When I bought my Z, it had a 2 stack JVC head unit as can be seen below - this was waayyy before re-trim time and was exactly how I had it when I bought it - I was lucky enough to have some studio photos taken of my car for Japanese Performance magazine. It was actually an OK system, but because it was Japanese supply, no RDS and the frequencies were at a different range, so it had to go - plus I didn't really want a tape deck anymore!

 

 

 

I went out and bought an Alpine IVA-W200RI touchscreen and ordered a double-din fascia from z32-zone in Japan - the first and only one of these to be fitted over here that I am aware of - this was back in 2008, long before Zthirtytwo were about.

 

I fitted it all at the same time I did the retrim -

 

 

I upgraded the rear speakers to Alpine 16.5cm coaxials in gutted out Bose speaker boxes and ran high capacity cabling to the front. The fronts had some Kenwoods wired in - I can't remember whether I fitted them or not, but they weren't up to much, but I knew little about audio, so left them there - they were co-axial too.

 

I hated the lack of bass in the car, so bought a nice sub box and 12" Alpine sub and a Pioneer amplifier.

 

 

 

This made the bass a lot better, but mid-range and general clarity of the rest of the system was just pants. I then grew to hate the sub and amp. I like having the boot space for when I go touring and I really don't like having a huge great big speaker there. Every time I opened the boot, I was worried someone might see my 'phat sub', so it had to go as I couldn't cope with the embarrassment.

 

I did a bit of research which involved bugging AndrewG and JoelyP a lot. I wanted something hidden, discrete, but with an OEM quality sound - something my system really lacked. I didn't want an amp or a sub to be visible and I don't care for competition systems and having monitors and all sorts of nonsense in the boot. Which leads to what I'm doing with my Z's sound system at the moment.

 

First things first - I was never happy with the z32-zone 2 din fascia. It was a 'remanufactured' OEM item and was looking a little tired - so took part in the GB for the Zthirtytwo 2din fascia which is much better. Excuse the low-level light ouput of the head unit. A combination of angle and having it set to -8 brightness didn't help!

 

 

New Vs Old

 

 

After buying these I wanted the rest of the system to be beefed up. I wanted a tiny amp, but something that would give me enough RMS to power a set of components which, from reading I discovered to be the best thing you can do to the audio in the Z as you raise the sound stage....so I bought these. I matched the speakers' RMS as close as possible to that of the amp.

 

 

Firstly, the amp. This little gizmo had an excellent review from Talk Audio's Adam Rayner and received strong reviews out in the market place, it's which is another Alpine product and is a booster pack/digital amplifier giving the output of my head unit another 2.5 times the power! I didn't want increased volume, I wanted increased clarity and paramount to this was package size! Small is best as I wanted to hide it and the wiring well away; it's all plug and play and ever so neat (I like neat). This pic, next to my hateful Blackberry gives you an idea on size. It's 4 x 45w RMS, so enough to power a new set of component speakers to reasonable clarity.

 

 

I stripped the passenger footwell out for access and unhooked and moved the main car harness which gave me enough room to fit the amp behind the lower strut bar. So it's very neatly hidden and still has relatively good access to ambient air - it's a digital amplifer, so it doesn't really need it. Alpine give you long enough looms and connectors for you to be able to run this amp to pretty much anywhere in the front of the car.

 

I haven't finished installing the cabling, but it's routed, just not secure. I wanted to power the unit before I did all that! If you see the metal bar at the lower half of the pic, you'll see a little black box behind it, that's the amp! You can see the cable feeds too and from it.

 

 

That cables are then routed back to the centre consol area and you plug the Alpine HU loom into it (which mates with the ISO connector) and then you plug the other lead which comes from the other side of the amplifier directly into the back of the head unit (which is the only flying lead that you need to utilise). It's all plug and play and actually frees up a lot of space behind the head unit. I was then able to strip out any unnecessary wiring and tidy up the speaker cables. I also added some edge grommet to those horrible metal reinforcement spars to protect against cable chafing. I actually want to ditch all of those bullet connectors - but not too sure whether I want to hard-wire the ISO loom to the Alpine loom.....

 

The beauty of this set up also is that there's not an RCA lead, signal lead or power lead in sight! I was able to strip out all of that too and it made me feel goooood!

 

 

This is the stuff I used as edge protection - pretty decent stuff to fit and is pretty secure.

 

 

Now I have powered the head unit up and with only the rear speakers connected, it sounds so much clearer with more defined mid-range. I might get some slightly better rear speakers too at some point - the coaxial versions of my components. The current Alpine coaxials are slightly over powered and could do with something with a slightly higher rating. I can't wait to wire in the new component speakers!

Edited March 1, 201411 yr by Funkysi

So the speakers are what I've currently been messing about with today.

 

Removed the old ones - I had no idea that what I pulled out were only 13cm Kenwood speakers. No wonder I wasn't happy with the sound! Here are the old Kenwood coaxial speakers next to the main driver of my new component set, plus one of the cross-overs and a tweeter.

 

 

To fit these main drivers to the brackets, I followed AndrewG's advise and got myself some MDF speaker spacers, excuse the crappy quality of this photo!

 

 

Andrew has very kindly routed a 45° chamfer at about 5mm depth so that they'll fit the current brackets, but now allow larger speakers - I will need to do some more sanding to get them to fit, but this gives a great point on which to work off of.

 

 

I had already covered the speaker bracket in sound deadening material which I will have to strip some of it out - I am not sure whether to do the door frame too as suggested by JoelyP. I have done the inner skin which you can see through the speaker bracket - this bit I don't know whether I am doing right, but I gave it a go!

 

 

What I've also been doing is planning where to put my tweeter (ooooh err!). Now the tweeters supplied with these particular speakers are really not very elegant looking, nor do they come with a nice enclosure. These are designed as a replacement for OEM fit tweeters for existing housings. They're ugly and I sure as hell don't want these sticking out of my door cards (which was the original plan). They're not able to be flush mounted, so they'll have to be hidden away!

 

 

Because the hardware that came with them was also limited, I just had to hide them away completely.....but where!? I took an idea from JoelyP who has made up a bracket that sits behind the air vent in the doors which the tweeters are mounted to projecting sound into the cabin by way of the vent. Quite ingenious. I changed that design ever so slightly and decided to mount them on the side of the vent ducting in a modified tube (supplied).

 

 

They now sit proud and sculpted into the ducting. I've had to mount them like that as the ducting itself has a channel guide for door mounted cables. Anyway, my idea is very similar to Joel's, but gives a little more access to unhindered airflow as they take up a little less space and are quite aerodynamic. The tweeters are angled so that the sound is projected into the cabin. The vents are at a reasonable height and angle themselves, so should sound pretty good, certainly a LOT better than my old setup!

 

You can just about make them out behind the vent here. When fitted in the car, you'll not be able to view them at all. In addition, even if the vent is moved to an extreme angle, the tweeter still has a sound path. Under regular airflow angles onto the occupants, the tweeter has an excellent sound path. I'll get some better photos once the tweeter enclosures have been finished as they've not been sealed in properly yet.

 

Edited March 1, 201411 yr by Funkysi

Nice read Si :thumbup1:

Really clean and well fitted out, top marks.. Say it sounds good too!

Looks like a really well thought out job, good work :thumbup1:

That's a similar set-up to what I am researching.

Just about to purchase a Alpine CDE-178 (single din) and planned on getting one of Alpines small amps with it too.

I think this setup is perfect for people with Simon's requirements. It's a great example of a decent sound system without insisting on 70,000,000 watts of pointless power that seems to be drummed in as a 'must have' in today's audio 'fashion'.

It is definitely the same quality discreet workmanship we've come to know and love from you Si, and as always your attention to detail is spot on. I've got a similar setup in my air vents, although no where near as neat as yours, infact I think most of my wires are taped, as an electrician it is shameful. But my friends always said mechanics cars are normally in the worst state, so seemed only fitting my wiring should be atrocious.

Thanks guys! The wiring is nowhere near finished. Above the footwell needs to be secured and anchored correctly. The cables are mearly arranged and routed. Quite happy with the outcome. I am going to refit the head unit properly today, refit the car harness, ECU and CC ECU plus, as mentioned, totally secure the wiring.

 

It'll be completely hidden, neat and compact. :)

Nice work Si....:bow:

 

I think this setup is perfect for people with Simon's requirements. It's a great example of a decent sound system without insisting on 70,000,000 watts of pointless power that seems to be drummed in as a 'must have' in today's audio 'fashion'.

 

And dead right Joel.....:thumbup:

Tweeter finally installed in the duct which has now been fitted to the door card. I've trail fitted the door card and all the wiring clears!

 

Anyway, here's the little beastie hiding away there! This is with a torch shining inside it at an obscure angle. You can JUST about make it out, but it's very well hidden, but close to the aperture. I've now fitted my AndrewG-routed speaker spacers and have glued them in with a strong black silicone and smoothed that all off, so that it's nice and neat. Speakers will be screwed through the spacers and the bracket. I've offered the speakers in and the speaker chassis doesn't make contact with the bracket. So my continuation of having everything fitted neatly and out-of-sight is continuing!

Looking very professional Si and I know it will sound great. I am still on the original radio and cd player so might upgrade one day.

Thanks! Well this is my first real foray into audio. I've fitted new head units and speakers before, but never really anything further than that. Saying that, this is all pretty basic stuff, I just want it all neat and hidden!

I remember taking out an old eight track cassette to fit a combined radio cassette then after that I fitted a graphic equalizer with several slide bars to change the sound lol they where the days no DAB radio or IPod connections. ;)

And how many of you kids have to Google eight track lol

8-track was a bit before my time, but I remember top-spec Ford Granadas having those analogue equalisers!

 

And how many of you kids have to Google eight track lol

 

yep i had 8 track in a ford capri Gary...the BeeGee,s too:innocent:. Great job Simon and look forward to your final conclusion and full report on its performance..

yep i had 8 track in a ford capri Gary...the BeeGee,s too:innocent:. Great job Simon and look forward to your final conclusion and full report on its performance..

 

Are you jive talking Bri :lol:

No enough downgrade. Pull it all out, if you must have music purchase a harmonica and one of those neck strap things.

Are you jive talking Bri :lol:

 

yep...all the way to mass of chew sets:w00t:

Very tidy job Si.

 

Interested to see what route you go down on the rears

Very tidy job Si.

 

Interested to see what route you go down on the rears

 

Thanks mate. Currently in the rear I have older type lower powered Alpine coaxials which I am likely to replace with new Alpine speakers....actually the coaxial version of my new component set which I am really impressed with. My current rears are sat in gutted out Bose speaker enclosures.

 

Really happy with the results so far. No extra power cables or unpluggable wires. Soooo neat and compact, it's totally hidden, no power cables in the engine bay, no amplifiers squeezed into the boot area, no sub woofers. Just nice, neat and hidden

Precisely what I'd want.

 

The only thing that plays on my mind is the position of the rear speakers and whether it could be improved. I'd guess a reasonable portion of sound was lost into the boot space rather than into the passanger compartment of the car

Dude, you're so tall that your seat would be wound back so far back that the speakers would give you 50/50 orientation. lol Nothing stopping having the same components in the rear. You'd not be able to hide the tweeters though.

 

If I get the coaxial versions of my front components, having those in the rear at the very least will give a greater depth of sound as the fronts have done. The general concensus is not to bother with upgrading the rear speakers but just do the fronts only. I say that's cobblers as the front speakers are the same distance from the ear than the rears are (apart from the tweeters). I am certainly going go upgrade the rears further to give an all-round greater depth of sound.

 

I do agree that the direction they face is not the best, but in terms of visuals, better there than hacking into the rear panels and ugly speaker grills.

Edited March 16, 201411 yr by Funkysi

If I get the coaxial versions of my front components, having those in the rear at the very least will give a greater depth of sound as the fronts have done. The general concensus is not to bother with upgrading the rear speakers but just do the fronts only. I say that's cobblers as the front speakers are the same distance from the ear than the rears are (apart from the tweeters). I am certainly going go upgrade the rears further to give an all-round greater depth of sound.

 

Its best to think of the soundstage you are trying to recreate in the car. Normally when you listen to live

music the soundstage is in front of you. What comes from the behind you is reflected sound and/or audience

noise. So the rear speakers just need to to do the job of "filling" in. Simple mid range speakers will do the job,

no treble is needed as it just spreads the front soundstage behind you. Set them up so that you are just

aware of sound coming from behind you as you adjust the F/R fader.

Edited March 16, 201411 yr by AndrewG

Good point! I think the coaxial versions of my front speakers would be best then. The frequency response of the bass seems better than my current rear speakers which don't really like the higher amplification. I did turn the fader down a little, but it's still a little tinny.