new stereo

[PaulD]

For any of you who car - since I know a lot of you

well, I finally got around to putting a new stereo in my Accord. It's gonna become my daily driver now, so the stock stereo won't do. I kept the factory CD radio/cd player, mostly because it has the steering wheel controls and looks VERY stock . I ran the speaker wires and a cat5 cable down the center console and the LPL cable. I have an Audio Control EQL and a Pheonix Gold 500.4 mounted on a carved peice of MDF in the far back left corner of the trunk. I used the other 4 wires in the cat5 cable (tied together) for the auto turn-on - mostly because I forgot it until after I had put the interior back together. The speakers - a pair of CDT HD 52's in Qforms mounted in the kick panels, and 2 JL audio 8W3V2 to be fiberglassed into the doors. The CDT's are getting 75 watts RMS each set and the 8W3's are getting about 125 watts RMS each. Actually a pretty simple system but with just a basic tuning, it sounded really nice. The best thing is - it looks REALLY stock.

And I guess I appeased the gods of car audio because there is ZERO engine whine. I absolutely could not believe all of the electronic boxes and wire harnesses going down the center and both sides of the car. I was afraid I was gonna pick up noise, but I have been preaching UTP's run down the center console - so I had to practice what I was preaching. Now that I think about it, I should have run the cat5 down the left side and tie wrapped it to the power wire ... just to see what effect it would have.

[Haibane]

wow... I am surprised you went CDT and popped in some JL stuff. Could bring yourself to get a elmental 8?

[Haibane]

so did you join the dark side or the light side when it came to subs? basically, ported or sealed?

[sr20de4evr]

Sounds nice

I've always heard bad things about those Qforms though. Made out of cheap plastic, don't fit quite right, and don't provide a solid baffle for the speaker to mount to....how are yours?

[PaulD]

the enclosures are sealed, I always liked JL audio - just a preference thing. My first preference for satelite speakers is usually Focal, but I decided to try the CDT's since I have heard so much about them. The Q-forms for this car are VERY good fitting, they hold up in place without even screwing them down. The plastic feeling material is kinda thin so I may take them out and put a put a layer of fiberglass or bondo on them before I screw them down Since the 8's will be in the door, I can crossover higher than you would with say 12's in the trunk/hatch, so I don't think the lack of a true enclosure is gonna hurt them that much. As usual, I WAAAYYY over spent - but this was the one time, do it right and get it over with thing. I still have the CRX I can play with

[PaulD]

after listening to the CDT's tuned, I am very impressed. With the supplied passive crossover, they really have a sweet sound. The 8's in the doors seem to be a good match. Everytime I listen to the setup, I know I did the right thing. It looks as factory as possible, and I gave up 0 trunk space and it sounds great - those were my objectives from the beginning

[PaulD]

I put some pics on a web site on sounddomain

http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/621430

[SickVette]

Good deal Paul....did you know that you can retain your steering wheel controls and use an aftermarket source unit?

[PaulD]

I have wondered about that ..... how hard is that to do ?

My next uprade would be an alpine head unit and the audio control DQT, but that may be a while - like thanksgiving time

[SickVette]

Peripherial electronics makes a piece that will convert your steering wheel controls over to IR output. All you need is the piece and a head unit with IR remote. It is a very simple install and works well. If you do not have a Peripheral dealer near you I can ship you one.

[PaulD]

ok, I have seen that kinda thing ... I thought you were talking about an adapter that would allow me to hardwire it. On the harness diagram, there are several wires that say don't use - I am guessing 2 or three of them are for the steering wheel controls.