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So it begins,

nothing like seeing your favorite musician or band up close and personal we all can agree with that, LIVE!

Fortunately  you can bring them with you. 

Car audio has been one of my hobbies since i have had my drivers license.

i've done simple to just right down jaw dropping systems and if you know what your shopping for and do it yourself you can save thousands (you do it wrong, can cost you thousands):o 

i do like all types of music some more than others. i can listen to just about anyone & anything if i like it alot i'll purchase it, i love my vinyl and my CD's, i do miss the Ol' 8 Track and my Cassettes.

well onto FTA.

I purchased a new amp recently, the Pionneer seems to be going on the fritz (a good unit and did read the longevity is not long) but for the money it worked really well for two years, pretend audio is a lot like RC, you use it and some part is going to need replacement, AW! but joy of something new, more powerful, just to get into something when finished i usually do not get to see it often, but man o man can you here it.

So the Audio begins.

Now all that said let's see and hear from your systems and experiences.

i'll post some pics soon when i go install this amp and do a good gone through with the others.

A Note: Watch your gains dial them in accordingly (read and learn it's all out there) and remember RMS power only , never go by peak power, never.

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Hey what he say? He say's he can't hear you!

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Just found out there's a company called Full Tilt Audio so remember this is just a Thread starter topic heading, i am not affiliated with them.

maybe i should of googled before hand? it's funny i usually do. like the Iron Panther before i started the AMG Iron Panther build, it's a Trailer company go figure? 

well if anything they just received free advertisement (geez! thought i had come up with an original DARN!):lol:

well i hope there's some audio enthusiasts here among the Golden Tamiyan citizens?

well can you hear me now?

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I'm intrigued and will follow to see what happens! I too have picked up second hand audio kit over the years but all home audio -

At various points I had a Micromega stage 1 CD player (I consider this the Alfa Romeo of CD players), Audiolab amps, Acoustic Energy AE109 floorstanders (filled too - v heavy).

My pride and joy is inherited - the deLorean of record players - a Strathearn SM2000 turntable, inherited from my late father-in-law, a BBC film editor and producer. A brief history of the company is linked below for your amusement! Alas, currently not working, I have plans to get it resurrected and get me some kit I can play it through.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/zstereo.co.uk/2013/11/07/strathearn-sma2/amp/

Enough of my waffle...bring on the noize!!! 

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Home audio is so much more suggestive with so many Snake and Oil Companies like Monster for one, then the cables it's amazing what people will read into and spend.

all the copper wiring in a house  and then you have your circuit breakers if anything is old and not grounded properly equals buzzing (fortunately i re-wired my house years ago) and all my electronics plug into APC and The Brick conditioners and spike protectors.many hours and days reading between the lines with products and set ups i would have spent double or triple the amount on a system and it would not had been any better.

Car audio even something inexpensive can sound great if you dial your components correctly, more power just means updating to larger independent wiring, fuses, two batteries and a higher output alternator and ground , ground, ground every thing.

Badgrumble you can bring on the waffles anytime.

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Having a bit of work done to an car and thought whilst in bits might as well tidy up the metal parcel shelf with the centre hole to be a subwoofer port and a pair of something either side.  Not sure whether to fit a pair of 6” mid/bass or 2 way co-ax speakers

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never had the chance to do foam/rubber surround repairs. i did get in to replacing caps with higher quality caps with my Pro Audio speakers. 

Keep up the good work i'm proud of ya! keep pics coming.

It's not like a RC, train, slot car hobby for me because every thing i do is set and well, forget, until something goes wrong in car audio.

i'm past the two year mark and so far only replacing the front Pioneer amp.

i have a walk in closet partially filled with car audio deals:lol: good for spares. some ok quality and some fair quality and some Kick A$$ quality. even the most budget system i have done still upsets people. actually if it's a killer riff it's getting cranked up. but i really do not listen to it that loud driving, i need to pay attention to all the people in my way:o.

Thanx for sharing. once again i enjoy the builds, it's fun placing and making (which i call skiffs to mount my amps) so i do not have excessive holes all through out.

I absolutely crave Knuconceptz, been shopping there for years, just purchased the other day 30' each + &- of 4AWG Kolossus Fleks Kable wiring just in case. 

ok for those that do not know, heck schools open and i'm still learning but FYI (i hate that:blink:the FYI thing that is) AWG is American Wire Gauge.

American wire gauge, also known as the Brown & Sharpe wire gauge, is a logarithmic stepped standardized wire gauge system used since 1857, predominantly in North America, for the diameters of round, solid, nonferrous, electrically conducting wire. Can you dig it? 1857!

I've been electrocuted!

A Warning: Did you know your car electrical systems are very dangerous and can be lethal? They are very much so. so be very careful and always disconnect the car battery before any changes working on any electrical on your vehicle(or welding). It's important to remove - Ground (black) first, then (Red)+ and in reverse order hooking it back up (it's Reverse of that of house standard AC Alternating Current where as you remove power, Hot, common, and then your neutral and ground if need be.

now on that note always read and re-verify do not refer to every thing as fact (that's a given) cross reference and always measure and calculate all readings and figures before you purchase and after install FUSE! FUSE FUSE! is your only protector, if fit keeps blowing fuses like three times maximum(that's my limit before i tear every thing down as a process of elimination) please consult advise and or someone knowledgeable. Remember (you are not going to remember it all) get a ledger book or note pad and WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN as work progresses, and i always make a schematic of my wiring routes ie. wire sizes, which end speaker and amp and all there specs case you loose the manual. When you have about 90' feet of power and speaker and RCA, remote and even external fan wiring in a truck you need to know what's there and where it's going to.

I've been doing this a long time and you know i'm still a novice, i keep records of everything, notes up the wazoo and i'll still find something new to figure out.

from creating sub woofer boxes to sound deadening doors and cells to death.

simple as external fuse placement and mounting rings for deep basket speakers and so on and so forth.

anyways back to you.

i'm waiting on a couple of upgrades to arrive.

and as the pics show that Toolmaker72 (was he born in 72? or is he 72?)😃 he knows it can be cumber sum work.

now you folks with new cars if you do not know this, you can still can acquire an Awesome system from your stock configuration  as Car Audio places have many upgrades without having to remodel your car around your new audio components. I'll post some vendors i always have used and trusted, now there a couple of individuals on ebay that are very reputable.

but remember like all electronics IF IT IS  NOT FROM AN AUTHORIZED DEALER  YOU ARE SCREWED!

Power to the people!

and any one else please chime in, i'm typing off the cuff, there's so much more. and Thank you all.

Music Makes Magic................................................................................................................................

ps i'll edit later whew!

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1 hour ago, Toolmaker72 said:

Having a bit of work done to an car and thought whilst in bits might as well tidy up the metal parcel shelf with the centre hole to be a subwoofer port and a pair of something either side.  Not sure whether to fit a pair of 6” mid/bass or 2 way co-ax speakers

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when i did my HM 65' AC Cobra (everybody said i was nuts) "you'll never hear a system over that engine and side pipes"  (oh yes you can!)

that said from what i learned many years ago after BAD AGNESS was built i never realized the great difference between Passive & Active, I'll never have passive again, the caps and x-overs can rob you of up to 50% of your power.

 i'm assuming  rear firing subs into trunk? that said make sure you isolate other speakers in the rear deck. PRESSURE!

You have fun and please keep posting your progress.

 

 

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Well I’m not 72 years old but I am a toolmaker.  Car audio I’ve been tinkering since I started driving.  Each system a little better than the last.  The amplifiers I use are old now, but they still work well. Picture below shows boot install I built about 16 years ago. Looked lovely but had to crank up the sub to hear within the cabin and then it just rattled the boot lid.  As that car is being rebuilt the system build will be as well. 
The slightly different sub box design to vent the generated sub frequencies straight into the cabin.      I’ve managed to get hold of a vintage kenwood 6 way active crossover.  3 way components up front and possibly 2 way are the rear.  The rear shelf I’m actually thinking just mid/bass with no tweeters.  The front is another dilemma.   Bass and mids in the door with tweeter on the A post? Or bass in door with mids in dash top and tweeters in A post? Or bass, mids and tweeters in door but another set of tweeters in dashtop or A post? 🧐
 

 


 

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ive been there and done that and got a def left ear to prove it aswell thank to my bros chevy astro van installe of 4 "DD" 18's back around 15 years back.

funally enough my wife has just aquired my alpine head unit for her car today witch i brought back in 2003 i dont bother with installes these days 

but i do still have my first amp and pioneer 10" subs i brought back in 1992.

i will have to dig them out the cupboard and get a pic of them 

i am more into my home hi-fi these days tbh 

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I was restoring some car parts and dug out this amplifier that had seen better days.  So striped the heat sink back to metal and re-painted it.  There are two I did.  Old Kenwood.  Kac 846 and kac 816. They are wrapped up again, more carefully this time though 🙂

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managed to find the pioneer subs i got brought new back around 1991/2 they have been in every car i have had except for my current one

the box they are in is a sealled one as i managed to get the specs from pioneer as of yet i don't remember where the amp is that i got at the same time for them

they are ts-w251 10"

 

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Not had any kind of decent ICE (can you still call it that these days?? 🤷‍♂️) in a car for over a decade, but found myself recently checking out components,  seeing as though I'm doing the wiring on the project car.....🤔

Seems to be alot of brand names I'd not heard of ,In phase or Juice? 

What's a good brand these days?

I was thinking of a 10" Alpine R serise, bit lost as to the pair of 6x9's ,and everything else tbh, 

 

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3 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

Not had any kind of decent ICE (can you still call it that these days?? 🤷‍♂️) in a car for over a decade, but found myself recently checking out components,  seeing as though I'm doing the wiring on the project car.....🤔

Seems to be alot of brand names I'd not heard of ,In phase or Juice? 

What's a good brand these days?

I was thinking of a 10" Alpine R serise, bit lost as to the pair of 6x9's ,and everything else tbh, 

 

if i had the room for A/B amps ZAPCO for me, they make good Class D Amps also i have two one for each of my 12" NVX subs in my work truck.

there is still great companies making great stuff but if it's too good to be true, you'll be just smoken' your money away. there's some ok new brands out there, just read as much as you can on their product and reviews.

you have your so called sound quality products and pro audio (powerful) products, i tend to mix them up, these Ol' ear drums of mine can't tell the difference once i've dialed all my factors in, as long as it doesn't distort, sound muddy or too tinny, it's where i like it. if your ears hurt at medium high volume then something needs adjustment, treble kills the ears not bass, bass only stops your heart:o..................................................................:lol:

Class D and ICE have slight differences but it all comes down to cos,t they're just less expensive and you can fit them just about anywhere.

Pure unadulterated power is A/B amplification.

Bad Agness has Alpine amps, 4 of them.

 

 

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6 hours ago, ACCEL said:

if i had the room for A/B amps ZAPCO for me

Just checked out the price of those!?! Get what you pay for I guess! 

Are they like, Rockford Fosgate, where their 100w amps are more powerful than 1000w amps of a cheap brand? 

I normally run 2 amps, a 4ch for the speakers and a 2ch ,bridged, for the sub, set the bass to zero on the speakers,and let the bass speaker do its thing.

Would i be better (cheaper) just bridging the sub on the rear 2 channels of a 4ch, or will I loose out on control? 

As always, it's a balance between, cost and quality.

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On 6/25/2020 at 11:02 AM, Wooders28 said:

Just checked out the price of those!?! Get what you pay for I guess! 

Are they like, Rockford Fosgate, where their 100w amps are more powerful than 1000w amps of a cheap brand? 

I normally run 2 amps, a 4ch for the speakers and a 2ch ,bridged, for the sub, set the bass to zero on the speakers,and let the bass speaker do its thing.

Would i be better (cheaper) just bridging the sub on the rear 2 channels of a 4ch, or will I loose out on control? 

As always, it's a balance between, cost and quality.

1 amplifier is cheaper and less wiring.  You can get 5 channel amps within a single heatsink also so again just one set of power cables.

With regards to setup using a single 4 channel amplifier, use a pair of stereo channels for the front door/dash speakers and as you say bridge the other two channels for a single 4 ohm subwoofer.  I think you will need a bit of a funky design sub enclosure to make the most of the power available from the bridged channels.  Set the head unit or amplifier high pass filters to on for the front speakers and play with the low pass filter for the subwoofer.    Match the amplifier gains to your head unit  preout voltage and you should have a lovely sounding full frequency range between the front speakers and subwoofer.  Use the headunit front and rear fader to adjust between subwoofer and front speakers

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Zappco has been around since the mid 70's  and all there products are really good, as far as what Toollmaker72 suggests should be the ticket.

i was able to install separates and for the sole purpose if one burns out, i just have to switch out that component. i was at first going for a 5 & or 6 Channel unit, but the power i wanted it just was not going to fit. i wanted everything to be hidden (out of site, out of mind). wiring was the the time consumer, everything else was easier.

plus the fact trying to squeeze every ounce of  ohms, wattage, amperage i decided to not go the route of bridging and lower ohm's for heat sake. now if it were a comp. system than yes.

all this still complexes me, but i'm still learning also. heck i remember yesteryear's ago with just having an equalizer and gained increase in sound.

now it's all about DSP units.

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Thanks guys,

I know that the set up I had decades ago, wasn't the best possible, but looking through pages of , Max Power in WHSmith's (?), the best sound òf ICE was a trade off between practicality, looks (some of those with flashing lights ,taking up half the car, looked awful!) and of course cost. 

I used to run heavy duty, over spec,  cables, straight off the battery, (with a fuse block close), and then through the bulk head ,running + down one side and ,- down the other (to stop alternator noise?),  I then ran the power to the main 4ch amp first, and pulled the power from that, to the 2ch amp.

 

Need to wait until I get some time on my hands, before I can get cracking with the car wiring again, still a bit to do before I start adding the ICE wiring to the loom. Going to keep an eye out for the amps that's been suggested, hopefully find one on offer, and have a think about speaker arrangements, and what I can fit where, without it being too ostentatious.

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You only need a couple of tweeks regarding wiring. The over sized positive power cable ideally is terminated at another fuse block with separate fused feeds per amplifier.  The earth cable should be equal in size (gauge wise) but only short is needed. Again use a terminal feed per amplifier with one common Earth point.  It helps stop ground loop feedback although all amplifiers dating back 30 years have circuits to stop that. Just good practice to use a single earth  point.  
Power output wise on the amplifier. A 4x40-50w rms on the full range speakers and a 100-150w rms on a single 10” or 12” appropriate subwoofer will give you a massive improvement over factory standard fit.   There is something called headroom where as your amplifier gives more power than needed for its speakers.  You never crank up the gains to make louder but it allows signals to never be deformed when a lower power amp could be reaching its amplification limit.     Also rough rule of thumb for balanced sound when using component speakers is double up each time from tweeter power.  So say 2x20rms for tweeters, 2x40rms for mids, 2x80rms for woofers and 2x160rms for subwoofers. 

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This weekend i'm trying to get going on this and post some pics.

i want to, not that it has to be done now, but it's been quite some time without the the fronts ringing my ears😖

 

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Music holds the secret, to know it can make you whole
It's not just a game of notes, it's the sounds inside your soul
The magic of the melody runs through you like a stream
The notes that play flow through your head like a dream

Triumph.

 

 

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Removed the Pioneer GM-D8604

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notice the door hinges, center console can pivot and lifts open

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Removed STINGER MAXI Fuse Distribution Block and reinstalled new STINGER MIDI FUSED Dist. Block

 

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NVX VCW124

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under rear bench seat

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One each for each sub woofer, that's two...........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Under cup holder, are the RCA,'s signal's, Fan(s) , volt meter(s) wiring and the 4 AWG Ground Dist. Block. Everything about my work truck screamed "I was built for High Voltage Audio!" 

so far i have not needed to use fans, every one of these amps barely breaks the warmth threshold, i installed and ran a separate fuse and switch to operate fans if needed, just in case. Do not need them, but if the need arises fans are here at home, have some squirrel cages, induction blower style and computer square types.

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Rear door speaker amp.....................................................................................................................................

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Note: All four doors are double insulated with Sound Deadener.

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