Will I got the 305s and the Alpine SPR-17S installed. I'm a bit underwhelmed by the sound.

First let me talk about the install. The head unit and DCI went in effortlessly based on the photos I found in this forum. I did elongate the holes in the mounting bracket to set the head unit back about 1/8” so the door did not hit the knob on closing. The DCI went in with no problem.

I hooked up the extra wire for speed control as well. The ‘glovebox’ thingy was hard to remove but I had purchased a set of removal tools from Amazon to facilitate the install.

The speakers were a different story. I had no problem removing the door panels, again thanks to the photos posted on this site. The tweeters are perfect for the bracket already in place. I just put a thin thickness of duct tape between the new tweeter and the bracket as the Alpine tweeters are a little thinner than the factory junk. I was concerned that there was already a crossover since the stock tweeter and woofer were fed separately but the stock woofer is full range. Just extend, with a Honda adapter to the crossover.

The woofers were trial and error to get them to fit. The factory baskets don’t begin to fit. I ended up cutting spacer circles out of ¾” birch plywood and purchasing a couple of Glad storage containers from the grocery store for baskets. I silicone’d them to the plywood, drilled mounting holes for the speakers and installed. I had to put 4 thin washers behind the top 2 screws on each woofer as the Glad baskets were a little small to mount the speakers flush. I didn’t use any washers behind the bottom 2 screws.

After all was reassembled, I fired up and adjusted the head unit. The tweeters were really, really, really bright. So bright that I couldn’t adjust them back with treble control on the head unit. I pulled the door panels again and ended up at -12 db on the crossover to settle the treble down.

At the end of the day, here are my thoughts,

Pros – Price was good –about 500 from Modifry and Amazon. Good control of head unit thanks to DCI. Sound is OK at best. I have checked all inputs with good results. The Pandora connection works well with an itouch once a new Alpine Pandora App is installed. (we don’t have iphones here). I put a audiobook on a 4 gig usb stick and it played fine. I have my 60 gig ipod video in the car now and it works fine - - -a bit slow but fine.

Cons – Slow response from Ipod on startup….Ipod fault. Can’t see display on head unit in daylight with top down. Sound quality is OK at best.

Would I buy this set again……No. I think the speakers may be the weak link. I know I could have dynomatted the install and thrown more dollars at it but I’ve done these basic installs on a number of my cars/trucks over the years and have had better results. Maybe time will help as the speakers break in. I’ll let you know.

Mike

 

Are you powering the Alpine SPR-17S straight off the head unit? If so, I'd guess that's your problem. Those speakers are rated 110W RMS if I looked up the specs correctly, and I think the head unit is only 18W RMS or so.

I'm using the i305 with the Alpine KTP-445 Power Pak (45W RMS), JL TR650-CSi components rated at 50W RMS, and couldn't be happier considering the budget setup. The sound quality is there, but of course lacks the low end volume of a proper sub. It still gets down to the semi-low frequencies, say to roughly 60hz really damn well, but the dB isn't there. Can't expect much out of a 6.5" woofer

 

Yeah, the Type R speakers without an amp are a waste. Even with the KTP power pack he would be better off with a full amp to get the max out of the speakers.

 

I agree, an amp with a minimum of 100W RMS to match the speakers. 120-150W RMS would be better.

Doors will probably need a lot of work with that much power. I have to quell some door panel rattles with only 30-35W RMS.

 

^^Agreed. A little dynamat goes a long way. I haven't had issues with my setup yet but I may still dynamat down the road. I plan on upgrading to a full amp and sub set up after warranty runs out (CPO and extended).

 

Just did mine too.. Alpine CDA-117.. Infinity components.. Alpine MRP-F300 4-channel amp!.. the amp makes a big difference.. as well as my JL 10w3v3... cant complain even without having rear speakers..