When I looked over the car to put in subwoofer, the spot you are working on looked like a good spot to tuck in a sub


How are you going to deal with battery, will the enclosures be easily removable for battery service? (The amp is sitting right on top of the battery enclosure).

Also, what about the spare tire? Just leaving it out?

 

Good start. I saw a pump with a container of tire slime made together that was wheel sensor safe. I did the plug a hole one afternoon, but that was a lot of work.

 

I'm getting rid of the spare tire. I always keep a portable tire pump and a plug kit. I haven't changed a temporary tire in almost 20 years. I always plug the tire right on the spot just the way a garage would do it. I've done it for couple dozen other people as well.

Plan on running a 4 gauge wire to the front of the car with maybe a 40 or 60 amp fuse. I'd rather go with a 40 amp fuse (if possible). I'd rather the fuse go before anything else. I never want the stereo to overpower the electrical system.

I am hoping to change to a new battery in the future and get rid of the stock one.

Tomorrow will be a very busy day to do the rest of the enclosure.

If all goes well, I'll have some really cool pictures to show.

 

If all goes well, I'll have some really cool pictures to show.

I'm looking forward to it. BTW, my Kenwood blew the 40a fuse I had at the battery within the first few minutes. If you believe that your amp is seriously underated, then you may need to go 60 or turn the gain down.

 

This will suck. I was hoping to put a 40A fuse. I guess I'll have to go with a 60 like I had on previous cars. I really didn't want to do that.

I guess I will have to turn the gains down a bit as well.

I know the stereo shop who was helping me was telling me a 100A. I don't want a 100A fuse on a 400 watt amplifier.

Supposedly... 400W / 12V = 33.33 amps.

When the engine is running: 400W / 14.4V = 27.77 amps.

So if you're blowing a 40 amp fuse with your Kenwood amp, you must be pushing a significant amount of power above and beyond what I am trying to do here.

Watts / Volts = Amps
Watts / Amps = Volts
Ohms = Volts / Amps

Ex.: 33 amps * 14.4 volts = 475 watts

And that's with the music going full blast at a constant, which I never really do that. I try to keep the music at responsible listening levels. I don't want to blow up equipment or go deaf.

In your case with the Kenwood, 500W / 14.4V = 34.7 amps.

So maybe your amp is underrated as well. What gauge wire do you have running to the amp? What distribution blocks are you using? Got any pictures?

 

Im running 20amp fuses in the blocks, 60 amp at the battery under the hood. No problems, havent blown them, but have had the amp cut out when turned up too loud.

 

Wow... then the power from this car is weak if your amp is turning off.

Let me go back to getting this enclosure and amp rack finished. I'll try to post more pics as soon as I can.

 

I ran 4 gauge wire on my last system and had no problems at all and that was with almost 1,000 watts RMS.

With only 1 single amp with the low amount of watts that it has, I'm not going to buy 2 gauge wire. When lights start dimming, then I will change it. The amp only has 8 gauge connections on it.

For those people who blast their music super loud all the time, those are the people that need that kind of wire running multiple amps and a crossover.

Anyway, here's what the box looks like so far. It rained all day long, so nothing much got done. The amp rack still has long way to go.

The plexiglass came today but it wasn't started yet. I'm going to go back over there in a little while and see if it will get done. Lots more work to do.

Let me know what you guys think of the enclosure so far.

 

I ran 4 gauge wire on my last system and had no problems at all and that was with almost 1,000 watts RMS.

Okie..

Let me know what you guys think of the enclosure so far.

I like the box so far. That was also the spot I was looking to place in my secondary battery, I had debated on the losing my spare as well since I have CAA (AAA in the US), and so a tow is the worst scenario, I'm holding off until after the first oil change, my first rule to any car mod is it can be undone with no traces if I were to sell it.

 

The amp rack is being started now.

Here's an update from tonight. The plexiglass will be cut tomorrow and then the top layer covering the amp will be finished.

Many hours of work still to do tomorrow.

 

Here's where we are today. Hopefully everything will be all finished by tomorrow.

This is just the fitting. Holes will be cut out around the amp for air and sound to pass through, plus you'll be able to see the capacitor.

What do you guys think of it so far?

 

I went with smaller fuses to tell how much I am pulling, havent blown 20 amp yet. My amp is throwing a general fault when it cuts out. Voltage is still 12 volts at that point with the second battery. With the cap alone, I was gong under 11 volts and trigging the low voltage alarm

What do you guys think of it so far?

WOW, that looks professional. I want to start over with my install, but it serves it purposes and works fine.

I am working on getting a friend who does audio to do a wall for show purposes in the back.

 

Thanks, Cobb.

I only went this route because I wanted to keep my trunk space. When this is all done, you put that factory carpet thing right on top of this and you won't even know this thing is there.

All of my previous systems were done similar to yours. I always had a large box taking up a trunk or something. But this being our only car, I wanted the ability to carry groceries or luggage without having to remove a woofer box.

 

Looks good, what are you running for a sub?

 

This one right here

 

One thing I can agree with Fuel on. When it comes to audio you need to go big and good stuff. The preassemble boxes, speakers and amps at the stores are crap. I found that out the hardway. I am no way an expert or have the cash flow the other guys do, but managed to save and upgrade.

I first went tothe speakers that sounded good, the kenwood 180 watt speakers. Instead of a bazooka bass cannon, I wanted a small box. I got a class d amp, then saw how limited it was and exchanged it for an amp with more response and to amp all 4 speakers. I changed my mind after getting my 700 watt sony xpode and declided to use it as a bass amp. Found a small box at pepboys. It lasted 7 minutes before the speakers were toast, but I saw that is what I was lookiing for. I used speaker level inputs and a jump starter thing to power it.

I then looked for the highest capacity 8 inch subs to reuse the pepboys box. That lasted 2 weeks before the box center divider broke. So, used a web calculator to build a new box.

In the mean time I had wired it up to the cars battery and with the largest cap I could find 10 farad, the voltage dropped like a rock, so the second battery was added.

If I had to do it again Id go for a smaller battery like a u1 and put it off to the side in the recessed storage area next to the light. Id do what Fuel is doing, but keep the spare.

 

Bas speakers are aimed at the floor mat covering it? I realize it's bass it's just loud, but have you considered vent slots on the carpeting or remove that and use the all seasons with vent slots over the bass speaker and amp?

 

The subwoofer is facing down. Supposedly we're going to put some Dynamat down below it.

I made the comments I have from over 20 years experience in doing this. You have no idea how many thousands of dollars I have thrown away on JUNK all because I was too cheap in the beginning to buy the stuff that I have now.

I thought that everything was just a name and that it was overpriced. I wasted money on crap like equalizer-boosters and high wattage amps that had small fuses. So when you see stuff like "1500 watts" or "2000 watts" on these "Boss" amps and crap like that with 10 or 15A fuses, RUN AWAY!!

When I buy an amp, I have to see the specs on it. If the THD is anything over 0.05%, I won't spend the money on it. When I saw that this McIntosh was 0.005% THD, I had to have this thing.

Most of the amps you see now are 0.1%. That's very high. For a Class D amp running a subwoofer that's okay. But when you're powering your mid's and high's, you do not want it.

From now on I only buy very expensive amps. If I can't afford it at that time, I either keep saving up the money until I can or I buy it brand new or used on eBay. I no longer skimp on quality the way I did in the past.

All the money and time I wasted in the past. I am trying to save anyone I can from repeating all of the headaches I did.

Buy the best amp in the world that you can get your hands on and HOLD ONTO IT FOREVER!!

Don't buy what you can afford... BUY WHAT YOU WANT!

For example, if you have $300 in your pocket and the amp you want is $600, don't walk away saying that you can't afford it. Put the $300 away and keep saving up until you finally get the $600. Then buy the amp.

Do the same steps with the speakers, subwoofer and head unit.

It took me a very long time to buy my stuff, but now I have zero regrets.

Instead of paying the insane $439 at Crutchfield for this speaker, I got the SAME EXACT ONE brand spanking new in the box on eBay for only $265.

I achieved my goal by getting what I wanted. That's all I am trying to get people to learn.

For homes and expensive cars this method is difficult to do, but car stereo equipment is not expensive enough to be out of reach.

Time flies, so if you wait long enough, you'll have what you want and not just what you could afford for the money in your pocket.

And by the way, none of this is being charged on a credit card. I saved up cash for everything. Don't pay interest on stuff like this unless it's one of those 6-months or 12-months 0% interest credit cards and that you are 100% certain you can pay the card off within that time frame.

Look at the specs of the amp. If it says 2,000 watts, then 2,000 watts divided by 14.4 volts = 138 amperes. If the amplifier has a 15 to 25A fuse on it, then you know SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT here and you are being SCAMMED.

When you buy an amp, ignore the PEAK power. What you need is RMS (root means square).

The amp I have is 400 watts RMS clean power at 0.005% THD. That's about as clean as you're going to get in any car stereo amplifier.

I once saw a Nakamichi amp for $200 on eBay that had the same 0.005% THD distortion ratio. If you can't afford something like a new McIntosh, something like this would make an awesome amp to run mid's and high's.

Then maybe a JL 500/1 or 1000/1 to power a large subwoofer.

Zapco, US Amp, the old Soundstream Class A amps, Carver, A/D/S, PPI, Hiphonics and Zues are other good ones.

I cannot recommend Kenwood because of prior experience it had a high distortion rate. Same with Alpine. I would recommend the Kenwood or Alpine head units, though.

 

He has 1 speaker facing downwards. Bass is omni directional, it doesnt really matter the location. I just hope he has some dynomatt below it and secured so it doesnt rattle.

 

Just in case anyone hit eBay looking at the Nakamichi, it looks like the newer ones have high distortion. The one I found on eBay was an old-school amp.

All of the companies seem not to care and are only trying to make a quick buck nowadays. It's very hard to find any car stereo amp today that has 0.005% THD.

The new Nakamichi like this one here has .1%

I would not buy something like that unless it was only to power a subwoofer or a set of subwoofers.

NAKAMICHI PA-1500 MONO AMP 1200RMS WATT POWER AMPLIFIER - eBay (item 120508159764 end time Jan-17-10 17:50:51 PST)

 

Read the specs on this one:

McIntosh MC440M 6-Channel Amplifier - eBay (item 330386447418 end time Dec-22-09 18:20:52 PST)

That's similar to mine and why I bought it. Mine just doesn't have those fancy meters, but it sounds the same.

Another good sounding amp as a McIntosh alternative:

Soundstream Human Reign Unleashed HRU.2 Amplifier - eBay (item 280432725105 end time Jan-01-10 12:20:09 PST)

This JL amp is also nice with 0.005%
NEW JL AUDIO 500/1 V2 MONO CAR AMPLIFIER AMP 500/1V2 - eBay (item 350278853111 end time Jan-12-10 13:07:08 PST)

I told my brother-in-law all the same things I am telling you people and he wised up and managed to save up the money to buy 2 McIntosh amps. And this came from a guy who barely earns $600-800/mo. It took him many months of savings, but he did it. I'm proud of him. Most people won't heed my advice and only buy what they can afford for that day. All I can say is that Buyer's Remorse SUCKS!!!!

 

Finally got the sound system to play today.

Even with the 1.5 farad cap, the dome light still dims a wee bit. I'm not happy with that. My previous cars had ZERO dimming. The next step will be to buy a Kinetik battery and see if that will help.

The sound system sounds breathtakingly clear. You can see the Focal speaker being installed. The tweeters were real fun. The factory ones had to be removed and all of the plastic had to be cut away. The Focal tweeters are hot-glued permanently to the factory covers.

Minor stuff has to be done now. I'll try to get a picture of the head unit installed. We worked until late in the night and it was too dark to get any more pictures taken.

 

Here's pictures of the Alpine head unit that was installed.

 

Thanks for those tips. I wondered why some loud and highly decorated amps that claimed so much power output had fuses half that size, then other more boring looking amps had big fuses, but the same posted power rating.

I didnt know that about THD either. My alpine seemed under rated, but the bass is muddy and loud. Its 1% 400 watts. My sony is .05 at 700 and nice n clear,

I have a lot of down time as I drive my parents to dr appointments and would love to be able to watch dvds, blur ray and or digital tv. I understand last I checked they did not offer head units with digital recievers for tv. Is that true?

I need some advice, can you hook channels in parallel or series to use a 2 channel amp to power one speaker? My amp is cutting out, but not blowing fuses or speakers, so assuming I have more speakers than amp. I can get another amp exactly what I got for next to nothing, so was going to use an amp a speaker.

 

I need some advice, can you hook channels in parallel or series to use a 2 channel amp to power one speaker? My amp is cutting out, but not blowing fuses or speakers, so assuming I have more speakers than amp. I can get another amp exactly what I got for next to nothing, so was going to use an amp a speaker.

It depends on the amp. Do you have the owner's manual? If it can be bridged to mono, then you should be able to have a single channel with 4 ohms. Not all amps are 2 ohm stable, so that's why I asked if you had the manual. Or you could Google your model # and find out by reading the specs.

My amp is 2 ohm stable, but they did not recommend running a bridged channel in 2 ohms. I am using the front 2 channels to power 4 speakers. Since they are running parallel, they bring the impedance down to 2 ohms (which is fine for my un-bridged front channels.)

My sub is a 3-ohm sub. My bridge rear channels run the sub. So far it seems to be working great. My amp has a crossover built in, plus my radio has one as well.

I try to avoid putting amps into 2 ohms when possible because I don't like to push my amp to the limit. When you power a subwoofer or subwoofer(s) in 2 ohms, that's when it runs the amp hard. In all of my years of doing this, I've never run a bass amp in 2 ohms. When buying a pair of two subwoofers, I try to get the subwoofers to be 8 ohms each. Then I run them in parallel to get a 4 ohm load. Plus each woofer gets an equal amount of power when doing this. A friend showed me this back around 1986 or so. He always did it with his 15" woofers. He had a ton of IASCA trophies from all of the sound contests he won.

In a car I had a long time ago, I had three JL Audio 10W6's. Each speaker had dual 6-ohm voice coils. I wired each speaker to be 12-ohms. Then when you run all 3 speakers in parallel you get a 4-ohm load which doesn't make the amp work so hard.

 

I want to add or upgrade. I was thinking of adding another amp and or 2 more speakers. The amp is 4 channels, bridged to 2. I wanted to wire 2 amps in parallel or series to give more power to the speakers, or an amp each of what I already have.

I had one guy suggest using 2 different boxes, sealed and band pass.

Another said build a wall or the biggest box possible.

It will play for 45 minutes before throwing a fault, but wont blow fuses. So guessing the amp is under powering the speakers?

So, how does it sound? Can you rattle the mirrors? Does anything else rattle? It should be a night vs day experience, at least it was for me as the oem setup wasnt loud enough. I remember hearing lolly pop by framing hanley and turning it to 40. WTF??? It wont go past 40, did I crank the radio as high as it will go?

 

My box is sealed. It sounds like listening to a single 12. It can rattle the mirrors a little bit, but NOTHING like the 13W7 I used to have. The mirror used to fall off with that.

With the weak electrical system we have, I would be scared to run multiple amps. You need to spend a couple hundred bucks and upgrade your car battery to a Kinetik one. The battery we have is a joke.

 

Today I got a backup camera installed and Sirius Radio.

Here's a now you see it, now you don't comparison once you start to close the carpet/mat thing in the back.

It looks 100% stock to anyone walking by who happens to look in the back window.

Please post what you think. Hopefully I have given some of you guys some ideas of what can be done to your Insights.

Check out the backup cam with infrared!

:bling:

 

Wow, wished my setup was like that.

So, hows the head unit install? Plug n play, a lot of work?

 

I just bought a wiring harness from Crutchfield and I bought the Metra radio kit from eBay and it all went in like a standard radio.

A speed wire kit was used that has all of the speaker wires and trigger wire. So the harness connected to all of the factory wires and then it ran back to the amp and where it could easily be wired.

When you listen to jazz, classical, big band, Latin, orchestra or anything with natural instruments, the system sounds absolutely incredible. You can hear snare drums and symbols playing out of those Focal speakers that make it sound just like the musicians are standing there right in front of you.

 

Sounds great, post some pics of the head unit?

 

Look at the very top of this web page.

Plus here's another one show what it looks like when Sirius runs. I need to buy an HD Radio module in the future and run that next.

 

Idk if this has been asked yet bro and I'm sorry if it has but how much did the whole woofer set up run you?

 

I bought the woofer brand new on eBay for a couple hundred bucks.

The entire system was built and installed for about $700. That included running the GPS, Sirius Radio, rear backup camera.

The cost of the head unit, front speakers and amp was almost $3,000.

 

My budget build was a few hundred.

100 4 kenwood 6 1/2 speakers
85 10 farad cap
117 2 jbl 804 subs
32 bucks for speaker box
60 4 and 8 guage install kit
200 or so for amp.

I can rattle my license plate and any song sounds full like you are wearing a set of sony ear buds, except the bass you can feel in the seats, floor and see the mirrors vibrate to the beat.

If I could do mines again, I would get speakers with even higher wattage ratings and amp. I would use 10 vs 8 inch subs.

 

$32 for a speaker box?!?!?!?!?

I could only WISH mine was that cheap. You saw the pics. It took several days to put all of this stuff together.

My very first system in the mid 1980's was a budget system. I had two 12's, 100 watt amp for the subs, a Kenwood amp for my mid's and some High-Tech 50 watt amp for my tweeters. I hooked it all together with a 3-way crossover. I had 6x9's that I got from the flea market. For how cheap it is, it sounds really good since I set it up as a 3-way system. It drastically lowered the distortion rate since it was not combined. I had no need for those passive crossovers that come with speakers like Boston, MB Quart, McIntosh, Focal, Polk and other good component speakers.

Maybe in the next car I'll do a 3-way system again. It's just a pain to have to wire 4 devices up... bass amp, mid amp, tweeter amp, electronic crossover... not including a capacitor.

If I did it again, I would want a large class D amp to run the subs, maybe an 80-100 watt amp to run the mid's and an 80 watt amp to run 4 tweeters.

The Kenwood and High-Tech amps I had were very small and only 2 channels each. The Kenwood would have high distortion, but since I only used a small frequency out of it and did not include low's or high's, it drove my mid-range speakers very clean.

Nobody wants to go through all of this hassle when installing a stereo system, though. I do because I am a fanatic when it comes to sound quality.

It would be a challenge for me to use all cheap stuff and make it sound good... but I would have fun putting it altogether to pull off the impossible. And I could do it all for less than I paid for my McIntosh amp.

 

That was for the MDF for the home made sealed .8ft3 per the speaker spec sheet. My previous box was a 350 watt 3 way for 50 bucks at pepboys. It lasted 2 weeks til the center divider broke. The speakers lasted 7 minutes.

$32 for a speaker box?!?!?!?!?

Yeah, your piece of lexan alone is likely more than my MDF. I looked around yesterday as I moved some stuff around, added a second amp for a band pass to go with the sealed box. I see there is more room around the hybrid battery even if you leave the spare on top. I am thinking of cutting some more mdf sheets to put on each side to hold the fuses, cap and amps, then leave the trunk for the speaker boxes and cargo.

Then, if my metro or parents suzuki needs a new battery, give them this one and get the other one you posted in another thread. Infact 2, 1 for under the hood and the second to put somewhere in the back.