great site

I'm new to car stereos and I need a great deal of help...

2 weeks ago, I was playing my Jensen stereo and all of a sudden, I couldn't hear any music. I check my stereo and I had barely notice the poor wiring job that the previous owner had done(I've only had this car for like 4 weeks+).

Now, I don't want to go over to the car audio dealers 'cause I've heard bad stories from people who got their stereo systems "professionally" installed.

Any of you happen to know which wire is for?

Also, are them Bazooka Tubes decent? People tell me that they include their own amplifier and stuff

 

wiring your own stero job isnt very hard at all, if you want to do it right it's time consuming, i just rewired my whole system in the past 2 days, took out the whole interior and wired up my 4x6s and 6x9s, plus tweeters, my deck and 2 amps.

as to whihc wire is which, i think the color and function depends on the year. all you need to know is power(live),ignition, and ground, if you are ruinning all your own speaker wire, which i would suggest, i know in my car, the yellow wire is ignition, teh orange was power and my ground was black.

as far as bazooka tubes go i'm not too familiar, I think tehy are a powered woofer system, (built in amplifier) and the convience factor that they fit in the bottom of the well is cool too, but i'm not sure of how good they sound, as i have never heard one before, but some people on here like the sound,

 

bass tubes have decent response but dont have the ability to get very loud.

there was a civic install on the net a couple years ago that had 64 bazooka bass tubes in a wall and only hit 159 or something.

i think you would be better off just buying a single 10 or single 12 and low powered amp...you'll notice a huge difference

 

My uncle has three bass tubes with a amp thats a little larger(as far as rms power output) than my sub amp and my single sealed 10 is more powerful in every way. It also doesnt distort like his tubes do when turned up. The sub someone gave to me and i saw the small box for sale for $20. Only temp but sounds very good for what it is.
Also price of my uncles three 10" tubes=$350
Price of my 10 sub=$0 ,, $20 for the box..........

 

It's a 92 Camaro RS.

I'm not looking for a really loud system...just a decent one with tremendous bass. But it would be a problem since I'm low on cash ($500).

I'd try making my own box, but I don't have any experience in woodworking/cutting.

And it seems that you do need other tools for the wiring. What do y'all recommend?

 

Most guys, even the professionals, use a wire stripper/crimper, and butt connectors. You can find pictures of what this stuff looks like at radioshack.com . They use an aftermarket "harness adapter" that plugs into the factory harness. That leaves them with bare wires (from the aftermarket adapter) without having to remove the factory harness. That way the car can go back to a stock radio easily. Then they use the butt connectors to connect the harness adapter's wires to the radio wires.

But I come from a day when there were no aftermarket harness adapters. I cut off the factory harness, solder the wires to the aftermarket radio, and cover the joints with heat-shrink tubing. It's overkill, but that's the way I do things.

 

i agree...soldering and heat shrinking tubing is the way to go. Plus i dont like prying apart those harness clips, i always break the clips