Audio System Help

[MP5s Make Ready]

Alright, I'm thinking of installing an Alpine 9855 headunit:

Run a 4 channel Alpine MRP F240 to the speakers (already have: 5x7 SPS-570A Type S in front/ sps 1729 Type S in Rear):

I currently have an Alpine MRP-M350 running to a 10" Alpine Type S Subwoofer on the stock Protege 5 headunit.

My question is, will the car electronic system be ok...meaning, will the stock battery and wires be alright.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[1sty]

You could install 2 of each of those amps and have no problems.

Why the 55?

 

[MP5s Make Ready]

Lol, knew I could rely on you 1sty,

I just like the style of the 55 (ie, the non pixel display like the 9853; I like the darker color trim; had the silver deck with blue buttons and it just looked tacky. Then I decided the factory one looked better and used that with the sub)

A few days ago I was introduced to satelitte radio and liked that. I figured I might as well finish the audio system, and get an mp3 player too. I was only questioning the electrical system because my headlights would dim when I first installed the amp about 1.5 years ago. I was sitting in a parking spot and saw the lights on the wall and they would dim when the bass hit. I was also worried about the headunit since alpines are notorious for making you hard-wire the headunit to the battery; speaking of which when I hook up all the amps do you just put one connecter on top of the other on the battery? Kinda ghetto sounding to me but i'm not sure he he.

By the way, I bought my door speakers from www.hookedontronics.com they were alot cheaper than circuit city (that used to sell alpine at the time), they seem to have good service (got my items relatively fast and have been using them problem free ever since.) They have all the other components for sale their too about $50 less than best buy on the headunit. But I was reading other threads that were talking about unauthorized dealers, I didn't know this at the time but I read most of the online retailers aren't authorized dealers. Now I don't care about some 50 dollar speakers, but I'm not sure if I'll buy the headunit and amp from them. What's your opinion? Just a little anxious because I heard that the new Glide buttons on the alpines are kinda unreliable and need some kinks worked out.

Course I gotta get the other extraneous materials such as sub wiring kits and dash kits and harnesses. Of course the satellite reciever is another thread for another time. And some seattle silver paint in case the dash gets scratched lol

(sorry if this post is a little hard to understand, it's 4 am you know the rest (boom01) )

Thanks

 

[1sty]

Lol, knew I could rely on you 1sty,

I just like the style of the 55 (ie, the non pixel display like the 9853; I like the darker color trim; had the silver deck with blue buttons and it just looked tacky. Then I decided the factory one looked better and used that with the sub)

Cool

A few days ago I was introduced to satelitte radio and liked that. I figured I might as well finish the audio system, and get an mp3 player too. I was only questioning the electrical system because my headlights would dim when I first installed the amp about 1.5 years ago. I was sitting in a parking spot and saw the lights on the wall and they would dim when the bass hit. I was also worried about the headunit since alpines are notorious for making you hard-wire the headunit to the battery; speaking of which when I hook up all the amps do you just put one connecter on top of the other on the battery? Kinda ghetto sounding to me but i'm not sure he he.

Head light dimming is just something we have to deal with. Its not a problem of capacity of the alternator is a problem of reation time. It just can't instantly pump out the needed juice and music is far to quick a burst to keep up with. The best thing to do is upgrade the batteries grounding. It doesn't have to be a grounding kit but a more solid engine ground is preferable.

As for the alpine, the units that needed to be wired to the battery are no longer made. They had what Alpine called "V-Drive amplifiers". THese were incredibly powerful internal amps for a head unit. But WAY to many people didn't hook them up as they were supposed to and they were unreliable becuase of it. Alpine realized they were fighting a loosing battle with the typicle person that thinks they can do the install themselves and decided to ditch V-Drive. Which sucks as it was the schiznit. So your chosen head unit does not have V-Drive. So it can be wired as normal....however, it is always a good idea to connect to the battery as it is a cleaner power source. Its not needed though and few people could tell the difference.

You should run a single 4 gauge wire to the battery. Then once you get to the trunk or where ever the amps are going to go, you use a distrobution block to split the 4 guage down to 8 gauge. You could also run a second 8 guage to your next amp and just pile up the connections as you mentioned, however, when you upgrade, the 8 guage may not be enough anymore and you'll need 4 gauge any ways. So I would just get some 4 guage now to run from the battery. Now would also be a good time to pick up a + battery terminal to make for a better connection for the amplifer. A - battery terminal would make upgrading that ground easier too

By the way, I bought my door speakers from www.hookedontronics.com they were alot cheaper than circuit city (that used to sell alpine at the time), they seem to have good service (got my items relatively fast and have been using them problem free ever since.) They have all the other components for sale their too about $50 less than best buy on the headunit. But I was reading other threads that were talking about unauthorized dealers, I didn't know this at the time but I read most of the online retailers aren't authorized dealers. Now I don't care about some 50 dollar speakers, but I'm not sure if I'll buy the headunit and amp from them. What's your opinion? Just a little anxious because I heard that the new Glide buttons on the alpines are kinda unreliable and need some kinks worked out.

The reason these companies are cheaper then Circuit, BEst Buy, or Tweeter, is becuase they never have to warrenty the product and they do not buy from alpine. They buy left over product or unsellable product from alpine dealers. Alpine in no way offers there warrenty with products purchased from anyone except for an authorized alpine retailer, the only online retailer being Crutchfield. So if you speakers are blown, your screwed. If you had bought them from Cicuit city and they blew within a year, they would give you new ones at no charge. Same thing with Tweeter. Unlike speakers, head units LOVE to break for no damn reason. I sell these things and I have yet to see any model that never had a failure. Its simply not possible with all the crap they jam into head units these days. Once you factory in shipping, you might be saving 7% to totaly throw away the products warrenty and the service you would get with a store. So buy from a dealer, you'll be glad you did. Also, do not buy from best buy unless you are buying there service plan. If you don't buy best buys plan and something happens after 30 days, you are totaly on your own with Alpine, they will not send the radio out for you or get it back for you. You will have to contact alpine, mail the unit to them, and pay for shipping. Tweeter and its other stores sell the alpines for the same price and will take care of everything for you if the product is within its warrenty time. Just show up with the unit and we will send it out for you at no charge, we will get it fixed at no charge, we will pay to ship it back to us and we will contact you once the unit is back in our hands.
This is the service people throw away to save peanuts on a product these days. I laugh at these people (rofl)


You will need a dash kit, wire harness, Alpine specific sat tuner, antenna and some but connectors. Then your good to go.

 

[MP5s Make Ready]

Speaking of dash kit, its been so long since I put the aftermarket in the p5 I can't remember which kit was the better one. I thought at the time that metra was considered the "crap" one. Course I've been contemplating getting the msp pocket and painting it, would probably look better even though it's expensive

As for wiring I think I'll get a Multi-Amp Wiring Kit, not sure where I'll put the other amp, I'll try to fit it under the seat but I don't want to take the seat out or anything, and if I remember correctly I tried to do that with the sub amp and I didn't feel comfortable enough putting it there (afraid people in the back would kick it etc)

I'll also get a couple of RCA lines so that the amps can run directly to the headunit instead of the speaker lines like they are now.
(StreetWires LN250 Low Noise 2 16.99 ea)

As for the satellite Radio, when the time comes I think these are the parts I'll need to hook that up. (For a radio that's satellite ready, it sure is alot of dough to get operating etc.)

Satellite Radio: XM Satellite XMDALP100 Alpine (49.99)
XM Direct XMD1000 (49.99)

Thanks 1sty for your help, is it just me or are these boards losing active members, seems when I used to post I'd get 8 different replies. After posting 3 threads these couple of weeks, you're the only one who has replied to any of them ha.

Considering the new info about online retailers I think it would be a better idea to buy at a store. Haven't really checked out Tweeter, all I know is that they have alpine listed on the website but don't show any of the products. I also checked out car toys and on the website they said they could beat any price by 110% of the difference. Best buy has a sale right now on alot of the components so I could save a couple bucks that way.

Since I'm doing the install myself how would that affect the warranty if something broke? Mind you I've done this kind of stuff before so I'm not a complete noob just connecting wires, but I want the headunit to be covered if what you say about there being "lemons" is true.

 

[1sty]

Most people didn't like the metra one but I never really knew why. Seemed as good as teh other to me. Tweeter sells American International now so you may want to take a look at there site for the kit too.

Tweeters website absolutely sucks ass. They only put on the site what you can get from them by ordering online. Even thats not alwyas the case though.

Both amps should easily fit attached to the back of your rear seats.

The parts for the Sat hook up look good, just let the store tell you what you need just to double check.

Best buy will sell it cheaper then anyone but thats becuase they will not deal with the product after 30 days, you are on your own with alpine. You can always try to get another store price match them though. HOwever, there accessories like wiring kits are more expensive then Tweeters kit which are all monster cable. Considerably more expensive actualy. I was just there looking at prices today and I was shocked by how over priced they are on accessories. SO if you buy everything from Tweeter you should technicly get it all for the same total price and get better service in the future.

 

[MP5s Make Ready]

Well there is a Tweeter near my house I'll see if I can go check them out sometime this week, I'll hold it against you if you're wrong about prices, and then you'll have to give me employee discount(cabpatch)


Hopefully I'll be able to hook all this stuff up, it'll just be annoying taking off door panels and hiding wires and soldering in the 100 degree weather. But at least I'll know it's done right!! (No comment on Best Buys hack jobs LOL)

 

[1sty]

I just checked best buy and circuit Citys prices today. Best buy has lower alpine prices then tweeter (about 10-20%). The wiring kits are almost double what tweeter charges.

Compare a 8 gauge power kt at best buy or circuit to one at tweeter. Tweeters is around $30 and the other 2 are arounf $50. So the difference in amp price is made up for in the wiring kit. So to save the most cake, buy the wiring at tweeter and the equipment at best buy. Although I would go into tweeter first, having looked up best buys price on the alpine stuff, and tell them to price match it.

I was reading something on our intranet that was saying not to price match best buy on alpine. I was thinking this was total bull s*** as we are supposed to match anyones price if it is the at counter price. Meaning no rebate matching or crap like that.
Give them the chance to price match BB and then you can get Tweeters better serive after the sale, and the cheaper wire inone stop. If they don't match it, get the monster power kit and RCAs ( same a BB or CC price but better quality) and head to Best Buy to get the head unit cheaper if you prefer.

As a Tweeter Salesmen, I would price match it and take what ever heat was coming for it. Becuase if I didn't then my company would be flat out lying in their advertisements. I could be wrong though and we are supposed to be matching them. I think the post on the intranet was for just a RF CD changer if memory serves. I can't be sure either way until satureday. Which I don't know about your area but for ours, it is the time of times to go in. I can not say why publicly

 

[MP5s Make Ready]

Yeah, it's also tax free weekend coming up LOL. I really appreciate your continued help with this, heck if you weren't so far away, I'd buy the stuff from you cause at least I know you're not trying to BS me.

In regards to the intranet deal, hopefully they'll price match the stuff once they see how much stuff I'm getting, the amp, speakers, the headunit, wire kits, etc. They'd be stupid because Best Buy is right next door to the Tweeter I mean I could literally walk to the Best Buy if they aren't willing to "deal."

(In regards to the whole public info thing, if I happened to get a pm, from someone who shall remain annonymous, and the title says Confidential, then it wouldn't be anyone's fault but my own for reading it. wink wink)

 

[1sty]

I'll call my store and ask about the price match today. I am curious about this one too.
Technicly, I could write up the entire order and all you would have to do is walk into the store, tell them your phone number or invoice number, and they can punch up the entire order. Obviously, they may not have everything in stock. But the stuff you want is all well stocked items up here atleast. If you want to do this, I can write up the order and put instructions on it for the salesmen of whatever store you go into to, to comcorr (commission corrections) it to give himself 25% so that he can atleast get paid for running around and gathering everything up.

If you do go in and they don't believe you about BB prices, make them look it up online which they should be able to do.

 

[Devilspawn]

I had the 9855 installed in my car this week. I won't get to mess with it till next week as the rest of the install is in progress, but I liked it on the shelves and I luv it in the car already as I went to see the progress thus far yesterday.

I was a little skeptical about the slide controls and have already been warned, but I liked it better than the xx53 visually and I wasn't going kenwood again nor did I like any of the pioneer decks or the I should say the ones I was willing to pay for. If you have a week I can let you know how I like the xx55 in the car once I get it back.

 

[1sty]

The slider really isn't that bad once you get used to it. Now the clarion touch screen standard head unit, thats a piece of s*** to use.

 

[Devilspawn]

The slider really isn't that bad once you get used to it. Now the clarion touch screen standard head unit, thats a piece of s*** to use.

yeah I fooled with it for a good 15 minutes and decided that was 15 minutes that I wanted back...

 

[MP5s Make Ready]

Yeah, I mean, if that would get me the prices I would appreciate that. The comcorr would be coming out of the price I'm paying, right? It wouldn't be added on after the fact? (You should get some comis. you did more than he would LOL)

If so, I wanted to order the 9855 headunit, the SPS-570A speakers, the MRP-F240 amp, I'd need two RCA lines for the 2 amps, the wiring harness for the headunit, the dash kit, and a multi-amp wiring kit so I can do the whole 4 gauge to 8 gauge deal.

Two nights ago at Best Buy the headunit was 404.99
The speakers were 107.99
The amp was 185.39

And what service plans where you talking about that I needed to get, or do I really need to get any if I buy from Tweeter, or are they included with the products?

PM me if you need my personal information for the order.

Here's the store I would be getting the stuff from:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=80>Store Manager: </TD><TD>Jim Bowen</TD></TR><TR><TD width=80>Phone:</TD><TD>281-277-7722</TD></TR><TR><TD width=80>Fax:</TD><TD>281-277-0977</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=80>Address:</TD><TD>Tweeter
16820 Hwy. 59
Sugar Land, TX 77478</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

[1sty]

Yeah, I mean, if that would get me the prices I would appreciate that. The comcorr would be coming out of the price I'm paying, right? It wouldn't be added on after the fact? (You should get some comis. you did more than he would LOL)

If so, I wanted to order the 9855 headunit, the SPS-570A speakers, the MRP-F240 amp, I'd need two RCA lines for the 2 amps, the wiring harness for the headunit, the dash kit, and a multi-amp wiring kit so I can do the whole 4 gauge to 8 gauge deal.

Two nights ago at Best Buy the headunit was 404.99
The speakers were 107.99
The amp was 185.39

And what service plans where you talking about that I needed to get, or do I really need to get any if I buy from Tweeter, or are they included with the products?

PM me if you need my personal information for the order.

Here's the store I would be getting the stuff from:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=80>Store Manager: </TD><TD>Jim Bowen</TD></TR><TR><TD width=80>Phone:</TD><TD>281-277-7722</TD></TR><TR><TD width=80>Fax:</TD><TD>281-277-0977</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=80>Address:</TD><TD>Tweeter

16820 Hwy. 59
Sugar Land, TX 77478
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

The Comm corr thing is something tweeter does internaly. It means that if I am the salesmen on this that I am splitting 25% of my commision with whoever ends up helping you out in Texas. It would not affect your pricing at all.

The service plan is not as critical with tweeter as with best buy as we won't tell you to F-off after 30 days like they will. But you can extend the coverage with a tweeter service plan that will cover the deck and amp for like $50 for 3 years. The speakers would be covered under a seperate 3 year replacement plan for $30, not exactly worth it for $100 speakers. It wouldn't be a bad idea for the deck/amp though. To save the most, you could do just the deck for $40. The amps the least likely to die.

 

[MP5s Make Ready]

LOL, just noticed you were online, wondered how you replied so fast.

It means that if I am the salesmen on this that I am splitting 25% of my commision with whoever ends up helping you out in Texas.

Good, at least you're getting some money out of this.

The service plan is not as critical with tweeter as with best buy as we won't tell you to F-off after 30 days like they will.

So far none of my stereos for my other cars have broken so hopefully this one won't. As long as I'm covered somewhat by Tweeter under the factory warranty, which is however many year(s) I think I'll be alright.

So I guess I'll wait for you to do whatever you need to do. You'll let me know when to go down to my local store?

 

[1sty]

PM me your full name, address, and home phone number. I will write you up an order for the power wire kit, dash kit, factory wire harness adapter, distroblock, Deck, amp, RCA's
you should get 3 sets, front, rear, sub.


You already have all of the speakers right?
Your first post said you had them but later you said you wanted to order them/
Is the only equipment you are adding is the deck and 4 channel amp or are you adding the front and rear speakers aswell?
I have about 3 similar threads to this going on so I am getting losed and don't want to screw this up.

 

[MP5s Make Ready]

I just need the fronts, I have the rear speakers already, and some Type R's but I like the sound of the S's better so i want to replace the fronts with some new ones.