9five1

Well I have started looking for head units and audio stuff for the 951. I would like to find something high end with good power output. I plan on using Boston Acoustics all around, and powering them directly from the head unit. The only catch is i need a aux input for my iPod. I have been thinking about a Nakamichi like this one.... Any input http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...746433650&rd=1

Also, what size are the front speakers?

Thanks,
~Eric

PCinDC

Hey Eric,
The front speakers are 4x6's. They're a bit shallower than most speakers you'll find, but you can probably make standard 4x6's work with some thin spacers. Nakamichi stuff is great, but if you're looking for sound quality you probably want to run rca outs to a separate amplifier to power your speakers. Depending on the year and option codes, your rear speakers are either 4x6 or 6.5 round. If your car is an 87 or later, the rear speaker area has a cutout for a 6.5, plan on that as you'll get much better sound quality out of a 6.5.
If you ever want to take a look at the stereo in my NA let me know.

theedge

Alpine without a doubt. Excellent built in amps, look great, VERY well built, and you can now get this iPod input box that you plug your iPod into and plug into the decks comm cable. You control the iPod right from the head unit, with the track info and everything. Dont even need to see the iPod itself, its all one interface.

Current deck listing page

iPod Input Box

The input box will work with any alpine deck that has the Ai-Net interface (most of them for the last few years I think). Maybe wait another week or two, the latest ones were JUST released so the current ones will drop in price.

</Alpine ***** Mode>

rcarpen22

I have an '86 turbo with a sony head unit, fosgate amp, crossovers in the door panels, and MB Quart speakers. It sounds great in that little space. I have an aux. input cable routed to the back of the unit that just sits in the passenger floor unless I have the mp3 player plugged in. It's not as elegant as the alpine unit theedge was talking about but it's much cheaper I'm sure. Pretty much all head units have aux inputs in the back now and a lot of them have them on the front display.

faithless

$100 bucks is twice what I paid for my 20gig mp3 player. There are cheaper ways to go about this. If the Nakamichi doesnt have input jacks like you said for an aux source, there are a few ways to get around it. One is that iPod little box... however thats pretty expensive but you would be able to use the amp inside of the headunit which offers its own advantages. If your headunit has no aux input and you dont want to spend $100 dollars on a little iPod box, you can do the following:



This is great if you are planning/willing to use an exernal amplifier. You will get lots of volume off the external amp which is nice, but its a PITA to hide in such a small and compact car if you want the stock look. This is a little idea I cooked up... I'm sure people have done this before. I like it because you can use any device that uses a stereo jack... i.e. cellphone, PDA, mp3 players (not ONLY an iPod). What I plan on doing is creating a setup like this, and running the stereo cable into the console, and mounting the plug so I can just push my mp3 player up into it. I'm also gonna build a power supply into the system off the cars power...this way I dont have to screw around with dead batteries.

If you do it this way you can blow off spending $300 on a headunit. My mp3 player has all the cds I own loaded on it... and plenty of room to expand. With this setup, you bypass the headunit entirely, leaving its purpose designed for radio and occasional cd listening. Save on the headunit and buy a better amp and speakers. IMO an expensive headunit is just an attractive nuisance... Id rather put an ugly unit in there that has basic features and pour money into the components that are not so visible to prying eyes.

theedge

IMHO id prefer the input adapter. Lets you totally hide the iPod, do everything through ONE interface, no power cords needed, and for Alpines it keeps the deck as the signal processor. Which in the case of Alpines, means Digital Time Correction, one of the main reasons I bought my deck

There is also a project on mp3car.com for a USB -> AiNet interface. Plug my deck into my laptop, and the deck will play MP3s off the laptop, complete with track info. Cram laptop under passenger seat, boom. I get more music, play movies, and datalogging for my car all in one go. And navigation/mapping/GPS. Cant wait for that

So it all depends. Id prefer the one simple interface thats easy for anyone to use (ie friends riding in my car) and since I paid a lot for my deck for its sound processing abilities, I get to use those.

azmi951

AHHHHH the rears are not 6.5s!!!! they are 6.75, it isnt much but when you go to the trouble of getting the pannels off I'm sure you want the right speakers.the 6.75s are used in a few european vehicles.

Ian Carr

Alpine is one of the nicest companys when it comes to decks. Front speakers are 4x6's. Some one have the website with the "hidden" sub woofer box's that can go in the spare tire compartment or behind the wheels weals? I have been looking for that lately.

Ian Carr

http://www.klaindustries.net

Found it haha.. If you are interested in installing a subwoofer they have some pretty cool boxes.

-Ian again

Evan70

I just put in a Kenwood KDC-MP625 head unit that I got off Ebay for about $130. Has 50Wx4 (22Wx4 rms), CD w/ MP3/WMA capability built in, AM/FM, Sirius or XM ready (just need tuner, I recommend Sirius and I've had both), has ability to do aux in (need seperate adaptor), and has some very nice EQ and crossover capabilites built in. Between that, the Sirius tuner, and a little Kenwood "Woox" power sub that I had lying around, it made a HUGE difference in the audio quality in the car. Heck, just the head unit by itself made a really nice difference, but when I added the sub in it really filled out the bottom end. Of course, my car had the 10 speaker system to start with, so that probably helped a little bit, but it was screwed up by a previous owner, pulled the door woofer and mid, and replaced with just a Fosgate woofer and no mid, which means I'm missing some mid range from that location. I'm sure once I address that and replace the stock door tweeters it'll sound even better. One of the most important things that you really need for a good system in these cars is some kind of crossover, whether it be in the head unit like mine, or in the amp if you are going to run one, make sure you have it. It makes a very big difference to how well the stock (or aftermarket) regular speakers will perform if you cut out the bass under 100-150Hz that they really aren't designed to reproduce anyway. I found that even without the sub, the audio quality was actually better with everything below 100Hz removed fromt he stock speakers. Also, a variable level sub control helps a lot too (the Kenwood I got has this feature and it's very nice to be able to adjust the sub level at any time).