Speaker recomendations

[SynthDesign]

I've been a Pioneer guy for as long as I can member. I liked the decks and I liked the price and sound quality of the speakers. Recently, I blew another pair of speakers. Two pairs in less than two years. Before you get all geek on me, I know how to wire a stereo system properly and it has nothing to do with the installation or operation of the speakers. I think the quality more or less just isn't what it use to be.

So any recommendations on brands? I'm not looking for anything tooo fancy. JL? Kenwood? What's your thoughts?

[So_Powerful]

I got a pair of Alpine Type R's in the rear and Alpine type S in the front. The type R's are higher performance than the S. Unfortunately they don't make 4 inch type R's. I have heard that JL and Kicker were good 4 inch speakers.

[dlb]

i honestly haven't noticed much difference in brands. anything that isn't super cheap sounds pretty decent, and a lot of the sound is dependent on how you EQ your stereo. i've used polk, pioneer, two fancy brands i found on sale at a few places, infinity...all have sounded great. i have 4"s in the front, 6.5" in the back, and a 12" sub. do you run a sub as well?

[ohcanada_00]

i have a huge affinity to Elemental Designs They are a smallish shop out of Iowa, but the customer service is top flight, the quality is INSANE, and the price is actually VERY VERY good. I've done at least 3 projects using nothing but ED products and they have all turned out amazingly well.

[SynthDesign]

Nope no sub. Gettin too old. I'm using a nice Pioneer Premier CD deck( 55w per channel x4 @ 4 ohm)with a 4 channel, 600 watt max @ 4 ohms Panasonic Platinum(same as phoenix gold) amp powering 2x 4" pioneers 2ways up front and 2x 6"x9" Pioneer 3ways in back. Under max volume the most I can get is 132 watts from each channel. I tune via the deck's EQ but have been temped to use a stand alone EQ. Using an Android app decibel meter my normal listening volume is between 60 and 120DB.

The last two pairs of Pioneer Premier 4" 2ways were rated to 155watts each @ 4 ohms and didn't last more than 9 months each. Both the deck and the amp have held up amazingly.

I'm not a fan of Polk, but am curios about the EDs.

Thx for all you guys' input.

[dlb]

omg, you're NEVER too old for a well-balanced sound system! i imagine 6x9s would have some oomph to them but probably not as much as a sub. i don't pound music, i just like everything to be really crisp and clear, including the low end, and i find a sub does that really well. however, i admit i find the sub to be a PITA when hauling stuff. it's easy enough to remove, just requires a flat head screwdriver, but i'm usually too lazy to bother and just work around it.

[Neu]

Right now in the front I'm rocking the ..I believe 90w's I got from the junkyard with you Synth, along with 2 8" pioneer(I think?) speakers in individual boxes in my back seat. They're actually buckled into the center spot in the back. I run a Sony Xplode deck, which I use an auxiliary cord to play music with my ipod or phone. My sound system is alright. The deck has gone through..3 or 4 cars now.

[Starbug]

I've never followed any particular brand, always went for whatever my ears liked. Although I've heard Infinities are very sensitive (delicate), so you have to pay attention to how much power you're feeding them so they don't blow up. However, I've heard JBL (I think it was?) will take more power than what they're rated at and be just fine.

When I hit the local Car Toys and listened to their speaker collection, I found that of the speaker sizes that will fit our stock speaker pods without any cutting, Quinn Acoustics sounded best. Having never heard of them before, I can't tell you about their lifetime reliability, but they do sound decent. I highly recommend a sub to fill out the bottom end, though (for any brand speakers). Mine is a 10" shallow mount; it's very small and low profile. You don't have to run it so that everybody within an 1/8 mile can hear the thumping; just turn it up enough that it fills in the lower notes that your other speakers can't. It will cause them less stress and make your music sound better balanced. If I turn my volume up and stand outside my car, doors closed, you can't tell that there is a sub in there. You don't hear thumping and the windows don't shake.

[dave88]

I put Polk DXi400 4" in the front. They fit perfectly, and they sound excellent. They did need a little breaking in though.
I've still got some older Pioneers in the back, they could probably use an upgrade. But the Polk's really fill out the sound.

You can find them on ebay for about $50

[dlb]

i just put kenwood speakers in the front of my van and pioneers at the back and both sound good but the kenwoods definitely have more of a scooped mid sound, nice and tight. if i had to choose between them i'd go with the kenwood. thought i'd add that since i had the chance to compare them side by side.

[copenhagenfiend]

Check out Boston Acoustics! Great quality and right up your alley if you just want nice, full sound.

[shogun]

fusion components with a nice amp is the cheap way, infinity kappa series if youre willing to spend more, again this is for sound quality

[SynthDesign]

The Boston Acoustics sound great but I was warned by a sales person regarding life span. He told me the ones on demo got replaced every six months due to ranges cutting out and a bit of hum. Anyone ran them for a long period?

Kinda leaning towards the newer Kenwood stuff. Quality looks nice and isn't priced to badly. they also do a few nice water proof speakers which may be the best option for off-road use.

[copenhagenfiend]

lol, funny i recommended boston - but ended up with rockford fosgate's prime series all the way around in my toyota. the 6.5s ALMOST fit in the rear decks with the factory grilles removed, but the sound is super crisp. i'm running a nice JVC deck with usb and aux inputs for a headunit.