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1994-2002 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I have an ARC and hate the stock radio. Unbelievable: the stock speakers are Pioneers made in China and the back subwoofer is hardly a subwoofer. I think a Corrolla these days might have better speakers. The 300W rating is ambiguous at best. What does it really mean and the manual fail to provide details on the rating.
I went to Tweeter and am going to be putting in an entirely new system. The stock unit with basically be disconnected and I will lose the phone (which I can live with) and the installer said he will be able to route ON-STAR to the center speaker (will not be used for music), and when On-Star is engaged, a trigger will mute the after market stock stereo. I will lose steering controls, but can get them hooked up later as Alpine has a adapter to facilite it. (I will have the remote control from the new head unit though). I will be bypassing the existing amps completely, leave them in their current location and use another 5 channel amp mounted to the back of the back seats.
Question: Has anybody used the stock radio mated to aftermarket amps? The installer says that all the traffic is done through fibre optics on the existing setup and it will be very difficult to redo all that. All that will remain, but just be disconnected and can be connected if I sell the car later. Any other issues, losses one can think of? By the way installer has done this successfully on two other 9-3 SSs. I want to use the stock stereo, though if possible.
I will have to place the new head unit where the in-dash changer is (I will have to give that up, which is OK for me to improve sound)
My planned system:
Alpine head unit CD9813
MB Quart front components tweeter, 6.5 driver on doors PCE216, will be imaged using the delay imaging function to get an accurate soundstage (like what the center speaker does)
MB Quart rear 6x9s 2-way DKC169
JL Audio 500/5 500 Watts RMS 100x2 to front, 25x2 to rear (filler) and 250W to Subwoofer, mounted to back of back seat
JL Audio 10" 3V2 Subwoofer customer-mounted to a fiber-glass box that fits very flush and neatly into right side enclosure in trunk (virtually no loss in trunk space), already done by installer
Yes, this costs a lot, but with this kind of car the stock radio is well, basically not acceptable for me.
Thanks for any feedback.
Vivek
posted by 12.242.19...
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