infinity speakers-> any good?

[marco]

been thinking about improving my sound system for a while and took my door trim off today to start planning, only to find the previous owner had put in a set of infinity speakers! :Thumbsup! Are infinity any good,  I have my eye on a set of Focals (either components or co-axial depending on the amount of heartache to fit) but seeing how I have after market speakers already am I going to see any benefit?

Also apparently some models had little pockets instead of rear speakers, are these completely interchangeable with the rear speakers? anyone got any pics of them? I am going to be ditching mine and they might be a bit more useful than just leaving the grills in place.

Marco

[elford_tim]

It very much depends on which Infinity speakers you\'ve got in the car - the cheap ones are just that (a cheap budget upgrade for existing OEM speakers), the more expensive ones are quite decent for the money, but there\'s better stuff about.

The main problem I found/find with fitting FD door speakers - something I have to reattempt very soon - is that unless you severely modify the original mounting plates, you\'re stuck with 16cm speakers. I\'ve got a lovely set of 17" PHDs downstairs and another set of mounting plates but I need to vigorously attack the mounting plates with a Dremel before I can get the speakers in.

Also, keep in mind that if you want to re-use the stock mounts, even with the rears cut out, you\'re still don\'t have a lot of mounting depth so you need fairly \'flat\' mid-bass speakers.

[nick english]

i have infinity speakers allround but had to modify the front and resite the rears but find them ok as a mid price setup.

[marco]

the current ones look, well built to a price I guess, will probably replace them.  I noticed the problem with mounting as well, they are currently held in with wood screws!!!! nothing on these cars is easy! first step will be to get some sound deadening in the doors, they are a little \'rattly\' at the moment to say the least!

[nick english]

probably a good idea to replace fronts as i tend to fade mine more towards the rear as the fronts could do with high quality due to the design of the door/mounting and do not handle the power too well from the amp but cant fault my 6x9s in the boot

[marco]

as it stands the plan is to ditch the rears (dont use them anyway) sound deaden/ hunt and destroy the rattles in the door panels and repalce the fronts with some 13cm focal components (will have to be creative with tweeter positioning to hide them) then maybe consider getting an amp again will have to be creative about hiding it, just removed the AC heat exchanger under the glove compartment, wonder if one will fit in there...

[elford_tim]

Sounds like a good plan, although I\'d try to get 16cm components.

I\'ve currently got a set of JL Audio components with the tweeters mounted on the A-Pillar covers. Not very elegant but sounds reasonably well. I\'d be tempted to use (very) high quality Coax speakers instead in the door as this\'d make mounting a lot easier. There aren\'t many good places to put tweeters in the FD without screwing up the imaging (read - I\'m still looking...).

[marco]

I was wondering if i could hide them in the air vents for the blower in the door(or above the glove compartment on the passenger side) possibly have to lock the direction vanes in place on them but may work?

[elford_tim]

It may work, but the reasons I put them in the A-pillars are that there is too much dashboard in the way if you put them lower down. IMHO this is less of a problem if you set it up for the driver only, but if you\'re trying to come up with a reasonably sounding system for both driver and passenger, you either have to experiment with putting the tweeters on the stock speaker grilles or high up on the A-pillar.

[marco]

its MY car and I am driving, and any passenger should just be thankful I am giving them a lift!!!!!
 I can see your point, but surely once you are getting to the point of separating tweeters for better sound imaging then you can only really hit one \'sweet spot\' and that should be for the driver? the more I think about it, I am probably better off going for co-axial. I seem to be completely deaf to imaging (or i have never been able to set my hifi up right) and it is not as if the RX is a perfect platform for hi quality sound. Hopefully I can get better quality drivers for the same price point (thinking about 100 quid for a set). I expect decent sound deadening will make the biggest difference, been looking around and am thinking about some second skin \'sludge\' as it gets good reviews and any spare can be used elsewhere to try and reduce exhaust drone and road noise. Am still trying to decide if I need an amp, if if I do what to go for? What kind of price should I be looking at to match some 100quid speakers? I know for hifi they say split it equally but hifi speakers include cabinets, so would i be doing the speakers no favors with an 100 quid amp?

on a slightly related note, whilst looking i found this
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/xstatic-x800-p-3719.html?cadid=bd34eef2ea3140f63735efeb638cb453

which looks to be a bit of a bargain  for a small battery for relocation! smaller, lighter, cheaper and more cranking power than a redtop! Result!

[elford_tim]

I can see your point, but surely once you are getting to the point of separating tweeters for better sound imaging then you can only really hit one \'sweet spot\' and that should be for the driver?

That\'s not quite true - you can set up a system such that it sounds good from both seats but it requires some experimentation with speaker placements. Lots of info on the TalkAudio forums if you\'re interested. And that\'s with front speakers only - unless you use time alignment systems and other fun stuff, you\'re make sound staging worse with rear speakers.

the more I think about it, I am probably better off going for co-axial. I seem to be completely deaf to imaging (or i have never been able to set my hifi up right) and it is not as if the RX is a perfect platform for hi quality sound.

Well, you can make it sound decent without too much effort. Well, you don\'t have to rip it apart completely .

Hopefully I can get better quality drivers for the same price point (thinking about 100 quid for a set).

Caraudiodirect has some Boston Acoustics in 16cm & 17cm, they\'re a little bit above your budget (120) but they\'re supposedly really good speakers.

I expect decent sound deadening will make the biggest difference, been looking around and am thinking about some second skin \'sludge\' as it gets good reviews and any spare can be used elsewhere to try and reduce exhaust drone and road noise.

Sound deadening definitely makes a bit difference - I\'ve done the doors with Second Skin Damplifier (not the pro kit, which is heavier). The doors skins now vibrate a lot less and close with a satisfying clunk. I\'d say that sludge is probably a lot messier (and parts of the door on the FD are hard to get to anyway, so it\'ll be even more of a pain to apply than Damplifier. Also, in order to both reduce body vibrations and add noise insulation, it\'s supposedly better to combine something like Damplifier with a foam noise insulation sheet...

Am still trying to decide if I need an amp, if if I do what to go for? What kind of price should I be looking at to match some 100quid speakers? I know for hifi they say split it equally but hifi speakers include cabinets, so would i be doing the speakers no favors with an 100 quid amp?

Depends - you can get a decent amp for that kind of money, either used (I bought a Genesis 2x50W high-end amp for 100 quid delivered) or new - the JBL GTO 75s are supposed to be pretty good. I\'d definitely put in a good amp  as the built-in amps on headunits are not very good. The aforementioned Genesis amp improved sound quality considerably, even though it nominally isn\'t much more powerful than the head unit.

I\'m also considering to put in a small-ish sub - not powerfull enough to entertain the neighbourhood but simply to fill in the bass for the door speakers. I\'ve had good experience with 2x 6" subs in my CRX, maybe I\'ll just build a small enclosure for them and try again.

Getting good bass from door speakers alone is very hard unless your pretty much make the door airtight. Of course if you do, using mats like Damplifier, your central locking or electric windows will give up the ghose two days later .

[marco]

tim you are a bad bad man! introducing me to genesis amps means that
A. i have just bought a S/H profile 2 amp
B. I am going to have to increase my budget for this sounds system....
you got any idea how big these amps are? and chance of hiding it say under the passenger seat?
i now have to look for which focals I want, as far as i can tell 13cm is stock size, but can go up to 16 cm. either way it is going to have to require a bit of \'fettling\' bigger is always better so 16cms for me!

[elford_tim]

I have yet to see an amp that\'s small enough to fit under the seat - there\'s basically no space there. Also, the P2s have cooling fans so you want some air above them. The main difference to the Stereo 100 I have is that the P2 has a bigger footprint but isn\'t as tall - the ST100 is nearly twice the height.

The only fettleing of the speaker mounts I had to do to fit my 16cm JL Audios was to remove the \'rain cover\' to accomodate the bigger mounting depth of the JLs, so it\'s not that bad. Just make sure that you get speakers with a really  small mounting depth, otherwise you won\'t be able to put the windows down all the way...

[marco]

Right then seeing how I have finished my install (more or less) I thought I would put up what I did here for the sake of completeness. I ended up with a second hand genesis profile 2 off a well know internet auction site, that I put under the passenger seat (I have after market seats and bride seat rails, plenty of space underneath) the floor carpet there already has a cut in it for the seatbelt sensor thingy so with the tunnel trim and sill covers off the carpet can be lifted enough to thread all the cables to it. For speakers I got my hands on a set of slim line 16.5 focal components from Connor on fduk for a good price. The bass units were shallow enough to fit straight into the original hole, but the PCD for the fitting screws was bigger and required 4 of them. I ended up fitting my cowboy spurs and using long screws to locate the driver, with silicone gasket between the driver and the plastic baffle to provide a strong adhesion and make it airtight. Means that removing them would be tricky but I don\'t plan on doing that! for the tweeters I am still playing around with positioning, at the moment they are fitted behind the air vents, the one on the drivers side fits straight in behind the vents and then I ran the cables to a chocolate box connection I fixed on the inside of the door card so I can remove the door card when required. On the passenger side I had to remove the lateral vanes from the vent for the tweeter to fit, but it doesn\'t look out of place. The crossovers went behind the trim in the footwell so I can get to them pretty easily.

Finally R.E. sound deadening I got my hands on some second skin spectrum. It’s a thick self curing paste that you slap around where you want to stiffen panels. I stuck a couple of thick coats on the inside of the outer door skin, and although it took ages to cure (as it was cold and I put really thick coats on) once it did you could really tell the difference. On the inner skin I sealed up all the holes with aluminium tape with the option of slapping on some spectrum on it if required. Tbh I don\'t think I am going to bother as it sounds plenty good enough as it is. I also have a load of spectrum left (around 3/4 of the tub!) that I might try in different areas to reduce exhaust drone, but I don\'t want to add too much weight to the car if I can help it.

So all in all I have ended up with a totally stealth install that sounds comparable to my home set up. Very pleased indeed!

Marco