Another Newbie Question

[nhfx4]

Guys,

I have an 06 Ford F150 in which, as you can imagine, the sound is crap. Whether the factory head unit is to blame or the speakers or both I don't know. I have been an audiophile for many years, so appreciate good sound from my home system, but I can't stand the sound in the truck any more. That's right, it is sound, not music.

I am willing to pay a reasonable amount, say, up to around $3-4k total but I am sure I don't need to spend as much as this to get a good result. After all it is a Ford truck we are talking about. I am looking for advice about what are the recommended audiophile brands of head units, amps and speakers. That is, companies who put sound quality before anything else.

I would like to upgrade bit by bit, so would you guys recommended starting at the head unit and working out fom there ? Also, I don't need DVD and I already have an external Sirius tuner. I would prefer to have a head unit which is double din, however, to fill the dash opening. I know these are harder to find.

I have heard that Rainbow are a good brand of speaker, but hard to find. Preferably I would like to hide the speakers in the factory mounting positions if possible. Installation isn't an issue for me, as I can do that myself. Look forward to hearing any suggestions.

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[ravendarat 10+ year member]

For a head unit look at Eclipse, Nakamichi, mabye Denon if you can find it. For speakers I would look at Rainbow, Focal, Boston or Higher end Diamond. They are all good brands. For SQ subs Id be looking at Focal. As for amps I think Audison makes some great stuff.

 

[j3bus2k3 5,000+ posts]

I would go with an Alpine headunit, a great set of rainbows, Focal, or Bostons for your mids and highs, maybe a 15" Mag or something similar for the lows and for amps I would go with nothing less than the Zapco c2k series; They'll be the last amps you will ever need to buy.

 

[camry_tuner 10+ year member]

headunit: alpine 9835, 7998, 9855 or eclipse 8053, 8455, 7000, etc

speakers: focal polykevlar, utopia or rainbow germaniums, or seas lotus reference, etc or go active, the headunits above are also 3-way active xovers

subs: jl audio w7 or w6v2, image dynamics idmax, si mag, etc

amps: us amps merlin or ax series, zapco c2k, arc audio, jl audio, audison

just some things for you to do some research, i personally run a jl 12w6v2 and love it. i also hav focal polyglass speakers - 165v2 (line below the polykevlars), and i love those as well, but their tweet is a bit too harsh, so i have rainbow cal25 tweets at the moment. I also have an alpine cda-7998 and i love that thing to death. Good luck /w your search!

 

[bri487 5,000+ posts]

as for the c2k's, i would rather go with the ref dc's. you get a lot more for the money. the c2ks are *****in, but you get the processing to have an awesome setup with the dc's, and you have more left over to spend on better gear.

 

[PSturmer 10+ year member]

pioneer deck

type R sub

hifonics or alpine deck

 

[zachzchw 5,000+ posts]

pioneer decktype R sub

hifonics or alpine deck

Are you fucking serious?

The original poster needs to disregard this message completely.

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

Sounds like you want a highly predictable outcome for your investment. This is where experience is going to be key to your purchase. While there are tons of commandoes on this site (as evidenced above), finding the experience is tough to root through.

Start with a good head unit. Even though you want double din right now, it can be sacrificed, for now, if better speakers are part of the picture. Most double din units these days are all dvd transport based. As you do not need it as you posted, go back to a single din unit. Choose a good known source like the Eclipse CD4000, CD5000 or CD7000. The latter two units, well to properly use them, the balance of the system and your taste in music (which does seem more than the average user of this site) had better be up to par.

Sound deaden the doors for sure, they are big metal gongs that rob response from your speakers. I recommend Brown Bread. Now you have a platform ready for some action.

You don't seem to be the person that strikes me as one to want to blast himself out of their vehicle. If this is the case, a single amp system is going to be more than adequate. If the vehicle is a xcab, a 5 channel amp is going to be the perfect fit for you depending on where you want to give up the real estate to mount it. If it is too large, a smaller 4 channel amp and mono amp might be necessary due to mounting locations. Scope out the vehicle to look at what space you have available. I like and have used countless times the Crossfire CR705D amplifier for a application like this, however, the new Eclipse (B&O designed) 5 channel XA5000 that we just worked with was absolutely astounding. Well worth you looking at.

Speaker wise, well, we all hear differently. To hear a speaker on a display board is all well and most people on the site will tell you to go and listen to them in person, realize though that the display store environment or even a demo car is going to be wildly different than your vehicle with your music at the levels that you want. Consider speaker lines like Focal, Dynaudio, Seas, Eclipse, Rainbow but don't go to far overboard as you will be surprised at what a good set of speakers, installed properly and used properly can truly do. Your speaker size in the Ford is a 6x8", it is a easy jump to make a 1/4" black abs template to mount a 6.75" round speaker in all locations to get the best tonal response available.

As far as rounding out the bottom end goes, if it is a xcab vehicle, again, look under the seat to see what space is available. If moderate amounts of output are needed and stealth is an option, consider the JL Audio line of Stealthboxes. Perfect fit and finish and a highly predictable response.

This should get you started on a respectable system.