Lude Generation

Hello.

I am driving an Astra Van until I get my Lude back on the road, unfortunately it seems the speakers in the Astra Van, the bludy base model, is far better than the speakers in my 5th Gen. They seem to be a little clearer with a lot more power.

The system in my prelude is completely stock apart from the head unit which is an Alpine IDA-X305, no other changes have been made. The head unit is hooked up to my iPhone and it plays 256 or 320 kbps quality? Assuming this quality is good enough what would the audiophiles recommend I do to increase the quality of sound within a budget of a few hundred?

Head unit below:

1st of all
Does your Prelude have the acoustic feedback system?
If so, your aftermarket stereo has screwed up the feedback system making the rear speakers basically useless.

I've never ever heard of this? How would I work out if it had this or not?

Edit: Have found out what this is and will check next time i'm with the car. So say I have removed it, what would be the next stage?

Your rear speaker covers will have acoustic feedback written on them and also under the rear parcel shelf next to the boot torsion beams you will have a 2"x 6" ish size black box with a wiring harness going to the rear speakers if they are OEM rears.
This black box is the AFS amp and system.

If you are interested, I have an AFS for sale

Ok so I've heard good things about these speakers:

Alpine SPR-60C

Do I need to run them with an amp?

My head unit has an output per channel of 18watts RMS, 50 peak. The speakers are capable of 100w RMS, 300 Peak. Does this mean the would be massively under driven straight off my head unit?

YES YES YES Get an Amps. Your headunit wont ever put out more that 18wrms TBH.
Underdriving speakers is more damaging than overpowering since music does not give a continuous sine wave that max power usually is measured at.
Get a 2nd hand 50w x 4 amplifier off ebay. Some decent alpine ones can be had.
Wires it in with fresh wire to all 4 speakers and you will be singing.
Also add some sound deadening whilst your there. Sound deadening is THE MOST important part.
Sod dynamat. Its overpriced.
Stick to second skin or silent coat.
I have used over 120sqft of silent coat on the whole car.

Hi Ratty,

Thanks for your reply. Why do you consider sound deadening to be an important part of an installation?

Mudgey wrote:Hi Ratty,

Thanks for your reply. Why do you consider sound deadening to be an important part of an installation?

Why not....
- Metal resonates at a certain frequency depending on metal thickness and size and the frequency the speaker plays at.
Add some dampening material such at butyl or bitumen based sheeting to metal this will add mass to the metals....More mass means more energy required to resonate the panel. More resonation means a stronger vibration or a lower deeper frequency needed to create it. So your lowering the panals resonation point. Resonation looses audible energy so a more flexible panel means you will loose alot of bass extension. The mass will enable a more solid bass reproduction.
So your basically lowering the metals resonant frequency.
- More mass to a panel means more sound absorbed meaning less noise pollution on both sides.
- More mass means a more solid panel which means a speakers can physically exert and more uniform pressure. Youd you install a speaker on carboard or metal?
- All the above factors enable a sound system to be more efficient. Unwanted noise will mean you can hear your music more.


Disadvantages
- Can be expensive
- Your adding mass to your vehicle. Many Honda folk think a Honda should be as light as possible but not eveyone is a track slag. I removed all OEM deadening apart from the firewall stuff and saved around 13kg. But iv added around 25-30kg of deadening. Maybe 6kg to each door in deadening since im having 150w-300w to each midbass alone in the doors.

IMO you can install a few sheets of deadeing to both the inner and outer skins of each door and again on the parcel shelf and you will be fine with that.

RattyMcClelland wrote:1st of all
Does your Prelude have the acoustic feedback system?
If so, your aftermarket stereo has screwed up the feedback system making the rear speakers basically useless.

I have this in my Lude....and a Pioneer HU.....is it worth ripping it out?