Descent Car Audio, Does it exist in North America?
 

Hi guys,

I recently moved to Canada, from South Africa. I own a 1993 Mercedes-Benz 190E, which had once upon a time an amazing Dolby Digital setup of 6 speakers. 2 on the dash, 2 in the doors, and 2 on the rear deck. I got the car with almost all the speakers burnt out. And I need car audio!!!

I come from a land, of Alpine, MTX, Kicker, Sony, Rockford Fosgate, MB Quartz.
I don't know too many places in Ottawa, but i've been to BestBuy and Futureshop and its just covered in mainstream crap, half of which i've never even heard of before, like Infinity, Phoenix, Diamond, Clarion etc...
Anyways I was optimistic so I thought maybe this is all elite north american stuff. So i asked the guy at the store to play some of his Coax components. He went and switched in a pair of Infinity 6.5Inch coax, that cost phewwwwwww $400+ It was probably the cheapest, low budget, no sensitivity, most pathetic frequency response, set of 6.5s i'v ever heard. The whole thing sounded like the thing was out of phase even.... Made the $60 pioneer's look elite. I just kept quiet and walked out.

I want to start of modest with this car, cos I dont know how long i'm gonna keep it for.

I'm looking for a pair of MTX TXC 5.1 Components, a Sony amp (cant afford anything more than that at the moment) and a double din deck with usb support.

Anyone know where I can get this stuff from?

The big box stores of Canada (and the US for that matter), cater to the masses that are after pricepoint equipment for the most part. As such they carry the brands that move to the masses and not the equipment for the rest. Nothing wrong with that at all, they have their place. To me it sounds like you are looking for a car audio specialty shop that will order or find the equipment best suited to your application. If I can help you out further, pm me.

thanks I appreciate that.

Buying car audio by spec alone is really difficult. It might be alright for a head unit. But for amps and speakers, you have to listen to it. So i really hope there are car audio specialty shops around town.

just click on the right of the screen, there are a bunch of active vendors here on this site

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I would look in the phone book I am sure there are multiple stereo shops in Ottawa, I don't know what they would be listed under in the yellow pages but look through for car stereo or electronics - car audio or something there will be some in there. As far as the brands you listed those are all available in Canada, you shouldn't have a hard time finding them in Ottawa you just gotta not go to Futureshop/Bestbuy they only stock low end and charge alot for it

http://www.shamuscustomz.com/

they look promising, but they are really far away....still looking.

for the most part, Infinity, Phoenix, Diamond and Clarion are pretty decent brands.

we have a couple pretty nice shops in brockville only 45 mins souh of ottawa and the one is and alpine dealer

I would say Diamond is descent...I really think infinity is very over rated, Phoenix is alright but they ahve gone downhill in recent years. Clarion has and still is pretty entrylevel gear

you're in ottawa, they're in ottawa. how is that far away?

also, check out derand in ottawa http://www.derand.com/

shamuz is 30km away (i live in the center of ottawa).

I still think that Infinity is crap.
Clarion is something i havent heard, but just from the build quality of the decks i've seen, they look really .

What do you guys think of this http://www.eclipse-web.com/avn/avn2210poverviews.html

looks fancy, get ready to fork out your whole paycheck on one

thats a pretty sweet head unit. look into Exile audio. subs work great :)

$360 fits nicely into my budget.

they're only $360? hmm

I'd rather run a stock system than something from Derand ;)

... he could try Langlois though.. they're on McArthur...

I just purchased the Infinity 6022i 6½in at Future Shop.
A total waste of money. I was trying to better my wife's stock system in her Santa Fe and they are just as horrible as the originals.

Why then are all the manufacturers using Infinity systems ????

While talking with the installer, he said that the original unit from Hyundai was a Clarion and to avoid it at all cost.

20 years ago, Clarion was on top, beside Blaupunk, Alpine, Telefunken and some odd exotic brands. Pioneer was absolute crap. Bose was also on top of the game but I hear they are no good anymore.

See how things change?

Best Buy carries Diamond????

They're a straight shot down Bank St. (about 10 minutes from centertown). There are several others in Ottawa but you will have to drive more than 10 minutes to any of them. Are you considering installing yourself? The vendors on this site often have great deals.

I don't think it's a good idea to discredit all of Clarion's gear:

Clarion U.S.A. | DRZ9255

Sure Hyundai's come factory with Clarion HU and they're not all that great, but it was a deck geared for masses coming from the factory. Many factory radios were made by Pioneer, Clarion, Fujitsu Ten (Eclipse), Alpine... etc... doesn't mean all those brands are now junk because they supply to automotive manufacturers.

..umm profit? name recognition (sell your name for money (i.e. Honeywell, Mark Levinson, Infinity, and so on)).. remember not to long ago Mercedes was extolling the new quality of their Chrysler products thanks to MB content (ironic on many levels since MB is currently selling crap)

Not quite so clear cut! Things do change though, and quality can be up and down over a 3 month period or over several years. In the 70's you could tell who had Pioneer cassette players by the trail of unraveled magnetic tape and cassettes thrown out the windows... in the 90's Pioneer decks operations were unfathomable... now they are made in China (I think) and they are a product I would own up until a year ago but their features are now worthless (IMO) but their quality is still decent.
I think you could have a similar paragraph on quality control and Alpine, Eclipse, Clarion, Soundstream and others.

Clarion is pretty good sounding stuff but like everyone else they outsource a lot of production and certain countries are noted for unwanted product substitution (i.e. melamine in milk).

too broad of a generalization. All these companies have different levels of equipment to match consumer demand. Believe it or not, not everyone gives a rat's ass about imaging, sound stage, and perceived tonality that's "just like live music". Most just want clear sound that's better than the typical oem gear. To say that Clarion, Pioneer, or others all make crap is incorrect. Clarion's top of the line equipment is very good, as is Pioneer's, Alpine's, and many others. I can guarantee you that many of these company's top of the line stuff would sound better, play louder, and last longer than many so called high end brand's low end equipment. I've owned Focal and Morel low end, and they were no more impressive than mid range lines of pop brands. infinity Perfect, JBL GTI, Alpine X series, Pioneer PRS, and Clarion's DRZ decks have always been considered high end units, and rightly so.

Just out of curiosity, which car did you replace the speakers in. It's very possible that you replaced a speaker in a vehicle that has very specific impedance, and may be highly equalized. In addition, the 6022i is basically Infinity's bottom of the line coaxial offering, which I've used with a lot of success when properly installed and amplified in a new system...not added to an oem set up. I can tell you that i've not heard any "normal" oem speaker that can handle the power, or sound as clean as that speaker, so i believe you just didn't have it set up properly or just added it to an already poor system.

I installed the speakers in a 2007 Santa Fe, changed the four door speakers.
I started out with all original. Sounded like absolute crap. No kidding!
I then had the choice of starting with changing the speakers or the head unit. Cheapest and easiest was the speakers. And unfortunately, Future Shop are the only ones in my are that have a listening board.

Knowing that it was virtually useless to spend time in their "listening room" with their amp, their HU, their wiring and their cubic space I took the gamble and the Infinity sounded the "least worst" for the money.

However, once installed, if the originals sounded 1 out of 10, the Infinity sounded no better than 2 out of 10.

So to plan #2 we go.
I hooked-up with Rob (MR2NR) who managed to convince me into spending a whole whack more than I was planning on, but I should endup with a perty nice setup with an Eclipse NAV6220, Pioneer's Premium sub and MB amp.

So far, I'll say that at least the shopping experience is very pleasant. He keeps adding on without charging for it. What more could I ask ?? You know when do business and you just got that feeling of being at ease and trust the salesman ? That's how I feel right now.

Anyway, back to the audio, with a good head unit, I will be in a better position to evaluate my Infinity's. I plan on taking a few pics and sharing the install with the group, since I didn't find anything similar on the web concerning a Santa Fe.

So phase 1 was the front stage;
Phase 2 will be the Head Unit;
phase 3 = subwoofer (same time as the HU);
phase 4, if I decide do go further, will be to change again the front door speakers.

wish me luck !

good luck...I'm sure the Infinitys will sound much better now. Ofcourse, there are much better speakers available, but at that price point...not many.

Costly gamble but if the Infinity's don't do the work, I could always put them in mom's car and pretend they are the best and become her favourite's son :-)


(She doesn't know the first thing about sound and only have 1 son. Win-win situation hey !?!)

You should have started with the head unit, if your source is SH#T you will have nothing but SH#T sound, no mater how good your speakers are, period.!!

True enough, and that was also my own mindset, but I was counselled otherwise.
Bah, the end result should be pretty good good anyhow !

I think you should always start with the weakest link. Electrically speaking the factory electronics are pretty good. They sometimes lack features we like but for the most part the noise and distortion levels are better than acceptable. Speakers account for the vast majority of distortion and so in most cars that would be the place to start. In many cases it affords splitting the frequency spectrum to multiple drivers better equiped to handle each portion of it.

In my case I think it just highlighted how miserable the head unit was. :-(

Is Infinity not made by Harmon Kardon? I only have their subs and so far.... Best subs I ever owned. Granted I am not into this as much as others and only have an entry level system but... That's all I need.

The following are SOME of the product lines owned by Harman Intl:
Mark Levinson
Revel
JBL
Infinity
DBX
Crown
Lexicon
Becker

edit: I forgot Harman Kardon :)

I agree with kevmurray.

The problem with upgrading only the speakers is you are not getting anymore power. In both cases upgrading only the deck or only the speakers will often have negligible benefits.

If you get new speakers, you need to AMP EM! :)

I hope that once I got the Eclipse AVN6620 installed, I should have enough juice to drive the speakers. I don't listen to it that loud.

When I installed my actual Kenwood HU in my Caravan, I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised to realise that the stock speakers sounded pretty decent and the power, other than the odd time I was playing silly, had enough power. Didn't need to amplify them.

I'll keep you informed.

Even if you don't listen to it load, the HU's amp is still no comparison to a dedicated amp - the HU has a single chip transistor to power all four channels, and you really can't expect good quality from that - even from Eclipse.

Even a simple after market 25wrms x 2 amp will sound better than a HU (but I don't know if any company makes an amp that small - except for severely underrated amps that might like to rate their amps like this: 25x2 @ 8 ohms with 10 volts . . . )

awwwhhhh why do you guys keep complicating my life !
Now I'm just gonna second guess my setup !