I lucked out at a pawn shop the other day and traded an extra VCR for an Amp, cross-over and a 12" pyramid sub in a high-quality sealed box. After I cooked the pyramid I found a Ultimate 12" 300watt on sale.

Anyhow, I havent hooked up a decent stereo in years and I would like to know if I got this right.

For the front speakers;

I had an extra sony center channel speaker that had two 5 1/4" speakers. The speakers pound good on their own and magnets are big (1 1/2") I think they're 40 or 50 watts a piece. I think they are 4ohm because inside the speaker box they were hooked up parallel.

Parallel is where you hook up two speakers positive termials to one positive output terminal. The result is that if you have two 4ohm speakers hooked up like that you have 8ohm load on the amp. Do I have that right? the speakers don't have the ohm rating printed on them and knowing this is useful.

Also to install these, because of the magnet size, I had to remove the functionality of the edge defroster vents. What difference will that make? The middle top dash vent blows much harder now. And I noticed middlle vents by the instrument panel are blowing cold air now while the top ones blow hot. Thats must be a whole other mystery though. I didn't have the car drivable last winter and it just got cold when I set about this project.


For rear speakers;

Ultimate 6x9's. The speaker insualtion disentigrated when I removed them so the shop could weld new quarter panels on (still paying that one off). I found replacements in perfect shape at an autowrecker.


The crossover;

Neat little device I got primarily to convert the speaker out on my Delco tape deck into an RCA out to run to the amp. I tightly shoved under the deck. When I get a cd-player with RCA outs I plan to mount the cross-over next the amp where it can be easily adjusted if I even need it. I dont want to run two sets of speaker wires to the rear of the car right now.

Having the crossover hooked up to the same speaker outputs that are driving the 6x9 wouldn't hurt anything would it?. The 6x9's seem to sound different now.

The amp (set to 80hz filter, 3/4 gain) is hooked up to the low pass side of the cross over set to 50hz with the gain set to 3/4. Do the settings on the cross over matter (I can't easily try each setting) the last cross-over I dealt with was part of my Apline V12 (RIP). I'm not sure if it's just the way 12" sub sounds compared to two 10"s but something seems to sound off, not out-of-phase off, but not right. The deck is is in good shape taken out of my low low milage 88 grand am after it was totalled, and my discman sounds good.


And there's this one last dammm rattle I can't fix It must be common, someones gotta know. I don't hear it when I pound Symphony of Destruction, but any electronic bass and it rattles bad. There is no noise when the hatch is raised. I crawled into the hatch with stereo going and the best I can tell it's coming from the very rear center around the latch area. The tail-light lenses are on tight.

I have removed the back panel, the spare tire cover and spare tire, the plastic piece on the hatch window and rear lock. i made gaskets for the latching mechanizms and solenoid, the locking compartment, the spoiler and big metal bracket that holds the hatch to the struts. Before i put the interior in at springtime I sprayed 6 cans of sound deadner and 6 cans of much cheaper truck bed liner down to replace the factory deadner that disentigrated when i put new carpets in.

Where the hell is that rattle comming from???



anyways thanks for reading

 

Try putting something behind the license plate. Thats what rattles on my car.

 

You got the wiring of parallel circuit right, But The Load isnt right.
Connecting 2 x 4ohm loads will give you a 2 ohm load.

No now on the other hand Series circuit (When the positive terminal of one speaker is conected to the negetive terminal on the other, then left over neg from one speaker and the left over pos on the other speaker are connected to the correct terminals on the amplifier) That; would give you a 8 ohm loud.

 

Hmmmm.


I forgot to mention I put rubber gasket behind the license plate. That was one of loudest rattles but you only heard that outside the car. The rattle i'm after is only heard inside the car.

And it looks like i mad two mistakes about the center channel speaker. i asumed the center channel output was 8ohms like the the right and left channels. And I had paralles/serial backwards. I wonder how i can find out the ohm rating of the speakers i used for fronts.

My brain is floating in a sea of rye right now but tommorow, if i don't find that rattle... I might have to drink again.


The POWER HOUR rocks!!!!

later

 

I had a real bad rattle from my CHMSL (third brake light) that took me forever to find. Also, make sure you pad your license plate both between the plate and the frame, and then between the frame and body. The power pulldown latch was loose, too. The center console shifter trim plate still rattles a bit, because the holes for the Torx bit screws that hold it in are stripped LOL. As for a cheap system, I picked up a Jensen 12 from Wal-Mart, and it sounds awesome for forty bucks, which I suspect is mostly the box. (My box, BTW, is sealed, a little over a cube and a half.)

 

No third brake light on my car. It's an 85 turned 87 with 83 T/A interior.

Today I gobed abunch of wheel bearing grease into the latch mechanizims. I put ruberized all contact areas for the gas tank heat shields (BTW it's was all undercoated with the gas tank tank removed). I also re-gasketed the taillight lenses,I fiber glassed over where the hatch lock is since i don't have the key for that lock, and I need an 87+ lock anyway to match the 87 taillight lenses I put in. I repair that in the summer.

It's still rattling but the things i've done are making impovements to the sound quality inside and out.

Ragnarok; I'm not sure exactly what you mean about the license plate and the frame but tommrow the temp is going up to 0*C. So I'm going to remove the rear bumper, drill out the rivits that hold the rear inner bumper re-inforcemnt thing, rubber undercoat the rear side the frame, make a gasket for the re-enforcement, use silcone on all the plastic clips.

If that ain't it i'm goona try i different latch or look for bad welds.

 

okay, so went back outside to start the bumper work and found my rattle problem. The bodyshop didn't re-attach liscense plate light.

Now i get to deal with installing interior pannels one day at a time and fixing rattles along the way.

I'n my travels I've found some very sub-standard work that was done to my car. The spare tire well is rusting out again already and fiber glass they put there cracked. They were supposed to put new metal in. and right under that my 6mo old exuast system, there is a hole on the intermediate pipe right under my hole in tire well. It's hole that it looks like when the installed it the accidendtly cut a hole with a torch and the covered it with weld which broke off. I get to be bitchy monday when I go see these guys. I should have noticed this a while back but by the time i got this car on the road after a year I lost my enthusiasm to work on it. The fiberglass must have cracked when they straightend my frame for the structural integrety test.

Anyhow I'm still looking for answeres about the cross-over q's I had.

And anyone know what a impedance a home theater amp puts out for the center channel. I can't find my manual.


Thanks for the replies

 

To find out the resistance of your speakers hook up a cheap multi meter to them (9 bux at wal mart).

 

from my experiece many home theater speakers have a higher ohm load that car speakers. Many are either 6 or 8 ohm, so you do need to check for the impendence on those.