vbrett

I want to put a new system in my Vette. 4 questions! What would you suggest?
1) A head unit that plays MP3 music or a hard drive based unit for MP3 with just a CD in the head unit? (Type/kind)
2) Speakers for the frount and back. What type/kind?
3) 1 or 2 10" subs? (don't want much more than that)
4) Type/kind/power rating for the amp(S)?

Kale

front: good component set powered 100x2 - 200x2 watts

Focal Polykevlar or Utopia
Crystal Diamond Audio
Dynaudio
Rainbow

budget speakers:
Lesser Crystal Diamon
JL XR-650

Rear speakers: SUBS ONLY. Nothing behind you should be playing frequencies over 80hz if you care about sound quality and imaging.

For subs, I assume you want to spend around $200 each

Good choices are teh JL10w3 (a little louder) or the IDQ10 (sounds a little better)


Take a loko through some previous similar posts. Lots of very helpful info. Let us knwo if you have questions after that.

_Nomad_

What is your budget? That would certainly help us out in suggesting components for you.

Do you want SQ (Sound Quality) or SPL (Sound Pressure Level, which means Really Loud)? That too makes a difference in what to suggest for you.

More info please.

vbrett

I would like to spend around $500.00 for the head unit, $500.00 for the amp(s), around $200.00 for the sub, around $400.00 for the speakers, and around $300.00 for a changer/hard drive MP3 player. (Cost of the equipment only) Sound quality for the front and loud for the subs.
Thanks,
Victor


[Modified by vbrett, 11:47 PM 9/30/2002]

Kale

How loud?

Most SQ subs will hit 120db or so as a single 10.

hearing damage is 115db.

Although getting good sound quality from your average MP3 is like blood from a turnip...

92TripleBlack

Take money out of the head unit and put it toward the sub and amps.

_Nomad_

MP3 and Sound Quality don't belong in the same sentence together. However, you can get a nice HU with MP3 for under $500, but do you really need MP3? Spend more on sub and amps like 92TripleBlack said.

vbrett

Not so loud that my kids would like it. Tell me more about the sound quality of the MP3's. I thought that if I ripped a song from my CD to my computer at 128 that this was near cd quality sound?
Victor

Kale

If you're ripping CD's at high quality and just compiling on a hard drive, that's pretty much OK. The majority of junk you get on Kazaa is done with size in mind

_Nomad_

You won’t get anywhere near CD quality at 128kbps. Remember, MP3 is a "compression" file. That means it is compressing the original file for size convenience and they do that (in a nut shell) by removing some high, low and midrange frequencies along with a few more technical things that would probably put you to sleep if I wrote it all here. Since they are removing frequencies, that will affect the quality of the sound, the lower the bitrate the more compression, the worse the quality.

The encoder used also plays a HUGE part in compression quality. Kale is right about the stuff you D/L from P2P websites; they are, for the most part, pretty crappy in quality due to poor encoding and file size issues. MP3 is a convenient thing to have if you just want to listen to a group of song, or other audio production, without having to constantly replace CD’s in the HU but the SQ will not be as good as CD, it’s all up to you on the quality of music you prefer.

Whereas MP3’s are useful and convenient, they are not broadcast or audiophile quality. Well, let me clarify that, I have used high bitrate MP3’s for commercials on my stations but would never use it for music or for masters of audio production I do for clients. I do use them for demos though. I would suggest you not encode less than 192 for music, some will say 128 is ok but it isn’t. I actually encode around 320kbps or higher for closer to CD quality but 192kbps @ 44,100 Hz joint stereo will suffice for casual, non-audiophile listening and still allow you to cram a lot of songs on a CDR, just don’t expect CD quality from it.

Hope that helps. :)