NOT so good install experience

He's an idiot. What shop is this? Call the Better Business Bureau and they will take care of it for you. You dont even have to talk to the guy again.

(btw the BBB also handles online businesses now).

Old School is a big guy, with some big dogs, if anyone can set that idiot straight, well, my boy 'school is the one....

 
its grounded to the back seat..^^^....thats a really good ground but i would take the bottom part of the seat out and check to see if it is solid and clean of paint and stuff...normaly grounded to the seat belt bolt..gl

 
ground is under the REAR seat -

I appreciate the help dudes but I don't even wanna have to deal with the place again. To me it's not even worth the gas to go over there. As my friend would say - "may he rot in hell with the Ayatolallah Khomeimi's d!ck up his a$$."

\Plus I'd feel better if I got in the trunk and tweaked it myself.

 
well sometimes like in my dakota seat bolts **** as grounds... mine has a plastic ring between it and the floor board, no paint and solid metal to metal contact with as short a distance as possable. although people sometimes get a lil crazy with that they say 14 inches is to far i don't think so i have run many grounds with big wire up to 24 inches with no problems as long as the above where done corectly.

 
Now the other issue - on my amp he set the fronts to high pass instead of full - why? Because I alerted him to the fact that on the front Infinity comps there is a jumper setting for CONTOUR or FLAT and I told him set it to flat. In the Infinity manual it says that CONTOUR takes out some of the midrange (I don't know why you'd wanna do that) and I didn't wanna have the midrange reduced. So I set the switch on the amp to full and he said you didn't wanna do that because "now you don't have a crossover" - and I'm thinking, if there's no crossover (which he thinks is disabled) then the **** speakers wouldn't work at all. Then he says if you leave it on FULL (as opposed to LP or HP) that the tweeters would eventually blow.
Ok.....sounds to me like you and him are talking about two different crossovers //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif You are talking about the crossover on the amp, he (the guy at the shop) is talking about the passive crossover that came with the component set.

He is right, you don't want to remove the passive crossovers that came with the speakers.......and it doesn't sound like you had any intention of doing that; so that problem is solved, it was just a misunderstanding between the two of you.

Now, onto what you were talking about; the crossover on the amp. You don't want that set to "full" in your circumstance IMO......you would want that set to highpass. The midrange/midbass Infinity drivers that came with the comp set weren't designed to play the subbass frequencies; this is what the sub is for //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif By running the Infinities "full range" you run the risk of bottoming them out with the subbass frequencies, or you simply won't be able to turn them up as loud without distortion/damage because they are playing the subbass frequencies. So you do want to turn on the highpass on the amp. This does not effect the tweeters at all, just the mids. A typical highpass point on mids is *generally* around 60-100hz. It will also give you better midbass response by relieving them of trying to produce the subbass frequencies also.

Now keep in mind that the "full" on the amp is different from the "flat" on the Infinity crossovers. The "flat" on the Infinity comps is more geared towards tuning (by reducing the midrange). The crossover on the amp is not only for tuning, but to also prevent damage.

 
Squeak - we were talking about the same thing - lemme clarify. He said that since I told his installer to make the jumper read FLAT on the comp's crossover, that the setting on the amp had to be HI-PASS otherwise the tweeter would blow if the setting was on FULL on the amp. I was thoroughly confused at this point and remembered what someone posted once about arguing with an idiot - you can't win.

There was never any talk of removing the comp's crossover - he did clearly say that since the jumper setting on the comp's crossover was now flat, that there was no crossover. He made it seem that with that jumper setting that the tweeter was now also getting low-end signal! - that there was effectively no crossover now because of the "flat" jumper setting! And the way to stop that was to use the hi-pass on the amp.

 
Ah, gotcha //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif But regardless, it is definitely a good idea to use the highpass on the amp around the 60-100hz range for the mids.

 
It woulda taken me 4x the time to do it myself. Plus I live in a condo and can't install anywhere.
that's what I used to say too...

dude, man I live on the top floor of a 3-flat apartment with my brother, mom & dad. no garage, no fam nearby to leech off of their garage...I park on the street. I'm used to the bird-shit cause the only spot left is under a tree. however, I've installed 3 different amps so far, did the big 3, fiberglassed kick panels, installed an alarm in 10 hours time, and have deadened my trunk/trunk lid & rear deck. where at...a combination of on the street & at 3 different parking lots. (I live next to the lake so these lots are usually for the beaches & people going fishing, and for those late-night dipoffs with that special someone).

so really, I say, if you REALLY, REALLY wanted to...you could. But me, I have a dedication to learn...

 
UPDATE:

well velko came over today, as i had previously offered the use of my garage, tools, and my experience. Fisrt thing, we took out the rear seats to examine the grounding point for the amplifier and the woox powered sub. Velko told me he specifically told the installer to make sure the ground point was to bare metal on the vehicles chassis, so what did we discover? The grounding point was of course on a painted surface (about three layers of primer underneath it too). So we sanded it down, and re-ground the amps. Took it out for a test drive, there was a minor improvement with the alternator whine situation.

Then we examined the headunit ground, which looked fine, it was connected to the proper wires on the factory harness which went back to the battery. He mentioned he was having an issue with AM reception, which I wasnt sure how to diagnose. So next step was to examine the RCA interconnects. There were two "mas-power brand" noise filters, installed in the wrong direction. Additionally, the RCA's had a third wire which appeared to be a ground connection, but I did not see where we were to connect these on the amp or the headunit, I was thinking it was a negative ground, or something to do with balanced RCAs, I really didnt know for sure, or whether or not they would help. I guess the installer was too lazy to use any of the proper adapters to hook it up correctly...so we removed the filters, and hooked them up in the correct position, but not at the end near the amp, the end near the h/u. didnt really help much except the whine was higher pitched. So, we skimmed through Alpine's manual which said that noise filters should be installed on the end nearest the power amplifier, and not the headunit. Since I didnt have the proper RCA connection adapters we just decided to not use the filters at all.

So after a few drives, and some tweaking the noise problem was slightly suppressed, but still evident.

The next step of course is to examine the vehicles electrical system, since the alternator whine was probably coming from a poor ground in the electrical system and not the audio system. At this point Velko had to leave, so I guess we will try some other time later on to get rid of the alternator whine.

Basically we both tried out best within the time we had, but the issue is still evident. If anyone has any other suggestions that might help please let us know. We racked our brains trying to figure it out!!!

Bottom line, dont go to a shop without checking them out beforehand with the Better Business Bureau to see if they have any reports filed against them, get as much information as you can about the products and techniques that they use. Ask to view other customer's installs, as most reputable shops keep a photo album of them, talk to as many people as you can that have had work dont at that shop.

I reccomended that since Velko did not wish to directly intervene with the shop, that he get the BBB after them. With everyone's help and insight hopefully we can continue to prevent people being taken advantage of by shops like these!

 
We tried and mitigated the whine but it's still there so if anyone has some suggestions let me know!

AM reception is like in the 1970s - that means, when I go under a bridge the signal goes bad. Could it be because my antenna is the one within the rear glass - I don't have the telescoping type.

Another complaint about the HU (alpine cda-9830)is that you can BARELY see the **** diplay while in the sunlight! Have heard about this before and it's TRUE! Did you fockers at the factory even look at this?

The presets are tiny - ALL the silver buttons on the HU are useless at night! DOn't know why they're not illuminated.

Use of the HU is NOT at ALL intuitive. The TIME CORRECTION section in the manual must have been written by someone that only speaks passable English. Can't make it out for sh!t.

 
Activity
No one is currently typing a reply...
Old Thread: Please note, there have been no replies in this thread for over 3 years!
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.

About this thread

velko

10+ year member
Member
Thread starter
velko
Joined
Location
Socialist Los Angeles, CA
Start date
Participants
Who Replied
Replies
25
Views
1,496
Last reply date
Last reply from
velko
IMG_20260516_193114554_HDR.jpg

sherbanater

    May 16, 2026
  • 0
  • 0
IMG_20260516_192955471_HDR.jpg

sherbanater

    May 16, 2026
  • 0
  • 0

New threads

Top