Base Stereo Upgrade Help
 

Hey All,

This is my first post on the site as I just picked up a 2014 MT base w/ sport package two weeks ago with only 18k miles for 21.8k. The first thing I noticed is that the speakers were blown and were distorting.

I recently installed these speakrs:

Kickers for the door
Memphis Audio for the dash


I can tell the stock HU (non bose) can barely push the door speakers and they don't sound very good past like 7 volume.

I will be installing this HU this week:

HU

Anyone know if installing this HU will help with the overall sound or is an amp going to be 100% needed to get anything out of those kickers? I'm sort of a car audio noob so any help is appreciated.

After going through the forums a bit, I also discovered the speakers in the car are wired in parallel. Does this affect the type of amp I would want to go for and how would I go about wiring these speakers together should I get one. I'm not sure if not getting matching components has screwed me over or not.

It's been a really long time since I have been into the car audio aftermarket stuff, but you shouldn't NEED an amp for the speakers you picked up. A small amp wouldn't hurt, but I would wait for some of the experts around here to chime in before you run out and pick up anything.

Would I need a 2 or 4 channel amp since they are wired in parallel? Idk why this **** is so confusing for me lol.

Will the HU improve your sound quality? most likely. Do you NEED an amplifier? No, but you would certainly benefit from having one. More power is never a bad thing, especially with the road noise in the Z. A small 4 channel class D, using the HU crossovers. 2 channels LP to your doors, 2 channels HP to your dash. (through your amp, of course)
Nowadays power is cheap, why not take advantage.

There is currently crackling/distortion with any song that I play right now that has any consisten bass which makes me either think it’s the HU or the internal wiring/connections. The crackling was happening with the stock speakers too. I guess I’ll find out when I install the head unit tonight.

The stock HU is a piece of ****. I trashed mine within a week of ownership.

Personally I'd install an amp if money isn't an issue. More headroom power-wise is always a good thing. You'll max out that HU if you're ever jammin windows down or whatever. It's a small cabin though and doesn't take much. Also personally I'd look around at HU's more. That one is pretty old for something app oriented.

I was able to get it off a friend for $200 that’s why I went for it. Will post an update once I get it all in.

Got it all in and everything works. Speakers work perfectly now with no distortion and can be played pretty loudly. Internal amp must have been going out in the stock unit.

Glad to see it's working out for ya. :) I've only had my Z for a couple months, and I can already tell that this stock HU is going to drive me bonkers.

Sounds like you wired your speakers in series which dropped the ohms rating sending your already crappy stock amp inside the radio into a crazy mode, or you have a bose system?

Anyway you dropped the ohms rating hence why you can only get to volume 7. you're only suppose to put a 4 ohm load on a radio and most speakers come that way. What you should have done is bought a component speaker set and put the tweeter in the dash, woofer in the door, and used the crossover that it came with.

I took the stock speakers out and replaced them with the speakers listed above. I didn't actually change anything from the stock wiring. Does this mean they are still wired in series? Can This be fixed by running new speaker wire to a crossover?

Everything sounds perfect now that I've installed the new HU. How long is it safe to run this set up if it is wired in series from the factory? :eek:

the stock base system is terrible on these 370z. But I bought a base knowing I wanted to upgrade the car little by little. I ended up going with stock door speakers, pioneer headunit AVH-280BT (scored for 150 bucks), alpine amp setup for a mono sub, z-closure with a alpine type S 12. little overkill for my taste, all I wanted was better sounding audio. But I had everything to put a system in the z. except the HU and z-closure. this thing hits superhard now!

Some components have the crossovers built in, if so than you're golden. However if you didn't use the crossover I would go back and upgrade to new speaker wire through the doors and make sure to run them to the crossover so you get a 4 ohm load.

Thanks for your reply. Sounds like I need to get a 2 channel amp and 2 crossovers or a 4 channel amp and wire all 4 speakers (2 dash/2 door) to their own individual channels?

Gonna do some research on crossovers. See if I can teach myself something.

Suggestion .. get rid of the stock speaker wire! Get some decent guage wire, and separate speakers to 4 channels. Then you know you have good foundation for system and have ohms and phase correct.
There are how to threads on site for rewire.