It's been a slow go restoring my car but I'm finally gaining some traction. Sound deadening and carpet going in soon, new seats put in, seatbelts coming soon from a member here on TGO... feels good!

Anyway. I am doing a complete and total revamp of the stereo in my bird. I played around for a little while on whether or not I wanted to put a sub in and decided that I was going to. I already had an amp to drive my four cabin speakers. We all know that our selection is limited on the dash speakers but I'm on pretty good terms with a car audio shop near me, I will be talking to him Monday to see about some options for that. I currently have Kenwood coaxial 4x6s in the dash and 5 way 6x9s in the sails but the sail panel speakers are going to get replaced with some Soundstream coaxial 6x9s with outboard crossovers.

If you are planning on going the route I have with a dual amp setup... DO YOUR BIG 3 (Alternator to Battery, Battery to Chassis, Engine Ground to Chassis). IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE, TRUST ME. You wouldn't want to run a brand new high performance cam on a tired, leaky motor with 300xxx miles on it without tightening everything up, and you don't want to drop $700 on car audio without doing some tinkering on your wiring. Use 4GA wire at the minimum and get some wiring with a high strand count. It's more flexible. Remember, the smaller gauge you use, the easier everything flows, but you don't need to run double 0 GA for a 200W RMS amp.

Some people will argue that using a capacitor is worthless. Are you going to run a setup under 400W RMS? You probably don't need a capacitor- Get a good battery, preferably one that uses AGM technology. I have an Optima RedTop battery in my bird and it does fine. You can get a YellowTop battery if you prefer to blast your music while your car is off, but that is the only difference between the two. YellowTops have better cycling ability (charged to discharged, and back again) while RedTops have ridiculous cranking amps. There was no price difference between the two at my local auto parts store so it really comes to preference.

If you're running above 500W RMS I recommend you get a capacitor. The rule of thumb is 1 farad for every 1000W RMS...starting off at 1 farad. Thus if you are running a 1000W RMS system, get yourself a 2 farad capacitor. I had a 2 farad cap laying around from the system I had in my Challenger, so I just used it- you can use a larger capacitor if you want, it won't hurt anything. Caps used to be hot back in the day but have worn off some in the last few years...a cap HELPS in shouldering the load of your charging system. It will not magically let you run a 200 A system on a stock alternator and a walmart battery. Do not think of a capacitor as a battery- it isn't. It is a buffer against sharp peaks in power draw.

Next, your wiring. Please, don't skimp in this area. It is always better to run oversized wire than to go a size too small. Remember that resistance increases over distance, and resistance also increases with heat. I ran 4GA from my battery to my power distribution panel in the back (about 12-14'). My system will draw a maximum of 90A. Thus 4GA wire is sufficient for my application. I used wire loom on my power wire under the hood and also inside the car. Please drill a hole in the firewall and use a grommet to feed your wire inside and don't run it through your door jamb... probably not a bad idea to use some type of fire retardant caulking around where your wire penetrates either, just in case. Run your grounds properly to bare metal on the chassis. Your amps you buy will tell you what kind of wiring they accept- try to keep everything as short and sweet as you can. I currently have my speaker amp under my front seat, but I'll be moving it to my board in the back once I get my carpet in. BE SURE your amps have adequate room to dissipate heat- Class A/AB amps put off A LOT more heat than Class D amps do, and it's been years since I've seen an amp with fans so either mount your amps flat or mount them so the heat sink fins are vertical. Do not put them under anything or surround them with carpet. It may look aesthetically pleasing but you'll be cussing yourself in a year or two when your amp overheats and kicks the bucket.

Next post will be some more blabbing about amps and mounting and acoustics and stuff...stay tuned

 

More about amps. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I know it's beating a dead horse but if you REALLY think you're gonna pay $100 for a 3000w BOSS amp and just blow grandpa out of his seat with your awesome bass, you are mistaken. Power=money. The Alpine amp I'm using cost $270, it puts out 300W RMS @ 4 ohms and 500W RMS @ 2 ohms...rated at 14.4V. That's another thing you will learn that will bite you in the bum, is the CEA-2006 ratings most amp specs are sold on today. I have yet to drive a vehicle that runs at 14.4V constantly. Most are in the neighborhood of 13.2-13.8. My bird sits at 13.6 to 13.8V with a healthy charging system so I feel pretty confident in saying that my sub is getting in the neighborhood of 400W RMS. The only good amps I know of that are sold without the CEA-2006 ratings are JL Audio's slash amps (think 500/1) and some older Memphis Car Audio amps. I have had good luck with Kenwood and Alpine equipment, so that's what I tend to use. If you can find any older PPI amps that work, pick em up. They're awesome pieces of equipment.

Mounting your amps and other goodies is a fairly simple process- don't mount anything to the frame of your vehicle that could ever possibly or potentially short out. It could start a fire and will at least blow a fuse, if not cook your equipment. I've been used to using short tek screws to mount my amp boards and power boards to the frame but I've also never owned a vehicle with zero frame to gas tank clearance like our third gens have...so this time I used a long-cure epoxy that will bond wood to metal. I am confident that if I ever wreck my vehicle bad enough the only thing in the car that will not be destroyed is where that wood board is epoxied to the frame. It's solid. Paint your board and use at least 3/4" plywood. I will be carpeting over mine, and keeping a healthy distance around anything with power going to it. Safety first.

We don't have a whole lot of options for placing subwoofers and the vert guys are even worse off than us with hardtops or T-tops. If you care about keeping trunk space, your best bet is a shallow mount sub in a custom sealed enclosure in the spare tire compartment, or ripping out the glove box compartment and putting one there. I'm not so concerned about trunk space (I would've bought a Cadillac if I was ), I still went with a shallow mount subwoofer but my box can afford to be larger since I don't care about hauling groceries in it. I just dropped it down in the rear well until I figure out what I'm going to do for a cleaner look.

If you want to use more than one sub, DO NOT aim them at each other. They will cancel each others' frequencies out and it'll sound like poop. Best bet is to do a flat mount aiming at the hatch with them pointing away from each other, not straight up. If you don't care so much about SQ you can do a flat mount and it'll still sound okay.

A hatchback's acoustics are a lot different than a car with a standard trunk. I had this same amp on a JL 12w3 in my Challenger, putting out the same power (~500W) and it's enough in the bird that I have to turn it down on some songs cause it feels like the breath is being stolen from my lungs. Keep this in mind when searching for an amp and sub combination. Speaking of which...sub boxes! The two main types are sealed and ported. There are bandpass boxes (which combine the pros of sealed and ported boxes, but must be tuned for a specific frequency like a ported box) and tube-type enclosures but we'll leave those be for now unless someone has a question directly related to them. Typically, a sealed box will produce a much tighter and crisper sound than a ported box. Sealed boxes are good for rock, country, and any type of music with defined bass. Ported boxes are good for SPL and the "boomy" sound, perfect if you like dubstep or rap. The box I bought for my sub is ported, I don't particularly like ported boxes but I went with it because it is factory made for my box (and I got it practically for free).

A head unit will make all the difference in your setup. If you're just going to run a low-powered sub, a unit with a single set of preouts will be fine. If you want to run multiple amps like I have done, pick yourself up a set with at least THREE preouts. There is an ongoing war between the pros and cons of high-volt preouts, but as long as your unit has at least 2V preouts you'll be fine. Mine has 4V. The reasoning behind this is the higher the preout voltage, the cleaner the sound your amp receives (line noise and all that) and the easier your amps get to work. There are head units out there that have 5V,6V, and even 8V preouts- for the money, you ain't gonna notice that much of a difference. Something else you want to look for is a unit with a decent EQ setup and sub control. This is the very reason I'll be getting rid of my head unit- It's a decent unit, but it's only got a 3 band EQ and as you'll notice as you set up your system and see how it sounds, some frequencies will be amped and others will be almost dead depending on where you sit in the car, and for guys who want good SQ this is no bueno. Personally I am looking into the Pioneer DEH-80PRS to replace the Sony unit I have. It has a good EQ and even has time alignment to move your sound field around, and I know everyone on this board has noticed that it sounds exactly like you have speakers behind you instead of that concert-hall effect where it sounds like they're surrounding you. Thankfully we have technology that will correct that so we don't have to put 15 speakers in our rides.

Next, pictures of what I've accomplished so far and I'll probably be posting more when I get my interior torn out and get to run new speaker wire...

 

Nasty carpet see why I'm replacing it?

board installed and epoxied into place...will carpet over when I get my new set

Power distribution setup and sub amp in place... this is 80% complete

Wire loom everything under the hood. It protects your cable and looks factory.

This is the sub I used... Memphis Car Audio shallow mount 12" DVC in Memphis box

I used steel terminals...you can use brass if you want for the look but there isn't much difference, besides the price

Dirty @$$ engine bay


I don't know everything about car audio but I do know some things...if you have any questions please feel free to ask!

 

Great write up dude! Two questions. How does the sub perform? And what are the best batteries for pretty big systems? (500-1000 rms)

 

I am very happy with the sub. The biggest issue I have with it concerns the box- A ported box sounds "empty" on the low end(frequencies around 60Hz). It is a sound you have to experience, it's hard to describe. The same sub, in a sealed box, reproducing the same frequency will have some definition to the sound. It's not like it's not there, because it is- with a ported box, you "feel" the sound more than hear it. That's my only complaint. The sub itself is superb.

My system runs 650W RMS and I have a single Optima RedTop battery in my car. With alternators as small as ours are, the question that comes to my mind is which is more cost efficient- a HO alternator, or a second battery and an isolator. You have to keep in mind that even though my system is rated for a MAXIMUM of 90A (just add the values of your fuses together) it's not ALWAYS running at 90A. It will actually very rarely hit that. More likely the whole draw on the system is probably in the neighborhood of 40-50A (I will find out tomorrow with my multimeter). I already have my washer tank out since it busted, I've been tempted to relocate the vacuum canisters there and fab up a second battery tray and put another battery in if I start having problems with my charging system. I'd rather spend $200 on another battery than $500 on a 220A alternator.

 

Next is a little postulating on sound fields and speaker options. Everyone knows how in our cars, it sounds like everything is coming from behind you, even if you go out and buy new aftermarket speakers- the problem is, 6x9s have more surface area than 4x6s. The 4x6s simply can't keep up. This MIGHT change. A guy local to me who deals in Precision Power products told me today that PP has released a shallow mount 6" round component system (for the uninformed, components are usually a midrange and tweeter, separate from each other and usually includes a crossover) that has a mounting depth of 1". Speaker technology has come a long way, and with my experience with Memphis's shallow mount sub I bought (it's 500w RMS, has a mounting depth of 3" or so and is absolutely bananas), I feel confident enough to experiment with a new product. Even with this setup, we will still contend with the fact that a 6x9 speaker STILL has more surface area than a 6" round...so I have taken the route of putting another set of these speakers in the doors. I'll wire these speakers in parallel, dropping the load my amp sees on the front two channels to 2 ohm, which will raise my power level from 40W to 60W. Per channel. That means instead of two speakers up front running at 40W, I will have 4 speakers running up front with each "channel" receiving 30W each, keeping in mind that the crossover will do the dividing of power handling and I will essentially have 8 speakers in the front instead of 4...it's easier to imagine the tweet/mid as a solid speaker as tweets usually have a much higher sensitivity and don't require as much power to produce sound. In any case, this will effectively bring the sound stage to the front of the car instead of the back.

I will post more information once I have the speakers in my hands and installed. Stay tuned.

 

Ebay (chevy corvette LT1 alternator 1996 200a) 200 amp alt for $135 and it fits.
I have the corvette 140a and a corvette 200a in my 86.
By the way, awesome info in your thread and I second the caddy comment, I left just enough room for my T-tops.
Check out my album

 

That's a pretty sick setup you've got there. I bet the SPL is absolutely bananas in there with the wall of subs you've got! And thanks for the LT1 alternator tip... I don't know if I can utilize it since my car needs a wire direct from the alt to the choke, but I'll do some searching on it just the same.

I just ordered a Pioneer DEH-80PRS and an AudioControl EQS outboard equalizer. I know everyone strokes on and on about that Pioneer unit's EQ setup, but for this I'd rather stick with dedicated components for what I'm doing. I mainly got the DEH unit for its time alignment capabilities, especially since I'm about to put speakers where speakers weren't meant to be in this car. I want to make sure it's sounding right.

 

Im not that up on carbed setups but if the choke only needs to be triggered when you hit the key then run that wire down to the starter solonoid. The LT1 alt is a 4 wire plug that all we need to connect is the brown exciter wire and connect the fat red wire of the plug to the charge pole on the alt to sense voltage. Maybe the field exciter wire can kick the choke too. IDK but thats the options and solutions.
I just put up a vid on youtube today (Kicker wall camaro)

 

My advice for that cheap *** 200 amp alternator on ebay is to not buy it. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, in most things, but especially in car audio. Instead, buy a quality alternator from a great company such as DC Power or Mechman. I guarantee it will last twice as long and have more output. One thing I've noticed with alts is that if its cheap it will not produce that rated amperage. I bet that cheap alt is only putting out 100-130amps at best. Same goes for amps, subs, batteries, and wiring. People wonder why their equipment blows so easily and its probably because they bought it for cheap.

Another problem is buying used equipment. The fact is, most people do not power their equipment sufficiently enough to be blasting it at full volume. They skimp out on something dealing with electrical causing damage to their setup. My advice would be that unless you know how the product was treated and used, dont buy used! Its better to buy new to avoid potential problems in the future, especially with amps. think about it. If you buy an quality amp new for, say $300, it does seem expensive but you get a brand new amp with no problems unless it has factory defects. Now, lets say you buy the same amp used for half the price and something goes wrong with it and it stops working. You are now going to replace it with another used amp probably in the same price range costing you the same amount of money it would take for the new amp. This goes for subwoofers and head units as well. As for wiring, is you can get quality wire cheap then buy it.

Dealing with electrical, the best type of battery you can buy is a group 31 AGM (absorbed glass mat). These batteries are leak free and can be stored anywhere in the car. My favorite brand for car audio batteries is XS Power. They offer a very wide range of batteries to complement your system, no matter how much power it requires. From my experiences, I have learned that if your electrical system is charging correctly (13.8-14.4 volts at idle), an upgraded battery under your hood and a high output alternator will be sufficient enough to supply adequate power for 1-2000 watts rms. Running a system more than 2000 watts rms will require another big battery in the back. This is at least the bare minimum. Im sure most people dont want a system that loud though.

As for capacitors, they are good for smaller powered systems up to 500watts rms. More than that, I would suggest upgrading your alternator instead. For bigger powered systems you need to rely on battery power to act as reserves for the power, not capacitors.

Last word on boxes and trunk space. I see most of the box setups for third gens in the back in the extra trunk space. If you do not care about getting the most out of your system, this is fine and it will add great bass to the cabin. However, If you want a pounding system and would like to get all the potential out of your system, these boxes will not work. I too had a custom made sub box made to fill the trunk space and it sounded great but did not really pound like I wanted it to. I studied boxes and got advice from car audio enthusiasts which lead me to build a bigger box for my subs. Yes a bigger box means it will not fit the trunk anymore. For me, I lowered the rear seats and set the box on top of the folded seats. This may cause concern for people but in my opinion I never used the space since it cannot really fit anybody comfortably. By using a box better suited for the subs, the subs hit a lot more like the way I wanted and you could really feel the bass!! The reason is that smaller boxes in the trunk do not provide enough air space for the subwoofers to perform at full potential. Building a proper sized box will make the sub perform at full potential which means it will sound better and be louder!

 

That power cable laying across the engine bay does not look very safe.

 

I was waiting for someone to say something like that, haha. I took that picture while I was wire looming everything. Trust me, it's zip tied up and away from anything that's hot or vibrating

 

GM 140amp alt should provide more than enough juice for your set up.

Personally I would hold off on the cap. BIG 3 in 0 ga provides a lot of benefit.

Ported sub box should be louder than a sealed one. Box tuning and size is everything.

 

Where are you going to mount the equalizer?

 

To be honest, I may be sending the equalizer back and just use the one built in to the DEH-80PRS I bought. It uses a channel independent 16 band L/R equalizer with user selectable crossovers, cutoffs, and slopes. This headunit is a seriously powerful piece of equipment, and the difference in sound is absolutely ridiculous. I've never used anything with this amount of control. I will be posting a review and pics of the head unit in a few days, I've been working a lot and helping a friend move.

 

I run the 880-PRS, very similar to the 80PRS, and yes it's a serious HU with a ton of eq and features.

Maybe add a HUMOUNT faceplate while your at it.

 

This is fantastic. I would have settled for a flat-mount head unit bracket but one with custom lettering and a backlight? I'm sold. Thanks for the tip!! Will post more pics when I have everything (including this HUMOUNT faceplate) installed. I've been working like crazy.

 

what are you going to do about sound deading?

 

I have a 100 sq ft roll of 50 mil Fatmat (for $150 shipped) on the way that will get put in next weekend. I also picked up some new JBL speakers to replace the questionable Kenwood speakers that are in there right now.

 

what jbl speakers did you get?

 

let us know how it goes , that will be one of my upcoming projects.....

 

I got a set of GTO608C 6.5" components for the rear and a set of P462s for the dash. My car audio guy let me demo the Precision Power speakers I was going to purchase and I didn't like them for what they cost so I went with these instead.

 

So I haven't posted about anything in a few days...between Valentines' Day and getting new furniture for my daughter it's been a hectic week. But I got both doors hooked up with some FatMat and the goods on my new radio!

Door before the FatMat...



After (Feedback on doing the inner door skin appreciated!)




New door card installed



After I got my new door handle installed I shut the door and it actually sounds like a car door closing, instead of someone kicking a beer can. Can't wait to do the rest of the car! Next post will be a review on my new head unit

 

If you are looking for a serious head unit, you need to look no further than the Pioneer DEH-80PRS. I was originally going to buy a separate DSP (digital sound processor). I was specifically looking at the Alpine PXA-H800, but it had too many features I wasn't interested in or didn't like, such as a Dolby Digital decoder, optical inputs, etc. Plus, the dash controller was another $200, and I like being able to adjust my sound on the fly since I listen to so many different kinds of music. So I resigned myself to keeping my original head unit and buying an outboard equalizer until a few people on Reddit recommended I get the DEH-80PRS.

When I got it installed and performed the auto eq and time alignment, and played the first song through the speakers (crappy Kenwoods, no less) I was absolutely blown away. The sound quality is absolutely bananas. I had it set up in Network mode, which means that all three DACs (digital to analog converters) are active and the unit is sending 5v (max rating) through the preouts. Most head units only have one DAC, this one has three for each range- highs, mids, and lows. It also has a 28-bit DSP.

One of the more awesome things about this unit is it comes with auto eq and auto time alignment. The auto eq sets the 16-band L/R independent equalizer in a few minutes and really helps with compensating for our cars' interior acoustics. The time alignment is really useful for setting a good sound stage without the need for adding 8 speakers up front. Once I set mine, and this is before my sound deadening and without my headliner I could literally sit in the driver's seat and pick out most of the instruments in the sound field. I have never experienced such in a car. I can try to put it into words but you have to hear to believe it. Definitely worth the price tag. These things go anywhere from $280-$400 depending on where you want to pick one up at but I recommend if you're going to amp anything, whether it's speakers or a sub, to get this head unit. I also recommend you read the manual if you want to manually adjust anything as this thing has A LOT of settings.

Without further ado...pics!!

Manually adjusting the time alignment for each speaker...



Adjusting slopes (this can be done for each individual speaker)



Getting into some of the equalization stuff here...



3 filters are available for each range (High HPF, Mid HPF, Low HPF, etc)



You can select the display and there's all kinds of colors available, I wanted mine to match my dash lights

 

Sound deadening, carpet, wiring, and a little rust


Starting on the cargo area



Here's a shot where I was about 50% done before I started patching in the small rust-out in the driver's floor pan



About the same progress, better inside shot, you can kinda see where the rust is



Did the roof too



Amps and crossovers



Better shot with carpet mostly installed, amps in the foreground




I still have to do some fine tuning to things, like the wires for my 6.5s in the sail panels came loose but it has gotten nasty and cold here in TN again (f***ing weather ), get the headliner and sail panels in, and set final equalization and time correction on all the speakers...but I'm in the home stretch now

 

There is a lot of confusion on how to set gains on your amp. Most people use the "by ear" method which is fine as long as you don't crank your music too loud- meaning that your amp could be "distorting" or clipping at ranges you can't hear. This is why I prefer to use a multimeter to set my gains. The BEST way to set your gain is with a multimeter and an oscilloscope- by using an o-scope, you can hook to the output of your amps and crank everything up til that nice pretty wave starts getting some square edges on it, but since most of us don't want to pay $100 for a pocket scope that we will most likely use one time this really isn't a cost effective way to do it. Thus we will be looking at the "cheaper" way to make sure you're not gonna fry a speaker.

You will need a meter and a test cd. Burn one track per amp you are using- for instance, my setup is pretty simple, I have a sub amp and a full-range amp. Thus I will have two 10-second tracks on my cd- one will play a 60Hz test tone, the other will play a 1kHz test tone. If you are amping broader frequencies (i.e. sub, low, mid, high) pick your frequencies as needed. I use this site to download my frequencies, they are free (as in beer): http://www.ronelmm.com/tones/

Before you begin, make sure that any boosts, cuts, or equalization is all set to 0 (flat). Once your gains are set you can adjust them back to taste. Set your headunit's volume to 85% of maximum. Some people suggest 75%, I prefer using 85% because it gives a little room to tweak your EQ (which will change your output voltage) and we all know there's that one song we love to crank up to 11 on a warm summer friday night with the windows down and the t-tops off (for those equipped, lucky SOBs)

Now you will want to find the AC voltage that your amp should output to its speakers. You will do this by finding the RMS rating of the speaker and the impedance, multiplying those values, and then finding the square root of that value. We will use my subwoofer as an example. It is a dual voice coil, 4 ohm impedance, with 250W RMS per coil. The amp sees one load- 500W RMS, 2 ohm impedance. With that said, our formula would be 500*2=1000. The square root of 1000 is 31.6. Therefore, at 60Hz and my deck's volume at 85% of total, the voltage sent to my subwoofer should not exceed 31.6VAC. I will achieve this value by continually playing that test tone and slowly turning the gain on my amp until it is equal to that value. Rinse and repeat for any other amps you have. Once your gains are set, THEN turn it back down to a more comfortable listening level and perform all your equalizations and boosts. This way you can tailor your sound to your liking and rest easy knowing you are not going to burn up your equipment.

A word on using amps that send more power than a speaker can handle RMS. My front speakers can only handle 50W and have a 2 ohm impedance, but my amp puts out 60W RMS at 2 ohms. Using the method we looked at earlier, with everything flat out, at 1kHz my amp will push almost 11VAC to those speakers using the amp's rating (60*2=120(sqrt)=10.95) but by using the speaker's rating (50*2=100(sqrt)=10) will result in almost a 1V difference. Doesn't seem like much but distortion will muddy everything and make your voice coils work harder than they have to.

Treat your equipment right and you'll get many years of awesome listening out of it. Happy jamming!!!

 

if you just want to replace your battery with something more suitable for a stereo look at kinetic and power master. sorry but i can't remember which line of powermaster you want. optima yellow tops are good batteries but their charge/discharge rate is to slow for most stereos and will affect performance.

If you want to add a battery i still suggest kinetic and power master. your stock battery can effect the performance of these high performance batteries so its probably best to just replace your main battery. fyi, my powermaster was $270. Makes optima look cheap doesn't it?

 

Soul, you have done a great write up. I would like to add some info to your thread. please don't think i'm stepping on your toes as i am only adding info, not criticizing any of yours.

Ported Boxes are probably the most misunderstood boxes of all. A properly built ported box will out preform a sealed box everytime. sealed boxes are easier to build and make sound good. I have a custom ported box in my truck with 1 12" alpine typeR on 500w. my buddy has 2 of the same subs in a sealed box on an alpine 1000w amp and he says mine is louder than his. and yes the sound is everybit as clean and tight as a sealed box. 5FDP bass drum rolls sound great in my truck. a custom, ported box has proper cubic feet for the sub plus the port which the size/length of determines what frequency the port will be tuned to. a ported box will peak (sound loudest)10hz above its tuned frequency. 1/4" difference in port length can change what frequency the port is tuned to. A custom ported box is usually very large. my 1 12" sub and box take up 2/3 of my extended cab from the window line down. i doubt if you built a custom ported box for the well of our cars you could fit 2 subs unless you used 8" subs, maybe 10's. Search youtube for hellboy/pete kulicki/team toxic bass (all the same guy). i understand he is an acoustical engineer and does AMAZING things with car stereos.

Crossovers, i prefer to use active and passive crossovers instead of the head unit. most amps also have adjustable crossovers. i use to use a kicker x3i 3 way crossover with a sub sonic boost which would boost all frequencies below 25hz to help maintain an even volume as frequencies below 30hz tend to get quieter. whichever style crossover you decide upon, do use them!

An alternative to capacitors is kinetic batteries. kinetic sells a small battery for around $100 that they claim to be equal to 100 1 farad caps. optimas are nice batteries but only the yellow top should really be used with a stereo but is not your best option as its charge/discharge rate is not fast enough for a powerful stereo. Kinetic and Powermaster are some of the best for car audio. Iraggi and Powermaster are probably the best alternators.

Another option to adding speakers/sound to the front of the car is Q-logic kick panels. i have these in my car and i love them. they hold a 6.5" mid and tweeter component set and angle them up towards the driver/passenger. They do take some creativity to mount solid as the are a very simple design.

Wiring. I just want to reiterate what was said above. Use large enough wire for your equipment, run it properly with loom, grommets through the firewall, and separately from the RCAs. Use quality wire like knu koncepts or stinger, something that can flex without the strands breaking and with a high strand count. some brands use less wire and thicker insulation and pass it as the same gauge as a quality brand. Good RCAs are crucial,splurge a lil on these. try to keep grounds less than 18". Like any other system in the car, its only as good as its weekest link.

My amp of choice is Rockford Fosgate Power Series. these amps are seriously underrated. i have 2 t3002 (300w, 2channels)and both are capable of over 900w RMS. Opposite of any wally world amp where they say 900w and it really only makes 300w.

 

Soul, you have done a great write up. I would like to add some info to your thread. please don't think i'm stepping on your toes as i am only adding info, not criticizing any of yours.

Ported Boxes are probably the most misunderstood boxes of all. A properly built ported box will out preform a sealed box everytime. sealed boxes are easier to build and make sound good. I have a custom ported box in my truck with 1 12" alpine typeR on 500w. my buddy has 2 of the same subs in a sealed box on an alpine 1000w amp and he says mine is louder than his. and yes the sound is everybit as clean and tight as a sealed box. 5FDP bass drum rolls sound great in my truck. a custom, ported box has proper cubic feet for the sub plus the port which the size/length of determines what frequency the port will be tuned to. a ported box will peak (sound loudest)10hz above its tuned frequency. 1/4" difference in port length can change what frequency the port is tuned to. A custom ported box is usually very large. my 1 12" sub and box take up 2/3 of my extended cab from the window line down. i doubt if you built a custom ported box for the well of our cars you could fit 2 subs unless you used 8" subs, maybe 10's. Search youtube for hellboy/pete kulicki/team toxic bass (all the same guy). i understand he is an acoustical engineer and does AMAZING things with car stereos.

Crossovers, i prefer to use active and passive crossovers instead of the head unit. most amps also have adjustable crossovers. i use to use a kicker x3i 3 way crossover with a sub sonic boost which would boost all frequencies below 25hz to help maintain an even volume as frequencies below 30hz tend to get quieter. whichever style crossover you decide upon, do use them!

An alternative to capacitors is kinetic batteries. kinetic sells a small battery for around $100 that they claim to be equal to 100 1 farad caps. optimas are nice batteries but only the yellow top should really be used with a stereo but is not your best option as its charge/discharge rate is not fast enough for a powerful stereo. Kinetic and Powermaster are some of the best for car audio. Iraggi and Powermaster are probably the best alternators.

Another option to adding speakers/sound to the front of the car is Q-logic kick panels. i have these in my car and i love them. they hold a 6.5" mid and tweeter component set and angle them up towards the driver/passenger. They do take some creativity to mount solid as the are a very simple design.

Wiring. I just want to reiterate what was said above. Use large enough wire for your equipment, run it properly with loom, grommets through the firewall, and separately from the RCAs. Use quality wire like knu koncepts or stinger, something that can flex without the strands breaking and with a high strand count. some brands use less wire and thicker insulation and pass it as the same gauge as a quality brand. Good RCAs are crucial,splurge a lil on these. try to keep grounds less than 18". Like any other system in the car, its only as good as its weekest link.

My amp of choice is Rockford Fosgate Power Series. these amps are seriously underrated. i have 2 t3002 (300w, 2channels)and both are capable of over 900w RMS. Opposite of any wally world amp where they say 900w and it really only makes 300w.

 

As far as sealed vs ported is concerned I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Ported boxes will give you the best bang for the buck- if you have a sealed box and a ported box with the same sub and amp, the ported box will outperform the sealed box every time in SPL. I don't have anything against them, especially since I'm running a ported box right now. Sealed boxes (when built properly) have a flat frequency response, while ported boxes have to be tuned to a certain frequency, usually 25-35Hz, by changing port lengths and sizes. I love sealed boxes, and eventually I will run the sub I have in a sealed box. They sound cleaner than a ported box. Honestly if I had the money and the time, I'd like to get two JL 10W3's and build a fourth order bandpass box for them. I had that setup in a Cadillac I had years ago and it was probably the best sounding setup I ever had. The only real problem I have with ported boxes is it's easy to cook a woofer if you overpower it. You can cheat a little over a sub's max RMS rating if you're running a sealed box and you're feeding it a clean signal, but if you try that with a ported box you may as well throw money out the window, because you will blow it, every time.

I usually don't use any type of head unit equalization or xover, because in the past I have found that most head units provide extremely limited eq and xover capability to begin with. And I had ordered an outboard EQ (an AudioControl EQX) to use with this head unit. I found that I didn't need it. This deck has the absolute best built-in xover network that I've ever seen.

AGM batteries are the way to go with a system. The only difference between an Optima Redtop and Yellowtop is the Redtop has a faster charge/discharge rate which is good for fast changes in electrical load, like in high demand starting and ignition systems. Yellowtops are good for a prolonged charge/discharge situation, like if you don't want to run the engine while showing your system off. Redtops have a larger amount of thinner plates in the battery while the Yellowtop has a lesser amount of thicker plates. As long as you're using ANY type of AGM battery for your system, it really just comes down to preference. And even an AGM battery is only a stopgap, I'm knocking on the door of needing a new alternator with pushing ~750W RMS, that's a draw of ~52A on a 94A alternator at 14.4VDC. It ain't gonna last forever and when it does go, I'll be getting a much larger alt.

I never really agreed with the 18" rule on grounds. As long as it isn't stupid long and goes to a good ground point on the frame it can be as long of a lead as you need. If your negative lead has to be longer than 24" I do believe it needs to drop a gauge unless you're already overkilling it. I ran 9000 strand count 4GA for my setup, I could've gotten away with 6GA but it didn't cost that much more for 4GA.

There seems to have been a move from traditional RCA cables to helix RCA cables. The only difference is that the positive and negative leads of each RCA plug are wound around each other instead of the regular way of running the positive lead inside of the negative lead. Those that know more about car audio than I do say it is for the noise rejection properties. I think this is for perfectionists as I've never really had much of an issue with noise in any system I've done but as long as you buy good cables with decent insulation and shielding you'll be fine.

Lastly don't worry about stepping on my toes. I'm glad someone is paying attention to what I'm yammering about!

 

Thanks for the great info , and what a great write up.

But I do have a question, where did you buy the fatmat from and how much did you use ? How much did it cost you if you don't mind me asking ?

I'd so get ya to tune my system if I was local to you .

 

I ordered it from Amazon, ran me about $150. That package came with 100 sq ft and so far I used about 60 sq ft. I'm gonna go over it again in some areas again that I feel are issues, like the doors.

and thanks for the compliment, I've just done a lot of research over the years.