Need advice on planned build.

[Yadda]

Let me preface this by saying I have absolutely no ******* idea what I am doing. I bought a new car and as a gift my father gave me some of his old audio equipment from 2007 which I used as an excuse to outfit the rest of my car. Iv done a fair bit of research on my own however car audio is a lot more complex than I thought and I would like others opinions/wisdom before I end up making a very big mistake and so I can bring all of the proper equipment to the installer. I know a lot of you like to do this yourself and promote others to do the same but this is my daily driver, I am very short on free time and I don't have the tools/knowledge to even begin. Maybe down the road when I learn more, but not now.

The car is a 2014 Ford Focus (Mk3) and as far as I know it has a door depth of ~3 inches and uses 6.5 front/back and 1" tweeters. My goal is to retain the factory HU for Sync + wheel controls and get decent clear music with the ability to shake some windows if I want. I'm not a bass junky, I just want a respectable system with some power. I'm trying to avoid having too much bass. The planned equipment is as follows.

Speaker amp: Kenwood Kac-8405

LOC: LC7i

Equalizer: Clarion EQS746

Fronts: Infinity Kappa 60.11cs

Rears: Infinity Kappa 62.11i

Sub amp: Rockford Fosgate Punch P450.2

Sub: Boston Acoustics G510-4

Capacitor: Rockford Fosgate RFC1D 1 Farad Digital Capacitor

Sub cables: Kicker PK4

The sub set up was all a gift and is non-negotiable as I already have it. I already bought the kenwood amp. I need advice on the LOC and my speaker combo. Also, I'm a bit confused on what the heck a LOC is for.

Thanks for reading, I'm really quite overwhelmed by all of this.

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[Yadda]

Anything? I'm planning on buying this stuff on Monday if no one sees any serious problems with it and lets me know.

 

[juanmgarza26 10+ year member]

Ditch the cap man, on the forum talk with mylows10 he sells some good amp wiring kits, in substitute of the cap do the big 3 upgrade

 

[Yadda]

Ditch the cap man, on the forum talk with mylows10 he sells some good amp wiring kits, in substitute of the cap do the big 3 upgrade

I already have the cap, subwoofer, amp and amp wiring but the big 3 upgrade was on my lists of "I don't know". Is it 100% necessary for such a small scale setup?

 

[4bannger 10+ year member]

I already have the cap, subwoofer, amp and amp wiring but the big 3 upgrade was on my lists of "I don't know". Is it 100% necessary for such a small scale setup?

No but the cap is going to add more stress not take it away, the big three will beef up your exsting electircal

 

[djulz93 10+ year member]

The big 3 will help keep the voltage up in your car better than the cap will. Speakers, you can go with a crescendo comp set or if you're willing to spend that much on speakers, look into phd or hertz both are know extremely high sq

 

[Yadda]

The big 3 will help keep the voltage up in your car better than the cap will. Speakers, you can go with a crescendo comp set or if you're willing to spend that much on speakers, look into phd or hertz both are know extremely high sq

I guess I'll pass on installing the cap then if it will do more harm than good. Thanks for the tip about the Crescendos, they are significantly cheaper than what I was looking at. I will probably end up buying those instead since they seem to have really great reviews and will save me 100 bucks which I would actually end up using for the big 3 upgrade.

 

[djulz93 10+ year member]

You're welcome. And for the rear just look into the crescendo pwx 6.5. They perform really well, and for $37each it's a great deal

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

ok dump the cap as said ,get a big 3 kit , i have them for $45 shipped , sub is fine but you need a box , get a custom built box , you wont regret it.cant comment on the cresendos but they are pro audio speakers i believe , which means no xover .the loc is hooked into the speaker wires to giv a signal for the eq and amps .i'd go with a processor instead tho ,it will sound much better also make sure your power wires are big enough for the system ,the older fosgate amps love power and need to be fed properly .

 

[bbeljefe]

First of all, a capacitor isn't going to cause any problems for your electrical system. It's not needed with larger systems using secondary battery banks but in a system of the size you're planning, they can help with headlight dimming and even power output of the amplifiers.

Kenwood amps are among my last choice but given that you've already bought it, so be it. It will do fine for mids. And speaking of mids, the Crescendo PA mids are great speakers but PA mids aren't the best in terms of sound quality without some good processing and/or a very good ear with which to set them. You'll also need to either add passive crossovers, run the mids and tweets active or just leave the factory tweets on head unit power. I would run them active and forget about rear speakers but again, that requires some expertise to set up but it's also well worth the headaches in the end.

I definitely recommend a big three upgrade and as was said, a custom (ported) box for the sub is 90% of the sound quality of your sub stage.

 

[Yadda]

Thanks for all of the input.

The kenwood amp I choose was supposed to be temporary so I just went for something middle of the ground in price/performance. What's wrong with Kenwood though? I come form the computer field, so I'm aware that not all hardware is made equal even if the prices are. I haven't done much research on brands, my research was based fully on amazon/crutchfield/forum reviews and a lot of those can be biased by people who installed it for 3 days and said it sounded great with absolutely zero technical knowledge or have nothing to compare it to but their old stock setup.

So far Iv changed my build to get the crescendo comp set + pwx midrange, talked to my friend about installing a big 3 kit and looking at sound processors. I still have questions though. Is a sound processor the same as an LOC? I was told that since I am installing on a factory HU I need an LOC so that's what I looked for. For RMS on amps/speakers is it best to get an amp/speaker combo with the same RMS or can I get say, in my case, my amp is 60rms while the crescendo's are 100rms!

 

[djulz93 10+ year member]

Good luck with the build, had to give thanks cuz you went with my suggestion haha. And you should be fine to start with that amp, you can always go bigger if you want. On the crescendo website they say the recommended power rating is from 50-250. You can always sell that amp and find a decent 100x4 for around $150. I was just recommended in one of my threads about precision power and another was a mb quart 100.4

 

[brian84corvette 10+ year member]

in matching speaker rms to amp rms power its always better to have more amp power than you need - and to properly set the amp to only give off the rms power you want to the speakers.

say you install your door speakers that can handle 100w rms power - but your amp can only give off 60w rms power - for the maximum sound your looking for you would have to crank up the amp to its 100% power output capability = no good for the amp and no good for sound quality

but if you had an amp that was capable of 120w rms power to the speaker and you set it so your max listning volume gives off only 100w power to the speaker then your not asking the amp to work so hard = better for the amp and better for sound quality

also some speakers dont "wake up" until they are above 50% of their rms power

 

[bbeljefe]

Thanks for all of the input.
The kenwood amp I choose was supposed to be temporary so I just went for something middle of the ground in price/performance. What's wrong with Kenwood though? I come form the computer field, so I'm aware that not all hardware is made equal even if the prices are. I haven't done much research on brands, my research was based fully on amazon/crutchfield/forum reviews and a lot of those can be biased by people who installed it for 3 days and said it sounded great with absolutely zero technical knowledge or have nothing to compare it to but their old stock setup.

So far Iv changed my build to get the crescendo comp set + pwx midrange, talked to my friend about installing a big 3 kit and looking at sound processors. I still have questions though. Is a sound processor the same as an LOC? I was told that since I am installing on a factory HU I need an LOC so that's what I looked for. For RMS on amps/speakers is it best to get an amp/speaker combo with the same RMS or can I get say, in my case, my amp is 60rms while the crescendo's are 100rms!

Based on my experience with Kenwood amps, they're underperformers and are over rated with respect to real power output. I haven't used all Kenwood amps though so take that for what it's worth. My recommendation to anyone who is researching audio gear is to do that research where the pros and experts hang out, not on mainstream websites that sell mainstream gear to the masses. Not that those are bad places but... they're in the business of moving product, not recommending quality.

This forum is a good example of what I'm talking about. Most of the active users here (whether vendors or not) have experience with mainstream and high quality gear and their recommendations will reflect that.

Sound processors are not LOCs but some do have LOCs built into them because they're designed for exactly what you're doing... installing aftermarket amps and speakers to factory gear. So a lot of processors have speaker level inputs that convert that signal to line level so it can be processed and sent to your amps. LOCs only do the former and all too often, they do a poor job of it. That said, you can get a decent LOC for around $25.00 while a decent processor with high level inputs will be ten times that price or more. But in my opinion, they're worth every penny.

And yes, you can run speakers with less than rated power.

 

[Yadda]

Ok, so little update.

Iv purchased pretty much everything I "think" I need. Everything above, speakers swapped out for the Crescendo's/PRX. So to close everything up, what all would I need to bring to the installer OTHER than the hardware?

I have 2 amp wiring kits for my 2 amps, 50ft of sound deadener, a big 3 kit and....? Is there anything else I should bring with me so they don't price gouge me on stupid ****? Or anything else I should know to be able to tell them? Would it be insulting for me to give them a USB with links on it to assist installation if they have any problems? Iv done quite a bit of research and there are some oddities about my car that I don't want them spend hours trying to figure out and charging me for it.