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- 16 CX-5 Tour'ngAWD
car audio is a mixed bag. inherently, the cabin of a car is the worst place to try and make great car audio; lots of hard reflective surfaces plus the additional noises from wind and road/tire. to get truly exceptional sound inside a car takes a lot of effort and sometimes also a lot of money.
Start with a plan to tackle your audio "problem"; and know what your end goals are. Stay with a budget, if that is important to you and choose your favorite products that are in that budget. Have a backup or alternate component incase the 1st choice is unavailable. Planning is key to having better car audio.
If it were me doing the upgrade, here is how I would approach it:
-- NOTE: I've only replaced the dash tweeters in my '16 with 3.5" Kicker 2-ways and 800Hz bass blockers and is in a thread somewhere on this board.
I will keep the mazda headunit so I don't have to futz with a steering wheel controller and lose other factory HU features.
First, I would sound deaden the doors in/around the speaker hole(s) and the inside of the exterior skin of the door. Next, I would try to cover/block the other gaping access holes in the door either with sound deadening material or other sound blocking material. I might even put deadener on the door panel is certain places.
Next I would choose a decently powered amp (either 1-4 channel or 2-2 channel) no more than 35-75 watts/channel and then choose speakers that compliment that amp in the RMS and sensitivity specs. (At this point, I'd probably abandon the dash speakers).
After the amp, I would also add an Audio Control LC2i (or any of their other converters that would accomplish the mission within my budget).
Finally, I would cap the system off with a powered bass tube, 8" or 10". Nothing huge and just enough to give punch and low end fill when needed. The tube (or under seat version) is self contained and requires no special box and doesn't not take up a huge amount of space.
My hole goal is to keep it as simple as possible, add as few thing as necessary, and to make it take up the least amount of space inside the vehicle and fit in out of the way places.
In reality, this will never happen as the CX-5 belongs to the Mrs., and she doesn't want all of that "fancy" stuff done to her car. I did the tweeter swap because mids and vocals were being lost in the road and wind noise.
However, with that said, my WRX is a prime candidate for all of the stuff mentioned above. It has a similar 6-speaker setup as the CX-5 and being that the WRX is a base trim, the 6.5" HU is extremely bass heavy. I have the speed volume set to "Low", and in the three band eq, I have bass set to -7, mid to 0, and treb to +2. I listen to electronic dance music (EDM) and if I put the bass any higher or left it at 0, the bass would be too over-powering, even from the measly 6" door speakers.
this is my take and opinion on car audio. In the 90s, I did Alpine, Canton, Lanzar Amps and sub with a giant box in my Mazda 323 trunk. I'm done with that as car audio is not as plug and play as it used to be.
