JBL or Pioneer?
It’s a DIY but it’s also a question, so I put it in ‘Ask Car Throttle’. After finding out that I originally have holes behind the rear seat headrests of my Peugeot 405, I decided that I want to measure something up and see if something would work. I have 2 perfectly round holes from the factory with some holes around it for screws, which are good for 16,5 cm speakers. At the moment I only have 2 front speakers from Alpine (see the image) with 35 watts RMS. They sound pretty good but I think the overall sound of my music would be better if I would have 4 speakers. Of course it is important to see if you have everything you need. In the boot I had these 2 ‘plugs’ at both sides, I thought it was for speakers but wasn’t sure. So I took out the right-front speaker, connected it to the wires from the plug rear-right (had to take the wires out of it to fit) and sure enough I had sound at the rear-right side of my car. I went to my local electronics store (Media Markt) to look for car speakers that fit a 16,5 cm screw distance. There was not much choice, there were JBL 2-way speakers with 60 watts RMS and Pioneer 3-way speakers (I think) with 40 watts RMS. The max power was higher with the Pioneer’s but I’m not planning to install an amplifier because of the high costs. I asked the salesman and he recommended JBL because it’s from Harman/Kardon which make good quality speakers, but I think you only pay for the brand name and am not sure. My radio is a Pioneer DEH-1600UB which has 4x50W so I’m not sure what to do. I need to hear everything, low and high frequencies with a ‘full’ sound.
Comments
I think the pioneer speakers would sound more crisp because its a 3 way speaker and since you already have a pioneer radio they might also work better together.
I also thought that maybe JBL speakers would be allergic or something to stuff from other brands, but how can I be sure? What I do think is that the best speakers should be in the front, which would be either the JBL’s or Pioneer’s and move the Alpine’s to the back, I can set the left-right balance in the radio as well as the front-rear balance, with a difference of either 5 watts(Pioneer) or 25 (JBL) I’m not sure if i should adjust it so they would be the same volume (make lower the higher power speakers) or just leave it and have the front going slightly louder. What I did read somewhere is that when you have 3-way speakers, you have 2 little tweeters in the middle and because of having 2 they would hold back more of the sound of the big cone which is for lower frequencies (like bass, which we are all turned on by). The best would be to test both sets with 1 the same song but I wouldn’t be able to return them if I’m not happy about it, and we are talking about €80 more or less, sure most come as even more expensive but I don’t have a lot to spend at the moment (I would even have to save for them)
Pioneer
Get 4 the same speakers, preferabele Pioneer since your head unit is the same brand. And save up for an amplifier. Doesn’t have to be the best one but it does make a lot of difference!
Option 2 is to get the 3 way speakers and place them in the front and the old alpines in the back. Rear speakers are only there for support!
I think I’d rather go for this, I’m not planning to save up for an amp as I also have other things on my to do list which also need spending. Maybe some day though. So the double tweeter in a 3-way doesn’t partially block the lower sounds from the big cone does it?
No, on the contrary. Separating the frequencies produced allow for a clearer and louder volume production!