Should I bi-amp Focal PS165F components?

jrodefeld

CarAudio.com Newbie
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I'm currently working on installing a car audio system in a Honda CR-V.

Here is the gear I've purchased:

Pioneer DEH-80PRS head unit

Focal PS165F 6.5" component speakers for front

Focal PC165F 6.5" coaxial speakers for rear fill

Morel Ultimo SC 124 12" Subwoofer

Sound Ordinance Bass Bunker Sub enclosure

Arc Audio XDi850 5-channel amplifier

Arc Audio KS1200.1 monoblock amplifier

I also got a bunch of sound deadening material from:  http://www.raamaudio.com

And all the wiring and accessories I need from Crutchfield.

I question I'm wondering if whether or not I should bi-amp the front components?  Ideally, this would yield the best sound quality from those speakers, but I want to have enough power for the rear speakers.  

Bi-amping the fronts would use 4 channels of my 5 channel amp.

I could potentially bi-amp the front, then use the Pioneer 80PRS amp for the rear fill speakers.  They'd be underpowered, but if I run them at a lower volume, it might be a fine compromise.

What I'm wondering is whether or not that 5th channel on the XDi850 could be split to power the rear speakers?  Is it possible to run two speakers off of one channel of an amplifier?

This 5th channel is supposed to be used for a subwoofer, but because it's very underpowered for the sub I chose, I opted for a dedicated monoblock amp with plenty of power.

Now I need to decide how to wire all these speakers for maximum sound quality.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions.

 
i would.  i dont even use rear speakers
Yeah, I nearly passed on rear speakers as well.  Then I decided that I do like having some rear fill, plus I'm thinking about passengers that might ride in the back seats.

When you said "I would", do you mean powering the rear speakers with the fifth channel of the XDi850 amp?  If I understand correctly, I'd run them either in serial or parallel whichever gets the ohms within the amps specifications.  

If I'm bi-amping the Focal components, do I completely ditch the crossovers, or do I still wire them through the included crossovers?

 
The sub channel only plays up to 230 hz, not good for anything but a sub or midbass.  Get a different amp if it's not enough power running 1 speaker per channel

 
actually, id run the front speakers off the 2 front amp channels.  rears off the rear 2 amp channels.  cause the amp doesnt have xovers for the tweets.  500hz isnt high enough for the tweets

and use the focal xovers 

 
Okay, new question.

I've been working on installing this system all week but I've run into a problem.  I'm new to this, so I hope someone could help.

I've installed the power wire, with fuse, on the battery and run it through the firewall and into the trunk area behind the rear seats where I will install the amps and the subwoofer.  The Pioneer head unit is installed and I just completed installation of the component speakers in the driver-side front door and I'm nearly done installing them in the passenger side front door.

Before I continue, I want to power on the car and make sure that the components I already installed are working okay.

The trouble is, both amplifiers won't turn on.

I've gone over the wiring over and over again.  I've connected the power cable to the +12 input, the ground cable to the GRN input (then attached to a bolt on the frame), then I attached the blue turn on cable to the harness on the back of the head unit.

This should be enough for the amp to power up normally when the car is turned on, correct?  Or is it the case that I NEED to have speakers connected for the amp to even power up?

The XDi850 displays a blinking red light the moment I attach the negative connection to the car battery and won't change from this state.  It's like an error core or protection mode.

The KS1200.1 doesn't do anything at all.  No light, no evidence of any power being supplied whatsoever.

I could very easily be missing something very important, I'm just too much of a novice to know what to look for.

I also have a T-Spec capacitor that I tried installing between the power cable and the amp, and that made no difference.  I tried removing the fuse and fuse holder from the power cable at the battery to see if there was a loose connection that that was causing the problem.  No difference still.

I used a multimeter to check the voltage at the power and ground connections on the amplifier to see if the right amount was being supplied.  It stayed around 12v to a bit over 14v, which should be exactly where it needs to be.  The T-Spec capacitor also has a digital read-out that said the voltage was around 12.3v when the battery was connected, and around 14.4v when the engine was turned on.

All the fuses are okay.  The blue turn-on wire is connected properly.

Any idea why the amplifiers won't turn on?

My idea was to periodically test the components I install to make sure they are working correctly.  I don't want to install speakers in all four doors then find out that none of them work.  I'd rather catch the problem early on.

 
no, id run the fronts off the 4 channels, rears off the deck
you cant do that if the fronts are running active

op, technically you can "bi-amp" the fronts and still run rears, but its tricky if youre doing this with just the head unit and not a DSP. If you want the best sound and still have rear speakers, youre going to want a DSP that has at least 7 channels (2 for each front tweet, 2 for each front mid, 2 for each rear pair and 1 for the sub). From there youre going to need at least 7 channels of amplification for the same drivers mentioned above. a DSP isnt terribly cheap, but you can get away with the dayton or rockford offerings that are around 300 to 350

 
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Yeah, I nearly passed on rear speakers as well.  Then I decided that I do like having some rear fill, plus I'm thinking about passengers that might ride in the back seats.

When you said "I would", do you mean powering the rear speakers with the fifth channel of the XDi850 amp?  If I understand correctly, I'd run them either in serial or parallel whichever gets the ohms within the amps specifications.  

If I'm bi-amping the Focal components, do I completely ditch the crossovers, or do I still wire them through the included crossovers?
If you do the front stage properly, it can be heard over a football field away. There's no reason why your passengers wont hear it loud and clear.  All its going to do is mess up your sound stage, time alignment and a whole slew of other messes it causes.  Throw the passive crossovers of those components away and use the 80 prs in network mode instead and run everything active.  Focal's crossover points on their crossovers are pretty junk and crossed waaaay too high giving a nasty sibilant sound depending on your vehicle.

 
actually, id run the front speakers off the 2 front amp channels.  rears off the rear 2 amp channels.  cause the amp doesnt have xovers for the tweets.  500hz isnt high enough for the tweets

and use the focal xovers 
it doesnt matter when the head unit can do all the crossing over. When you have an 80 prs, all the amps are good for is power. No other features matter.

 
This thread is a train wreck :crazy:

 I've connected the power cable to the +12 input, the ground cable to the GRN input (then attached to a bolt on the frame), then I attached the blue turn on cable to the harness on the back of the head unit.

This should be enough for the amp to power up normally when the car is turned on, correct? 


Can you verify that you have 12V on your remote turn on line going to your amps?

 
it doesnt matter when the head unit can do all the crossing over. When you have an 80 prs, all the amps are good for is power. No other features matter.
my bad, didnt know what xovers the deck had

 
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Sorry for the late update.  I've resolved some problems, now I've got a slew of others to deal with.

First of all, everything's been installed and all the paneling is back on.  It was harder than I thought I'd be, but this was my first install.

I used sound dampening material (RAAMmat) on all four doors and all over the trunk area where the sub is located.  I used a bit under the carpet on the floor, then I ran out.  I may get more and finish the floor at a later date, but I think it's enough for now.

I thought this wasn't the case, but I confused the antennae wire for the remote turn on wire on the wiring harness.  The minute I turned to "TUNER" the amps turned on.  Funny thing is, I couldn't actually find a separate remote turn on wire on my harness.  So I just spliced the turn on wire off of the red accessory wire and the amps turned on fine as soon as the car was powered on.

From what I'm hearing, it would be a good idea to ditch the rear speakers and the crossovers and run everything Active through Network Mode on the 80PRS.  ***** that I spent as much time as I did sound dampening the rear doors, fabricating speaker mounts, installing the rear speakers and running new speaker wire!  Actually, the sound dampening will make the car quieter at least so not a total loss.

If it's not already clear, I'm a bit of a novice at all of this.  Given the equipment I have, could you explain how I should have all the amplifier settings?

If I'm ditching the Focal crossovers, then which speaker inputs do I attach the left tweeter, left mid-bass, right tweeter and right mid-bass?

I guess I don't use the high pass filters on the amplifier, but I'm concerned about damaging the tweeters by sending too much low sounds to them by mistake.  Or could they be damaged by too many watts being sent?

I really need some detailed instructions on how to install and set up a bi-amped Component set with an 80PRS and the amplifier that I have.

The last problem that's frustrating me to no end is that the KS1200.1 no longer works.  It doesn't even turn on anymore and I have no idea what I did.  Since I figured out the remote turn on wire issue, the amp would always turn on.  The light on the side would flash green just as it should.

I was unable to get the subwoofer to play, but then I switched from Network mode to regular mode and found the option to turn the subwoofer on, then it worked.  For about a day.  I never adjusted anything, but the gain and bass boost were at their lowest setting or close to it.

When I felt satisfied that everything was finally working, I set about putting all the paneling back on.  I had to slightly re-route some cables and change some ground points to get all the paneling to snap back on.

Since then the KS1200.1 won't turn on at all.

Any idea what could be causing that?  I did have a capacitor installed in front of the KS1200.1, if that makes any difference.  I've since tried to power it up without the capacitor, and with different ground points and power cables attached.  Nothings happening.

Any help you could give about this, and the other problems I mentioned, would be very appreciated.

 
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