Tazman

I have turned my Rx-8 over to La Jolla Audio here in San Diego for two weeks to do a full sound system replacement. This includes:

Replace the rear and front speakers with alpine spearks
Add a amplifier ( I believe an Alpine)
Add a subwoofer (with custom built enclosure in the trunk)
Replace the head unit with an alpine unit with IPOD interface and satalite connection). The Alpine 9855 is listed as OEM Steering Remote Ready but they siad you cannot guarentee the interface will work with the Mazda, so I may night get these controls back (but I can live with that)

La Jolla Audio is a very high end car audio shop. (as evidence by the other cars you see in their shop). They will fabricate a new faceplate/dash for the headunit. I saw an example of their attention to detail in doing this on an Audi they were working on when I dropped my carr off. You would assume it was factory.

They will also will have the satallite radio antenae professionally painted to match the black cherry on my Shinka.

I talked to them yesterday and the radio install is a lot more of a job than they thought as the stock radio needs to be relocated to the trunk and they had to run 40 wires in between (this took an extra 6hrs) .... in order to keep the ac controls working etc. Apparantly the AC controls are run though the head unit. They said they are seeing more and more of this - like in the Audi mentioned above(crazy!!!!). Anyone else have a way to get around this.[/B]

Because this is their first RX-8, they are giving me a bit of a break on labor so that they can learn the car for future installs.

Luckily I am half way to a 2 car family. I have 2 cars, no family, so I have another car during this work. Cannot wait to see and hear the final product. Will post picx when I get it.

khtm

That's weird they aren't doing anything about adding tweeters to the front, since those are just mid-range speakers. The alpines in the front are going to be what kind of speakers? Are they replacing the 9" woofers?

Tazman

They are putting in new tweeters too - something like Alpine SPS-571 As. I just lumped it in as part of the speakers.

khtm

Ahh sweet *** sweet. Sounds like you're gonna have a rockin' system! :D

devoid

Haha! :D You should have read and searched around a bit before jumping head long into a new stereo. Sorry to say, but if you had, you'd have found at least myself and scudrunner have a very in-depth knowledge of the necessities to replacing the RX-8 stereo. So...rather than having any repeated information, I'll just guide you here:

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-multimedia-photo-gallery-6/devoids-near-complete-build-54460/

or you can check out my site: http://devoid.mine.nu

I suggest reading all the way through, and searching this forum for some of mine, and scudrunner's other threads before asking repeat questions, though!

al2134

Thanks very much for the information. Please keep us updated as things progress, and let us know how happy you are with La Jolla after the system is complete.