Planning my sound system....

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Planning my sound system....

June 25, 2006, 06:42:19 PM

Ok, for first time in the life, i guess , i want a enough decent sound system. This will be installed FIRST in the F-150 and eventually in the cougar when the fuel pump arrives. For now, the space is not a problem....

I Have installed right now:

2 6x9 speakers with boxes
2 5 1/4 speakers mounted in the doors
2 5" round speakers in boxes with tweeters

1 JVC CD stereo, good sound

1 little amp, rated like a 30 rms, used only with the pair of 5" in the boxes
1 medium amp, Jensen, rated at 75 rms or something, used for the pair of 6x9
1 Power/pass equalizer. I dont know if this is the correct manner to say this, but is one of those which have power outpots AND RCA outpots. I use both now, RCA to send signal to the 2 amplifiers, and the power from the Eq (very little) to power the 5 1/4 in the doors.

1 Baby targa 5+2 band equalizer, not installed.
1 Boss electronic subwoofer crossover, not installed.

2 Rockford fosgate 10"s with a cilindrical box, not installed
1 XM-444 Sony amplifier, still i dont know hoy many RMS can get, not installed....

Well, i want to know if i can put ALL of this shiznit into the truck, power up and get decent sound. Yeah, i know, 3 amplifiers running at the same time wouldnt be very normal, but i`ll be cautious in the wiring using good wires and else. I want to hear your opinions guys..

Planning my sound system....

Reply #1 – June 25, 2006, 07:30:44 PM

Well you could put it all in the truck. I say keep it simple. Just use the minimum amount of equipment to get maximum sound. I would stick the Fosgate 10"s behind the seat, then mount the 5" and tweeters in the doors. Then use 2 amps the Jensen or Sony witch ever has more power to run the subs. Then use the little amp to run the 5"-Tweet combo. If the amp for the subs doesn't have a crossover built in use the Boss one or if the baby targa is passive and has a sub crossover use that. The fewer pieces of equipment the less chance of having the dreaded engine noise and various sounds from the cars electrical items. Also make sure you try the subs pointing different ways to see witch way gives you the loudest sound from the woofers. Make sure you use good quality wire and use a good solid gound. A good spot for a ground is a seat belt bolt, make sure you remove any paint then spray paint over it to keep it from oxidizing. The bigger power and ground wires you run the cooler amps will stay to a point. Also don't over look good quality RCA cables to help keep noise out. Also use some sort of corssovers on the 5"-tweet setup to cut out the really low bass.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #2 – June 29, 2006, 12:47:20 PM

Sounds reasonable. I like the idea of the minimun equipment, because right now im using a noise supresor to the noise produced by the engine. I´m thinking to quit all cables of the amps and re-route them. Thanks again.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #3 – June 29, 2006, 10:51:19 PM

Make sure when you are running cables to keep the Rca's away from as much wiring as possible. I like runniung the RCA's down the middle of the car. then the Main power wire down the battery side if the car. Also another thing to remeber is to properly set the amp gain. Turn the gain on the amp down and then turn the headunit up until it destorts. Then turn it down until it no longer destorts. Next turn up the amp gain until it destorts then turn it back down until the destortion is gone. This really helps. Many people turn the gain all the way up and that causes lots of extra noises to be heard through the system that you don't want.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #4 – June 30, 2006, 07:16:00 PM

If your worrying about power issues, capacitors, a bigger alternator, or another battery would solve that. I like the idea of "little equipment, more sound" thats what I do. You have 5 1/4s in the doors, keep them, mount the 5s with the tweeters in the panel next to the rear seat. Nice little place. or make a panel for in the footwell kickpanel under the dash. You Could use all of that equipment, but the way it sounds, you will have way to much High and not alot Low. Too many cabin speakers can drone out bass. With these cars, not so much bass can get through that back seat. It sounds good either way. just my 2 cents. ispd has a good idea.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #5 – July 12, 2006, 05:08:43 PM

Ok, the sound is now mounted. I used:

The 5´s
The door speakers
The rockford fosgate; the cilindrical box was to big to fit in the rear. I used another rear-seat-type box.
The Jensen amplifier
A 10 band Eq i had somewhere..

Now is running pretty good. Its pretty decent the sound, and the noise is gone. Thanks to all the responses !

I still have a lot of stuff doing nothing, and my next target is the Explorer. Yep, the thing has the factory radio changer and no RCA outpots, but i simply ran a line converter. I have, Now

2 10´s in a square box, sealed at front, with 4 big holes at the rear.
Still the Sony 444 XM
The Subwoofer electronic crossover

I installed all the electronics over the box to test, and surprinsingly, it sounds very loud ! i heard in another forum the factory radio wont give you any good bass, but this a little bit louder than the setup at the truck. I need to say, the 4 channel amplifier was bridged to 2 channel and the crossover is set to 100 hz. Well, reading the sony amplifier manual, it says the maximun power can be achieved with 14.4 volts. I researched a little bit and found that installing a capacitor can get more energy for the amp and it can give me more power to the speakers. Is that true ? how does the capacitors works ? do i need really one ? thanks....

Planning my sound system....

Reply #6 – July 12, 2006, 10:11:40 PM

Well a capacitor is sorta like a battery. But it charges and discharges instantl. So everytime the basshiznits it will dump all the energy it has and then recharge. It does that every bass beat. That way the amp has the power to punch out the last note just as loud and clear as the first. I would say that is might increase the power some but it wouldn't be like a bigger amp. It will also help a little with the headlight flicker with the bass. Also most of the time when the car is running is should be alot closer to 14.4 volts than with the car off. Most of those capacitors are 20volt. You don't really need one it is just one of the little extras to make it that much better quality sorta.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #7 – July 13, 2006, 12:54:54 AM

Thanks for your help ipsd and all. I appreciate very much your comments...

I have another question, now about woofer boxes. For some reason i have 3 different boxes, and i want to know a good source of info (or if you want to explain to me that) about the diferent types of boxes, their pro/cons, etc...

Im not good describing the things, so here i go. I do some drawings. Im not good like my friend Eric, but i hope you get the idea:

The first; This is a cilindrical box. This is not a ported box, is totally sealed. It has the pair of 10´s. The thing in the middle is a place to mount the amp...i want to know from this what is better, left the speaker configuration as is (and sounds very loud !) or reverse the speakers and mount inside the cilinder ?

The second, this is the rear-seat box. It is totally sealed. I want to know from this if i can get more performance drilling one or two holes.

The third; i tested this at the Explorer. It sounds great. It has 3 chambers. One, with the speakers facing at the front, covered by a transparent plastic plate, totally sealed, but at the back, has the 2 other chambers, with 4 holes upside, two by each rear chamber. I want to know , what are the benefits of using this complex-style box ?

Planning my sound system....

Reply #8 – July 13, 2006, 04:55:42 PM

just another idea for ya..

Planning my sound system....

Reply #9 – July 14, 2006, 12:37:38 AM

Well once again it depends on what kind of sound you are looking for from the setup. But here goes anyway. I can't tell you witch one iis going tobe best. But in my opinion I like sealed for tight acurate bass. Ported for BOOM BOOM BOOM. The best way to explain the way different boxes is like this. Sealed is the most acurate. The rear soundwave(Backwave) creates pressure inside the box so it helps to stop it and keep it from playing longer than the bass notes in the signal from the deck. The sealed boxes take more power to be louder than a ported encolsure. The way a ported box works is it takes a tuned vent(holes and tube or made from wood) But it is more than just a hole it is tuned for a certain frequency in the bass then the port it kinded like a whiskey jug that you blow into to make a sound. They don't take as much power to be loud but they are kinda sloppy. Then you have those isoberick boxes They are sorta the best of both worlds. They give you a smaller box, big sound and are tighter that plane ported boxes. There are some types of enclosures that you didn't ask about. One is Free air that is were you basiclly take a speaker and mount it on a board big enough so that the front wave doesn't cancel the back wave. That is the style I have in the T-bird I have 2 10"s and 2 12"s behind the seand and rear deck. I used the expand foam to seal the areas behind the plastic pieces in the rear from the interior. then used fiberglass filler with hairs to seal the small holes in the rear deck. the mounted plywood behind seat and put the 12's there and mounted under the rear deck are the 10's where the 6x8"s were. Then there is a transmissionline Box. They are very very very complex but very effecient and accurate. Basiclly it is a sealed box with a series of ports built onto the front of it so the sound has to go through them to get out. I made a drawing of it. Also the only difference in the way the speakers are mounted is it changes how much air space is inside the box so it changes the tune of the box or port depending on if it is a ported or sealed box.
sorry its so long but just tring to help you understand what you asked about. I used to really be into car audio even owned part of a store once and have done 100's of installs. So I might as well share what I know to help you get what want out of your systsem.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #10 – July 14, 2006, 09:53:00 PM

Also I will tell you that in our cougar/t-birds the trunk for some reason seems to have alot of cancelation to it. It seemd to me that if you use a box you need to mount it as far to the rear for the trunk as possible so the sound waves bouncing around in the trunk don't cancel each other out. The other solution is to seal the front side of the box and ports to the interior of the car. The same way I did in my free air setup just my way the trunk is the box so I still have trunk space. Also Is I just had my 10"s in the rear deck when I opened the trunk you wouldn't know I had subs in there. My free air design works great nice tight bass and lots of low end exstention. Very Very loud. I can shake the shiznit out of the windows at the gas station if my amp was fixed.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #11 – July 21, 2006, 08:53:36 PM

Thanks ipsd for your help. Finally, the boxes are installed. They sound very loud and nice. Only a minor modifications in the explorer (cant find the way how to run a remote wire with the factory radio) and would be done...
About the cougar, i like the idea of the "free air". My brother did a custom wood panel in the back of the car to run 2 6x9 and 2 round 5"s , but im looking to put 8"subs there.....or install a subwoofer in the trunk, where the spare wheel is, maybe a 12", even a 15", but i dont know if this is a good idea. What do you think ?

87thunderbirdBlackJack:

My cousin has a box exactly like your drawing, with 12 "s and that thing is a Earthquake!!!.....and of course he is using audiobahn amplifiers, too rich for me...

Planning my sound system....

Reply #12 – July 21, 2006, 10:55:46 PM

Well there are 3 ways that I know of to run the remote wire. The first is that there has to be a power antenna lead from the radio some where try and find that. if not you could run a wire and hook it up the ignition switched power or a toggle switch. I've also been able to use a relay that is turned on by the rear speaker wires. just get power from the main power wire. then use the speaker wire + to the relay trigger. Don't forget to ground the relay also.

Now as far as your car I'd say seal it up and do the free air setup. Then mount your subs where the 6x8's go. 10" fit in there really nice. You don't really need any rear full range speakers as they bring the sound feild more to the rear. Also this setup will give you max trunk space and nice clear sound.

I could imagine what that earthquake box sounds like. Those transmission line boxes are very loud and efficent, and with a audiobahn amp pushing it. It would have to be loud and mind numbing.

Planning my sound system....

Reply #13 – July 26, 2006, 11:42:58 PM

Thanks for your help! i ran the remote wire and now works very nice ! i did a diagram, but i dont have in this computer. Ill let you know later how i did it. But for know, the Sub in the Explorer is Done !

Personally, the free air setup seems to be the most convenient for the cougar. Ill be inclined for this when the time arrives. Ill keep getting more audio stuff to do better and louder than the Explorer.

Well, the setup at the F-150 changed a little. I got another amp for the mids, a sony, older than the xplod series but does the work nicely. I´m using the XM-444 for the subs, and it does the work well, too. I did another drawing of how i want to run the setup. Check Out:

I have two questions
1.- Its secure to run the 2 amp positive wires and got one to the battery only ? may i run separately 2 cables directly to the battery to feed the amplifiers ? i dont know . The wire of the AMP 2 is very close to the connection of the AMP 1, and that makes me think "would the AMP 2, which is powering the subs, wouldn´t steal some electrical power to the AMP 1?" The existing wire is "wide" and strong.

2.- Having three devices running for the remote wire for both amps would do some damage to the head unit (Electronic Crossover not shown)

Thanks....

Planning my sound system....

Reply #14 – July 27, 2006, 09:39:52 AM

Well the 2 wire deal would depend on the amp draw of the amps. Check the fuses and see how much current they need. what gauge cable are you running to the back where the amps are and how many feet long is the cable. I don't remember th cable sizes for amp drwan vs feet of the top of my head but just about any car stereo shop should have that info for ya. As for the remote wire that shouldn't be a problem. But if you are worried put a relay in there.