I had to swap out my Pioneer TSG-1644's today. I must have somehow smoked the tweeters on all 4 speakers because my high end response had just faded away. The one set of Alpine tweeters I had left over from my old system had also bit the dust. They still played music but sounded real raspy and harsh, just plain worn out from too much time with me on the volume **** I guess....

I bought 2 pairs of new Pioneer A-Series 6 1/2" speakers at Best Buy, I got the TSA-1675's. They are on sale this week, regular price is $79.99, sale price is $59.99. That's a great price for these speakers. They sound a lot better than the G-Series, their bass response is better and the mids/highs are a lot more pronounced and very accurate-sounding. For a non-high end, full range speaker sold at retail at a mass merchandiser like Best Buy these 1675's are great speakers. They also play louder without distorting. Here is one in my left front door, mounted on my homemade mdf speaker mounting plate:

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Left front behind the grille with door panel re-installed:

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Here is the right rear on its new mounting plate:

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Right rear with the side panels re-installed:

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I also picked up a set of Pioneer TS-T110 hard dome tweeters to replace the blown Alpines. I bought them at an independent car stereo/home theater store in Orlando. I was surprised their price was $49.95, same as Crutchfield. The tweeters do sound good, not as harsh as you might expect a hard dome tweeter to sound. They do help brighten the sound field up a bit, but it would be better if they could swivel. They are fixed-mounts but still look and sound good:

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Tweeter/door panel from a few feet away:

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Here is one of the tweeters shown from behind, I put a dab of Loctite on each mounting screw but they fit great in the existing 2" hole I had cut for the Alpine tweeters so the new T-110 mounting cap did not need to be screwed down gorilla-tight. The T110's were super easy to install:

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I also did a restore and re-synch on my Ipod, so far it appears to be working fine. Time will tell on that one I guess but AAC files on my Ipod sound a heck of a lot better than MP3's on a thumb drive. I stashed my Ipod back in my glove box. I still have my same Pioneer DEH-X5600HD deck. It's a real good deck, sounds good and has a ton of power. It has good tone adjustments and 3 levels of loudness with 5 levels of bass boost if you need it. The bass is real fat, with great low end, just plain awesome for 2 pairs of full-range 6 1/2's being powered just by a deck by itself. I also dialed the lights on my deck in to match my blue-green dash lights but you can't really tell that from this picture:

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So now what started out as a $150.00 basic system with a lower-line Sony CD deck and 4 cheap Pioneer speakers has morphed into a much better system for $240.00 total. My deck cost $70.00 with a discount code at Advance. Two pairs of new TSA-1675's cost $120.00 at Best Buy. The new tweeters only cost $50.00. This system sounds great and really was not that expensive. The Pioneer G-series speakers are OK but the A-series sound a lot better for not that much more cash. I need to drive the truck a while and see how the mids and highs hold up but so far I really like my all-Pioneer system.

Jimmy

 

Pioneer has kinda morphed into fairly high quality, value priced stuff. Really against the trend of higher prices because of exchange rates and inflation.

I've always been really happy with Pioneer automotive gear. I replaced my factory Chrysler radio with a Pioneer AM/FM CD Aux deck summer before last. My only complaint is that it's a lot more complicated to set than I'd prefer, can't do a lot of stuff on the fly because it requires using the manual to figure out the functions. And everytime I d/c the battery, the settings are lost.

But the function and sound (even with stock speakers) is pretty darned good.