01 Honda Accord Recommendations

[Thrall 10+ year member]

Hello, so I'm in the last week or so of research into upgrading my car's audio and I was wondering if you guys preferred one over the other for the following components. I am going for SQ, not SPL, and listen from everything from Country to Dubstep. I'm open to recommendations, but keep in mind that they have to fit in a 2001 Accord 4Dr w/ 6 speakers. Thank you for your help!

Sub Amp:

Rockford Fosgate Prime R500-1

Kenwood KAC-8105D

4-Channel Amp

Rockford Fosgate Prime R300-4

Kenwood KAC-8405

Subwoofer (In a sealed 1.37 CF enclosure)

Rockford Fosgate P2D4-12

Kicker CompVR 07CVR122

6.5" Coaxial Speakers

Polk Audio db651s

Boston Acoustics SE65RC

6x9 Coaxial Speakers

Rockford Fosgate Punch P1692

Kicker KS69

Tweeters

Rockford Fosgate Punch P1T-S

Diamond Audio D3TAK

Click to read more...

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

see my build log for ideas. i've torn this car apart many times and everything is modified now.

http://forum.sounddomain.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/1369669/page/1/fpart/1

#1 - no coaxial speakers whatsoever. if you want SQ, coax are out. component speakers only and no rear tweeters, no door tweeters. look for a 6.5" components set for the front - woofer in the door, tweeter in the dash.

#2 - with a sub you don't need/want rear 6x9. rear 6x9 are for when you don't have a sub. you don't even need rear speakers in this car. if you do run rears, you want them to play between 400Hz - 4kHz only, and at a reduced volume such that they aren't noticeable. a 6.5" woofer can do that. i vote running rear speakers only after you've bought the best front components your budget can afford.

factory speakers are only 1.5" deep in front. i got a 2.5" deep speaker in there by making a 3/4" baffle with foam and several layers of deadener. i just got new midbass drivers for the front doors, and they'll require door panel modifications.

best thing you can do for the front speakers is deaden and seal up the front door. the midbass response is great once you do that, but quite sub par before that work is done. how good your car will sound is mostly determined by how much effort and attention to detail you put into the installation. my build log will give you everything you need to know for a successful system in this car. there are several iterations as well.

The speakers/amps you have listed are ok, but nothing i'd personally run. if your budget is tight - look in the classified here. you'll find a wide selection of nice gear at very low prices. Building a speaker baffle is pretty easy if you have the tools, and it will greatly expand the list of speakers that will fit.

 

[Thrall 10+ year member]

Wow, I'm not sure if I want to go as in-depth as your build was. It's my first time doing this so i'll probably just replace the speakers and not bother with the deadening. I'm just wondering--why is it a bad idea to have multiple tweeters and woofers? Is it that they'll all have a slightly different sound and mess with the overall SQ?

My budget is $500 (not counting wires, adapters, etc) from ebay or other grey market deals.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

multiple speakers playing the same information = multiple arrival times = phase interference = bad sound. sure, it's louder, but you get peaks and valleys that people call "harsh".

with the proper selection of equipment and proper installation - you don't need multiple drivers for high volume.

you'll have left and right (of course) but two tweeters, two woofers, and one sub can be as loud as you could want (given proper selection and install).

if you don't deaden, you'll have less bass response from the speakers. but make sure you have perfect seals. seals are crucial, and seals against the door panel are important as well. due to the holes in the door metal, the plastic door panel acts as the front of your "box".

 

[nauc 10+ year member]

i have a 99 Accord and this is what i did. the Oz mid is in the stock front door location. theres no rear speakers, i took the rear dash speakers out to vent the bass into the cabin. i also have a 7 band Clarion eq under my seat. its nothing fancy but it sounds really nice. whatever you do, if you run components upfront, mount the tweets above your knees, or your legs will block the sound and they wont sound very detailed

 

[zako 10+ year member]

I am highly critical of running a coaxial speaker AND tweeters. You end up with twice as many tweeters in your car as you need. You end up with crappy frequency response with peaky highs, phase issues, and lousy sound stage and imaging. I suggest to buy a proper set of component speakers with a separate tweeter and a (tweeter-less) woofer. In terms of what brands to buy, I think it depends on your budget, but if its under $200 for components, I would say it is hard to beat Polk Audio MM and Morel Maximo. Both have excellent reviews. Morels can be picked for as little as $120 right now which is a heck of a deal. My hands are itching to buy it even though right now I have perfectly acceptable Alpine Type-Rs in front. On ~300 budget, I'd look at Massive Audio CK6 Stage V or higher grade Morels.

Now onto the subwoofer. I just installed an Infinity Kappa 120.9w sub in my car two weeks ago, and by now I can see that it sounds awesome. This is a pure SQ subwoofer with superstiff cone and low inductance. Put it into a 1 to 1.3 cu ft sealed box, and it will produce plenty of bass in a midsized car. 300-400watts RMS would be plenty. The result is very tight, transparent, and well controlled bass. Very good integration with front midbass. You can almost "see" the texture of bass notes throughout the whole frequency range, whereas with other subs in this price range you often end up with less defined, kind of washed out bass notes. I am upgrading from RE Audio SRX and the difference is in your face, very apparent. I never quite achieved the level of integration with the front stage with the RE sub. It did take a couple of weeks of breaking in and tweaking to get to this point. Right now, I have Kappa setup with 70Hz @18dB crossovers, but this sub is so transparant and low distortion, I could run it with crossover as high as 160Hz with no problems whatsover, except that it does get too punchy on some tracks in this mode.

You can put any speakers in the rear, but ideally they should be turned off or way down unless you're entertaining passengers.

 

[Thrall 10+ year member]

I guess what I'm worried about is the people in the back seat not being able to hear the music well. I mostly drive alone, but I'd be willing to sacrifice a little sound quality up front in order to get a lot more in the back. If I were going to go with a comportment set can you guys provide links to some that would fit? I having trouble find too many myself, and the best ones that I could find off Crutchfield were some Boston Acoustics SR60's that may be too thick for my car door. Thanks again or your help!

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

With proper tweeter placement, rear passengers will hear plenty of music from the front. having a speaker behind your head isn't ideal or enjoyable anyway. Very few vehicles have the possibility of great sounding rear seats, and they are vans or SUV's. focus on the front seats.

You can gain some depth and decoupling with 3/4" closed cell weatherstripping.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

What will fit depends on what you are willing to do to the door to gain depth. Front speakers are not direct bolt-in. You need to do some work to maintain factory-type seals. Sealing against the plastic door panel is crucial. If you had a thin mount speaker, you'd have to add material to the front. Might as well add material to the back to gain depth. Less than 2-1/2" of depth is doable without door panel modifications. 2-1/4" or less is easier.

What can you afford to spend?

 

[Thrall 10+ year member]

I have a budget of about $400-500 grey market for the whole car. Currently the components I have that I can re-use from another car are a Profile California CA650 4-channel amp (75w rms @ 4o x 4), Kenwood KAC-7201 2-Channel amp (150w rms @ 4o x 2), and some JBL T595 6x9 Speakers (if their huge 4.6" mounting depth will even fit).

Originally I was thinking that I go with this setup:

Sub Amp: Kenwood KAC-7201

Enclosure: Blaupunkt Sealed 12 w/ 1.37 CF

Sub: Rockford P2D4-12

6.5" Coax: Polk Audio db651s

6x9 Coax: JL T595

Tweeters: Infinity Kappa 10.9T

Mid Amp: Profile California 650

Head Unit: Stock

But after all the help you've given me I'm thinking more along the lines of this setup:

Sub Amp: Rockford R500-1

Enclosure: Blaupunkt Sealed 12 w/ 1.37 CF

Sub: Infinity Kappa 120.9w

6.5 Component: Boston Acoustics SR60

Mid Amp: Kenwood KAC-7201

 

[>>SQL<< 10+ year member]

I think this would be the better way

Sub Amp: Rockford R500-1

Enclosure: Blaupunkt Sealed 12 w/ 1.37 CF

Sub: Infinity Kappa 120.9w

6.5 Component: Boston Acoustics SR60

Mid Amp: Kenwood KAC-7201

 

[Thrall 10+ year member]

How long does deadening usually take? If i'm just doing the front speakers of the car then I might go for it. Also, how do you guys feel about the amps that I could bring over? I'd hate to have the SQ of the good speakers ruined by a bad amp.

 

[>>SQL<< 10+ year member]

I just recently did my Honda Accord

The first door took me about an hour and the second door about 1/2 hour

Make sure you have a heavy duty roller - it makes it much more 'stuck' to the panels

You could start with the Profile amp running the front speakers and the Kenwood running the sub and if you want you could get a more powerful sub amp and then use the Kenwood for the front speakers

 

[Thrall 10+ year member]

How do you guys think the BA SR60's compare to Kicker KS.62's? Also, since I have to cut out the back of the factory cup for the BAs, should I then buy speaker baffles to protect the back of the speakers from water?

 

[>>SQL<< 10+ year member]

not needed

just make a hat above the speaker out of some deadener.

I wish I took a pic of mine but perhaps someone else does.