Car Audio It Is™

[Toolbox]

Hello all,

Thank you for the warm welcome. I need car audio help. I was really into this during my younger years but have been completely out of the loop since my first PC. In those days, it was a Pentium II 266 MHz.

Anyway, I always used to setup up cars with a single amplifier. I'm hoping I can still do this now-a-days.

Does anyone know if they still sell good 5 channel amplifiers? The one I had before was a Soundstream Continuum. I don't think those things are still alive so what are other good 5 Channel amps? I've seen a lot of Alpine V12's but thoise were shit back in the day... are they any better now?

Here are parts of the system I've already bought:

Pioneer CD Deck
Pioneer Changer

What I need now is 6.5 Inch separates for the front and 6.5 coaxials for the rear. I'm also going to need a subwoofer... debating on two 8's in a sealed box or a single twelve in a bandpass box.

The amp is where I'm lost. It has to either a 5 or 6 channel amplifier rated a 4 ohms and can deliver about 150 watts RMS to the sub with a built in low pass crossover.

ANy help would really be appreciated.

 

[sin2]

I used to be part of the "Cars that goes boom" era in San Jose. My car(s) went from stock audio to a complex set up of audios with custom build speaker boxes.

I would try this for your setup. One 4 channel amp and a separate 2 channel amp for the woofers. When I used to run the system high on bass with two 12's, the amp heats up a lot. That's why I separate the woffer amps from the rest. Also if you decided to upgrade the subs, or add more, it's nice to have individual amps dedicated to them. I tried running all in a humongous 6 channel and it left me not much upgradibility.

As far as between 8's or a 12, I guess it all depends on the box. Are you planning to custom build your box? I've tried two 8's in a custom spec-ed box from Kicker and they're incredibly loud. Then I switched to 2-12 inch Cervin Vegas and had someone build me a box and it sucked. I re-made the boxes and it made a huge difference.

People says the size of the subs governs the deepness of the bass. That's totally false. Bass is made by the vibration of the subs which creates shock waves to the back board of the box and reflecting to the vent.

 

[sin2]

Sorry it's too early and my thoughs aren't so clear.

Anyway, if you have specs of the items can we take a look at it?

 

[Duckman]

My experience with car audio is next to non-existent, but: I would definitely go for the two eights. They have almost the same sq inch area as one 12" (two 10" have "exactly" the same sq inch area as one 12"), but the two 8" are much faster...generally, that is. Besides, a bandpass box for two 8"'s are easier to make and easier to stiffen up compared to one single 12".

When it comes to building the box, you should definitely use MDF or NRFB, not some cheap low density fiberboard. You should also try to make the box asymmetric, as this will help preventing resonnance in your case.

Duckman

 

[Toolbox]

Thanks for the replies. The reason I want one amplifier to drive the entire car is because this is a permanent solution and it cut's down on a lot of wiring. With two amplifiers, I, all of a sudden am going to need an active crossover which I don't want to bother with.

This is going to be a simple system in a simple car. I just want good crisp sound. I looked at the possibilities of using two 8" woofers but I deciuded against it because I'm going to need to drive it with more power. I think I'm going with a single 10" woofer in a bandpass box.

If there are any more suggestions, I would love to hear them all.

Thank you all.