Car audio

[PP Mguire]

Anybody know alot about car audio from here in the US? (dont know if its different in the UK)

 

[FarFarAway]

don't think it's much different mate

I know a fair bit about it (UK), used to play with some loud bits and pieces a while back (6000w+ ftw)

 

[NickS]

FragTek used to have a pretty mean system in his old pimp mobile, talk to him .

 

[PP Mguire]

Alright well i just need to know, what do you guys prefer to use for power to a 1000watt amp from the altinator? 12g wire and a crossover or what?

 

[FarFarAway]

I used to use a secondary battery off of the cars alternator (replaced with an uprated version tho), and power it off 12v line from that

With power wires the beefier the better and I found that always getting one that was over-rated was far better, or you get ummm...fires

 

[PP Mguire]

Ok well he dosent have any room in his Blazer to put another battery. If we had enough money to buy cable i could possibly put another battery in the back, hook it up to the altinator as well (he has a better one than stock) and then just use a short cable to hook the amp up to the battery. Yet again, we dont have enough money to buy that much 12g cable. Any other ideas? I guess its a given to run with 12g cable, but wheres a good place to hook it up and do i need a crossover.

 

[FarFarAway]

What's the rating that the cable you've got i rated at? We tended to use high quality highly rated cable at least 200w over the top of spec of the amp

Can you not get some cable rated to cover ~1200w?

 

[PP Mguire]

Probably. This Monster Cable 12g is really thick. Bout as big as my thumb almost. When we get to frys ill take note of the ratings and buy 1200.

 

[markkleb]

first what amp is it? and are you talking about the power wires for the amp or speaker(crossover is for speakers)

Second 12ga is fine for the speaker but should NO WAY run any amp over 50Watts.

What size fuse does the amp have?

I have a REAL 880Watt amp and use 00 cable, a 2Ga may work but I like to be sure the current will get to the amp.

Also I would run the power wire to the BATT (also a fuse there too)

The alt really needs to be a 120AMPs or more and needs to have its power wire (wire fron the alt to the batt) made using a larger Ga wire. I used to use a seperate extra alternator to run my systems but now I just drop the Wattage to a more reasonable range.

I built a 250Watt system that was crazy loud. You just need to use efficient speakers.

 

[FarFarAway]

Aye my memory is a little hazy on details about what the actual wires were called/how they were rated but mine usually had a beefy old fuse and ran straight off of the +'ive of the battery/extra customised rear battery.

When we set up sound off or test cars we tended to use a couple of kits like these:

http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/product.asp?product=21594

Running off one/two car audio batteries that were fed off of a customised and uprated alternator

The fuse should be within 1metre (at least) of the actual battery too, and always find a safe earth

Get some EMI shielded RCA cables too and O² free wire as that really makes a difference

EDIT@

Something like this should do you ok:

http://www.caraudiocentre.co.uk/product.asp?product=21588

 

[PP Mguire]

We went to Wal Mart and got him a Sony deck and a cable pack setup for the 1000watt Sony Xplod Amp. Idk what the cables are inside of it but the guy behind the counter said its best to hook up the amp to the battery. Now like i was asking, i need to know how big of cable to use to hook up the amp to the battery and what kind of fusing system do i need. And Kemp they didnt have anything like that at Frys or Wal Mart. It didnt come with fuses or anything just cables.

 

[markkleb]

You need to know exactly what amp it is. Sony exaggerates the ratings here is one of their amps that says 800 watts but if you read closer its 400 (I bet in real life its closer to 100-200)

http://www.xplodsony.com/xplod/amplifiers/XM-2002GTR

 

[PP Mguire]

They dont have his amp on the Wal Mart site or the Sony site. All i know right now is its black and is 1000watts, 500RMS.

 

[FragTek]

FragTek used to have a pretty mean system in his old pimp mobile, talk to him .

In my Bronco I sported a pair of 12" Alpine Type X's powered by a pair of 1000w Fosgate Power T10001BD's fed by a 2 farad cap. It was easily loud enough to the point where you couldn't crank it but only 3/4 of the way up before your ear drums started to hurt. As for the mids and tweets I had a full set of MB Quarts and a sweet arse JL 5 channel 500w amp to crank em.

I'm too poor with the new car payment, lawyer bills, computer problems, etc at the moment to reinvest in a nice sound system

 

[markkleb]

This should be PLENTY for what you need Cory.

http://walmart.scosche-cars.com/products2/?sfID1=132&productID=1476&walmartProductID=4213089

I usually get my wire from HomeDepot but things like the near Battery fuse come from places like Kragen, PepBoys or local stereo shops.

Usually kits (like the one Kemp recommended and at Walmart) have more flexible wire (many more smaller strands). The home depot stuff is stiffer but will work just as good untill you get into Audiophile stuff (on a older car I built I spent $4K on wiring)

Monster Cable is great for speakers, I would use the 16Ga on mids and tweets and 12Ga on woofers.

 

[PP Mguire]

I already gave him a 12g Monster cable for his sub and i cant see the Wal Mart link. Me and my friend discoverd that Wal Mart re-directs you to their main page even on a direct link like that. When i head over there sometime this week ill take pictures of everything.

 

[markkleb]

try the new link, think its fixed.

 

[PP Mguire]

Nope, Wal Mart has a redirect to their main site.

 

[markkleb]

This one is $10 cheaper and looks better than the Walmart one. I get a lot of my stuff from Crutchfield.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-CkdxvIn0VRP/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?wm=fp&I=142PA8&g=711

Also Cory there are a bunch of good guides on Crutchfields site that explain how to do stuff.

 

[FarFarAway]

Ye that looks pretty decent