[PlaneJob]

OK, my car stereo sucks balls. <insert marital dispute regarding purchasing new car and wanting to upgrade said new car here>

I have decided that I want to installa set of components in the front doors.

Does anybody have any suggestions for a cheap (less than $75) set that sounds ok?

I am also going to build my own version of the SHoebox Sub, because they are no longer being built. I intend to put in an 8 inch Kicker SoloBaric. Which direction should the sub point? up? into the trunk area?

Does anybody have a good recommendation for an amp that will power the sub?

Is it possible to power the sub, and the front speakers from the same amp?

What is a 2 ohm speaker? how is it different froma 4-ohm? why do I care?

What are 'channels on an amp? are they separate lines for the different speakers?

Because I want to use one sub, could I use a 4 channel amp and bridge 2 channels for the sub and keep the other two channels for the fronts?

What is a good inexpensive amp that will drive an 8-inch sub? without blowing it up... or 'clipping'.

somebody tell me how you do this stuff - I am very handy with the soldering iron and many technical projects, however I have never put a stereo system together.

Thanks in advance.

 

[b1shmu63]

2 Ohm, 4 Ohm, 8 Ohm, all refer to the impedance of a speaker, which is the combined resistance and reactance of a speaker. The resistance being the DC component and the reactance being the AC component. If you use a digital voltmeter to measure the resistance of a speaker, it will always read low as it doesn't measure the AC reactance. The impedance value determines the amount of current that will flow through a speaker when it is being driven by a specific voltage signal. If you cut the resistance in half, twice the current will flow and therefore twice the power will be produced.

Car systems generally use 4 Ohm speakers as the peak voltage available from an amplifier running off a 12 volt battery is limited to 12 volts. Let us assume for the moment that the amplifier is designed to swing the voltage on the speaker 12 volts in one direction and 12 volts in the other direction. This produces a peak to peak voltage swing of 24 volts with a peak current of 3 Amperes. (Amperes = Voltage / impedance.) Therefore peak power is limited to 72 watts! (Power = Amperes X Voltage) RMS power ( root means squared ) is roughly 60 percent of this. Therefore with a 4 Ohm speaker you should be limited to about 45 watts RMS per channel. That doesn't sound like much but consider that even high quality speakers are about 5 percent efficient, therefor, almost all of this heat has to be dissipated by the fragile voice coil of the speaker. In order to get more power you would have to decrease the impedance of the speaker. SPL ( sound pressure level) goes up linearly and inversely with the enclosed volume of the listening space. Consider this; 90 watts RMS through a pair of efficient speakers is going to damage your hearing really quickly in the tiny enclosed space of the Insight, if it doesn't fry the voice coils first, but you will probably have fun doing it :wink: .

OK, that is probably more than you wanted to know about Ohms, but thanks for asking.

 

[PlaneJob]

OK, that is probably more than you wanted to know about Ohms, but thanks for asking.

actually, that was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for!

You gave me the theory, now somebody give me a recommendation :wink:

 

[b1shmu63]

If you want to learn lots more about speakers then check out http://www.solen.ca and order their full line catalogue on CD.

If you want components at wholesale and surplus prices, check out Addison Electronics Ltd. by calling 1-514-376-1740 (1741) or fax at 1-514-376-9792 and order their 430 page full line catalogue. They sell speakers, 1 Farad caps, car amps, wire, crossovers, gold connectors, and way more. 8)

Good hunting, Kip

 

[cakley]

http://www.crutchfield.com make sure the depth of the speaker is not too large. Pioneer, Sony, Infinity, Polk all make good speakers. Go to crutchfield and find the ones you want then head over to ebay and type in the model # and run a search. Get them for a good price. Try and spend at least 75.00

It's going to be hard and expensive to build the box. Just get a SAS Bazooka sub. Allready designed and built and they can be purchased with the amp built in. Very easy to install and a good price when you do the math.

 

[PlaneJob]

It's going to be hard and expensive to build the box.

How expensive can a half sheet of MDF be? The other costs, are variable, like the cost of the speaker, and whatever you use to cover the box - but really - expensive?

As for being difficult - Good , it'll give me something to do for more than an afternoon!

Just get a SAS Bazooka sub. Allready designed and built and they can be purchased with the amp built in. Very easy to install and a good price when you do the math.

yeah, but where do I hide that hideous thing? If I have to remove pieces of the stereo in order to utilize the car then that is a pretty poorly put together system. I plan on traveling in the car.

Do they make one that fits in the NAV cubby hole?



And thanks for the tip about looking on ebay - WOW the prices are way different - I can save 25% or more on what I want - and it still comes from a reputable dealer! [/quote]

 

[Rick]

Do they make one that fits in the NAV cubby hole?

You might see if Wayland has any shoe box's left. Last I heard he was done doing that, but I also read somewhere he had enough demand to do one last run of 10 of them. They fit in that Navi hole, use a JL 8" sub and sound very decent for their size. Again, not sure if any new ones still exist or not.