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Hello gurus,
I must admit, that I'm not a frequent visitor to the ICE section. I have a pretty basic setup in my car comprising of an Alpine HU, JBL GT5-S369 6x9 rears and some odd Blaupunkt 4" speakers up front. I'm somewhat content with my current setup.

However, recently, I've almost coerced a very dear friend to buy a new Beat D PS over an used Swift LDi. As much as he likes the car, he absolutely despises the audio quality of my current setup. He had planned to put up components on the front for SQ and would love to have atleast acceptable Bass from the rear speakers. As he found out, the Beat could only accept 4" Comps up front(in stock location). Not only are these a rare breed but they are prohibitively expensive as well (almost 13k for a pair of 4" Components while 6" could be found for as low as 5k). The bass output from the S369s, in my present setup, does not appeal to him at all.
Now, after a few curses including elaborate lectures about the superior ICEing facilities in the Swift, I've been again entrusted to find and source a setup that would fit his bills squarely.

Here's the gist of requirements and budget thresholds:

Budget : 20k (can plonk 5k more)
Requirements:
1. A double-din HU with USB & Aux
2. A decent pair of rear-6x9s that can produce acceptable quantity of bass.
3. The best speakers(under 4k) for the stock locations(4") in the front.
4. Amplifier if required.

P.S.:
1.The car will never use a dedicated sub-woofer

It's upto your expertise now to fish me out of this. As the festive season approaches(merely a week away), the setup is required urgently. Will most like get the installation done on Sunday.
Please pour in your valuable suggestions.

Thanks

1. remember to get an MDF rear tray (keep the original parcel shelf safe)
2. Get an alpine HU - their internal output is decent. If that's still not enough, get an amp
3. get GTO or better speakers - I had friend who got a spark with Hertz Dieci, and they put up decent amount of bass.

Shop around and find out what are the speaker brands available to you, and we should be able to help you narrow down your choices

Here's what i could get of the internet:

1. Head Unit : Kenwood dpx-mp5110u
link : http://india.kenwood.com/products/car/2din/dpx-mp5110u /index.html.
Reason: Has the required basic necessities. The backlighting would gel well with the stock console lighting of the Beat.
Price: No idea whatsoever. Should be around 10k.


2. Front 4" Speakers: Infinity Kappa 42.9l
link : http://www.indiajbl.com/CarAudioDesc.aspx?ID=76
Reason : Cannot find anything else.
Price : MRP is Rs.4999/-. Street price: not known.

3. Rear 6x9 Speakers: JBL GTO 949
link : http://www.indiajbl.com/CarAudioDesc.aspx?ID=113
Reason : seems to be the best bang for the buck.
Price : MRP is Rs.5999/-. Ebay price is around Rs.4,500.

4. MDF Tray : I guess that'll come for free.

I need quick suggestions about the above items. Specially regarding suitability, availability and street price.

Thanks.

armchair research doesnt work for ICE mac. at max on finding a choice of installer. once you have that, you'll have to do your own research on what they sell/can source, and then we'll have to decide on the choices.
Free MDF tray? you wish :p. you'll have to cough up around 1K for it

You can find some HU in Pioneer for less than 10K range. That also produce good bass.

Front 4" is fine but rear I think you can look for another company than JBL. I found JBL are more bright and with less bass reproduction ability. You can look for MB-Quart 6X9 model no. FTB 169 and budget would be same as you mentioned.

Wouldn't the 6/6.5" components fit on the door pad i.e. after cutting some portion around the original grill? If done precisely It would look decent. If the color of speaker grill match with the color of the door pad, it won't look odd i guess!

I am using a 6.5 year old Alpine 9826 with 5.25" components in the front & 6x9 EFX ovals at the back. I get a pretty good output from this set up. But what enhanced the bass & the overall output would be the damping that I have done in the doors.

1. Sadly restricted to "arm-chair research" till today evening. Loved the terminology!:uncontrol Request permission to use it freely!

2. The MDF tray was offered for free with my sub 15k setup 2 years ago. I really expect similar courtship offers from the installer.

3. Yes, there is a sub-10k 2-din Pioneer HU(6050) as well. Will try to audition the same.

4. Will check out if the FTB 169 is available. However, the front 4" provisions are on the dashboard hence no plans to improvise. Bigger comps are ruled out.

Will update after physical visit to the dealer.

The way I look at it. With 4" speakers upfront and no frills (no sub), I don't see any form of acceptable bass happening.
My advice to you is
1) Do not spend money on new 4" speakers for now as they're not gonna do any good for the bass.
2) To avoid disappointment, instead of imagining how it would sound from reading, go listen to how a setup that you have in mind sounds and make the purchase and install decisions.
3) If you need bass for less money, get a 2-ch amp, jbl cs 12" sub, cheap wiring and a 1cu.ft box. Simple. This should be around 8k.
Most important, tune it well.

i'm not very well versed at ICE, but I was quite happy with the bass from Blaupunkt GTX 6x9's on my very very recently sold Indigo. The bass wasn't boomy and produced acceptable sound for rock, psychedelic rock and trance.
The setup was
Sony XPlod HU
Blaupunkt GTX 6x9 rear
Blaupunkt GTX co-axials front
Sony XPlod Amp powering the speakers

I did all this over a few months ~3yrs back and the entire thing would have come to ~20k IIRC.

you can look at setting up a sound box for your rear 4 inch speakers. The box will amplify music, especially bass and should provide with an acceptable output. An amplifier which can drive the rear speakers will help amplify the effect. This is purely because you do not want 6 inch speakers nor do you want a dedicated subwoofer setup.

Err... 4" at the back? He is planning 6x9s, no?

And, a 'sound box' wouldn't extract better bass, nor will it 'amplify' music. It might produce a peak around 80Hz, but that is not going to satisfy any one who wants decent bass. Free air mounting the 6x9s on the parcel shelf gives a decent low bass feeling.

Ok some generalizations.

To produce bass you need to move air. Volume of air moved is basically the area of the woofer x distance the woofer can move without distorting. Hence aa 4" woofer would move about 10 cm3 of air (100cm2 x 0.1cm). A 5.25" woofer would move about 20cm3 of air (130cm2 x 0.15cm) and a 6.5" woofer would move about 40cm3 of air (180cm2 x 0.2cm)....in general the larger woofers can also move a bit more because they can build bigger suspensions for the larger woofers (oh yes I kow about all those small wofoers with heavy cones (>100gms) that can move 1cm without distorting but they are only sutable for the first octave and require prdigious ammounts of power to move).

So how do we poor boys get decent bass in the front of a car.

My recomendations: damping, tuning and time alignment.

Damping is about the move VFM upgrade we can do to our cars. It reduces door panel resonance and tightens up the bass making it more coherent.

Tuning is the next step but demands a subwoofer (even a small 8" one) and an amplifier. By carefully choosing the crossover freqency and slope of the subwoofer we can given the impression that the bass is coming fromt the front.


Time Alignment is the next step up. By delaying the signal going tothe front speakers we can let the sound wave coming from the bach woofer catch up with the sound coming from the front and when all the sound hits your ears together our ear percieves that all the sound (including the bass) is coming fromt he same location. Since the mids and highs are indeed coming from the front the ear then percieves that the bass too is coming from the front.

Now back to the discussion on hand...
With a pair of 4" in the front and 6x9s in the rear you will hard pressed to get any semblance of bass in the front. 4" woofers move very little air.

Nitrous's suggestion is a good one but then the rear has no mids or highs. The best way to go about this is to slowly upgrade.

Start with a HU that has 3 pairs of pre out (so you can add amplifiers later) and if possible time alignment. Get the 4" and 6x9s for now. When the budget permits, add damping, a well tuned subwoofer and the time alignment (optional).

A good pairs coaxials at the back can be used provided the HU is a good one.

Check if the HU can apply LPF(Low Pass Filter) to the rear speakers, it will make the Rear Speakers a "Pseudo-Woofer" and gove you acceptable levels of bass.

:confused: How does that work? Do you mean use the rear speakers *only* for low frequencies, cutting out the rest with the LPF?

If the rear speakers are not capable of going low by themselves, it wouldn't help. Unlike in dieting, leaving out some of the stuff does not get one any gains! :D