+1 on what FJF mentioned...the rear fills are not ideal if you are a purist for sound quality and imaging. on my setup, i'm not running any rear fills...everything is upfront, even my sub. the end result is a defined soundstage that appears to emanate from my hood. i suggest that you guys give it a try, too. try to fade all the way to the front and compare the sound.

 

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Id definitely upgrade the headunit first. An aftermarket one usually provides a built in amp to all 4 speakers.

 

i have a similar setup ,i have an alpine head unit, bayma doors & rear speakers, 1 l7 kicker 12' sub with a kicker 5ch amp and i luv the way it sounds.

 

ur not going to any sq comps, id get a JL 5 channel and a sub in the back and call it a day

 

uh yeah

 

1. Why a JL amp, specifically?
2. Exactly, which JL 5-channel and why?
3. Which sub (ie. driver), which enclosure, and why?
4. How should the system be installed and tuned in an Evo to sound better than stock, not just louder?
5. How should the sub be tuned just to be audible at speed in an Evo?

I look forward to a more involved explanation.

 

No amp...you gotta save weight man haha but yes it will sound better for sure...go alpine or kenwood

 

1honestly there isnt that wide of a variety of manufaturers that produce 5 channel amps anymore, at least brands that i prefer to work with, which is an opinion. jl also has a pretty good track record for consistant clean power. and are good about warrenty.
2 id get an older one cause the newer ones are a bit pricy, but a 5 channel works great if you need alot of power for a subwoofer and also u get great power for your top end.
3 if u want loud, then id go w a ported enclosure, if u want quality sealed boxes are preffered. if u want tight bass id go with a smaller woofer, if u want lower deeper tones go a little bigger. these dont always apply however.. the box design can really make or break it, if ud like to be adventurous id build ur own w a aero port (big tube used as a port) that way u can adjust the frequency easily without changing the box. i have 2 eight inch w7s in my trunk that sound really nice w the stock speakers. jls normally sound pretty good in either style box as they are oriented around sound quality, but dont get me wrong they can pack quite the punch w adiquite power and box. in the end its up to you
4 to make it sound better all aspects come into play. sufficient power to the speakers, the speakers you choose can make a diffrence also, but imo the stocker infinities can sound pretty good. i would pick a good deck that has a high pre-out voltage, i like the kenwood decks, they have a wide variety of settings for you to tweak your system.
5 with proper power to your speakers and sub you shouldnt have a problem hearing your system.

good luck

 

JL makes fine consumer gear, but they hardly represent the pinnacle of performance. If, by "older," you're referring to the slash series, then they're certainly fine amps, if lacking overall resolution. There are plenty of good amps on the market, many of which fit the space constraints in an Evo with more success. A 5-channel simply isn't necessary, as there's no need for rear speakers.

Whoa, hold on a minute. You're discussing driver/enclosure alignment as if it's a universally transitive property. It's just a bunch of buzz words loosely strung together with no defined meaning.

I asked how a system should be tuned in an Evo. I don't think you understand what that means. That, in itself, speaks volumes.

<sigh> I asked how a sub should be tuned, in order to be audible in an Evo at speed. Clearly, you have no idea what's involved when a very loud car generates prodigious amounts of low-frequency energy of its own.

I asked you these questions, because you jumped into the middle of a thread with a completely nonsensical statement. I'm guessing that you were hoping to raise your post count, but I hate to be that cynical. It should be obvious that you know very little about audio. That's fine. No one is born an expert. In the future, it may serve the forum best, if specific suggestions stemmed from a base of knowledge and experience.

 

well in all honesty he is not competing, so i dont think he needs an expert. and to be honest my background is spl events. im not an sq expert, but if u want a track record i can provide one...

 

and if by tuning u mean where to have speakers, i agree that front staging is best and that he does not need the rears. but i didnt know if he actually wanted to take them out or not. its his car. just our opinions. and i also agree with you that a 5 channel is not the best route if.. if he does remove the rears and sticks to front staging only.

 

This isn't about SQ vs SPL; it's basic audio. Competing is irrelevant. It's about the act of listening to music with the desire to get the best sound possible out of the gear and its environment.

In an Evo, most folks choose to use the factory positions. This isn't to say that speaker positioning isn't crucial. Due to the extreme (audio-wise) environment presented by the car, one has two options. Either, get lucky with a speaker whose personality, if you will, meshes with the environment - not likely - or use T/A, PEQ, and an active config to dial-in the sound. The difference can be night an day.

There's no reason to have the rears, period, unless one's desire hinges on amplitude over basic musicality. Staging is a small part of it. It's the cancellation/reinforcement and smearing that reduces clarity and the overall sense of realism and resolution.

 

or use T/A, PEQ, and an active config to dial-in the sound.

im not familiar with this, would u elaborate please. and ur right it has nothing to do w competing, and that was kind of my point. that many would be happy with anything over stock sound and i didnt think he was asking for such in debth guidance. thats all i was getting at.

 

T/A (Time Alignment) - Properly configured, it lets the sound from all the drivers arrive at the listener's ears at the same time. It centers the stage, adds to the clarity of the system, and it impacts its tonal balance albeit in a smaller sense.

PEQ (Parametric Equalizer) - <grin> Choose the frequency to tweak and twist the knob. That's pretty much all it boils down to. It's a user-configurable eq.

An active config - As you know, speaker systems come packaged with crossovers. This concepts eliminates the included, passive (ie. non-powered) crossover in lieu of using an active (ie. powered) unit. Almost all DSP-driven decks include such facilities. By using an active crossover, two things happen. One adds to the transparency and resolution of the system, and he can choose his own crossover points, relative to the environment and the system.

If all this sounds like a giant PITA, I'm not going to lie, it can be unless it's something of personal interest. It's much easier to deaden and seal the doors, stay with the stock speakers, get a good small amp and a decent HU.

Fair enough.