Please Help: High-End car audio

From Poster: The unit reads "Matsushita" on top. The guy at the Honda dealer mentioned alpine built them, I didn't know if Matsu owned Alpine, they do panasonic and technics. I'll look on the back again, but memory only recalls the antenna hookup and then the big pin connector/harness. But it didn't sound that bad of the spkr-line level adapt. Its a 97 Accord.

FROM POSTER: Firstly, thank you all for the responses. To the last response: the audioshop I bought them at installed it. I figured I wouldn't mess with doing both the indash changer and the main unit, it took them about two hours plus it extended my warranty.

The Xtant stuff looks good. Orginally this whole thing was supposed to be cheap, I mean; the Focal drivers were on clearance for $129 a set (6.5" mids 6c211s1 polyflex with TN46 tweets), not a bad price by any stretch, and the 10" Focal sub was $60 11V5501, all new from Zalytron. Just a hair over $300 for all the drivers, I was havin fun for cheap. The little 5 channel soundstream amp was on closeout for $149 and it fit a cavity underneath my trunk floor above the spare tire perfectly so I gave up no cargo space and the installation was competely hidden. I figure 35 watts of reall power, not chip amp power, and 70 for the sub would give me musical level. At that point I figured I needed an aftermarket unit since I wanted something better than what was in the Honda (a factory cd player). However, the eclipse doesn't sound better, just different, and a different I don't prefer. And to address resulta4sures post-I couldn't agree more, its in the DAC. With my Van Alstine Omega IV I didn't even think about the $1,000 as soon as I put it in, nor with my Fanfare tuner. But the Eclipse isn't cuttin it. If someone wants them-I'm probabl willing to sell: 55430 head unit with 5962 in-dash changer, two days old. I'm guessing that I can't do anyworse so I might as well take my losses now and try a Nakamichi from a place that will let me return it. If the Nak does the job it stays. If it sucks, well then I'm toying with the idea of mounting my old Audio by Van Alstine Fet/Valve dac under the seat, finding a head unit with a coax digital out (sherwood makes one), and building a small audiophile grade kit preamp for the other DIN opening, I know the last option will definately work since that tube DAC sounds nice. It may just be my personal subjective tastes, but an EQ isn't the answer. Bits are bits to be converted over into an analog wave form. Anything other than the original signal is distortion. However, there is always the issue of what type and were that distortion is, and this is probably where some subjectivity comes into play and maybe why I don't like these units. Who knows, maybe it is the amp, but In my experience whenever there is an upgrade things as a whole sound better even though the limitations of another component may be revealed. I'll look into the Autophile.

From Poster to Swampwalker: The amp and speakers I installed myself, the $70 was for both indash units (the changer and the cd receiver). The eclispse claims a 5V preout on my unit which should be sufficient (the one above it had an 8V preout). I've noticed most others start at about 1.8 or 2v and top of at around 4.5v. Now I don't judge the units solely on that number, but I should have enought output (not to mention the amp does have gain to accomadate weaker signals). The interconnects are 16ft runs of Lightning Audio Strike series. The interconnect and speaker cable are down the passenger side and the power and remote lead are down the driver side. At this point I still don't know what to do. To me the sound is "stuck in the drivers" if you know what I mean. It doesn't have that ethereal quality where a sound sounds like its coming from behind the tweeter or something, there's not much air or ambience.

From poster: If its of any consequence the amp is mounted on 3/4" particle board which is then mounted to the metal floor, so its not touching any metal (it even has the rubber sleeves for the screws). All connections are simple crimp on spades. Mids are running full range and tweets have there lows filtered via a 12db high-pass crossover (which I had to build, single coil and cap, I did all the soldering). Speaker cables is 16gauge radio shack. I figured if nothing else, since it wasn't the best amp in the world, give it a little help by lowering the overall resistance giving it slightly better midbass control for a couple of bucks. I don't know if the Nakamichi is the ticket.

From Poster again: The 55430 head unit was MSRP at $480 and since it was the last one of last years model they gave it to me for $400. As far as the changer, it was actually, from what I gather, was bought new and installed in a Tacoma pick-up and after two weeks the lady got a cavalier and it wouldn't fit, so she brought it back for an exchange and they couldn't sell it for new (so its two weeks and two days old). Its MSRP was $650, I believe, and I paid $350. I know I wasn't getting the best deal on the prices, but they were decent and I figured that surely the units would give me the sound I was wanting, while maybe not the best for the money. Plus, they were the only ones the really matched the dash in my car which was part of the attraction too, all the others looked so crazy (dolphins, changing colors, bright red trim). Installation was $70 plus parts and sales tax was a hair under $50. So if anyone is interested or knows someone who is feel free to make me an offer--unless something changes my mind. My dealer will give me an exchange or store credit, which is an option.

Thanks for all the support/advice, at this point its basically see if I can trade them in for something else, or get money back and maybe pay a restocking fee. The 6.5" mids and 1" tweets are mounted on the rear deack in the factory 6*9 openings. I was going for the factory look and so they are hidden under the factory grills firing into the rear window. The front 6.5" are mounted in the door panels where the old 6.5" were and the tweets are mounted on the sills at the top of the door where the side mirror is on the other side. I didn't mess with angling them, I figured just getting the tweets up there would be a step up from anything stuck down in the door. The guy at one of the other car audio places in town thought it sounded fine and said the whole installation looked better than what was in his car. When I asked my sister to listen she described it as "tinny and everything sounds on top" (which I agree with). It was my first component driver/ext. amp install, but I had done other cars in the past. I'll admit the amp isn't the best in the world, but I figured any power amp, and especailly this one, would give better sound than any in-dash chip amp. And on the same token any decent componenet drivers w/ an ext. X-over will sound better than some coax's. And it all did, things just went wrong at the head unit. For the same, if not less, money as the eclipses I could get an Audio Alchemy DLC, a power invertor, and a sherwood unit with a coax output to run into my tube dac and come out with better sound by far. Its more elaborate than I wanted and I'm still tempted try Nakamichi. Whatever ends up in the dash can't sound any worse than what I have now. The factory unit, even with its noise, had more body in the music. I expressed my concerns to the dealer and they are going to look at it monday, they want to try a new amp in, but I don't want to spend more money on an amp. I'll bring in my home audio DAC, transport and preamp and run them through to see how much difference the front end makes.