Installing new components and have narrowed my choices down. Now am undecisive of which brand to choose. If anyone has actually listen to any of these, let me know your feedback about them.

- JL C5 650
- Bouston Acoustics Pro
- Diamond Audio D6
- Rockford Fosgate T1652s (only because I've heard good reviews about it, otherwise wouldn't consider rf)

If you know of anything better in the $200-$300 range (e-bay prices ) let me know.

 

What amplifier are you running? Are you willing to get a processor and do an active setup?

If so, NS should be able to help you pick out a nice setup that would fit your budget.

Yes, imho if your budget only allows $200 ~ $300 and you are actually looking for audiophile level sound instead of picking up what you like the most(within the budget), then a pieced together system would be a much better route and the additional work is well worth it.

What do you have (or in mind) for the rest of the system? What do you listen to most of the time?

 

I've got the slash 300 2channel, jl clean sweep, alpine ida-x305
I am thinking of running the 13tw5 jl sub, but am undecided. Not going for thumb, just something to bring the system together.

Who's NS btw?!?

 

NS = Neutered Sputniks

sell the clean sweep and get a pxa-h100 clean sweep is useless with the direction you are going.

with sub:

use the 300/2 for sub, and get a clean sounding four channel amp to push the mids and tweets in an active setup. Going active will make the system much more efficient so you can just buy a clean souding medium powered amp. As of what speakers to choose from, I'll leave the recommandation to NS but you can't go wrong with Scanspeak and Seas

with no sub:

just use the 300/2 to power your speakers. Out of the four you talked about, I'd pick the Bostons.

 

Claus has some good advice here.

You're looking at building this system into the future, so I wouldn't bother settling for anything just because "it works for right now." Using that approach, I spent well over $10k on audio equipment I no longer have.


The first thing is to sit down and really figure out where you want your system to go. If you're looking for SQ, then you need to look at how into SQ you are. And vice versa for SPL. I (and Claus) are pretty heavily into SQ, so the advice we give you will sound very clean (and get loud as a corollary) but will not give you that oomph that kids like to feel in the bass and the ear-fatiguing shrill highs that kids like to hear to know their tweeters are "working."

I liked diamond products. And then I installed SEAS tweets and woofers in my truck and realized what a difference a quality set of speakers (at only $230!) can make. That being said, in the S, there's less mounting depth, so the speakers I used in the truck won't fit in the doors and I'm having to build fiberglass speaker pods to mount the speakers I have. If you're not sure about fiberglass work, then it alters your choices and therefore your upgrade path.


If you're looking for sound quality: First things first, I would ditch the IDA-x305 and pick up a Pioneer 880PRS, Eclipse CD7200mkII or Alpine CDA9885. These HUs will allow you to run an active xover setup which is one of the biggest SQ moves you can make (not only b/c of the inherent SQ improvement of Active over Passive, but because it opens the doors to much higher quality speakers).

 

^You Alpine hater PXA would let him run active as well

DG, one more thing to remember. Not all active are > passive, but you'll have to spend a lot of money on a passive system to get a properly designed and manufactured high SQ crossover, like the ones you would find in audiophile grade speaker towers. As far as I know, only a handful of European speaker manufacturers are making these crossovers for their passive systems. This is the main reason why I'd recc you to get an active system

*forgot one thing, going active would also let you accomplish individual time alignment settings for each driver(speaker), which would correct a lot of phase differential problems and it is one thing that most passive crossovers cannot do.(home audio speaker towers have fixed distances between drivers, so phase correction have already been done by either cabinet design or crossover) So NS was right, active > passive on cars Can't figure out how I forgot about that, but I still love my system

 

no complaints on BA pros. powered by alpine pdx 4.150

edit: in a noisy environment like s2k, i dont think you'll appreciate the minute differences between any of these. as long as it gets loud and clean

 

Thanks for all the helpful info!!! As for the front speaker mounting depth; I've heard anywhere from 2"-2 1/2". I was considering spacers if speakers are too deep. Will spacers have a negative impact on sq?

 

10k is definitely out of my range I was hoping to stay around 1.5k.

 

Yeah, but if you'll notice, he says "on audio equipment I no longer have." As in, buy good stuff the first time, so you don't spend lots of money replacing everything when you end up not liking it 6 months later. For $1500 you should be able to put a really nice sounding system in your car.