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Pure SQ upgrade....Looking for new sound

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docrock

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Anchorage Alaska
1st post here...

I have a 3/4 ton Dodge Truck, 2004.

Pioneer 8600 H/U...Blauplunkt components in front, MTX 5 1/4 in rear....MTX Thunder (202 maybe?) powering fronts (Blaus)....deck powers the rear fill...2 JLW3v3s under back seat powered by Eclipse XA2000 (latest upgrade).

After putting the new subs and Eclipse amp in, I am very interested in upgrading the main speakers and amp. I am a big fan of sound quality at home and most of my listening is to analog...on vinyl in the house.

I have a couple of choices narrowed down, but being in Alaska...no place to listen to most of my choices.

I am going to go with either the Mcintosh MCC404 amp (4x100) or the Zapco c2k4.0...looking for suggestions on other choices or opinions on these two.

The front speakers will either be CDT Audio ES620s or, Dynaudio 240GTs, or Focal 165K2s....none of which are available to listen to locally....back speakers will be a mid-lower end of front to match.

I have been chatting a bit with the guys at woofersetc. and they push the CDTs pretty hard...which is cool, IMO, if they are THAT good. Seems like the warranty is excellent...which may come in handy with the temperature extremes in Alaska.

SO.....to make a long story even longer...any suggestions, opinions, or concerns you can offer...I would appreciate it. I have dampened my doors (front and rear) with Road-Kill,....so I'm good to go with the exception of the firewall.

Any help...I would appreciate it....especially from owners of extended cab trucks that have had success with good sound.

Peace,

Jer

Click to read more...
 
Mac power and Dyn's would be pretty hard to pass up //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Although I'd skip the rear fill and bridge the amp to the front stage.

 
If you're sticking with the Dynaudio passives, get a 2-channel amp. The four channel would give you a little more flexibility in case you wanted to go active in the future, you wouldn't need to add a seperate amp.

 
Thanks Jim...good point.

Big Smooth...what made you leave? Shimek's is on it's way down...they're still carrying good stock in the car audio dept....Alpine, Diamond....but their HT gear has taken a beating from the Best Buy/Magnolia addition to town.

Never stopped by Safe and Sound...they are just down the road from me, maybe I will swing through tomorrw at lunch. I was under the impression that they are carrying the same gear as BB...MTX, Fosgate, Sony, etc.

 
Thanks Jim...good point.
Big Smooth...what made you leave? Shimek's is on it's way down...they're still carrying good stock in the car audio dept....Alpine, Diamond....but their HT gear has taken a beating from the Best Buy/Magnolia addition to town.

Never stopped by Safe and Sound...they are just down the road from me, maybe I will swing through tomorrw at lunch. I was under the impression that they are carrying the same gear as BB...MTX, Fosgate, Sony, etc.
Click to expand...

I was born and raised in Anchorage. When I was 18 I just packed up the car, left a note for my mom and drove down here. Worked out allright, but I do miss it sometimes.

Most of my purchases were with Shimeks back in the day. I ran Diamond Hex comps, 3 rockford subs, rockford HU, and rockford amps all from them. I was thinking of the wrong place with safe and sound although they used to carry some good stuff also. They had kicker, soundstream, phoenix gold, and Esoteric. If you've been around long enough you know that those brands used to kick ass back in the '90's. There was a place over by the movie theater on Fireweed, Pyramid, I believe that carried PPI, Eclipse, McIntosh, JL Audio. Never cared much for the service there, but they carried some pretty high end stuff. Perfectionist carried Image Dynamics. There was another place by Fireweed also that carried Nakamichi, Dynaudio, Oz Audio. I have no idea if half these places are still around or even carry these brands anymore, but trust me you don't have it as bad as you think. There's nothing down here unless I drive all the way to Philadelphia.

 
....been here 25 years...moved to AK when I was 10, the 90's were my high school days and I, too, bought a load from Shimeks...mostly Alpine.

Yep...Pyramid Audio it is, still there, just bought by a new owner. Eclipse, JL, and Sony these days...the Mac gear is gone. A couple little operations have popped up in the last decade with pretty good service and knowledgable installers but limited selection.

Good to hear that our selection is good...just seems like it's limited to high db car audio...and limited on the sound quality....and woofersetc represents everything. But that of course is LA. Maybe I should take my son down to Disneyland and do some critical listening....

Peace

 
SPL is definitely the crowd favorite. Much easier to find a store with a $500 subwoofer than it is to find one with a $500 comp set for some reason. I just stopped at the one and only local shop near me to pick up my memphis belle this afternoon and I wanted to audition some speakers. The highest end set they had on the board was like $200. I graduated from Service High in 2000.

 
if you decide to go with zapco get the zapco dc reference 1000.4 i talked to the zapco people and they said its basically better then the 4.0 people say different but the dc reference is cheaper also. I myself was going to get the 4.0 but i was told by lots of zapco members/even robert at zapco says its better.

1st post here...
I have a 3/4 ton Dodge Truck, 2004.

Pioneer 8600 H/U...Blauplunkt components in front, MTX 5 1/4 in rear....MTX Thunder (202 maybe?) powering fronts (Blaus)....deck powers the rear fill...2 JLW3v3s under back seat powered by Eclipse XA2000 (latest upgrade).

After putting the new subs and Eclipse amp in, I am very interested in upgrading the main speakers and amp. I am a big fan of sound quality at home and most of my listening is to analog...on vinyl in the house.

I have a couple of choices narrowed down, but being in Alaska...no place to listen to most of my choices.

I am going to go with either the Mcintosh MCC404 amp (4x100) or the Zapco c2k4.0...looking for suggestions on other choices or opinions on these two.

The front speakers will either be CDT Audio ES620s or, Dynaudio 240GTs, or Focal 165K2s....none of which are available to listen to locally....back speakers will be a mid-lower end of front to match.

I have been chatting a bit with the guys at woofersetc. and they push the CDTs pretty hard...which is cool, IMO, if they are THAT good. Seems like the warranty is excellent...which may come in handy with the temperature extremes in Alaska.

SO.....to make a long story even longer...any suggestions, opinions, or concerns you can offer...I would appreciate it. I have dampened my doors (front and rear) with Road-Kill,....so I'm good to go with the exception of the firewall.

Any help...I would appreciate it....especially from owners of extended cab trucks that have had success with good sound.

Peace,

Jer
Click to expand...
 
Dont spend a significant portion of your money on amplifiers, because they contribute little to sound quality. As long as they provide the necessary power, they will suffice.

I would recommend ditching the rear stage (screws up imaging and diverts funds from front stage) and spending your funds on going active:D Usher 8945P + Peerless HDS 1" tweeter with a crossover point at 1500hz would be an incredible setup:D

 
I have a 3/4 ton Dodge Truck, 2004.

Any help...I would appreciate it....especially from owners of extended cab trucks that have had success with good sound.

Peace,

Jer
Click to expand...
Look at what Steve did with his Dodge (for ideas) http://audionutz.pyropoptrt.com/page/13/Big_Meat_Pix. Don't expect to throw in some high-end speakers and get a good soundstage.

BTW you also want to look at dampening the floor and top of the cab.

 
Thanks guys...some good ideas.

Blaze...that link for Steve's truck is insane. I am rethinking this entire deal because of that...money better spent modifying some of the unused space and sound dampening vs. higher end electronics.

Unfortunately, with a 2 year old and 50 hour a week job, I don't have the time to go that in depth...but I am going to pass that link to a couple of local installers to get their take and gauge their experience and confidence doing such mods to the interior cabin.

F'ing sweet.

Jer

 
i would say go with the newer line of ES components, than the ones woofersetc.com has on special. I've listened to the old ES and while they had very good delicate detail in the midrange it lacked the midbass. i would hold out until the new ES-06 and ES-06+ come out. You can try the new ES-02 or HD-2 driver which my dealer just got and those are some serious looking drivers. Check your PMs.

 
I'm with Thadman. Sure they're nice amps, but they do little for the end sound compared to speakers, tuning, and install. I have a hard time spending more than $100 on any amp, lol.

The speaker choice will really depend on the type of sound you want to get as well as any physical constraints and output requirements. You listed a large variety of speakers with very different sounds. We could help narrow down your choices if we only knew what kind of sound you're looking to get out of them.

Tonality:

Warm - focus on lower frequencies, generally smoother, fuller, richer, darker presence.

Neutral - natural, flat, sometimes can come across sterile or a bit lifeless, generally the most realistic, uncolored, flat frequency response, no focus anywhere.

Bright - focus on higher frequencies, generally sharper, crisper, more bite, in your face sound, sometimes a lively, upbeat presence.

Detail:

Smooth - softer, velvety sound, pleasant easy going, non-fatiguing, generally associated with a warmer tonality.

Crisp - sharp detail, crisp, bite, neutral and bright can be crisp, highs can come across as harsh and fatiging.

The Usher + Peerless options is quite good, but it depends on if you want to run a component setup with passive crossovers or if you want to run active and open yourself up to mixing and matching raw drivers.

 
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docrock

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