Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions - Page 4 - Audio & Electronics Forum

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Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Saturday, October 31, 2009 10:55 AM
more than likly daily but id like to put up good #s too at the local shows that have meters there

Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Sunday, November 01, 2009 7:04 PM
If youre going daily. Stick to a mid 30 hz tune. Somewhere between 30-35 hz.

Any higher its going to sounds funny on anything but straight tones and any below and youre loosing efficiency and you wont have any high bass.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 3:10 PM
Anyone have an opinions on Alpine or Kicker subs/amps? Looking into getting something for the Cav for everyday use.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 5:55 PM
Kicker Round Subs
Comp Series (The black ones)
-usually overall disappointing, I get these things back to my shop weekly because they just don't put out and people end up overdriving them..
-Have about 200Wrms on hand [per sub]

CompVR (Silver)
-Usually the best bet for the average Joe who wants to add a lot of bass (shut up SPL guys) to their car.
-Paired with about 500-800Wrms [per sub]

CompVX (Dark gray)
-Perform better than the VRs but cost quite a bit more. If you've got the money they work nicely.
-Paired with about 800-1200Wrms [per sub]

Solobaric L5
Comparable to CompVR

Alpine
Type E
-more like type meh
-Don't even bother

Type S
-Similar to Kicker Comps as far as power, don't expect anything in the low end bass.

Type R
-Make sure to give these lots of power, 500W AT LEAST
-Very nice sounding subs for the money
-All my customers have absolutely loved their Type Rs, I'd probably recommend one or two of these guys if you're looking at Alpine and Kicker.

Type X
-Not SPL subs.
-Regardless, give em 1000W or so per sub.
-Pretty looking, pretty sounding subs that put out more than enough boom for SQ-oriented people
-Pricey



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 7:12 PM
brad, would the Alpine MRP-M500 power one Alpine Type R 10" sufficiently?



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 7:16 PM
Yeah, although you wouldn't have much headroom.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 8:39 PM
Headroom? Room to grow?



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 8:42 PM
I guess you could put it that way.

Every sub is built different, you can often squeeze extra power through them if you use the right equipment so it's nice to have extra power at your disposal.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 8:59 PM
So, I should step it up to the next size maybe?



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 9:06 PM
If you have the money, absolutely.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 11:43 AM
This is a budget oriented build. Not trying to thump the neighborhood away.

Thanks for the insight brad.




Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Friday, December 18, 2009 7:22 PM
Type-Rs will take power like crazy. I would go for about 1k watts for an R.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 12:48 PM
Type R's are a really good sub. They've been proven to take more than RMS, and they sound good doing it as well.




Your car may do 13 sec @ 103 mph, but my car does 146db @ 35 hz.
Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 3:24 PM
Basic box info 101:

First let's talk about the boxes Jeffrey builds. The smaller the box, the more impedance rise you get. The bigger the box, the less. Since it's a daily box, and my subs recommended 1.8 cubes each ported, I went with 2 cubes ported. Impedance rise is where your subwoofers will actually read more resistance (more ohms) at certain frequencies.

Next let's talk about port area. The reason I do my port area smaller is to give me more of a sweeping arc, peaking slightly above my tuning frequency. With big ports, below and above the peak aren't going to sound as good, and his pass band isn't going to be as great. What this means is more output slightly higher than the tuning frequency, but a sharp drop off above and below, where as a smaller port would be a slower drop off.




Your car may do 13 sec @ 103 mph, but my car does 146db @ 35 hz.
Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 5:01 PM
But Jeffrey you also have to remember that smaller boxes do have better control than large boxes and because of that they can take more power in an SPL burp situation. Due to the tendency to not go to over excursion or to bottom out as quickly. So IMO its all a trade off between cone control and impedance rise.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 7:04 PM
Just offset the lost control from a bigger box with high-quality high-damping amps.



Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 8:50 AM
Absolutely. High damping means better cone control.




Your car may do 13 sec @ 103 mph, but my car does 146db @ 35 hz.
Re: Frequently Asked Car Audio Questions
Monday, May 31, 2010 5:23 PM
I've been seeing a lot of posts lately about engine noise, so I figured I'd write something up to put everything together that I've learned throughout the years on how to eliminate it.

A ground loop is the most common type of noise. It is a difference of resistance between your source and your amplifier. Easiest way to tell is if you get a hum while the car is running, and it increases in pitch when you rev it.

First things's first. The ground wires to everything. Check and make sure you have a clean solid ground from your battery to the body of the car, as well as a good solid clean ground from your battery to your engine. Almost all cars have rubber motor mounts, hence the two grounding locations. Test the grounds with a multimeter set to ohms. Put the one end of the meter at the one end, then the opposite lead of the meter at the other end of the wire. Which side you put the leads on doesn't matter. Anything less than 4 ohms is generally acceptable, but the lower the better. My grounds all have a .3 ohms or less resistance.

After you check that, we start troubleshooting the inside components. If you have a pioneer deck, they're notorious for blowing the pico fuse. ground the outer RCAs to the body of the radio. This will usually remove all the noise.

Start with each component to troubleshoot if you do indeed have a noisy component. Take a cheap pair of rcas and cut one of the ends off. strip and twist the two wires together. This will make you a muting plug. Fire up your car, turn the radio on, and plug in the muting plug directly into the amp. Check all of the channels of the amp. If there's noise from the speakers, then the problem is with your amplifier. Check the grounds for the amp, and if that doesn't cure it, replace the amplifier.

Next check any signal processors/line drivers/equalizers. Use your muting plug on the input of the device, never the output, unless you want a paperweight. If you do have noise coming from one of these components, take the ground of it and run it to the exact location of the ground for your amplifier. If you have no noise from these, we go on to the next step.

Pull your radio out. If you're using the factory ground, take a run of 12 gauge wire right back to the ground where the amplifer is grounded to. Better yet, if you can, run the wire right into the terminal of the amplifier. Upgrade your power wire as well, and be sure to fuse it.

To test if it's a bad radio or not - try another radio (duh) or use an mp3 player and plug it into either your eq/processor/driver or if those don't exist right into the amp. You can also hook up your head unit to a battery or a jump pack that isn't connected to your existing electrical system. If there's noise, then it's a bad unit. If not, keep reading.

Check and make sure your rcas aren't close to power wires. Check and make sure your speaker wires aren't sitting on long runs of power wire either.

The last thing that it could be is your alternator. Alternators make, by their nature, AC voltage. There's diodes or a rectifier inside of an alternator to change the AC into DC current. If your diodes are going bad, then this will then introduce noise. Get your alternator tested.

After all of this, and you still have noise, the next recourse is a ground loop isolator. It removes the DC noise from the outer shell. Be sure to get an isolator that uses transformers. The cheaper isolators will remove your midbass.

This should cover absolutely everything that you can check for your ground loop. I saw there's one floating around on the internet, but it was missing a few things.


Weebel wrote:Im to smart to go to strip clubs.

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