505 Audio

[N9TE]

Any audiophiles here? Anybody put a double-DIN unit into their 505? Anybody spent some real money on their sound system?

I'm thinking of putting a nice system into the 86 after I do the car with Damplifier Pro (Dynamat competitor). For now, it only has a stock item.

My 87 has a Sony that came from my old Supra. I bought this new in like 1999 and it still work great.

(Pictures taken with my G2 using it's "flash")

However, I'm looking to move into the tens with bluetooth, iPod control, etc.

My absolute biggest bitch is non-intuitive user interface. Seems like every system is designed by a 18 year old looking to impress a girl!

So what ya got and what do ya want?

[Bean]

I'm currently building a budget system for the 89'... I split up the stereo that came with it, and the plan is to build "concert" system in the TD wagon, and a decent great sounding system in the sedan.

89' Sedan:

Alpine cd player with iPod cable (no idea the model - but it's decent)

MRV-F340 Alpine 4 ch amp (ebay) to match the MRV-T420 sub amp that came in the car,

6.5" Boston Acoustic components moved to the front

JL Audio 3.5" speakers inside the stock rear speaker housings

Single 10" JL Audio sub...

86' TD wagon (in progress):

Looking at the single DIN totally Digital Alpine head unit. (Haven't done much research yet)

Soundstream "Van Gogh" 4 channel amp (came with 89')

Soundstream "Van Gogh" 2 channel amp (ebay)

*Amps are true audiophile quality from what I've researched

Diamond components from the sedan up front

Looking for matching speakers for the rear

Single 10" JL Audio sub.

In both cases running the single 10" sub with powerful amps, and in nice boxes should provide more than enough base for me.

Still not sure what to do with the head units, but I'm one that prefers a nice simple set up with out all the neon flashing lights. I'd be tempted to run a DVD system in the wagon for future road trips with the kids, but the stock location in front of the shifter sucks, and would be even worse if it was a double DIN I think. It'd be nice to move it up in the dash...

All this is in the future though - and the only reason I'm even playing with systems is the 89' had it already.

Plan for the summer is to gut the 89' sedan's interior, use something like Lizard Skin for road noise suppression, re-wire the whole system, and then reassemble the interior with as many noise / rattle reducing tricks I can think of. Eventually I'll replace the existing Alpine head unit with something that's a little more subdued that matches the interior better, but still has fantastic sound. (likely fully digital with no media except for USB)

Rabin

[Bean]

I can't really meet the pics mandatory request since most of the stuff is on a shelf in my garage...

What might make for an interesting discussion though is where and how to mount the hardware. I'm currently trying to think of a nice way to mount the amps, and eventually where and how to install the 10" sub.

Personally I like stealthy installs so that you can't even tell the car has a stereo. So with that in mind - mounting the amps is turning out to be a PITA. Best idea so far is to mount then vertically directly behind the fuel tank on a light sub frame, then install the carpetted tank cover over them... Lose a litte trunk space - but they'd be unseen.

Option 2 is to mount them to the trunk floor as close to the tank as possible. Disrupts the flat floor, is less stealthy, but then the weight is as low as possible. (amps are still pretty heavy.)

My amps are too big to go under the front seats from what I can tell, but still not sure where else I could stuff them, and keep them out of sight, and still well placed for the weight. (30 - 40 lbs)

The sub I'll eventually look at doing a custom fibreglass enclosure into one of the trunk sides... Stealth being the key, but not happy about putting all that weight in one of the far rear corners - but not sure I can get it to fit anywhere else and still be stealthy.

I also had a crazy idea to fit a wagon under trunk fuel tank to the sedan like the euro spec cars have, and pull the trunk tank out. That makes the trunk HUGE again, and opens up a lot better options for both sub and amp installation. Car will get repainted so moving fuel fill doors would be easy.

Rabin

[N9TE]

I'm completely with you on stealth install. But if you've got a real monster amp and you're going to be pushing it, you'll have to think of airflow.

I personally wouldn't worry about weight. But damn, 40 lbs?! I'd still mount them vertically behind the fuel tank.

What's the car's purpose? Street car? Then, don't worry about the weight. It's a street car that will never teach a C5 any lessons.

I wouldn't do the under truck fuel tank. Fuel tanks rust and ours don't because of their location. Up where you are, that's a consideration. Too much effort for too little benefit.

I'm just not going to go with such a big amp unit and my purchase will consider form factor as a parameter. But you already own yours so that's just an academic point.

[Bean]

C5 no... Older M3 and M5's yes...

From what I can tell - the wagons got plastic tanks. I always have crazy ass ideas and the plastic under trunk tank swap from a euro sedan was one idea I've had for years. It dawned on me when I was tarping the wagon up that they might be the ideal source for the swap. Also - 504's run steel tanks in the same spot and at 34 years young - it's perfect.

Amp location: My buddy sugested using some alloy sheet metal to mount the amps too - vertically beside the tank. Makes for an excellent heat sink with tons of surface area for cooling - so leaning towards that instead of the thin wall square tube I was initially thinking of.

btw - 40 lbs was just a guess, and it was fo both Soundstream amps combined. Alpine ones might be 25-30 lbs combined. Still enough to want them mounted as low and in the middle as possible.

Car's purpose is be an exceptionally fast sport sedan that humbles cars 20 years newer effortlessly, while doing so feeling like it's every bit as solid. (NVH, stereo sound, door thunk, creak/squeak free etc etc)

Rabin

[norcal505]

Whenever I cranked the bass up in my 505, the trunk rattle would drive me nuts.

I decided on Clarion solely because the car came with OEM Peugeot-Clarion head unit, even though it is lightyears from what that used to be.

post new fogs, I plan on 'investing' in some higher end speakers.

Rabin, how are the Boston acousitcs' bass? Looking to get a little bit of high-quality bass in the cabin, comparable to that in our family's Volvo V70's stock system..

BTW, very happy with the Blaupunkt in my BMW.

[Bean]

I have what looks to be the same sub set up as Rob right now, plan is to cut the box in half and seal the two sides up so I can use one in each car until I do a custom enclosure to hide it well.

I never heard the Boston's all that much as I favour a nice front stage with some rear fill, so I biased the front speakers with the fader... Sound quality is BETTER than my V70R and it has the NICE system in it.

Once I have it re-wired, and installed with sound deadening and such it should be audiophile quality in both cars. The wagon will be over the top though.

Rabin

[Ikenna]

CD player: Sony CDX-GT490U

Speakers:

[norcal505]

Haha that's funny Ikenna. You were also listening to Tupac when you took the picture?

[Ikenna]

Haha that's funny Ikenna. You were also listening to Tupac when you took the picture?

Norcal, Tupac is my best artiste. He is the best rapper, ever. Also, a realist. I have all his Albums.

Ikenna.

[norcal505]

Nice to hear, I hate most new mainstream 'rap' personally.

Tupac lived in Oakland (next to my hometown), and attended high school with one of my cousins in a suburb.

But back to the main topic:

I'm curious to see if any of you guys are running 6x9/larger components that the stock 4 inchers.

Rabin, I see you mentioned that you are: would you mind sharing some pics of your setup?

Wanna get some visual ideas, before I get cuttin' and drillin'.

[Bean]

Actually - I pulled the 6.5" Boston Acoustics components from the 89's rear deck and am stuffing some JL Audio 3.5" speakers into the stock speaker housings just for some rear fill.

My personal thoughts are that I'll get better sound with nice mids and highs in the stock location, with a really well powered 10" single sub, with all the speakers getting tons of clean power. This also allows me the best chance of doing a stealthy a set up.

Course none of this can happen till summer when I can gut interiors and do a proper soundproofing before I install everything the way I want.

I hope to document the process though - so I can add pics later.

Rabin

[Ikenna]

Speakers: Sony XS-GT6940S

[andrethx]

My GL is rocking its original Blaupunkt Denver -- all manuals, registration cards, etc. were in the glove compartment along with the owner's manual stuff. Audio system in this car has never been touched. Right now, only the passenger's side kick-panel speaker works, all others dead.

thinking i will replace speakers with JBL separates (JBL oems speakers for Peugeot) and put in a new Blaupunkt head unit. Might fabricate a set of plates to mount speakers on rear deck so install looks clean. Would love a double-din nav unit, but as Rabin pointed out in an earlier post, the location of our stereos doesn't really lend itself to that. When I think about it, all I really need is bluetooth (for handsfree calling) and a usb connection so I can listed to music from my iPhone, and those two things are easy to find these days.

Will probably clean up the Denver unit & save it in case I ever sell the car.

Andre

[Bean]

Pretty sure that's aftermarket install - Peugeot had it's own stereo in the 86's that was made by Alpine or Clarion I believe.

Looks like it was replaced shortly after - or maybe the GL didn't come with one and it was dealer installed at time of purchase?

Rear deck might have the holes for the rear speakers, and if so - you could grab OEM speaker covers from a wrecker so that you can do an OEM type install. I've gutted an OEM set of speaker covers and installed high end JL audio 3.5's into them - just gotta tweak the screen a bit as the tweeter is a bit too high.

Rabin

[andrethx]

I think you're right, Rabin, this must be a dealer-installed unit. I remember reading somewhere (Toni's site?) that the GL was wired for a head unit & came with f&r speakers but no radio was installed from the factory..."radio-ready" or some such, I think they called it back then. Can you imagine? These days you can't even buy a new car without at least two cupholders.

So I have the rear speakers, but they're dead. The carpeting on the rear shelf is badly faded, so I will probably replace that with something similar...when I do that, I will probably upgrade the rear speakers.

I'm thinking separates for the front, with the tweeters under the dash covers and the woofers in the kick panels.

[norcal505]

Yup. I remember being a child, and when my car belonged to my dad, it had a reallly nice Factory Peugeot-Clarion head unit. Hard to come by today, even in poor condition.

Andre - my hatshelf was redone with the rest of the interior a few years ago.

Figure it looks okay, and you can probably get away with a nice deal.

Now, I'm about to redo my entire system. I have four pairs of brand new 5 inchers that I'm going to deck the Peugeot and Volvo out in. Looking forward to seeing what you end up doing!

[andrethx]

Looking forward to seeing what you end up doing!

yeah, might be a few months...my audio system is like the 94th thing that's wrong with my car at this point....

[andrethx]

A couple of other head unit options I considered and rejected:

These guys sell a refurbished Becker units, exchange price is $200 (if you are reading this later, search for eBay vendor "Becker Autosound"). I contacted them, radio with face is $350.00, with AUX input is $400.00. The AUX input lets you plug your smartphone/music device headphone output into the radio.

pros: looks great, classic 80's. some Peugeots came with Becker IIRC, so looks authentic.

cons: no bluetooth. AUX input is kluge-y...you have to put a cassette into the well, that switches to AUX. seems kind of d-baggy to do all that just for appearance's sake.

Nakamichi CD500

pros: looks great -- new unit that captures 80's feel. what says 80's more than Nakamichi? (except maybe Alpine). new unit so has features.

cons: it's a Nakamichi. Will probably break within a year, will have no meaningful customer support.

[Bean]

I love the look of the Nak deck - but it just has a terrible rep for reliability. Great rep for sound quality though... (CD400 seems to have a better rep apparently)

If I could find something similar with a nice simple design with the adjustible colours and modern compatibility to MP3 that'd be awesome. Anybody know of anything else comparible?

I really like my Alpine, but that ice blue lighting just SCREAMS aftermarket, and it's not subtle at all. I'd much prefer something that looked OEM, but had all the poop and features of the fancy new decks.

Rabin

[norcal505]

Lol. Nakamichi and Beckers are what I dream about owning one day.

Doesn't get any higher than their quality.