, or are those a good step in building a nice audio system? I would like to budget around $600 for a head unit. Brands, opinions?

Then next I suppose subwoofer/amp, etc...If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks guys!

 

[jonyb]

What's the car? If it's double-din, the Alpine W205 or Pioneer D3 are both good choices.

If it's single-din sized, then Alpine and Pioneer have several models depending on your budget.

 

[Anotherkidyouown]

If you like the pop out headunits then alpine is the way to go. I love pioneer but its way to expensive ($1200). If you want a flashy headunit the new pioneer premiers rock house. I even put some porno clips on mine :bigthumb: I had the 700 series i believe and they run about 300-400.......don't quote me on it.

As for subs/amps you can't go wrong with JL I've had my subs for 5 years now and they hit as hard as they day I bought them.

 

[Knight_MKIII]

If you can afford it, get an Eclipse headunit, few things to look for when shopping for head units, how many preamp outputs available (you typically want 3 for the best) this way you can connect multiple amps later on without sacrificing signal quality. also the voltage of the output, 4 volts and more is good, some eclipse units have 8v and some older ones 12v, alot of the cheap ones are only 2-2.5 v which is low. if you are set on a DVD player, make sure it plays DVD-+r, rw, divx if you choose,..etc

the screen resolution and contrast ratio is important as well, the higher the better of course.
also, system expandability, meaning Ipod connection, HD radio, bluetooth, XM, Sirius, Navigation, USB,..etc

lets see what else, frequency response of the headunit, any thing below 20hz is useless and anything above 20k is also useless, that's the range of human hearing so don't spend money on something that has higher than 20k or lower range than 20hz. some headunits have something called RDS (Radio Data System), if you ever noticed how BMW headunits display the song name, artist, traffic,..etc over FM radio, because they use RDS, very few after market headunits have RDS capability. also, cd signal to noise ratio, the higher the better, anything above 94db is generally good, some have 120 db even.

as far as the internal amplifier rate (20x4 or whatever it is) if you plan on expanding the system with external amps then you can ignore that spec completely since you will bypass it with something a lot better and stronger.

finally, the D/A (digital to analog) converter specs, burr brown makes things a lot better, generally 16-24 bits is the common now (for good units at least).
I know I am missing on few more things as well but if you need any help feel free to IM me if I am online and if you have few units you want to choose from post them here and I will see what I can do.

 

[SupaSupraSE]

Thanks a lot guys. NEW questions!

I decided I wanted to go with a single 10" JL audio CS11ORG-W3V3 4-ohm. Do you guys know if these are decent?

I checked out crutchfield, and the rms for the subwoofer is rated at (100-300rms)..
As far as a amplifier goes, I'm tryin to look for a cheap(er) one, so should be checking out amps that are rated at around 210-220, or should i be checking out the ones that are around 300-320? Can i find anything for under $300?

Thanks guys!

 

[sincal2jz]

from my experience...if you like your sound quality and video i suggest you get the pioneer avh-p5900dvd(best quality picture for the $$) and add on an audio control unit called the matrix(to drive your voltage up as high as 9 volts) i've just recently installed the same units with all jl audio products( 2-13w6-d4 , 1000/1 amp , 450/4 amp , 2 c5-650)in a 04 silverado ext cab.......one of the best sounding systems i've done/heard for under $4000.00

 

[sincal2jz]

Thanks a lot guys. NEW questions!

I decided I wanted to go with a single 10" JL audio CS11ORG-W3V3 4-ohm. Do you guys know if these are decent?

I checked out crutchfield, and the rms for the subwoofer is rated at (100-300rms)..
As far as a amplifier goes, I'm tryin to look for a cheap(er) one, so should be checking out amps that are rated at around 210-220, or should i be checking out the ones that are around 300-320? Can i find anything for under $300?

Thanks guys!

if crutchfield offers the 10w3v3-4 in a hot box thats what i'll get.....and if theres a
jl audio dealer or store that carrys jl audio i'll get it from them first before i go through crutchfield. "i sell jl audio for about $35 - $80 less then crutchfield and i mark my prices at suggested retial price,and also crutchfield just started carrying jl audio in oct. this year, so that means they have to bump up the prices to get their money ack"

 

[jonyb]

That 10W3 would be a good woofer. A good amp would be the JL 500/1 and you should be able to find it in your $300-$350 price range. I just bought a 500/1, 3 10W1's (new), and an older JL Audio tri-plate for $400 all from a friend locally.

 

[xbbsupra]

A 500/1 amp would be overkill. A 250/1 would suit your w3.

 

[jonyb]

I'd rather have more than enough power then to starve it for power. More power = less distortion, plus a 250/1 isn't that much cheaper.