[Steph 1]

Hi I just bought a Kizashi 2011 xl. I want to to a budget stereo upgrade and do not know where to start apart from fitting a powered sub and upgrading the existing speakers with better ones for the center and front doors. However I would like to know what upgrades (modest) that others have experimented with.
Thanks in advance.

 

[2013GV]

Will all depend on the head unit you're looking at fitting. Fitting a powered sub to the factory head unit? Why? Its only going to make things sound worse. You will need to take the sub input from the speakers as i don't believe there's a separate sub output on them. Where are you going to mount the sub itself?
Better speakers are certainly a good idea, but remember the factory wiring is " satisfactory " for the factory system and certainly not for anything higher powered. Doors will resonate and vibrate in these too,
Id personally fit a decent head unit and speakers first, this will get you decent clear sound then depending on how deafening you want it, upgrade wiring and then look at a sub

 

[fordem]

Fitting a powered sub to the factory head unit? Why? Its only going to make things sound worse.

I'm going to disagree with that, most of the modern head units are decent performers, but a lot of the stock speakers let them down.

I put an active pioneer sub under the driver's seat in 2021 Jimny and absolutely transformed the vehicle, so much so that I haven't gotten around to changing out the stock speakers in the doors (paper cones with whizzers), I have a set of Kenwood separates that are going to be installed, when I get a round tuit, but a replacement head unit is not on the cards, and so it's clear, this is the "base model" head unit, not the fancy touch screen one.

So that it's clear, I'm long past multi-kilo-watt sound systems in cars, I've been putting audio systems in cars since the days when cars didn't even come with radios, I've fitted 8 track systems, cassette systems, CD systems, changers, multi amped systems with active crossovers, capacitors, larger alternators, I've done it all, I see a metric ton load of crap systems that people pay good money for, and NONE of it impresses me.

A decent head unit, and as I said most of the recent units are decent, a good set of speakers, a small active sub, and maybe some dynamat for the doors (depends on what's in there already), and you can get decent sound, it's not going to win an SPL award, but, if what you want is to enjoy the drive, you're golden.

Steph, go to Crutchfield.com, enter the vehicle details, they'll tell you what fits, pick a set of speakers that is within your budget, and try to find them at a local store - you can buy them from Crutchfield, but since you're not in the US, shipping becomes an additional cost that can be avoided

The factory speaker wiring is adequate for most installations, you're not going to need anything better unless you're installing separate amplifiers, and that I will tell you from now is "overkill", yes, people buy them, heck, I've bought them, I've got amplifiers on the shelf I'm no longer using. The simple truth is the average motor vehicle (and as a Kizashi is an average motor vehicle) is not a conducive environment for true high fidelity audio, there is too much road noise, wind noise, and trying to block those out increases the danger of your not being able to hear an emergency vehicle siren (do you want to know how I know this?).

The original head unit, decent speakers, and maybe a small active sub, that's all you need.

 

[2013GV]

Fordem, The kizashi we got down here in 2010 2011 2012 was not stellar in terms of head units. I strongly recommend against fitting a sub to it until speakers are replaced at the very least.

 

[Steph 1]

Thanks I am looking at the sub under the seat and exchanging out some of the standard speakers. Does anybody know what steakers placement is with the standard stereo system (IE: what speaker placements are catered for so I can just replace speaker without having to trace wires to them.

 

[2013GV]

You can replace them with anything that physically fits, just make sure the windows clear them when wound down.

You will need to do a bit of wiring as the aftermarket speakers will have spade terminals not the 2 pin plug the factory wiring has, but that's pretty straight forward

Confirm your speaker setup with the fader and balance on the existing unit, should be 2 rear and 2 front with possible tweeters on the doors up by the mirrors
Leave them as is, they actually work quite well.

 

[Steph 1]

Thanks for your input mate, I have done a great deal of research on this. What I have come up with is:
Keep the existing head unit BUT Add a mini amp 50W wrms x4
Put in an active sub under the front seat
upgrade front door speakers hertz full range with omniderectional tweeters.

Then when finances permit upgrade the rear speakers hooked to the mini amp.

Any thoughts on this scenario?

 

[fordem]

What's the output of the existing head unit, I'm going to be it's 20W/channel (RMS), which in my opinion/experience, is more than enough for casual listening, with decent speakers. Notice that underline. You're looking for (I would be looking for) coaxial two ways in the same size as the factory speakers, forget about separates (yes, those omnidirectional tweeters are a no-go), and forget about speakers with "high power ratings". The greater the power handling of the speakers, the less efficient they are, and the more power you'll need to drive them.

Why do I say no separates - first, separates need a crossover, good separates will have more than just a capacitor inline with the tweeters - second, mounting of the tweeters, you're going to see a lot of tweeters, even in high end factory systems, mounted on the sail panels (triangular piece on the inside of the side mirrors), the problem is that the greater the distance between the tweeters and the mid ranges, the less coherent the sound image will be. Speaking of mounting, you're also going to need to find a place to mount those crossovers.

Get a tape measure and measure the distance from the passenger side mid range to where your ear would be and then repeat for the passenger side tweeter, see the difference? Now repeat the exercise on the driver's side, the differences in path length are huge on the driver's side, mid range is almost double the tweeter isn't it?

If you want a coherent sound stage, you want the mids & the tweets together, and co-axials is the way to do it.

What was that? You don't care about the sound stage? You don't even know what the sound stage is?

The idea behind "HiFidelity" stereo systems is to, as accurately as possible, reproduce the music, the various instruments, the vocalists, what ever genre appeals to you, and when the mids & the tweets are separate, the lower notes from any given instrument don't arrive at your ears at the same time as the higher notes (including harmonics of the lower notes) from the same instrument, this causes the "position" of the instrument to be constantly moving.

Quite a few people don't care about the sound stage, they don't care about a flat frequency response, they don't know what the music sounded like live, so it doesn't matter to them. How do the high end factory systems with sail panel mounted tweets deal with this, by electronically adding delays, vehicle manufacturers pay big money to the big names in audio systems to develop and tune the drivers (which are "handed" by the way, not the same left & right), and the head units to get what they want, and then they charge the owners. accordingly.

Why am I steering you away from an amp, even a mini amp - in a single word - wiring - you're going to have to find a suitable location for your amplifier, run cables from the amp to the existing speaker locations, run power cables (nice heavy ones) to the amplifier, and then run cables from the amp to the head unit to drive the amp (does the head unit have RCA outputs, they are not common on factory fit, and if it doesn't, you're going to need impedance converters, or an amp that has high level inputs, just typing that gives me the heebie-jeebies)

Confused much now?

Keep it simple, you say you're looking for a modest system, stick with the factory head unit, add an active sub, and decent speakers, down the road upgrade the head unit. As I said earlier, it's very difficult to achieve high fidelity in a car, you can however spend a ton of money trying - you're not interested in high fidelity, you just want easy listening, on a budget - well that was the recipe I just gave you.

 

[Steph 1]

Thanks for that mate, appreciated. You talk of sound staging and actually know quite a bit about sound in general, in my final year of my industrial design course after reading the book on speaker design by Mr Wharfdale released in 1948 and still the standard today for sound engineers. I designed a few speakers in my final year of that course. I am very much interested in audio sound production and perhaps be considered an Audiophile without the prehensity of audio neurosis syndrome

At home I have a Rega brio amp, Rega DAC, 1970's original planar 1 turntable with Grace 303 tonearm, Dynaudio Audience 52's with a Cambridge CD player transport with and a Klipsch Sub. My thought on sound staging is in the classical sense is that the sound engineers try to create a "hologram" so the listener can read the placement of the instruments and voices as if they were on a stage, Drums down the back singer front center Base to the left, and on and on. So what you should see/hear is a 3 dimensional hologram of sound in front of you as if you were in front of the players/singers. I have no idea how speakers surrounding you, like in a car, could produce any form of believable sound stage, in the same way that headphones cannot.

I was after some help from others on which avenue I should pursue in my quest for acceptable/upgraded sound on a budget. The replies were very valuable

 

[fordem]

Steph, seriously, you are the first person who I've seen raise that concern - it's something else that has been of concern to me - I no longer do any "serious" listening in a car, but two of the things I have attempted is no front speakers, which is I guess tantamount to sitting backing the stage, and no rear speakers, which forces the sound stage back where it belongs.

In years gone by I had a serious interest in HiFi, and was a part of a group that was into elaborate custom built home systems, but I gave it up in 2005 after an incident with widespread flooding affected my home - millions of dollars in damage and an insurance policy that did not cover flood damage - repairs to the property, replacement of major appliances - I had to give up something, and, well, audio was just not a necessity.

 

[Steph 1]

Not having a stoundstage is not an issue with me at all for a car. I know I will not get any sort of soundstage in a car or with headphones. Car sound is a fun sound as long as it has a bit of heft at all the required frequencies and and delivers them well.
And on your flood issues, I wish you the best, sound like not a lot of fun mate to say the least.