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Upgrading Omega sounds whilst retaiing head unit

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Markie:
Birthday time sooon.....wife wants to know what i want.

I mean what do you buy the man that has everything ...( Idea : Facelift 3.2 mv6  :))

Struggling for ideas then i though . o O Omega sounds.

Anyone got any recommendations for an AMP and replacement speakers that will fit in the original door housings, if i recall correctly the Omega speakers are quite shallow.

I dont under any circumstances want to change the head unit as i use the phone function on my crt700 often. I also dont like phone kits etc so it must stay.

Would appreciate any ideas

Jay w:
i have had the same dilemma, i didn't want to lose some of the functionality of the standard fit set up.

I ended up fitting an alpine amp and retaining the bose speakers i have already and fitting 2x12inch subs

this is the start for me, as timne goes on i will upgrade the speakers....

Hillper:
I wrestled with this for a while.  I didn't want to lose the standard looks.

Jay's solution, though not the simplest was well carried out.

http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1153396039/0

You'll be able to fit speakers with mounting depth up to 63mm if mem. serves.  That's most  good quality ones such as these.

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=3020&cadid=136305922e8ae11c460dd1dc6bb8099b

Be careful of magnet diameter though or you'll be attacking the aperture in the door skin with a hammer!



The other way is to use the speaker wires to drive high level inputs to an amp.  (Most amps have them).

Option 1- Small amp and sub or active sub.  Original speakers high passed, running off headunit.  Very effective upgrade.

Option 2- Four channel amp. Two channels running fronts (components or standards) and two channels bridged to run 10" sub.  'Normal' setup.

Option 3- Two amps.  (Like Jay).  One running components.  One running bigger subs.



A lot depends on preference, pain tolerance (It's awkward and fiddly fitting this stuff) and budget.

How much is Mrs Markiec prepared to spend?

I can recommend option 1.  My freind has a 100Wrms amp and 10" sub in his Passat estate and it sounds very good.  A good compromise of cost, effectiveness and ease of fit.

Bear in mind that using high level speaker inputs to the amp, you're going to lose some quality, but I'd be surprised if you could tell under normal conditions.

Paul M:
I'm not sure it's worth the hassle TBH. I replaced the factory head unit as soon as I got the chance, and with the internal amp and standard speakers the difference in sound is huge. Much more clarity, it plays louder too as the aftermarket unit's amp is more powerful but that wasn't my main concern (an external amp will still produce loads more output).

The problem with factory head units is that even if it's the amp that's crap, you don't get a pre-amp output so can't bypass it. Fit a £900 Genesis dual-mono amp with an impedence matcher, and it's still being fed from the same distorted source. Admittedly you're driving the factory amp far less which may help, but as the epigram goes "you can't polish a turd".

What I would do is to get a small sub and run that off an external amp, it will reinforce the lower frequencies and make a very noticable difference to the overall sound. Unfortunately some head units filter lower frequencies from the speaker outputs to try and reduce distortion, I have no idea if the VX ones do this.

Any more Qs I'll be happy to try and help. I've done audio upgrades in every car I've owned, I'm a bit of an obsessive when it comes to sound quality and I've never been close to happy with any standard setup - even my BMW with the £2000 "hi-fi" upgrade got a bit of a slaughtering... the front bass speakers in that are installed in the kick panels with their own little ported box with accoustic wadding so it's quite a nice setup for a factory system, but still not good enough. The main issue with that car is fitting a sub - the boot is too well insulated from the rest of the car, so it needs some quite intricate work to get the sound balanced with the mids.

Hillper:
That's two votes for option 1!

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