Making Your New Ride Even Better
"My system sounds OK but I don't want to rip the dash apart to put in a new CD player just to get a better sound." We in the mobile electronics retail industry hear this start of a conversation on a regular basis when clients enter our stores looking for a professional opinion on how to upgrade their vehicles' audio systems to meet their musical/entertainment needs. In the following article we'll take a brief look into what it takes to upgrade or integrate aftermarket equipment into the stock audio systems in a few of today's more popular vehicles, and the obstacles that each of these vehicles can present due to the rising complexity of OEM systems in the past few years.
2008 Honda Civic/Honda Si CoupeGadget Car
Since the economical Honda Civic won't break a young adult's budget, there should be cash leftover to spend on an aftermarket system. That's one of the reasons I like the car. Another, of course, is that it's fairly fuel efficient; and with gas prices rising, a compact should be de rigueur. Yet another reason for picking the car is the fact that it's a relatively easy vehicle to upgrade for audio. I picked products partially based on a budget, but I also wanted to incorporate some of my favorite gadgets for use in and beyond the car. The total for the upgrade was meant to be very wallet-friendly.-Brook Howell
The ever-popular compact king of the streets, the Honda Civic, has a lot of potential for upgrades since it presents the more common problems for integration of an aftermarket audio system. The car doesn't use a complicated data bus system like MOST or CAN, both of which use optical cables that can be very sensitive and tricky to integrate into. The engineers at Honda have provided us with a great starting platform based on a standard two-channel audio system. The stock (over) rated 350-watt system consists of a very ergonomically integrated AM/FM CD player with MP3/WMA playback via CD and an aux jack for today's more popular portable audio devices, such as MP3 player, iPod, Zune, and more. The Civic holds a seven-speaker system consisting of a 6.5-inch component set with tweeters in the dash, midbass in the front doors, and 6.5-inch coaxial in the rear deck. In the new Civic Si coupe there's a stock subwoofer positioned in the middle of the rear deck for extended bass response. Most would think that this is all that someone would want in a car audio system, but we have to take into consideration that Honda is more interested in selling you a car than a good sound system.
Where do we start with an upgrade? The head unit is a solid performer with lots of potential and is molded seamlessly into the dash so no need to remove it. The weakest link in most audio systems is always the speakers and the lack of power to drive them. Adding new high-performance speakers in all locations, an aftermarket subwoofer system and a real amplifier would be the best solution. Integrating into this system isn't too difficult, the head unit has four-channel high-level outputs that can be connected to a high-quality line output converter that will allow theses outputs to be stepped down to low-level outputs that RCA cables can be connected to. The front speakers, on the other hand, present a new issue; the factory speakers are very shallow and don't use standard mounting patterns. Careful selection of front speakers is going to be very important due to the speaker depth limitations. The new subwoofer and power amplifiers can be trunk-mounted for simplicity and effectiveness.
Budget: $2,000Cost: $1,750*
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