I recently installed some new items in my F250 single cab P/U
Here's what I installed
Nakamichi MBVI H/U
Polk C400 c4 amp
Polk MMC 6500 front
Polk MMC 579 rear
Installation was straight forward, the hardest part was removing stock radio. I guess those ford removal tools would have been handy.... i ended up breaking the face off it to get it out.
My thoughts:
Nak MB VI head....very stock looking, which i like. It's very handy to have 6 CDs loaded up in the dash, it does play CDRs reguardless of what Nakamichi says. No goofy grafics or extra lights, 18 FM and 12 AM presets. Setting are very easy to use and adjust, just push the loudness button until desired aspect is displayed in LCD display and use volume knob to set. The buttons are large for a car audio unit and most only have one function. This makes it simple to use and easy to make tone changes while in motion. As for profomance I would say it's very good to excellent. Very clean and flat sounding source signal. For the money, $650 with tax and shipping, i would expect nothing less. On the downside, i do think the unit is very noisy as it changes from one CD to the next, and slow also, about 10 seconds. Considering that it is programable to randomly play songs from all six disc, I've gotta say....TOO SLOW and TOO LOUD. It also has six different light color combinations to choose from, however most of them are not to my liking, or match my green dash lights.
Over all a nice unit,,,,10 out of 10 for clean flat signal
10 of 10 for ease of use
points off for noisy changer
Polk Audio C400 4 channel amp
Very clean signal......plenty of power for my speakers and the space it has to fill ( single cab truck).
Wiring was straight forward and easy. It has a internal crossover for use with Polk MMC speakers, which i have, however it then is converted to a 2 channel amp. I will say a four channel amp is limited, 4 speakers and no sub or two speakers and a sub. for those that want one amp buy a 5 or six channel for more versatility. Polk Audio calls this amp Carbon Series....i guess for the small strip of carbon fiber they have glued on the cover....whoopie!!!!! even if you're the type to display your amps for show, it;s a waste of carbon fiber. I guess it's a good looking amp, but I'll never see it until i need to get my jack from behind the seat, or one of the many writing pens that seem to end up back there.
Overall....it sounds great, clean, no distortion....since i'm not up-grading from something else i can't make a comparison
Speakers
Polk Audio MMC6500
These are 6.5 inch component speaker, you can mount them with or without the included grills. Which look like MOMO wheels if that's your cup of tea. They are good looking and probably added 50 bucks to the purchase price, however since i located my speakers in the stock location, they are in a box in my garage. The tweeters can be mounted flush or surface style. currently i have mine in the surface mount cups attached with velcro while i decide where i like them placed. If anyone has has imput here please let me know your ideas. I'd like to flush mount them in the door panel, which really gives me two placements. Either above or below the woofer, so that's chest high or knee high. Where do you pro installers place tweeters in pickup cabs?
Sound wise i like them very much, super clean, natural sounding. Maybe a bit light in midrange, but tweeter placement and crossover settings might cure this weakness.
Polk Audio MMC570
5X7 component speaker with attatched tweeter, comes without grill, so it's a stock replacement speaker. Most sites including Polk Audio's show these as a non match for my pickup. They will fit in the stock rear speaker location, but they are designed to be drop in speaker, ie speaker mounted on top of surface. So i had to fabricated a gasket to enable me to mount behind my speaker grill. This was easy enough to do, I trased around the shape of the speaker face to a template, transfered that to the gasket material, i used house flashing material, self adhesive on one side. I doubled the material up, traced my template, cut it out and stuck it to the speaker frame face. I used this same house flashing for sound deadening material in my doors also.
Sound wise these speakers are also very good, having replaced stock ford units i have nothing to compare them to. They do come on a bit slower than my front speakers, which is probably a good thing, since they are mounted 12 inches from my head. I'm pretty sure in a single cab truck rear speaker might be better placed in boxes on the floor pointed up, as opposed to in the cornrer of the cab pointed at the seat back. Aagin if you pro installers have input on rear speaker locations i'd love to hear it.
Over all I'm very happy with these items proformance wise, the sound is clean, and very natural sounding. Time will tell how durable they prove to be. A couple of things i learned as i was going through the purchase process.
1 make sure your items are in stock before you buy online. Some retailers will advertise for things they don't have or cannot get. Nakamichi is in the process of pulling all their items from online sellers, an effort to support their store front venders. I wasted a month waiting for Indo Audio (ebay seller) to ship me a unit that was back ordered, which they finally admitted they could never get.
2 If possible buy out of state to avoid paying sells tax. This saved me 7.5 % on my purchases. For me that was close to 100 dollars.
3 use the resources at this site for useful info...i stumbled across Club Knowledge while looking for a wire harness diagram for my truck. I found it at one of the links here, which then made my installation painless. I also learned about the "BIG 3" upgrade. Something that would have saved me loads of money replacing alternators and batteries when i had my Audi.
Replies (6)
Victor on 01/22/2006 06:01:55
Welcome to CK..
Well I must say you got very good audio gear here, Nak and Polk are some very good SQ products.
Nak Hu's are very clean , no jazzy buttons and lights , but it sure does its job of procuding high quality sound signal.
The Polk Momo series speakers and the Carbon series amps are a great match, They are very crisp and clean. I am sure you must be enjoying listening to this system.
Regarding placement of tweeters, I would suggest you experiment a lot, place them in various possible places and listen to intricate highs, see what raises the sound stage usually placing them at chest height would help raising the stage. Those polk tweets should not be too shrill, yet if you feel that they are beaming , you should try and face them away , possibly directing them towards the front windscreen helps a lot.
Victor..
PS . I must say that you have written a nice detailed post , which a very few visitors do. Welcome to CK and help yourself with all the knowledge available here.
Just a suggestion, If you wanna have a more pleasurable experience, you should plan of adding some low freqs to the sound.
a decent monblok with 150-200wrms and a 8 or 10" shallow sub for ease of installation, will help a lot with the sound.
bongocorral on 01/22/2006 08:07:01
Victor, thanks for the imput. Given my space limitation, what would you suggest for low end components? ( frequency range,not price point) I don't boom down the street, but i do agree that a little help in the low end would be good. I don't mind spending the money, provided sound quality and reliability are part of the purchase.
The reason i didn't get a sub right off the bat, was really a matter of space. But i saw a picture of a sub box installation in a smaller pick up than mine which makes me think there is room. It would mean that the sub is faced directly into my seat back. Does that cause problems?
As for the Nak Head, i used to have a Nak TD400R cassette player, powered up through a ADS PH15 240W amp, with 4 ADS L300I 2 way plate speakers. I bought all that back in "89 when i had a 4 door car and still bought LPs. That Nak cassette head sounded better than most CD players i've heard, and never jamed or ate tapes either. I had that system for 12 years before my car was totalled and the insurance company denied me access to remove the audio equipment. I'd love to have that amp right now, it was a 2-3-4-5-6 channel unit, i could add a sub and still have 4 speakers. It too was super clean sounding. I am very happy with the Polk amp, very very clean signal, it's really a shame most of the Bob Dylan i listen to was recorded so poorly...lol
When i bought the NAk MBVI i recieved a unit that was broken, the tuner worked but the cd function was broken, so i reinstalled an old Alpine head while I waited for a replacement Nak head. The Alpine was the cheapest thing i could find, it cost about 120 dollars 4 or 5 years ago. I got as little as i paid for with that thing...lol, I was barely able to turn it up loud enough to cover road noise before it started to distort. Even when hooked up to the Polk amp and MMC6500's it still sounded crap. So I'm quite happy to finally have it all togrther now. I started buying this equipment before thanksgiving 05, but with my experince with Indo audio and the return of the Nak head, i just completed the install 1/20/06. That's close to 2 months of messin' around with suppliers!!!!! NOT GOOD....lol
please pass on any suggestions for the sub and sub-amp, if you need more info my equipment it's all on the Polk site. http://www.polkaudio.com/caraudio/index.php
Thanks much, Bongo Corral
Victor on 01/22/2006 15:27:55
Would not need much on polk , am a dealer with Polk and I was the first one to import polk along with another guy to India.
Anyways, Polk does not have a shallow sub option, so you will have to go with other brands.
Could you measure the space available for sub - installation??? , so that we could suggest you some good options.
Victor...
swez on 01/22/2006 19:12:12
I can see you know a good product line up when presented. Very nice gear mentioned there and before as well.
Nak has always stressed quality, simplicity and very straight up, user friendly designs. Have always liked them and would not mind having one either. Dinkin' around the merry-go-round, does not seem fun though. LOL
Say more about your space for a sub and we'll see what we can come up with for ya.
Swez
PS CK is strictly a "PG" site as the "Boss Man" keeps a tight reign on that one. Mind editing a bit? Tks a bunch!
bongocorral on 01/23/2006 02:15:04
Swez, I hope you're not asking i go back and put in all the missin' punctuation. I did change the word that rhymed with pickin'. hope that's what you were refering to.
swez on 01/23/2006 09:48:03
Yep... thanks! SMILE
Swez
Here's what I installed
Nakamichi MBVI H/U
Polk C400 c4 amp
Polk MMC 6500 front
Polk MMC 579 rear
Installation was straight forward, the hardest part was removing stock radio. I guess those ford removal tools would have been handy.... i ended up breaking the face off it to get it out.
My thoughts:
Nak MB VI head....very stock looking, which i like. It's very handy to have 6 CDs loaded up in the dash, it does play CDRs reguardless of what Nakamichi says. No goofy grafics or extra lights, 18 FM and 12 AM presets. Setting are very easy to use and adjust, just push the loudness button until desired aspect is displayed in LCD display and use volume knob to set. The buttons are large for a car audio unit and most only have one function. This makes it simple to use and easy to make tone changes while in motion. As for profomance I would say it's very good to excellent. Very clean and flat sounding source signal. For the money, $650 with tax and shipping, i would expect nothing less. On the downside, i do think the unit is very noisy as it changes from one CD to the next, and slow also, about 10 seconds. Considering that it is programable to randomly play songs from all six disc, I've gotta say....TOO SLOW and TOO LOUD. It also has six different light color combinations to choose from, however most of them are not to my liking, or match my green dash lights.
Over all a nice unit,,,,10 out of 10 for clean flat signal
10 of 10 for ease of use
points off for noisy changer
Polk Audio C400 4 channel amp
Very clean signal......plenty of power for my speakers and the space it has to fill ( single cab truck).
Wiring was straight forward and easy. It has a internal crossover for use with Polk MMC speakers, which i have, however it then is converted to a 2 channel amp. I will say a four channel amp is limited, 4 speakers and no sub or two speakers and a sub. for those that want one amp buy a 5 or six channel for more versatility. Polk Audio calls this amp Carbon Series....i guess for the small strip of carbon fiber they have glued on the cover....whoopie!!!!! even if you're the type to display your amps for show, it;s a waste of carbon fiber. I guess it's a good looking amp, but I'll never see it until i need to get my jack from behind the seat, or one of the many writing pens that seem to end up back there.
Overall....it sounds great, clean, no distortion....since i'm not up-grading from something else i can't make a comparison
Speakers
Polk Audio MMC6500
These are 6.5 inch component speaker, you can mount them with or without the included grills. Which look like MOMO wheels if that's your cup of tea. They are good looking and probably added 50 bucks to the purchase price, however since i located my speakers in the stock location, they are in a box in my garage. The tweeters can be mounted flush or surface style. currently i have mine in the surface mount cups attached with velcro while i decide where i like them placed. If anyone has has imput here please let me know your ideas. I'd like to flush mount them in the door panel, which really gives me two placements. Either above or below the woofer, so that's chest high or knee high. Where do you pro installers place tweeters in pickup cabs?
Sound wise i like them very much, super clean, natural sounding. Maybe a bit light in midrange, but tweeter placement and crossover settings might cure this weakness.
Polk Audio MMC570
5X7 component speaker with attatched tweeter, comes without grill, so it's a stock replacement speaker. Most sites including Polk Audio's show these as a non match for my pickup. They will fit in the stock rear speaker location, but they are designed to be drop in speaker, ie speaker mounted on top of surface. So i had to fabricated a gasket to enable me to mount behind my speaker grill. This was easy enough to do, I trased around the shape of the speaker face to a template, transfered that to the gasket material, i used house flashing material, self adhesive on one side. I doubled the material up, traced my template, cut it out and stuck it to the speaker frame face. I used this same house flashing for sound deadening material in my doors also.
Sound wise these speakers are also very good, having replaced stock ford units i have nothing to compare them to. They do come on a bit slower than my front speakers, which is probably a good thing, since they are mounted 12 inches from my head. I'm pretty sure in a single cab truck rear speaker might be better placed in boxes on the floor pointed up, as opposed to in the cornrer of the cab pointed at the seat back. Aagin if you pro installers have input on rear speaker locations i'd love to hear it.
Over all I'm very happy with these items proformance wise, the sound is clean, and very natural sounding. Time will tell how durable they prove to be. A couple of things i learned as i was going through the purchase process.
1 make sure your items are in stock before you buy online. Some retailers will advertise for things they don't have or cannot get. Nakamichi is in the process of pulling all their items from online sellers, an effort to support their store front venders. I wasted a month waiting for Indo Audio (ebay seller) to ship me a unit that was back ordered, which they finally admitted they could never get.
2 If possible buy out of state to avoid paying sells tax. This saved me 7.5 % on my purchases. For me that was close to 100 dollars.
3 use the resources at this site for useful info...i stumbled across Club Knowledge while looking for a wire harness diagram for my truck. I found it at one of the links here, which then made my installation painless. I also learned about the "BIG 3" upgrade. Something that would have saved me loads of money replacing alternators and batteries when i had my Audi.
Replies (6)
Victor on 01/22/2006 06:01:55
Welcome to CK..
Well I must say you got very good audio gear here, Nak and Polk are some very good SQ products.
Nak Hu's are very clean , no jazzy buttons and lights , but it sure does its job of procuding high quality sound signal.
The Polk Momo series speakers and the Carbon series amps are a great match, They are very crisp and clean. I am sure you must be enjoying listening to this system.
Regarding placement of tweeters, I would suggest you experiment a lot, place them in various possible places and listen to intricate highs, see what raises the sound stage usually placing them at chest height would help raising the stage. Those polk tweets should not be too shrill, yet if you feel that they are beaming , you should try and face them away , possibly directing them towards the front windscreen helps a lot.
Victor..
PS . I must say that you have written a nice detailed post , which a very few visitors do. Welcome to CK and help yourself with all the knowledge available here.
Just a suggestion, If you wanna have a more pleasurable experience, you should plan of adding some low freqs to the sound.
a decent monblok with 150-200wrms and a 8 or 10" shallow sub for ease of installation, will help a lot with the sound.
bongocorral on 01/22/2006 08:07:01
Victor, thanks for the imput. Given my space limitation, what would you suggest for low end components? ( frequency range,not price point) I don't boom down the street, but i do agree that a little help in the low end would be good. I don't mind spending the money, provided sound quality and reliability are part of the purchase.
The reason i didn't get a sub right off the bat, was really a matter of space. But i saw a picture of a sub box installation in a smaller pick up than mine which makes me think there is room. It would mean that the sub is faced directly into my seat back. Does that cause problems?
As for the Nak Head, i used to have a Nak TD400R cassette player, powered up through a ADS PH15 240W amp, with 4 ADS L300I 2 way plate speakers. I bought all that back in "89 when i had a 4 door car and still bought LPs. That Nak cassette head sounded better than most CD players i've heard, and never jamed or ate tapes either. I had that system for 12 years before my car was totalled and the insurance company denied me access to remove the audio equipment. I'd love to have that amp right now, it was a 2-3-4-5-6 channel unit, i could add a sub and still have 4 speakers. It too was super clean sounding. I am very happy with the Polk amp, very very clean signal, it's really a shame most of the Bob Dylan i listen to was recorded so poorly...lol
When i bought the NAk MBVI i recieved a unit that was broken, the tuner worked but the cd function was broken, so i reinstalled an old Alpine head while I waited for a replacement Nak head. The Alpine was the cheapest thing i could find, it cost about 120 dollars 4 or 5 years ago. I got as little as i paid for with that thing...lol, I was barely able to turn it up loud enough to cover road noise before it started to distort. Even when hooked up to the Polk amp and MMC6500's it still sounded crap. So I'm quite happy to finally have it all togrther now. I started buying this equipment before thanksgiving 05, but with my experince with Indo audio and the return of the Nak head, i just completed the install 1/20/06. That's close to 2 months of messin' around with suppliers!!!!! NOT GOOD....lol
please pass on any suggestions for the sub and sub-amp, if you need more info my equipment it's all on the Polk site. http://www.polkaudio.com/caraudio/index.php
Thanks much, Bongo Corral
Victor on 01/22/2006 15:27:55
Would not need much on polk , am a dealer with Polk and I was the first one to import polk along with another guy to India.
Anyways, Polk does not have a shallow sub option, so you will have to go with other brands.
Could you measure the space available for sub - installation??? , so that we could suggest you some good options.
Victor...
swez on 01/22/2006 19:12:12
I can see you know a good product line up when presented. Very nice gear mentioned there and before as well.
Nak has always stressed quality, simplicity and very straight up, user friendly designs. Have always liked them and would not mind having one either. Dinkin' around the merry-go-round, does not seem fun though. LOL
Say more about your space for a sub and we'll see what we can come up with for ya.
Swez
PS CK is strictly a "PG" site as the "Boss Man" keeps a tight reign on that one. Mind editing a bit? Tks a bunch!
bongocorral on 01/23/2006 02:15:04
Swez, I hope you're not asking i go back and put in all the missin' punctuation. I did change the word that rhymed with pickin'. hope that's what you were refering to.
swez on 01/23/2006 09:48:03
Yep... thanks! SMILE
Swez
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