picking a new headunit

Ok guys (and gals) I have a 2007 Chevy Cobalt and currently have the following:

Head Unit: Alpine CDA-9857

Front speakers: JL Audio C2-650x (6.5" coax)

Rear speakers: Diamond audio D393i (6x9" coax)

Sub: Infinity Perfect 10d VQ in a custom sealed fiberglass box

Sub Amp: Alpine MRP-M500

The interior speakers are driven off of the head unit, and I will most likely keep it that way.  My big complaint is that I have no way to crossover the interiors.  I am looking for a head unit with more audio adjustability, but still retains the same functionality for my iPod as my current Alpine.  I have looked at the new Alpine units that do not have CD and though they are nice, it seems like you need a lot of add on’s for them to be truly bad ass.  I have also been looking at the new Pioneers, but I don’t know how good they will be with the iPod (Alpine seems to excel at this).  Let's hear what everyone has to say.

Thanks,

Sean

There are a lot of reasons.  The car does not have a  very big trunk and I take it on road trips from time to time, so I dont want amps taking up space.  Curently the sub is quickly and easily removable if needed (although it has a very small footprint) and the amp is located under the passenger seat (taking up no room).  I wouldnt have a very good place to put an interior amp.  I also dont want to keep this car very long so I dont want to take the time to wire all of the speakers from the amp.  And lastly the biggest reason...  I tend to not be able to do things on a small scale.  Right now there is a good balance with the sub and interiors with them on headunit power.  If I have an amp on the interiors, I will quickly want more power for the sub, then a larger sub.  Then I will want to do component speakers and so on.  As it is I am fighting doing anything more to the system, becuase I would like it louder.

I fully understand all of the very good reasons to do a seperate interior amp, but I simply do not want to on this car.  I have had a few cars with much more eloborate systems.  I do plan on going further with my stereo on the next car, but for now Im not going to bother.

Sean

OK, I know I said I was against putting an amp on the interiors but the more I look around the better that seems.  I think my plans have shifted into an Alpine MRP-F300 which is the same size as my current Alpine MRP-M500 meaning I can fit it under the driver seat keeping with my clean look.  It is 50x4 so I don’t think I will have to worry too much about over powering the sub, but I will have much more head room.  Wiring wise they both take 8ga input for power but different amp fuses, so I think I plan on getting a Stinger pro fused distribution block that takes 1 4ga in, through two separate AGU fuses (1 50 amp for the interior amp, and 1 60 amp for the sub amp) that then go to two 8ga outs.  That takes care of power and fusing all in one so it will take up less space and look cleaner.

Now for my one concern, as it is with just the one amp when I turn the system up the lights will dim.  It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but I don’t want it to do that at all.  Would I be better off getting a 1farad cap, or a better battery?  I know this isn’t a very hardcore set up by any means, but should I consider upgrading the wire from the alternator to the batter, or is that a waste for what I have? 

Thanks,
Sean

There are a lot of reasons.  The car does not have a  very big trunk and I take it on road trips from time to time, so I dont want amps taking up space.  Curently the sub is quickly and easily removable if needed (although it has a very small footprint) and the amp is located under the passenger seat (taking up no room).  I wouldnt have a very good place to put an interior amp.  I also dont want to keep this car very long so I dont want to take the time to wire all of the speakers from the amp.  And lastly the biggest reason...  I tend to not be able to do things on a small scale.  Right now there is a good balance with the sub and interiors with them on headunit power.  If I have an amp on the interiors, I will quickly want more power for the sub, then a larger sub.  Then I will want to do component speakers and so on.  As it is I am fighting doing anything more to the system, becuase I would like it louder.

I fully understand all of the very good reasons to do a seperate interior amp, but I simply do not want to on this car.  I have had a few cars with much more eloborate systems.  I do plan on going further with my stereo on the next car, but for now Im not going to bother.

Sean

OK, I know I said I was against putting an amp on the interiors but the more I look around the better that seems.  I think my plans have shifted into an Alpine MRP-F300 which is the same size as my current Alpine MRP-M500 meaning I can fit it under the driver seat keeping with my clean look.  It is 50x4 so I don’t think I will have to worry too much about over powering the sub, but I will have much more head room.  Wiring wise they both take 8ga input for power but different amp fuses, so I think I plan on getting a Stinger pro fused distribution block that takes 1 4ga in, through two separate AGU fuses (1 50 amp for the interior amp, and 1 60 amp for the sub amp) that then go to two 8ga outs.  That takes care of power and fusing all in one so it will take up less space and look cleaner.

Now for my one concern, as it is with just the one amp when I turn the system up the lights will dim.  It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but I don’t want it to do that at all.  Would I be better off getting a 1farad cap, or a better battery?  I know this isn’t a very hardcore set up by any means, but should I consider upgrading the wire from the alternator to the batter, or is that a waste for what I have? 

Thanks,
Sean

That was great...You can defitnely upgrade the battery,alternator. I would start off w/ a few things one like stated the big 3.Lots of discussion about adding caps...While some say it worked great... and others say stay away(you are now putting a bigger load on alternator)

I would recommend The Big 3 first...not very expensive...Normally pretty easy to do...Oh BTW the amp idea sounds like a great choice...Pretty decent equipment...Why not use it to ability...

Well I ordered up a Kinetic KHC800, so that should help.  I will at least upgrade the ground when I throw that in, but since the battery is in the trunk I will see how it is with the stock wire from the alternator to the battery.  I wont have THAT much power, so I dont see it being a big problem.  Now to order up some stinger stuff, and the amp and Ill be all set.

Sean

Are they different vehicles...(jdubicki)? Back to the radio...did you pick one , or is that on hold... w/ all the new equip...?

jdubicki wrote:

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That's strange that you are having light dimming issues. I have those exact tow amp in my car and have zero light dimming issues. I have not upgraded the big three and the MRP-M500 is running 2 MTX Thunder 4000's at 2 ohms. Anyone have any thoughts on this??

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Ah, but you have a Honda, I have a Chevy :D  And to clarify, I am having light dimming issues with ONLY the MRP-M500 as I havent gotten the 300 yet.  I dont know how to multi quote here, but the head unit is on hold.  I couldnt find a headunit that I thought was an upgrade over what I have now.  There have been headunits that I have found, and that have been suggested, that had some better features but there was some negative that outweighed it.  For example Eclipse, I have had an Eclipse in the past and LOVED it probably the best deck I have ever had sound quality wise.  I would love to get a new one, but the displays look like they are from 82 and are small.  Yes it is an upgrade in many ways over what I have but by getting an amp I can get what I want and still have a nice looking deck.  The plan for now is as follows:

Kinetic KHC800 to help with power

Alpine MRP-F300 which takes care of crossovers (and gives me more headroom to go louder)

Stinger wiring for the new amp, and upgrade grounds

I am going to start with that, and see if that takes care of my "problems"  If not I can always change the headunit after.  I will be sure to update with pictures and results of everything.

Sean

OK, I got the battery Friday and ordered the wire yesterday.  The plan is to obviously change out the battery to the Kinetic HC800 and upgrade the ground.  Currently the stock ground is just an 8ga to a ring terminal, so I'm going to change it to a 4ga and bring it to one of [URL="https://www.stingerelectronics.com/productDetails.aspx?delineate=475&CategoryID=-1&Parentid=-1"]these[/URL].  We will see how that works for now because upgrading the rest will be a big pain in the butt.  The main wire coming into the battery is a 4ga, but I am not sure that it is straight from the alternator.  For all I know it could be 16ga from the alternator into a distribution center, then 4ga to the battery from there.  When I start doing all the work I will look into the factory wiring a little more, but I have already been told from some cobalt experts that I shouldn't have to upgrade the main power wire.  Anyway thats all for now, just figured I'd give you all an update.  I'll post pics when I'm installing it all in a couple weeks.

Sean

broke ef, for multi quotes:

type capitalized QUOTE = (no spaces).  After the = you type in the name of the poster you are quoting.  Flank this command with brackets [ and ].  At the end of the pasted quote, put a / before the word QUOTE within the same type brackets.

tommy... wrote:

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I think you would be alot happier w/ SQ by amping those speakers...

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broke ef wrote:

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OK, I know I said I was against putting an amp on the interiors but the more I look around the better that seems.

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jdubicki wrote:

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That's strange that you are having light dimming issues.  I have those exact tow amp in my car

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broke ef wrote:

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Ah, but you have a Honda, I have a Chevy :D

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Good stuff, broke.  ;)

OK on with the install!!!

We will start with the door wiring.  Since I have a 0 option car I ony had 2 small (20ga?) wires going to the door as seen here.
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Door-wiring.jpg[/IMG]

I took that out and was greeted with this.
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Clip-Full.jpg[/IMG]

I then decided that I could just taket that out since I dont need it for anything now, so I got this
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Clip-Empty.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Looktrhrough.jpg[/IMG]

And here is the stock wiring that came out
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Stockwire.jpg[/IMG]

I then ran my new stinger 14ga wire through the stock gromets and threw in the new speakers (JL Audio C2-650x)
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Speaker.jpg[/IMG]

Moving on to the trunk I was changing the battery to a new Kinetic KHC800 battery, adding a ground, and redoing the amp wiring.

Here you can see the battery mocked up with the pices I had to make inorder to hold the battery with the factory tie down.
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Battery1.jpg[/IMG]

Here is the battery without the top piece (The wires were from a battery tender)
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Battery.jpg[/IMG]

Here is the bottom piece to hold the battery from side to side and front to back movement.
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Batterytray.jpg[/IMG]
and painted
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Batterytray-Painted.jpg[/IMG]

Here is the new Stinger distrobution block that has 2 seprate fuses because each amp needs a different rating.  It has 4ga in and 2 8ga out.
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Distro2.jpg[/IMG]

Here is new 4ga ground lug I added (the paint was ground off underneith it)
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Ground-Lug.jpg[/IMG]

Here is a shot of all the power side of things
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Power.jpg[/IMG]

Here is the ground side
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Grounds.jpg[/IMG]

And over all
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Wiring.jpg[/IMG]

Next came running the new RCA's adding my Sirius box, and cleaning up some of my wiring behind the headunit.  I didnt get many pics of all of this but you can see the sirius box on the bottom left and the strat of cleaning up the wiring.
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Center-Console.jpg[/IMG]

Now the best part, installing the new amp!!  Here is just seeing how it will look (you can see some of the mess in this pic)
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Interior.jpg[/IMG]

Installed
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Interior-Amp.jpg[/IMG]

And both together
[IMG]https://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u95/BrokeEF/System/Amps.jpg[/IMG]

Well thats all the pics I took, I was to busy working to get very many.  Over all I am VERY happy with it, sounds a lot better and is a lot louder!  Sorry for the long post, but Im excited about my stereo.

Sean