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Please Help: High-End car audio

Firstly, I hope those word aren't an oxymoron. I've got all Focal drivers with a Soundstream amp. I bought an eclipse head unit and in-dash changer and hate the sound. Its not bad, but for as much as I spent, I'm not happy about it. It just sounds thin and unlifelike. The factory cd player through the spkr-line level adaptor didn't sound that much worse. If anyone has any experience with some head units in the car that really sound nice I'd be appreciative. The most I can do is exchange the Eclipse gear or try an sell it. Is Nakamichi about the only other one? And just how bad are the tuners at the expense of a good cd player. My home system is a fanfare tuner with all Van Alstine gear. I don't expect my car to sound that good, but at least musical. And I won't buy McIntosh, too expensive and ugly.
ezmeralda114405
sqjudge
96 posts
 
Ez: I strongly recommend that you get your home gear from the house and drag out the extension cord and replace the head unit with your home stuff. I would also hook up the front speakers to your home 2 channel amp. These two tests will tell you where the bad sound is coming from.

The speakers you got from Zalytron are built by Focal but are not the best Focal makes for the car. On the other hand it is probaly not the speakers that are the source. It is probably the mounting & location of the drivers.

Please preform the above tests so we can then recomend new electronics. BTW older Honda's heads were from Alpine and were pretty good cassette decks! I think the CD units may be from Clarion. (I could find out if you care)

Chris
swampwalker's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
swampwalker
5,132 posts
 
Ez- If the 6.5s are low in the door and the tweets are up high near your ear, that could be a big part of the problem. You will loose most of the bottom. Vis-a-vis the head unit, I will say that I have had a Nak, Alpine, and Eclipse. The NAk was better than the Alpine, but both were casette only. The Eclipse is CD only, so hard to compare.
sqjudge
96 posts
 
I have done some checking. Untill just a couple of years ago the Honda used a Alpine built head unit. It has a plug on the back that a special din (like?) cable can be atached that provides a preamp level out and it is BALLANCED. This might be the ticket to the sound you crave.

I also agree with Swampwalker about the position of the drivers
ezmeralda114405 OP
55 posts
 
From Poster: The unit reads "Matsushita" on top. The guy at the Honda dealer mentioned alpine built them, I didn't know if Matsu owned Alpine, they do panasonic and technics. I'll look on the back again, but memory only recalls the antenna hookup and then the big pin connector/harness. But it didn't sound that bad of the spkr-line level adapt. Its a 97 Accord.
marsh
43 posts
 
go to www.autophile.com. They have great variety of high end car audio equipment.
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