Crawford Posted September 10, 2004 Report Share Posted September 10, 2004 I guess that is the simple solution, but i'm keen to avoid such impracticalities....... I am leading a one-man assault against those that believe classics can not be used everyday, and it is important not to give them any ammunition! Having said that, had several successes. Friends have been so impressed by the TR, one friend is looking for a GT6 and another has just bought a BMW 2002 Ti. Amoungst students such as myself, their tax-free status, and ease of fetteling is appealing. Vive le rennaisance! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jonlar Posted September 10, 2004 Report Share Posted September 10, 2004 Suggest you don't change the CD in 1st or 3rd gear... Would this require an extra inhibitor switch!? ??? ??? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
foster461 Posted September 10, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 10, 2004 My CD/radio fits into a DIN sleeve and has a flip down (removable) front panel with the CD slot behind it. This means the CD slot is essentially flush with the console but it is still a trick getting the disk in and out but not that hard. Two ways to mitigate - get a unit that plays MP3 and create data disks rather than audio disks. That way you can get 10 times the music on the disk so you have to change it less. I put most of my TR'ing music on one CD (beach boys etc, I'm approaching old fart status). Another plan is to put a CD jukebox in the trunk and stuff it full of disks. Stan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest ron Posted September 10, 2004 Report Share Posted September 10, 2004 Stan I've had a single disc MP3 player in my last car and gave it to my son when I changed the car and went back to a normal CD player, it sounded like a great idea at the time but I found it very slow to find the track when the car was started, it was also difficult to find a specific track while driving. Ron Quote Link to post Share on other sites
grmills Posted September 10, 2004 Report Share Posted September 10, 2004 Or how about a stereo with a socket (3.5mm?) which accepts the output lead from a portable MP3 player? Friend of mine has this set up in his Golf and swears by it. All the useability of your own playlists, albums etc, no fannying abound with discs, plus you can use it on the bus when the car won't start. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crawford Posted September 11, 2004 Report Share Posted September 11, 2004 I intend to upgrade to be able to plug in an ipod soon, but cant afford to do all at once! What exactly is a DIN cage? Hearing of them, i assumed they were something only for new cars. Would a DIN thingy be right to use with a Pioneer DEHP7600MP? Ref http://www.lowcostcaraudio.co.uk/shop.ph....uct=109 Cheers Quote Link to post Share on other sites
foster461 Posted September 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2004 [What exactly is a DIN cage? Hearing of them, i assumed they were something only for new cars. Would a DIN thingy be right to use with a Pioneer DEHP7600MP?] The DIN sleeve is an industry standard sized sleeve about 7x2 that the head unit slides into. I think most head units these days come with one and the unit just slides in and locks. They provide the appropriate widgets to allow you to unlock it and slide out the head unit. It makes future removal and replacement of the head unit pretty simple. The sleeve needs an opening of the correct size which requires you to cut a 7x2 approx hole in the console but there is enough room to do that without hitting any vital organs. Generally you can just position the sleeve in the right spot, draw around it, cut the hole with a jig saw. Once the sleeve is slid into the hole it has tabs around the perimeter that you bend up to lock it in place. This is an alternative mounting to using the spindles so it is hard to imagine something with a removable front panel not using a DIN sleeve mounting and it works well in the TR6 console. Stan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
foster461 Posted September 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 14, 2004 On the topic of mp3 vs audio.. It is true that loading and locating mp3 content can be slower. When you have 100+ songs recorded and if you have used a deep folder structure it can taker a while for the unit to enumerate the disk etc and be ready to play. That may vary by model though. On my Pioneer DEH-P560MP, a fully loaded MP3 CD loads in about 5 seconds and it takes an additional 5 seconds to navigate between tracks and folders. A lot of that time seems to be taken up by the display scrolling through the track title before it chooses to play it. Generally, navigating the disk via the up/down/left/right buttons is tedious but like everything else it takes a while to get the hang of it. Stan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brian's TR6 Posted September 24, 2004 Report Share Posted September 24, 2004 I fitted a JVC head unit MP3 ready, with remote control, 2 Pioneer dual Tweeter & Midrange 5 1/4 " in the dash support. There are 2 Pioneer dual Tweeter and Midrange behind the seats 6X9" and a 10" sub woofer in the floor of the trunk(boot). This is all powered by a Alpine 5 channel amp 4 x 75 watt and 1 x 180 watt into 4 ohms mounted on the back panel of the boot. The install I did myself in an afternoon. The budget was $1000 Cdn. System sounds great even at speed with top down. Not thunderously loud but nice and clean from highs to low end. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
foster461 Posted September 26, 2004 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2004 and a 10" sub woofer in the floor of the trunk(boot). Where did you put the sub, in the spare wheel well ?. Does it co-exist with the spare ? Stan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crawford Posted October 6, 2004 Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 Foster, the pioneer speakers you fitted in the seat headrest dont appear to be availiable in the uk. These seem to be fitted in the uk (http://www.mx5parts.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/388), but im not convinced of their quality. Given that i have an expensive pioneer headunit and main speakers, this seems a stupid place to reduce quality! What has anyone fitted in the headrest? P.S - What sort of aerial do people have? Mine is broken and requires replacement. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
foster461 Posted October 6, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2004 I would say that any round 3 inch speaker will fit in the headrests. The main problem I had with the standard speakers was their frequency response was very limited, basically tweeters, and they would need a high pass filter to assist them otherwise they get totally swamped by low to mid frequencies. The standard Miata head unit has a special output for them. You could insert a high pass filter or tweak the amp outputs to them etc but I decided to replace them with something that had better range since we don’t have a lot of options for speaker placement in the TR6 and we need all the help we can get. The round 3 inch speakers will physically fit after a little trimming of the foam in the headrests and I fabricated some brackets to adapt for the different size and mounting holes. It is not pretty but it is all hidden in the headrest so what do I care. Stan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JohnC Posted October 7, 2004 Report Share Posted October 7, 2004 Or how about a stereo with a socket (3.5mm?) which accepts the output lead from a portable MP3 player? Friend of mine has this set up in his Golf and swears by it. All the useability of your own playlists, albums etc, no fannying abound with discs, plus you can use it on the bus when the car won't start. Even simpler, use an FM transmitter like an iTrip connected to your iPod, and tune the radio into whatever frequency the iTrip is set to. You could then even use a period AM/FM radio (love those mechanical pre-sets), and still play your own stuff. I believe there are one or two firms in the UK that sell such items with modern innards. John Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Crawford Posted October 18, 2004 Report Share Posted October 18, 2004 Right, i now have a Pioneer DEHP-7500MP, although progress is on hold as i dont have the car at present (see O/D travails!). The headunit seems to have a single large connector, with all the many wires entering this single box. This seems like it should connect to a corresponding connector on the wiring loom of a modern car........so what do i do?!? Cut it off and start to attach them individually? I've googled for info, but not found anything! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jonlar Posted October 18, 2004 Report Share Posted October 18, 2004 Hi Crawford, do you have the handbook, 'cos it should say in there what colour/function each lead should be. Halfords keep some more common connectors. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
foster461 Posted October 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2004 The headunit seems to have a single large connector, with all the many wires entering this single box. This seems like it should connect to a corresponding connector on the wiring loom of a modern car........so what do i do?!? I'm not exactly following this.. I have a DEH-P560MP and it has a large female connector on the rear of the unit for most but not all of the connections. The wires all go into the male conterpart so that after you have connected the wires to the speakers etc you can disconnect the plug if you need to remove the head unit from its DIN sleeve. On my system the color code for the wires going into the plug is as follows: Yellow/Black - cell phone mute Yellow - continuous power supply, independent of ignition Red - Switched power from ignition (part of the standard loom on my 1974) Orange/White - to lighting switch terminal (to coordinate head unit illumination) Black - ground Blue/White - power signal to optional external amp White/White-black - front left speaker Gray/Gray-black - front right speaker Green/Green-Black - rear left speaker Violet/Violet-black rear right speaker There are other wires (sub output, antenna etc) but they are not part of the connector block. Stan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jmfanning Posted November 11, 2004 Report Share Posted November 11, 2004 Can anyone give me advice on what type/make of speaker, ohms and shape the original speaker was for the original motorola/radiomoble 2 transistor radio. Was thge speaker mounted on abaffle board or in an enclossure?I want to keep radio/speaker as close to original as posssible. I tried fitting 2 small speakers in the kidney panels to my period radio but the result was poor. Probably wrong ohms? So I would like to know where to mount the single mono speaker. I do not want to put it in the rear trim. I am assuming the speaker probably went under dash passenger side. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jonlar Posted November 11, 2004 Report Share Posted November 11, 2004 Usual resistance for mono speaker was 4 - 8 ohms, wired in parallel, Ohm's Law states in parallel it is the sum of the reciprocals, as opposed to "in series" which just adds one to the other - just found a huge hole in my rear end that I'm talkin out of!!. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
duffy111 Posted July 1, 2012 Report Share Posted July 1, 2012 Here's an update. Phase 1 is complete with a radio/cd player (Pioneer DEH-560MP), Audiobahn AN5000 speakers in the kidney panels (5.25 inches diam and using a home-made 1/4 inch spacer to offset the speaker depth), Pioneer TS-A878 3.5 inch speakers in the Miata headrests wired in series to present 8 ohms to the headunit. The 3.5 inch speakers fit quite easily with a bit of trimming of the foam in the headrest. It sounds good and is a big improvement over the previous setup which was over 20 years old and used 4 inch speakers. The new front speakers will still distort at high volume but I dont know that I could expect anything else with 5.25 inch speakers.. Total cost was $413.00. I'm amazed at what a $200.00 radio/cd player can do (MP3/WAV, customizable equalizer, detachable faceplate etc). What is missing is bass so phase II will be to look into that. The headunit has a dedicated sub output so I think that would be an easy thing to try next. Stan Stan, Did you have to alter the dash at all when placing the unit in your TR6? I have found this unit and considering placing in my 1974 TR6. Are you happy with the set up? Any advice would be appreciated, thank you. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
foster461 Posted July 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 1, 2012 Stan, Did you have to alter the dash at all when placing the unit in your TR6? I have found this unit and considering placing in my 1974 TR6. Are you happy with the set up? Any advice would be appreciated, thank you. That head unit like most these days fits into a standard DIN sleeve so I did have to modify the H support to create a DIN sized hole. There is plenty of room for it but it may not be a step that everyone is willing to take. In addition, if the H support has to be removed for any reason the head unit and the DIN sleeve have to come out first otherwise you cant get the H frame part the gear stick. The head units just slide out after unlocking with the "security" do-dads and the DIN cage is secured to the hole in the H frame with tabs that you have to bend over for installation and bend back for removal. Welcome to the forum, let us know what you are working on.. Stan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ade_TR6 Posted July 1, 2012 Report Share Posted July 1, 2012 Thought I would just drop a few lines on my system which in installed about 15 years ago. I have the centre console knee pads which the 5" (ish) cut outs into which is fitted a couple of JBL low profile speakers with separate tweeters which are mounted to the dash. These are fed via the 30W front channel from an Alpine head unit. In the rear of the car I custom made a cabinet from MDF into which are fitted two Longmill 3 way 6X9's and an 8" pioneer sub all wired through a passive crossover which is powered from a 600 Watt Longmill (read re-badged Infinity unit) amp in the boot. All the power is provided by a separate wiring loom with a relay switched power supplies. The system kicks out some serious volume and could (I have grown up since!!) almost drown out the semi-race exhaust system. I must admit, as the system is old I am toying with bring it up to date a little with an MP3 head unit and perhaps redesigning the speaker housing to allow some dickie seats in the back to fit the kids into. If you want some photo's I am happy to supply. Regards Ade Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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