Favorite cheap car audio systems

[BuickMike]

Who has had some super cheap audio inatalls that actually turned out really well? The more I think about it, I have been much more impressed with some of the cheap ssytems I have put together than the expensive ones.

One of my favorites was in my old '87 Porsche 924S.

Alpine 7903 head unit - $30 because it was broken. All I needed to do was snap the worm gear for the CD player back into place. Cleanest headunit I've ever had.

Hifonics Cupid - 22 watts RMS x2 at 4 ohms. 44 watts x2 RMS at 2 ohms.

I was pushing a pair of Senet Concepts (off brand made by Altec Lansing) plate speakers plus a set of Infinity RS components (5 1/4's and tweeters) in the doors. The plates were in the stock 4X6 locations and the tweets were in the kick panels with the Infinity mids in sealed enclosures I made out of the map pockets in the doors. They were all run in series. The subs changed over time. I started with a Rockford Fosgate Audiophile 12" and think I ended up with a JL Audio 12W1 in a bandpass box. I used all passive crossovers. It sounded good enough to impress a installer friend of mine who had plenty of Iasca trophies under his belt, and built systems for competition cars, Nikki Taylor, Wayne Gretzky, and C.C. Deville.

Another good one is my CRX Si. I have an older Eclipse head unit. It is a lower end model, but it is clean. It runs a 80 watt x2 Power Acoustik Gothic series amp that I got for $10. I opened this amp up and it is identical in every way to an Alpine amp that I have. Anyway, it runs some old MB Quart 5 1/4 components up front that I RTV'd the surrounds back onto and JBL 6.5"s in the rear They are all run inseries. I have a JL 10W0 for the sub in a sealed enclosure. All passive crossovers. There is something to be said about how balanced a system sounds when everything is coming off of the same power source.

My GN used to impress people with a Kenwood head unit, Radio Shack tweeters in the dash, Infinity RS 5 1/4's in the doors, Pioneer 6x9's in the rear deck, a LA Sound 100x4 amp, and a Series 1 12" sub in the trunk.

Let's hear some other stories!

Lets hear about some other ghetto installs that turned out well.

 

[Nasty Wendy]

Back in '90 '91ish I was working as an installer. I had a pair of 18's in a big ported box along with a ton of other nice equipment in my mini-truck. The 18s were in the bed due to it being a Mitsubishi Mighty Max regular cab. Well I had to send the 18s back for reconing because I'd blown them and I was getting tired of waiting for them to come back. I built a box to fit behind the seat of my truck that allowed the seat to travel all the way back. I sealed and mounted my Orion 2150gx amp inside of the box and popped in a CHEAP pair of 12s that our store couldn't give away. This system had an Audio Control Epicenter in it. Those two 12s kicked ass for what they were. I was on the sales floor one day and a customer was talking to a salesman asking his opinion of the system the he was wanting to build. It was very similar to what I had. He said he was concerned that 12s werent going to give him enough of what he wanted but its all he had room for. I intervened and told him that I had a system very close to what he was wanting to build and that I'd let him listen to see if 12s were going to give him enough of what he wanted. The salesman knew I had 18s, he didn't know that they were out getting repaired. He looked at me like I was trying to pull a fast one by blowing this customer away with 18s when all he could fit were 12s. Anyway the customer and I sat in my truck and salesman stood next to my truck with a look of disgust on his face. He thought he had tons of work in front of him to be able to sell this customer a pair of 12s after he heard my 18s. We listened to several selections so that he could hear the MB-Quart seperates and he loved them....salesman is smiling. The bass was perfectly eq'd to be musical. The guy then says to me that sometimes he just likes blowing his eardrums out with earthshaking bass. What a coinkydink so do I. I played a few selections that put the subs firmly in control and cranked it up. I then played 'Easy E - Parental Disgression is Advised' and turned on the Epicenter. The salesman got pissed. He started screaming "THATS FUKKING 18s!!!! Why are you doing this?!!!". He knew for sure that he'd never be able to make that customer happy because it would be impossible to reproduce what he just heard with 12s. We got out of the truck and I showed them both that my box that held the 18s was empty. I told the salesman that they were out for repair. He then asked WTF was that then. I leaned the seat up to reveal the box behind it with the DIRT CHEAP 12s and they both lost it. I explained that it was my hold-over box and I'd been waiting for my 18s to come back for so long that I needed a 'quick fix' so I built that box. The salesman's pupils looked like dollar signs as he was figuring out how much his commission was going to be on the sale of the equipment this guy was about to buy. The fellow became a loyal customer of mine following me for work on his car at a couple different shops I worked and finally at my own shop. Thats the best story I have with cheap equipment involved. My system was all top notch stuff but those 12s that I used as temporary fill ins were DIRT CHEAP.

 

[FastB]

In '91, I had a cheap used Alpine tape deck, jensen 6x9's in the rear deck, jensens in the dash, two tired Orion 12's in a homemade box with a Rockford Fosgate Punch 150...amazing sound and those 12's with that Punch 150 was keeping up with 15's..the whole setup prolly didn't cost me $300. I've had a few expensive high SPL systems since but nothing was more suprising than this little system.

On a side note, my buddy had a extended cab S10 with 4 Fosgate 15's behind the seats and he didn't have a amp yet so we hooked up a single Fosgate Punch 75 to all 4 15's....the doors and roof would suck in everytime the bass would hit...and he couldn't keep his rear view mirror mounted on the windshield. Finally, upgraded to a Punch 150HD and to our suprise it didn't hit any harder with the bigger amp..was about equal.

 

[BuickMike]

I love it when you can blow people away with cheap components. Here's a good one that I forgot:

I put a couple Realistic 8"s (I think they were the poly ones) in an isobaric 4th order box just for fun. To my surprise those thing hit hard, clean, and loud. They also took twice the power they were rated at. Me and some friends met with a guy who was looking to start up a new car audio shop and was looking for installers. He had a few of us meet up to have a subwoofer sound off to determine our skill level. I didn't have anything else at the time, so I showed up with my little box with the 8"s. I almost got laughed out of the place, but they decided to let me stay and humor me. It seemed everyone else showed up with a single Kicker in some type of band pass box that was tuned way too low. We had a 200 watt amp running the subs in the trunk of a car that we put our subs into. In the end it wasn't even close. My 8"s killed everything else (there were only 5 of us) in SPL and SQ. I gave that box to a buddy who was pushing it with a Lanzar OptiDrive 100 bridged and had it in the back of his Chevy Sprint. It was actually very clean.

 

["Turbo-T"]

Back in 1997 I had a pair of 12 inch JBL's (not JL's) in a ported box with an Optimus (Radio Shack) 4 channel amp, bridged. For a head unit I had a Kenwood detachable face CD player, made in 1994. The subs were not a loose bass but a really tight bass. It was actually pretty loud. Had this kid that bragged how he had been able to sit in several cars with sound systems and all, then he sits in mine and proceeds to plug his ears with his fingers saying "damn that's loud". The subs would about vibrate every internal organ in your body.

 

[INEEDAGN]

I plan to do something similar soon. I've got a 15" kicker solobaric, the old round one, in a q logic box. As soon as I find an amp capable of running it, it's going in my brothers 97 chrysler LHS. I have a stack of NEW clarion ce-net processors I bought at a stereo shop tax auction. Going to pick up a $50 ce-net head unit and a $100-150 amp for the sub, and use a bunch of aftermarket speakers I pulled out of trade ins at the dealership I work for. I got a couple or three small amps for the fronts and a box of wiring that I've pulled from cars in the salvage yard. Various passive crossovers from old component sets and some tweeters laying around. Kinda funny how the old stereo hounds just "happen to have" a pile of leftover/castaway parts that we can make sound good, because WE KNOW HOW TO TUNE IT LOL. Plan is to install it all so I can sell it to some high schooler for $500-600.

Still working on the GN system, a little at a time. Could install it tommorrow if I settled for castaway $50 front speakers, but want something a bit better. Using 2 10" round solobarics I've had forever, some PPI powerclass amps 'cause they're cheap and easy to custom paint and still good, probably start with a clarion ce-net deal but eventually want a digital audiocontrol EQ. Once it's actually done though I'm sure 9 bands of EQ will suffice and I'll be too cheap to spring for audiocontrol digital. As soon as I buy a front component set for the custom fiberglass kick panels that the previous owner had done, I'll be close enough to start stabbin stuff in. No IASCA winner but good and cheap. My "good" GN system probably equates to others' cheap crap, but what can a guy do?

 

[INEEDAGN]

Big surprise, another freaking double post from a single mouse click......

 

[AmKenpo1]

Kinda new to the forum but this thread caught my eye. I was in the ICE/12volt industry for 12 years and went through a bunch of stuff but my two favorites were my '78 Buick LaSabre225, I got my hands on a used Alpine 7909 and added 2 Soundstream amps totaling only about 600 watts an Audio Control EQX Alpine 5-1/4 components in the doors Alpine 6x9s in the rear and two SoundStream reference 10" subs in a ported enclosure (good thing the car had a big trunk. This car also had a 30 over small block chevy with a th400, shaved door handles and custom paint this was in the mid 1980s.
The best sounding system only had 1 4 channel 120watt Alpine amp Soundstream 6-1/2" Reference components in the doors and 1 8" Soundstream Sub in a '91 CRX it didn't shake the ground but sure did sound sweet. Just for kicks we checked the SPL and it hit 116 with some tuning.

Wil.

 

[BuickMike]

Mmmmm, Alpine 7909....drooooool. I had a 7903 once and to this day I swear it is the best sounding deck I ever had. Maybe that's not saying much because I don't buy real expensive headunits.

 

[TURBOPOWERED68]

240 sherwood amp.
50 X 50 no-frills amp
10" American bass in a Bazooka tube
2- 6x9 Pioneers
BS Sony