Adding amp and speakers to stock HU.

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Purely out of curiousity. Was the Pioneer a better bet for a network setup, because of the better built in crossover? Pioneer had 6th order on subwoofer channel and 4th order on remaining channels, while Kenwood managed only 4th and 2nd respectively.Got a few more questions now. Am I right that it's better to use crossover on the HU, instead of HPF/LPF on the amp?

Is there any "rules of thumb" when it comes to power of sub relative to the power on front components? In other words, how much W of sub power, for every W of mid/tweeter power.

Last but not least... does anyone know a good write-up for a noob in car audio, that isn't exactly born yesterday? Most stuff I come across is either a) written for complete idiots, that need to taught was sound is or b) to specific or advanced. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Cheers!

pioneer has crossovers for the midrange's high pass filter and low pass filter and tweeter high pass as well plus subwoofer. While the kenwood only has tweeter high pass and midrange high pass, there is nothing preventing the midrange from playing nasty tweeter frequencies that mids should never play.

Rule of thumb is to have it louder than you would ever need it to be and use the subwoofer level control on the head unit to lower it to where you need it to be. Always better to have a lot of output vs not enough which leads to a costly upgrade in the future and you lose out on the money you spent on the weak initial setup. How much watts and stuff is not as important as how efficient the enclosure is when it comes to getting loud and good sounding. A single 12 on 1500 watts in a sealed box will be utterly destroyed by an 8 inch subwoofer in a 1/4 wave transmission line enclosure on 500 watts. Thats how big of a role a box plays in terms of output.

How loud you will get depends on your speaker's sensitivity rating. Usually speakers with 92 db sensitivity rating can get pretty loud with adequate power usually keep up with a 145 db vehicle.

 

[v1ks_]

pioneer has crossovers for the midrange's high pass filter and low pass filter and tweeter high pass as well plus subwoofer. While the kenwood only has tweeter high pass and midrange high pass, there is nothing preventing the midrange from playing nasty tweeter frequencies that mids should never play.
Rule of thumb is to have it louder than you would ever need it to be and use the subwoofer level control on the head unit to lower it to where you need it to be. Always better to have a lot of output vs not enough which leads to a costly upgrade in the future and you lose out on the money you spent on the weak initial setup. How much watts and stuff is not as important as how efficient the enclosure is when it comes to getting loud and good sounding. A single 12 on 1500 watts in a sealed box will be utterly destroyed by an 8 inch subwoofer in a 1/4 wave transmission line enclosure on 500 watts. Thats how big of a role a box plays in terms of output.

How loud you will get depends on your speaker's sensitivity rating. Usually speakers with 92 db sensitivity rating can get pretty loud with adequate power usually keep up with a 145 db vehicle.

Thanks for all the help Jeff.

I've been building PCs as a hobby for quite a few years, so I'm, perhaps in error, trying to apply same logic to car audio. For example, the most expensive graphics card will do you no good, if your CPU is the bottleneck in the system, or, say, spending $300 on fastest RAM, instead of $100 for normal RAM, only to realize it offers little to no real life performance boost.

Either way, best my Pioneer amp can do, is 300W RMS, heh, so I guess it'll be more of a challenge to actually find something half-decent that doesn't require more power than that.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

https://orlando.craigslist.org/ele/d/pioneer-head-unit-top-of-the/6340833734.html

Hell of a deal right here.
@LosIsATool is this guy near ya? Says Orlando but map shows in your neck of the woods.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

[quote name='Boomin_tahoe']https://orlando.craigslist.org/ele/d/pioneer-head-unit-top-of-the/6340833734.html

Hell of a deal right here.
@LosIsATool is this guy near ya? Says Orlando but map shows in your neck of the woods.[/QUOTE]

he's in europe dude. Gotta look under their join date in their location before making suggestions lol.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Thanks for all the help Jeff.I've been building PCs as a hobby for quite a few years, so I'm, perhaps in error, trying to apply same logic to car audio. For example, the most expensive graphics card will do you no good, if your CPU is the bottleneck in the system, or, say, spending $300 on fastest RAM, instead of $100 for normal RAM, only to realize it offers little to no real life performance boost.

Either way, best my Pioneer amp can do, is 300W RMS, heh, so I guess it'll be more of a challenge to actually find something half-decent that doesn't require more power than that.

300 is more than enough if you do a proper 1/4 wave transmission line box which is basically the ultimate efficient box meaning the loudest you'll get on very little power along with WAAAAAY better sound quality than a sealed box can ever hope to achieve. The con is that its a super big box. A box for two 8s will be as big as a proper ported box for two 12s.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

he's in europe dude. Gotta look under their join date in their location before making suggestions lol.

Wasn't making any suggestions and realize his location. But something that can be done and it's free....searching/looking on CL and Offerup. Or whatever he has over there.

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

I just built a t-line enclosure this past summer for a single 8. Lemme tell ya....it has a wide bandwidth that it can play vs. a reg ported enclosure.

 

[v1ks_]

Yeah, heh, Latvia - Eastern par of Europe, aka Middle of Nowhere, haha!
Sadly, that also means I can't really afford of lot of pretty and shiny stuff.

EDIT:
@Boomin_tahoe thanks for suggestion. That's what I'm doing! That's how I picked up the amp. lightly used, in mint condition, for about $95, which is about 1/2 of the store price.
I also have a friend that works in an online store, which managed to get me a set of Hertz DSK165.3 for $70 and that includes a 2 year warranty (2y is standard over here).

@Jeffdachef I'll look into custom cases, although my initial plan was to get something like Hertz DBX30.3, or whatever I can find at/around <$150.

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

[quote name='Boomin_tahoe']https://orlando.craigslist.org/ele/d/pioneer-head-unit-top-of-the/6340833734.html

Hell of a deal right here.
@LosIsATool is this guy near ya? Says Orlando but map shows in your neck of the woods.[/QUOTE]
Yeah about a hour away.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

300 is more than enough if you do a proper 1/4 wave transmission line box which is basically the ultimate efficient box meaning the loudest you'll get on very little power along with WAAAAAY better sound quality than a sealed box can ever hope to achieve. The con is that its a super big box. A box for two 8s will be as big as a proper ported box for two 12s.

transmillion lines eliminate the phase issues. horns are far superior in efficency..