Anybody here that's good with car audio, I got some questions. I think I have pretty good knowledge about the speaker setup I plan on doing but I don't know sub woofers and amplifiers. My main taste in music is hard rock and my main purpose of wanting a sub woofer is to hear drums and bass guitar have more of a "hit" to it. I don't need anything to shake the trunk lid I just want to enhance the listening experience in my car. Anybody got some suggestions for me?
I have some experience with this. I've done a few company demo vehicles and have had a some of my customers cars and my own personal car in audio magazines. Without knowing what vehicle you have I can offer these suggestions, For front speakers use the biggest midrange/midbass driver you can fit. This is where you'll get a lot of slap from "drums" it also helps bring the sound from the sub forward into the car. I always try my best to fit a quality 6.5" driver either low in the front door or in custom made kick panels. Get a good component set from a reputable company. I like Focal, MB Quart, JL Audio is nice and more affordable, Boston Acoustics are very reliable (I've installed a sh*t load of them... But their sound is not for me). For subwoofers I really like JL Audio. I can make magic with any of their subs and a box made to suit the customers musical preference. Amplification, I loved Zapco amps, the new JL Audio amps are a good buy, Phoenix Gold are good.... My go to system for someone like yourself is very simple, High quality heads unit with a very good D/A converter, 6.5" component set for front speakers 10" subwoofer in a ported box And the most amplifier you can afford, the biggest 4 channel you can afford, or 2-2 channel amps Let me know if I can help you out with anything else.
I agree to some extent with the above post. Brands are a personal preference though. I just installed this head unit a couple weeks ago: Kenwood Excelon KDC-X995 CD receiver at Crutchfield.com and last weekend I installed a 10" Orion sub with an Alpine MRD-M500 amp. Also, If your car has factory tweeters, and you run componnents in the front, especially 2 way speakers, you will want to disconnect the factory tweeters or you will have the tweeters clashing with the lower monted components and it won't sound good.
Arc is the new Zapco, Mr. Zeff took his talents to ARC Audio.......... But Zapco is still top notch, even there old studio series are ahead of much of what is out there today. my choice for speakers are Focal, Diamond and MB quarts. Remember its not about peak power, its about RMS or sustained power....... don't over buy based on power. Check the Ohm load as well, to determine if the amp can be run stable at peak hits. if you are on a budget, anything polk or infinity are great pieces as well. when it comes to Subs, make sure the box is matched, also knowing what kind of bass you want is important because that can determine the type of box, sealed vs. ported etc.
Yes, there are all kinds of brands, I certainly didn't mean to imply the brands I listed are the only ones worth looking at. I have installed most of the available brands out there. The brands I listed are my go to brands, they are very reliable, live up to their specifications, and have excellent warranty. I used to sell Kenwood, Infinity... they are good, stay with the names that have a long track record and you should be ok. When I was saying buy the most amp you can I am talking quality... usually when looking at the big brands like Arc, Zapco, etc, you don't need to worry about them over inflating specs as much as those fly by night companies. You know the companies I'm talking about, the ones who change names every season... When I was competing in IASCA, my own car had a 3 amplifier set up using all Zapco amps. I had 150x2 rms @4ohms running 2 tweeters, 150x2 rms @4ohms running my 6.5" mids, and a 1000x1 rms @1 ohm running three 10" subs (these amps were not over inflated as far as specs go). I had a switching setup to run a single 10 during the sound quality portion of the testing and then would flip a switch to run all three 10's for the SPL portion of the competition. Was this amount of power overkill? Just looking at the numbers most would say yes... but I really believe in having lots of 'headroom" to get a very clean high quality sound. Keep in mind the main purpose of my system was sound quality. everything else was second. Kilo6 has good advice. I forget that the market is flooded with pre-made sub boxes. We only made custom boxes... no cookie-cutter installs at my shop. It would be good to have someone run a RTA in your car and see what frequencies are naturally boosted and which ones are dead (low), this will also help with your decision making and general set-up of your system.
Honestly, Crutchfield is my go to......... I used to be an installer back in the 90's and loved the industry but its has changed so much since then. But for a DD pretty much any off the shelf brand is going to be nice, amps have gotten smaller and cleaner and no longer look like megatrons face. The trends are following home competent equipment styling cues like Ad com and mark Levinson. The Bose system in my truck is absolute crap, when i get around to it im removing my speakers and going to clean it up a bit..... Like Gale said, there is some fudging with some of the brands when it comes to specs, the more reputable ones have Bench test birth sheets so you can really see what they do.
Speaking of home trends, you can also get into McIntosh amps... Yeah, what is it with Bose? I've never understood it. The whole brand is overpriced and sounds like crap; house or car products. Shows you what great marketing can do for a name! I also have Blose in my car... ugh... I just leave the stereo turned off. The sound of my engine and exhaust is enough for me now. I got out of the car audio scene just after the whole in car multimedia thing was starting, back when you would spend $2000 for a 6" LCD screen...
Thanks for the input. I need to do some searching online for pricing before I pull the trigger. Btw, my car is a 2000 Grand Prix GTP Coupe without factory bose. It has factory speakers so far and the only thing that has been upgraded by previous owner was a kenwood headunit 50wx4 and I believe it has preamp outputs.
And did I read correctly that there would be no speakers in the back of vehicle? Subwoofers out back, mids and tweeters up front?
where did you read that? hit up crutchfield, they have a "outfit your car" option that may be beneficial to you. @ Gale force. I hear you on BOSE, I have a BOSE 3.2.1 system and its perfect for what it is. but yeah, the car products are name only........
Twice, Gale Force mentioned setting up components in the front and the sub woofer setup in the back, but never mentioned anything about the rear speakers. So I kind of assumed the rear speakers weren't necessary with a sub woofer setup. But, I don't know what I am doing hence the thread.
If the system is just a fun system go ahead and put some rear speakers in. You need to set them up so they are just for "fill" and don't overpower the front speakers. Most systems I built were for sound quality and IASCA competitions, rear speakers did not get used very often, if at all.
yeah, its like brakes, the stage where you are hearing the music is generally in the front....... but rear speakers are not expensive to replace.
