[jbrasure]

Hey Folks,

I've been researching aftermarket speakers for my Insight. There are bits and pieces of information scattered among several threads, and many of the speakers that are mentioned are no longer in production. Thus, I thought it would be helpful to start a poll to get the latest information in one thread.

Here is the poll:

1) If you have aftermarket speakers in your Insight, what brand and model number are they?

2) What other stereo equipment is in your insight? For example, what headunit do you have? Do you have an amp or subwoofer?

3) Do you like the way your speakers sound?

4) Were any modifications necessary to install the speakers? For example, did you have to cut or shave any plastic on your Insight? Was it difficult to install?

5) What would you have done differently?

Thanks everybody.

 

[kapps]

1. Infinity Kappa 63.3's up front, Alpine 2 ways (forget numbers) in the rear

2. JVC El Kameleon headunit (not sold anymore, unfortunately) and a JVC 12 disc cd changer in the factory location.

3. Sounds great!!! Very full sound and tight bottom. No problems with volume or distortion even when driving them from the 19w rms headunit.

4. To get the Infinity's in, I had to cut the plastic behind the speakers as well as take some of the metal out from behind the plastic. I was a little scared about this but it turned out fine. The speakers fit in the door with just enough room behind to clear the window when rolled down. For the cd changer, I followed the factory instructions. You have to cut the foam out in the rear so the cd changer will just slide in.

5. I'd make a spacer to push the Infinity's out a bit so I wouldn't have to cut into the metal, only plastic. Also, the way I currently have it, I have to run the Infinity's without the grills as the grill bases don't fit. With the spacer, I might have been able to get the grills on.

I'm very happy with this setup and have been using it for over three years. If I knew about the Infinity's beforehand, I might not have been brave enough. I'm glad I didn't know about them...

 

[Alexander Hales]

This is all duplicated information that you can read here
( http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/vie ... 4747#34747 )
and here
( http://www.halestechnologygroup.com/MyI ... age341.htm )


1. I’m using Diamond speakers… In the front I have a set of 6 inch D361 speakers and 1 inch tweet’s. In the back I have a set of 6.5 inch D661i’s.

2. I don’t have a head unit yet but I will be buying an Eclipse when it comes available with an iPod controller. I will also be buying an amp at that time as well, but I do not have a particular brand in mind as of yet.

3. With only the stock head unit it sounds great.

4. I had to have tweeter pods made for the front which required modifications to the side view mirror covers, but nothing more in the front then that. The doors did not require any modifications as the 6inch speakers fit right in perfectly, no cuts and the original covers fit right back on the doors. In the back I had to cut the carpet and a peace of the strophe that covers the trunk so I could open it.

5. I wouldn’t change anything; a lot of thought went into this setup before I actually went through with it.


If anyone is interested in buying these pods for your Insight you can read about it here:
http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/vie ... php?t=3624

 

[Rick Reece]

1. Eclipse model 82641 6.5 inch door speakers
Infinity 3.5 inch 2 way speakers on the dash
Wayland Shoebox Sub

2. Sony MEX-5DI head unit
Sony XA-300 Aux Selector
Sony 405 EQX 5/4/3 channel amplifier
Sony XT-XM1 XM satellite Radio tuner
Sony CDX-747 CD changer
Sirius Starbase Sirius satellite radio tuner

3. Yes

4. Built a dash guage pod which houses the small eclipse speakers

5. No changes yet

Have fun, Rick

 

[HafNHaf]

1. blaupunkt 6.5" door speakers. 25 bux delivered from ebay.

2. kenwood mp3 head unit, orion sub amp, 8" mtx sub, 2 6.5" mtx subs, 4 tweeters mounted at the top of the windshield.

3. sounds great!

4. no mods for the door speakers. had to run wiring for the tweeters on the windshield. had to make mounting plates for the 8" and one 6.5" sub. the other 6.5 is in the left rear speaker hole.

5. nothing. i'm cheap, and it sounds quite nice.

andy g.

ps: here are 2 pics:

 

[Wasabi owner]

1) Sony Xplod's - price was right, installed an interior in a friends Civic and he was buying "nice" speakers so he gave them to me.

2) JVC KD-LH910 - Love it though I would like that new 3 1/2? DVD player but I can see it now since I spend enough time watching the FCD last thing I need is to watch movies while driving too. :shock:

3) Actually yes, night & day from factory garbage

4) Nope

5) Not a thing - it was a budget system and the head unit is pretty cool.

 

[onefstsnake]

1) Infinity Reference 6001i

2) Pioneer DEH 4600MP, Kenwood KAC 7201 800watt all going to a Audiobahn 10" Dual Voice Coil.

3) They are decent for the price. Bass is unreal in a 1.5 cubic foot box.

4) Cut most of the plastic out behind the stock speakers. Sub Box fits in the Cargo Area.

5) Well, I plan on adding a rear speaker setup between the two seats.

 

[Rick]

Infinity Reference 2 way's in the doors.
Kenwood Excelon HU (KDC-X869 I think) powering the door speakers
180 watt JVC amp powering the Super ShoeBox sub. Yes I managed to get one! Guess I've probably never mentioned it here before. :lol:

Speakers needed a good chunk of plastic cut to make them fit, they did not make the shallow mounts when I did this. Currently I have them sitting in uncut stock holes hanging at about a 30 degree angle while I save up for my custom door panels.

For better sound put sound insulation on the inside of the door panel, it made a lot of difference.

The sound is really good, but I eventually plan on adding a bit more power. The 180 watts going to the Solo Baric square cone woofer is anemic at best, it needs more like 300 watts (say 150 rms) to be powered properly, I can tell this. Also I'd eventually like to power the door speakers, maybe even go to components.

I also have automotive carpet pad sound insulation installed throughout the car so this helps quiet road noise and make things sound better overall. I had to double it up for the shoebox to prevent it from rattling the right rear quarter panel and everything in the area, and that's with the thing underpowered. If I ever do get myself a bigger amp I'm going to have to probably go back and figure out some other sound deadening material for this.

 

[karlinhos]

aftermarket car stero stuff is very subjective. what you may think sounds great, the next person will be like, "that sounds like crap!" some like more bass, some more mids, etc.

if you're not a high-end officiando, then a great start is to simply replace the door speakers. 6 1/2", 2-way (woofer w/ built-in tweeter). add rear speakers and get a 4-channel amplifier. the amp will help a lot with boosting the signal to the speakers, improving overall sound quality.

head unit - again, unless you're a audiophile, you can get a nice name brand unit for about $200, and this includes CD players. same price range

later on you can get into installing seperates, electronic crossover network, subwoofers, etc.

research on your own. surf around the net. figure out what kind of stuff you'd like/need.

good luck to you!

 

[Subterfuge3927]

MAD HW-26G / HWH-806
honda/acura/suzuki 1998-03 wire harness

Pioneer DEH-P460MP
CD/MP3/WMA/WAV In-Dash Receiver 50wx4


Dynamat XTREME BULK PAK-
xtreme bulk - 36 square feet, 9 sheets Sound Dampening!!

Pioneer Premier TS-D601P
6.5" coaxial, 260 watt max. speaker set (set of 4 2 door 2 rear)

Pioneer Premier GM-6150F
4-channel 600 watts power amplifier

Monster BAP-500
high quality 500 watt power 4-gauge amplifier connection kit by Monster

 

[Redguy1959]

1) Front - Polk Audio db 650; Rear - JBL GTO627 - I got the JBL's to fill in some of the lower midrange that the Polks were missing

2) Head unit - JVC KD-HDR1 HD Radio/CD Receiver; Subwoofer - Blaupunkt THB200A 6.5" 75W Amplified Compact Subwoofer

3) Pretty satisfied with the way it sounds. Clarity and stereo imaging is superb, as long as you don't turn on that pseudo-subwoofer feature on the JVC (kills the stereo imaging among other things).

4) Speakers all bolted right in. Other mods: I draw power for the amplified subwoofer directly from the DC-DC Inverter 12-volt cables in the back of the vehicle. Installed a one farad capacitor cause I didn't know how current pulses from the amp would affect the inverter. I got a nice unexpected side effect - my IMA battery is now easier to keep fully charged - my only theory on this is that the cap allows an averaging of the current draw so that the Insight actually sees a steady trickle from my audio system and responds by replacing the energy, kindof like the "headlights on" trick. I really do not know why the cap helped my IMA battery stay charged, but I know it did.

Another mod: apparently my antenna element was shot but I didn't know it. The radio was nothing but fuzz with only a few stations coming through, and I live by NYC where the band is crowded. When I took out the headliner and unplugger the power wire to the antenna, stations started coming in. Figured the antenna amplifier must be bad, so I took the antenna base apart and took out the amplifier, and ran the wire right to the antenna mast. Now highband FM stations came in, but I could not get anything on the lower half of the dial. On a whim I replaced the mast with some generic thing of the same length I got at PepBoys - everything worked fine after that. Was probably the mast all along and I may not have needed to remove the antenna amplifier.

5) Subwoofer does not hit the really low notes - I don't want to rattle the rafters, just want another octave I can hear. May replace this but not a lot of room in the car. It's a little subwoofer and I didn't really expect much. Also had to put a ground loop isolator in the RCA jack line to the powered subwoofer - was fine with key in ACC position, but with power to the engine stuff on, got weird whistling noise from subwoofer, loop isolator fixed this but may have dropped some of the low bass - still experimenting here.

JVC head unit only has a seven bank equalizer and the centerpoints are fixed - there are no traditional bass/treble controls with their nice end of range curves. I find I have to cut the 1k bank down a little for the Polks and also bring the 6k and 15k bands up a bit if the windows are rolled down - seems the high notes bounce of the windows pretty good when they are up.

--Paul R.

 

[uhtrinity]

This is what I did over the last Month:

Replaced my older pioneer deck with a P3900MP as my old one started having sound issues on the lineouts.

Used my 4 - 6.5" Sony Xplōd 3-ways. These are running on a Sony Xplōd 4 channel amp and are in the factory locations.

Both amps are run from a single power line from the battery. There is a single 20 amp fuse at the battery for both amps with no issues so far. I guess if I blow that fuse then I may have to put in a larger fuse or drop the Sony amp as I don't want to damage the DC to DC converter.

Replaced my 15 year old Pyle Pounders with 2 X JBL GTO804 8 inch sub woofers, these are running on a 15 year old Alpine 4 channel amp bridged to 2 channels. The spec sheet for the JBL called for .35 cubic feet per woofer, and my old lowprofile box has approximately 0.3 cubic feet per side, so I sealed the ports. The box puts out a nice sounding powerful bass.

I wanted an easy way to secure the box, but have easy access to storage, so I used 2 small turnbuckles to hold the box in place. I placed to eye bolts in the box itself, and attached the turnbuckles. The box can be placed or moved by loosening or tightening the turnbuckles by hand.

Here are some pics of the subwoofers.

Here is the view looking from the front seat to the back.

Side view from the back.

Here is the turnbuckle on the drivers side, the passenger side is the same.

The red Sony's mounted behind the seats.

 

[GOClimb]

Two questions:

1 - A lot of folks are talking about *rear* speakers. My 2002 only has speakers in the doors. Are these rear speakers modifications people have done, or am I missing something?

2 - After five years, one of my speakers has died. I just need to get new speakers, and sure, it'd be nice if they were a bit better than the factory installed ones, but all the comments here are from folks with subwoofers and additional amps and stuff. This sounds way too complex for me. I don't want to modify the body. Heck, I don't even have a tattoo! How can I find just a decent pair of speakers that fits the Insight?

Thanks so much!

Gabe

 

[uhtrinity]

Your rear factory mounts are covered by the carpet. I found where they were, and used a razor knife to cut the carpet. There is also a plastic plug that snaps into the opening that needs to be pulled out.

 

[GOClimb]

Your rear factory mounts are covered by the carpet. I found where they were, and used a razor knife to cut the carpet. There is also a plastic plug that snaps into the opening that needs to be pulled out.

Wait, so there are speaker wires in the car that don't plug into anything? Do you need more amplification to plug speakers into them, or can you just get speakers? It's just in the floor? So there's nowhere to mount them?

Okay, weird, but anyway, I think I probably still just want new speakers. Anyone have suggestions?

GO

 

[uhtrinity]

There are wires that run into the factory wiring harness and connector, so no wires to run. They run off the rear speaker connections in the harness. Any aftermarket Honda / Acura adapter should work. The mounting are behind the seats. Look at my pictures in this thread, I took a picture of the one on the passenger side. As far as amplification, you shouldn't need any with a good aftermarket stereo, I am unsure if whether or not the factory cassette deck has rear outputs.

 

[GOClimb]

Sorry, I'm still a little confused. Thanks for bearing with me.

There are wires that run into the factory wiring harness and connector, so no wires to run. They run off the rear speaker connections in the harness.

Hmm, don't know what the harness is. I assume that's something connected to the stereo, though. So it sounds like the wires are already all factory installed from the stereo all the way to the place to mount speakers. Just that there are no speakers mounted (to save weight, maybe?) So in addition to having to replace the speakers that are blown, I could get some two more, and just plug them in, right?

Any aftermarket Honda / Acura adapter should work. The mounting are behind the seats. Look at my pictures in this thread, I took a picture of the one on the passenger side.

That was helpful, thanks. So I guess it's somewhere behind the seats. Unless it's what you plugged your subwoofer into, in which case it's in the back next to the trapdoor thing.

As far as amplification, you shouldn't need any with a good aftermarket stereo, I am unsure if whether or not the factory cassette deck has rear outputs.

Now that's what's totally confusing me. If the stereo doesn't have rear outputs - what are the wires connected to?

And I still don't really have an answer to my original question. Mostly, I need to replace the speakers in the doors, because one of them is dead. Anyone have any suggestions on speakers that'll fit in there? Or is it pretty standard, and I just need to go to some kind of auto-sound system store or something, and they'll have lots of different speakers that'll fit?

GO

 

[uhtrinity]

The factory wiring harness ( all wiring), has speaker connections to the 4 factory mounting locations. the stereo connector is in the location where the stereo is installed. That is where you use a Honda / Acura adapter. I'm not sure (and haven't used) any of the wiring that goes to the factory CD changer location, so I can't help you there. I also ran additional wiring for my subwoofers and amps.

Any decent aftermarket stereo will have 4 channel outputs, right front, left front, right rear, and left rear. As I stated I am not sure if the factory cassette deck is 4 channel. That was the first thing I pulled out of the car.

 

[flymuck]

Hey GOClimb,

It's not totally standard which speakers will fit in the doors. The biggest problem is depth; the speakers that come with the Insight are very shallow (hence the crappy sound) and it's hard to find something after-market that is as shallow.

In one of our cars, we had replaced the front speakers with some Eclipse speakers, IIRC... we had to use the dremel to shave the inside of the speaker cover so it could be re-attached, because the speaker was slightly taller than the OEM.

My recommendation for you would be: take the existing speaker out of the car and walk in to your local speaker store and say, you got anything about this depth? If it's slightly taller, you can shave the inside of the speaker cover like we did.

As for the rear speakers, it's my understanding that the wiring exists and it's just a matter of adding the speakers. But I can't say for sure as I don't have the factory stereo!

Good luck,
-fly

 

[uhtrinity]

The Sony 6.5's that I used fit just fine. No problem with depth or sound quality.