Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

[hattersley]

Hi all,

I fitted an alpine iDA-X200 to my girlfriends '06 Smart fortwo Passion but the sound is actually pretty naff, which I found weird because when I upgraded the HU in my Seat Ibiza even with the standard speakers I noticed a big improvement in the audio.

She has tweeters fitted and I've read a few places that I should fit a HPF to those, but I can't find anything cheap enough. She also insists there is a sub factory fitted but I've looked under both seats and the passenger footwell yet I can't find anything.

One other thing, when connecting the HU I connected the two ISO plugs fine but there was a smaller white plug which I figured was for fitting of a CD auto changer so just tucked that away.

I didn't really want to start replacing the speakers if I can help it (this was suppose to be a temporary upgrade until she gets a new car in the next 12 months), but if I was going to replace the speakers and tweeters with something else could anybody recommend an upgrade that'll sound good but not require me to start fitting amps etc?

Thanks! :thanx:

[Gavin]

Re: Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

The standard speakers are rubbish, the first thing most people do is replace the speakers, even the standard head unit sounds good with better speakers, and the optional speaker bass bins.

[bt75alfa]

Re: Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

hey and welcome
in order to upgrade the speakers you would have to remove the dash that can be quite fiddly , i am guessing that there are bass bins fitted to her smart there are quite a few different speaker packages that are avalible, one that a few members have fitted are the infinity 5010cs reference these come with tweeters as well as the crossovers, almost any 13cm speakers should fit as long as they are not too deep you may have to cut the tabs a bit to make them fit in the bins .
evilution.co.uk and fq101.co.uk both have guides on them showing you how to remove the dash and complete the speaker upgrade,

if you do not want to remove the dash you can fit a cover that fits over the dash these can be bought from smartsrus.com

her are some useful links that may help you

dash speaker pods can be purchased from here

http://www.smartsrus.com/acatalog/Smarts_R_us_webshop_Sounds_5.html

how to remove the dash and to fit the speakers

http://www.fq101.co.uk/sound1.asp

to fit the speakers and do the sound upgrade

http://www.evilution.co.uk/index.php?page=modpage&id=77&men=ic

e
and how to remove the dash

http://evilution.co.uk/index.php?page=modpage&id=30&men=interior

both fq1010 and evilution are good sites i used both sources of information to do the upgrade

and the infinity 5010cs components can be bought form here

http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/product/products_id/3828/referer/rc_froogle.html

hope i have given you the information that you need
regards billy

[Jcdenton]

Re: Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

Standard speakers are really poor, infact the worse i have heard in a car. You NEED speaker bins if you dont have them and get a set of infinity reference 13cm speakers with tweeters. The crossovers can easily be mounted under the dash.

I really wouldnt get an smann dash board thingy. It turns your car into a shopping window for chavs. Also im sure that you still have to remove the dash to fit it anyway. Its an easy job.

The tweeters are good stuck to the metal part below the front window, thats where i have mine.

[hattersley]

Re: Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

Thanks for the excellent tips! I'm going to look into getting the Infinity's, at that price it seems like a really good upgrade to make. The job of removing the dash doesn't look too bad, certainly a nice Saturday afternoon project when there is no football on

Ta for the help guys.

[hattersley]

Re: Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

The tweeters are good stuck to the metal part below the front window, thats where i have mine.

Re the tweeters, she has some factory-fitted (or possibly dealer) tweeter pods already, it's actually a Passion Grandstyle, some kind of limited edition thingy with leather seats and heated chairs etc...

[T33NEY]

Re: Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

Just bin whatever speakers are in it already.. You don't have to spend much on speaker boxes and decent cones to make a vast difference. I didn't spend much over £100, and it's great now And it's all Alpine too.

[piemmm]

Re: Just fitted Alpine to '06 fortwo, crappy sound :/

The X200 is pretty naff for equaliser setup and unless you pay extra for the imprint module there's very little you can change, however I assume that you have already adjusted the bass/treble controls on the radio's setup?

The radio comes setup in a neutral way so fiddling with the bass/treble will help things greatly if you haven't already done so.

I've the X100 and infinities all around, still when the radio resets to factory defaults, the default sound settings are *really* naff ;-)