Crazy 5.1 Stereo?

[Sabretooth]

Now, back in the day when the Yaris wasnt even made, and all I knew was the Fit...I had an idea, because of the seat configuration. I was going to make basically a Home Theatre in the FIT. Hooking in a built in dash DVD player, and attempting to route 5.1 Surround Sound throughout the vehicle, using the usual all-in-one speaker setup, and of course a decent sub in the back to keep it all Dolby-fied.

Now would this be still practicle?
5.1 Yaris would be a good project...

[eTiMaGo]

sure, why not? Many in-dash DVD players now have DTS or Dolby Digital processing, I know Pioneer has an add-on multichannel decoder for my head unit, which would give you all the outputs necessary... Then plug it into a couple of multichannel amps, and you're good to go. Only problem I can foresee is the placement of the center speaker...

[Sabretooth]

I was thinking build a housing down in the storage area, next to the shifter...
A little low, but it might do the trick.

but this is coming form the guy who plans to have more techno stuff in the Yaris than in his house!

[eTiMaGo]

hey my dad called my car the "gadgetmobile" the first time he saw it, I took it as a compliment Go for it!

[dngz]

if you have more tech stuff in your car that your house, make sure you better have a pretty decent alarm system!

[earljail]

Originally Posted by eTiMaGo

Only problem I can foresee is the placement of the center speaker...

Here we go- my car. This is an Alpine 1 DIN centre speaker with a 1 DIN Panasonic DVD deck with 5.1 decoding.

Another possibility is putting one 3.5 inch or 4 inch speaker in the space just in front of the odometer. That would be great if you wanted to use a 2 DIN deck.

[earljail]

Originally Posted by Sabretooth

I was thinking build a housing down in the storage area, next to the shifter...

It would fit, but it would "sound" really low, because all the voices in a movie would be coming from so low down.

[Sabretooth]

I like that setup, might try and get an estimate for a system installed sometime. probably looking into the 2500-3000 range for such a setup, labor and all.

[earljail]

Originally Posted by Sabretooth

I like that setup, might try and get an estimate for a system installed sometime. probably looking into the 2500-3000 range for such a setup, labor and all.

2500-3000 is probably a reasonable price, as long as you don't want top-end everything. Just pick out a deck by looking at all the manufacturers' websites, because then you'll know which decks have the 5.1 decoding built-in. Sure you can get cheap decks, but they won't have surround. Conversely, Alpine decks are sweet-looking, reliable, but you need to buy a special amp to get surround.

The deck I have in the picture only has a 4 channel built-in amplifier(4x40w), so you need at least two amps, one for a sub, and one for a centre channel speaker.

And please don't defeat the safety switch, which is meant to prevent you from watching DVDs while driving. I don't buy some peoples' stories, "It's only for my buddy to watch while I drive him around." Keep everybody on the road safe.

Hope you can get everything for your budget. Good luck.