Ok i need some sound system advice (paging Luke)

[iamsam]

thanks so much for the help guys.

But i really need to get up to speed on these technical terms, what is "rear fill"?

and as i am trying not to spend much money at all at the moment (i am broke, i have medical bills, and my job sucks), i am trying to make do with what i have, so do you guys recommend me just stick the sub in the ski hole (with a board) in the open air and then wire it up?

[iamsam]

Ok guys so i did 2 things today. First, I brought the small amp to Best Buy (sorry...) and the guy tested it and said it was definitely bad. So this means I am just going to use the 4-channel.

Second, i bought a generic sub box from Car Toys: http://www.cartoys.com/Default.cfm/p...es_8in_Single/ so i am going to find a way to put in in my trunk. The guy at Car Toys said that it would be the best to mount the box with the sub firing towards the rear of the car, rather than through the ski hole.

I also started my research online to educate myself on how to set up this system.

So far I have a few questions outstanding. can i set my system up and just use the two rear channels of the amp to wire in the sub with a crossover and leave the other two channels alone for the time being?

Where do i plug everything in?

and how do i bridge two of the channels for the sub?

Thanks so much guys.

[Serious Sam]

Sorry to heat about your amp.
I don't think you will be happy with your sub decisions.
Don't know much about that box, but my first impression is that it's a waste of time. You can always try, and if YOU are happy, then we can just be ignored. Putting an ib sub in a sealed enclosure, INSIDE a sealed trunk, firing at the rear....you won't hear it and you'll irritate your auto neighbors on the road with rattling license plate.
Again, if you hope to have a nice sub one day (like lukes box and a new sub) you should go ahead and fire that 8" through the ski hole. Them you will hear sub ALOT better than your proposal above.

Your amp should show wiring for "bridging".
If you use 1 amp for front and sub you'll have to run rear(if you still want to do that) off the hu.

[iamsam]

Sorry to heat about your amp.
I don't think you will be happy with your sub decisions.
Don't know much about that box, but my first impression is that it's a waste of time. You can always try, and if YOU are happy, then we can just be ignored. Putting an ib sub in a sealed enclosure, INSIDE a sealed trunk, firing at the rear....you won't hear it and you'll irritate your auto neighbors on the road with rattling license plate.
Again, if you hope to have a nice sub one day (like lukes box and a new sub) you should go ahead and fire that 8" through the ski hole. Them you will hear sub ALOT better than your proposal above.

Your amp should show wiring for "bridging".
If you use 1 amp for front and sub you'll have to run rear(if you still want to do that) off the hu.

yeah, see, that's what the guys at Car Toys said, to just have the sub firing to the rear, but my gut was telling me that that would be useless. I was thinking that i wanted the sub mounted in the ski hole.

So what should i do?

1. put the sub in the box i bought, mount it so its firing to the rear
2. put the sub in the box and mount the box to the back of the seat so that the sub is firing through the ski hole
3. just get one piece of flat board, cut a hole in it and mount the sub in it and mount the board against the back of the seat to have the sub firing through the ski hole (and seal around the ski hole with foam of course)

yeah i think for now i will just wire up the amp to the sub, and leave the speakers alone, and see how everything works out, and then think about amping the front speakers with the remaining two channels.

thanks again

[StereoInstaller1]

With that woofer, just make a panel that fits between the vertical braces in the trunk, with an appropriate mounting hole for the woofer.

When you run your wires, run them through the factory grommet on the upper left side of the car. Try to get 3 sets of RCAs, 1 remote wire and 2 pair of speaker wires, unless the car started as premium sound.

Bridging half of that amp is really simple: use the left positive and right negative to the 2 terminals on that woofer. All you are doing is combining the 2 channels into one, we will leave the tech shit out for now.

Your amp has crossovers built into it for the sub: you wanna set that to "Low Pass" for the woofer, and adjust it to about 75Hz or so.

You wanna connect the front speakers to the other 2 channels of that amp (thus the 3 channel description) and set it to "High pass", at about 120Hz.

If your deck has "HPF" or "HIGH PASS" settings, turn it on and set it so about 120Hz or so.

Let us know when you get this up and running so we can help you set the gains and crossovers.

Luke

[iamsam]

With that woofer, just make a panel that fits between the vertical braces in the trunk, with an appropriate mounting hole for the woofer.

When you run your wires, run them through the factory grommet on the upper left side of the car. Try to get 3 sets of RCAs, 1 remote wire and 2 pair of speaker wires, unless the car started as premium sound.

Bridging half of that amp is really simple: use the left positive and right negative to the 2 terminals on that woofer. All you are doing is combining the 2 channels into one, we will leave the tech shit out for now.

Your amp has crossovers built into it for the sub: you wanna set that to "Low Pass" for the woofer, and adjust it to about 75Hz or so.

You wanna connect the front speakers to the other 2 channels of that amp (thus the 3 channel description) and set it to "High pass", at about 120Hz.

If your deck has "HPF" or "HIGH PASS" settings, turn it on and set it so about 120Hz or so.

Let us know when you get this up and running so we can help you set the gains and crossovers.

Luke

awesome. This i will do. i am pretty sure my deck doesn't have the high pass setting, it is a pretty basic deck, but i will look.

And i assume the idea of running the 3 sets of RCAs, 1 remote wire and 2 pair of speaker wire through the trunk wall is for the future in case i upgrade to be able to amp all four speakers, am i right?

again, thanks so much for your help.

Now I have one more question. Is there anything i should absolutely stay away from as far as amp wiring? for example, the Boss amp wiring kit at walmart got terrible reviews.

[StereoInstaller1]

WalMart has "BOSS" now?

What crap.

On the cheap end, see if you can find Sound Quest. I always had good luck on their crap, even if it is the same taiwan shit, with wire that is about 10% copper on an aluminum base.

Basically, anything that is physically strong is adequate, as long as it is decently shielded.

ohh yeah, the whole "rear fill" thing is this: we oddiophiles expect sound to come from in front of us, as you wouldn't have your back to the band, right? So the expectation is that 100% of the sound comes from the front.

In the real world though, people seem to like having a bit of sound behind them, so that little bit of sound from the back speakers is called "rear fill".

Make sense?

Luke

[iamsam]

yup, that does make sense. Just that the front speaker location suck though...

i'll see if Best Buy or some other electronics store has some decent wiring...

[StereoInstaller1]

Oh yeah...SoundQuest has HUGE profit margins, so whatever price you see will be about triple what cost is, or more. If is says $20 on the box, offer $8.50, and don't pay over $10.

I just noticed what the fucking installer reject from CarToys had to say....go return that POS box. Do NOT buy your cables from them either...butt pirates don't have to wear an eyepatch, y'know?

[StereoInstaller1]

yup, that does make sense. Just that the front speaker location suck though...

i'll see if Best Buy or some other electronics store has some decent wiring...

NO!

For fucks sake, find a local guy...fuck the big box stores!

[iamsam]

NO!

For fucks sake, find a local guy...fuck the big box stores!

ha ha ok ok!!!

you mean a local store (ie not a chain) or literally a local guy? because there are a few guys selling some wiring on CL...

[jeffw]

both amps luke box decent deck and your set. thats what i am rocking and anything luke does with a box is gold

[iamsam]

Update

Ok ladies,

here is the scoop: I installed the amp and sub, actually wired it up more like, i didn't tuck any of the wires away neatly or mount the amp yet since i am still in the knob-twisting stages, so here is what it looks like. Yes, it's ghetto, i am not terribly worried about my sound system, i got it all for free, i just want to make it sound the best with what I have.





So here is the question:

What should I do with the rear xover frequency knob, the rear gain knob, and the qbass knob? (see pic in first post of thread)

FYI: I play heavy metal like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Disturbed, etc, not rap, not country, and I occasionally will blast some good ol' Beethoven.

At the moment, it seems like the subwoofer cranks out Nicko's bass drum hits pretty well from Maiden, but doesn't crank out the notes of Steve Harris' bass guitar like i want it to, or the chugging guitar riffs.

[genocide98]

To be honest harris uses a pretty mid/high heavy bass tone, for more punch and clarity over girth due to his playing style.

IMO, the subwoofer simply fills out the bottom end, and if you've got a crossover or something you're going to be cutting out most 'guitar' and 'bass' frequencies anyway.

Guitar in standard tune, the low E string is about 80hz iirc, and bass goes all the way down to 40 or something close, but most of that will be rolled off or cut in the mixing/mastering anyway.

If you want to hear more of the sub you can try to raise the crossover frequency, which will lift the cap off of what it cuts out of its signal.

If possible you could turn the subwoofer up via the head unit, or EQ more bass in the mix for sure.

The gain is going to do exactly what gain does.. basically increasing the ratio of input level : output level.

Qbass.. couldn't tell you.

From my experience it wasn't a good thing to hear guitar and most bass parts thru the subwoofer, when I turned it up it sounded real blah. Once I turned it back and refined it a bit all was well. Try tweeking the settings a bunch and I'm sure you'll find a happy medium.

[iamsam]

Hmmm.... So which way is increasing the crossover frequency on the knob, clockwise or counterclockwise?