Accord Sport Budget Build

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I have been in a car with stock speakers for far too long. Not sure what honda was thinking when they designed the stereo in the 14' sport, but it is beyond horrible. Its just four speakers total, no tweeters. Heck the drivers dont even have those nifty whizzer cones either. Now that I dont have a company vehicle to drive to and from work, it was time to finally upgrade the now daily driver. This was a super budget build. All in, was under $350. I have spent more than that just on mids in the past. But the goal was for a super stock appearance and functionality and to maximize budget.

The entire system was designed around the pioneer deq-s1000a. It is their lone "processor." Essentially it is a headunit in-a-box that plugs into the stock radio. To my knowledge all of the features are available on the majority of their headunits. Power is 22w X 4ch or.....22w X 2ch and 70w X 1ch. Most people will scoff at those numbers and in the past I would have too, but I planned to use efficient drivers to my advantage here. In come the JBL Club 6.5" Coax's. IIRC they are 92-93dB. I went the coax route because I did not have the necessary channels of amplification to isolate tweets/mids and sub. Honestly, I really enjoy the coherency of a coaxial driver.

Next, I knew 70w was not going to push any subwoofer to any desirable level. Playing the efficiency, and stock appearance game I began looking into drivers that may work well IB. That rabbit hole lead me down to the MCM 55-3212 for a whopping $16. The other cool thing about them is that they are 96db! Granted they also only have 5mm Xmax, but you take the good with the bad. According to unibox, a pair of them in my trunk on 50w total has a max SPL of 109.6dB prior to cabin gain.

Not gonna lie, the install was pretty sloppy. We recently had our third child and most of this was done once all the kids were in bed. I also havent done this in a while, and Ive never attempted IB before. One note on the trunk. I will be making a grille of sorts to hide and protect the subs in the trunk. So when you open the trunk you will only see a carpeted false wall.

Shoutout to Kendall for putting up with all my questions and me being a general nuisance.

Sorry pics are not in the right order, I couldnt figure it out.

Initial impressions...
My goal was to have super cheap stock appearing system that is just fun. No, its not uber dynamic or super low distortion but for what it is, its fun! Theres something to be said, about having a car stereo that you dont constantly worry over every little nuance or detail. When it comes to the pioneer unit, I really like it. Time alignment is in inches which is certainly close enough for what i want. and IIRC theres a 31 band eq. now thats for every channel. The only individual channel control is time alignment and crossover/slope. the JBL coax's are certainly capable. I currently have them crossed at 63hz and 24dB. The next xover point is 80hz and that seems to take away that upfront midbass/bass. The subs are crossed at 80hz and 24db IIRC. For $32 in a pair of 12's, a 4x4 sheet of 3/4 ply, and some duct seal; these are dang good! even on this low wattage i can bottom them out on heavy passages but dropping them off around 31hz takes care of that. this is my first IB and i can see why people love it! its hard to put into words but the bass is just smooth. If i ever swap subs out, it will still be IB. low wattage, maximum trunk space, effortless bass...why dont more people do this? it was a PITA thats why. but it sure is nice once its complete. I still have alot of time to dial it in further, but i must say that it has turned out well.

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Originally Posted by The A Train

Shoutout to Kendal for putting up with all my questions and me being a general nuisance.

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Glad to help. Sorry you had to look at my ugly mug on FaceTime.

Nice, I love budget builds and have done many myself. There is this great satisfaction you get when you build a system that sounds great on a low budget using some ingenuity to accomplish it.

Nice Job!

I'm also a fan of budget builds. Keep us posted on any future changes you make.