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edit: wrong thread
Zero VGS fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jun 22, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 05:16
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 18:37 |
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Real life keeps me from being able to focus on getting this amp installed, but I do have a dumb question before I kick it into high gear this weekend. The Alpine sub/amp doesn't have terminals for the power and ground; they're part of the harness. So there are appropriate cables coming off of the harness, and the power wire is fused:  Of course, my amp wiring kit has its own wires that I need to join up:  For the ground wire, I'm guessing that I should simply not use the one in the wiring kit, and instead just ground the wire from the harness directly to the truck's chassis. What about for the power wire? Should I solder it to the harness's power wire? The wiring kit includes those two crimp connectors, but I'm guessing those are for if you're tapping into speaker inputs. For reference, the manual for the sub/amp is here. Thanks for helping this dummy out.
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Jun 21, 2018 21:47
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Seems like you'd do that, yeah.
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Jun 21, 2018 23:14
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I don't know if there's an up or downside to having two fuses in the line, but personally, I'd have skipped the amp wiring kit and just used some appropriate wire to extend the harness as needed (if at all). Basically, you probably didn't need the wiring kit, just a bit of wire to make power/ground long enough and some RCAs (/whatever input you're using).
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Jun 21, 2018 23:34
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Krakkles posted:I don't know if there's an up or downside to having two fuses in the line, but personally, I'd have skipped the amp wiring kit and just used some appropriate wire to extend the harness as needed (if at all). Basically, you probably didn't need the wiring kit, just a bit of wire to make power/ground long enough and some RCAs (/whatever input you're using). I'm definitely fumbling a bit through the project. I'm the guy replacing my new 4" speakers because I didn't completely explore how easy the modifications would be to fit 6.5s. I work on my cars but this is pretty much my first experience with audio. Learning a lot. Ordered a soldering iron and accouterments today.
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Jun 22, 2018 00:08
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The problem with only having the fuse in the harness at the amp, is that the entire wire run before that point is unprotected. Ideally you want a fuse as close to the positive side of the circuit as possible so that it can protect things if there's a short in the wiring between there and the amp.
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Jun 22, 2018 15:52
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IOwnCalculus posted:The problem with only having the fuse in the harness at the amp, is that the entire wire run before that point is unprotected. Ideally you want a fuse as close to the positive side of the circuit as possible so that it can protect things if there's a short in the wiring between there and the amp. Fuses are never really there to protect the devices. They are to protect the wiring so it doesn't burn your vehicle to the ground. If the device will be harmed by an over current situation, it's already hosed anyway.
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Jun 23, 2018 18:28
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Reporting back that I got everything installed and it sounds great. Mounting the new 6.5" speakers was easy. I put 5 sq ft of sound damping material on each door (both the inner and outer pieces), and the difference between the 4" speakers with no sealing/damping and the 6.5" with the stuff was huge.  Then I mounted and wired up the amp. I had big plans of making a nice rack/bracket, but ended up just mounting directly to the rear firewall and using some extra speaker gasket tape to help with vibrations. Wiring was straightforward, but I had never soldered before so I did a few practice runs before I soldered the power wire to the harness wire. It was a pretty mediocre solder job by a professional's standards, but it held tight. I dabbed some dielectric grease on there and put heat shrink over it, and the whole run of wire is covered with techflex. i was really glad that I used techflex and heat shrink throughout the install - keeps things protected and looks professional.  I'm still tinkering with the crossover and EQ settings, and I didn't really bother to set the gain on the amp properly; right now it's just one click past halfway. I think I'm going to buy another 10 sq ft of sound damping and put a good bit on the rear firewall to help with vibrations from the sub. Everything buttoned back up well, and I even found my long-lost cigarette lighter cover under the seat. Thanks for everyone who chimed in with help and advice on this little project.
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Jun 25, 2018 14:18
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My new-to-me 2005 Pilot has a tape player which is fun, but no aux port, which isn't. I don't wanna swap out the whole head unit so I'm thinking about this bluetooth tape adapter and I'm wondering whether the gadget-y aspect is really worth it over the regular ol' 3.5mm corded version? Anyone have any experience with this stuff?
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Jun 26, 2018 18:46
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It's not worth it: even if it lasts the specified 6 hours, it will not turn itself off when you turn off the car, and will need constant recharging.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:11
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Easychair Bootson posted:Mounting the new 6.5" speakers was easy. I put 5 sq ft of sound damping material on each door (both the inner and outer pieces), and the difference between the 4" speakers with no sealing/damping and the 6.5" with the stuff was huge.
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Jun 27, 2018 14:31
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Captain Cool posted:Were you following a guide for that? I'm considering sound dampening as an intermediate upgrade. I like what I've seen on https://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/ but their suggested treatment for the front doors is more like $100 and I don't know if it's worth it to do a good job there and nothing anywhere else.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:28
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In short, sound is vibration. If you have something (a speaker) making vibration and it's on a panel (like a door) that's vibrating with it, to a certain extent it'll cancel out what the speaker's doing. It may be as simple as a small square of dynamat type stuff applied to the door panel is enough to add weight and prevent it from vibrating. Doing EVERYTHING in the stuff is often pointlessly over the top. Most car noise is low frequency which is why you can never get enough bass whilst driving at say 60mph+, the combo of tyres on the road and wind noise tends to overpower bass from your car's system. Seeing as bass frequencies are stupidly long, there's not much you can do to dampen out the fundamental frequencies but to a certain extent you can help mitigate the harmonics by adding material to the car. Think of a tiled bathroom, if you clap your hands in there the sound rattles about for a little bit because it's reflected off the flat, shiny surfaces really well. Then think about your average cinema, the walls are often treated with at least a couple of inches of material and absorption to stop the sound clattering around. If you've ever been in a sound studio you'll notice that it's stupidly quiet and 'dead' sounding, the walls are treated with loads of sound absorption in order to ensure that any sound produced goes right into the mics and isn't reflected around and then back into the mic causing delay issues.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:50
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If you wanna be nerdy about it, it's all about resonant frequencies, and phase cancellation. Light, thin flat panels have relatively high resonant frequencies, so even your 6.5" midbass speakers might cause them to vibrate. Door skins and cards are notorious for this. So your aim is to lower the resonant frequency of the panel to below what your speakers are kicking out. <20Hz ideally. As Olympic Mathlete says, that can often be achieved with a few squares of deadener applied in the middle of large flat surfaces. You rarely need to cover every square inch, and if you have more spare time than spare money, you can do a trial and error. Or you can just wack a bunch of it on and hope for the best. As for covering the holes, - speakers move forward and backwards in order to move air and make sound, and the intent there is to prevent the sound waves coming out of the rear of the speaker making it into the cabin, as they're 180 degrees out of phase with the front, and have the really nifty effect of cancelling out all of your midbass. this is why speaker boxes are either sealed, or have tuned ports in order to minimise phase cancellation. I think the speaker rings mentioned earlier in the thread would effectively help channel the front waves out of the space between the door card and door skin and into the cabin, which would help prevent phase cancellation and directional issues I suppose. As for rear speakers, they mostly just muck up your stereo image, and create a whole load of vibration issues you wouldn't otherwise have to chase, so most SQ nerds either fade them out, remove them to allow more sub bass into the cabin, or run them really low for the benefit of passengers only. I wouldn't bother putting after market speakers in unless the factory units are busted and you have passengers a lot/drive uber/have kids. Cars are a miserable environment to build a sound system in. You have the issues above, as well as road noise (which also cancels out low frequencies), weird cabin shapes that boost some frequencies and cause others to basically disappear. You might find when you crank your system up, and lean forward to the windscreen you get a totally different EQ curve. SQ tuning is all about trying to compensate the gently caress out of these issues. As with home HiFi, once you wrap your head around some of these ideas and dismiss the snake oil aspects of the hobby, poo poo just gets so much easier to plan out.
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Jul 3, 2018 01:20
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Welp, gonna try to run 0guage through the firewall. I already have a 14guage wire running through so hopefully I can fish it through using that. Also, is 1250watts rms powering 4 8" subs a bad idea ? I can't use my 12" drivers, and if I do 10" drivers i'm limited to 2. However I can do a sealed wedge box with 4 8" drivers facing forward. https://www.crutchfield.ca/p_206CWCS84/Kicker-44CWCS84.html?tp=73439 is the driver I am considering.
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Jul 9, 2018 22:31
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I feel like we need to know more about your box design to make an informed decision. I've seen a single 8" cadence flex the back window of a wagon; in a transmission line enclosure.
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Jul 11, 2018 05:58
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Thanks. I'm not sure what the net volume will be. I'm just going to build it the largest I can without poking out from under the rear seat. I got the big wire ran through yesterday, and built an amp rack that will go behind the rear seat and allow easy tuning.    I modified a harness from a parrot Bluetooth add on that is plug n play for Fords. I spliced in RCA connectors that run to the back of the cab, and then speaker wire that runs from the amp back to the harness which feeds the factory speaker wires. The forscan program lets me modify all sorts of factory options, most useful is the ability to remove the factory dynamic eq and also output the signal as variable level line voltage from the headunit. So I didn't need any sort of speaker level converter. I just converted the speaker outputs to RCA.
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Jul 11, 2018 06:14
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P.S. sorry for posting pics of cloth interior. It was the highest trim level I could go without getting a chrome package. I don't like chrome. I'll be doing a katskinz interior after the summer. I have too many camping trips to do before I tank out the cloth upholstery. 
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Jul 11, 2018 06:20
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Cloth is probably acoustically superior to leather and this is the car audio thread so
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Jul 11, 2018 06:23
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jonathan posted:The forscan program lets me modify all sorts of factory options, most useful is the ability to remove the factory dynamic eq and also output the signal as variable level line voltage from the headunit. So I didn't need any sort of speaker level converter. I just converted the speaker outputs to RCA. Now that's loving cool. I knew Forscan was pretty powerful, but I didn't know it could convert speaker outputs to line level.
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Jul 11, 2018 06:33
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I'm interested in the Forscan talk because the lady and I just got a 2012 Explorer Limited. It has the Sync 2, which I heard clips the poo poo out of the signal compared to the Sync 3 system. I have been researching the Sync 2 to 3 conversion thought buying junkyard parts, since going through Ford, or aftermarket can cost $1500-$2500. Any experience or advice is more than welcome. I just want to add aftermarket speakers, sub, and amps, without neutering any functionality of the stock system.
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Jul 11, 2018 07:05
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Don Dongington posted:I feel like we need to know more about your box design to make an informed decision. Aye, box makes alllllllllll the difference. I've an 8" JBL GTO804 in a horn sub and it'll do 110db+ at 20hz in my living room running off a tiny little amp.
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Jul 11, 2018 08:39
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"I've got a great idea, let's build a custom radio unit and then integrate the A/C controls in to it! This is a fantastic plan with no downside!" - loving Honda
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Jul 11, 2018 18:53
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It's the way of the future. Integrate as much garbage together as you can not only to make it harder to fix, but harder to upgrade letting OEMs upsell the crap out of their BEATZZZZZ audio system.
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Jul 11, 2018 19:49
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Uncle Lizard posted:I'm interested in the Forscan talk because the lady and I just got a 2012 Explorer Limited. It has the Sync 2, which I heard clips the poo poo out of the signal compared to the Sync 3 system. I have been researching the Sync 2 to 3 conversion thought buying junkyard parts, since going through Ford, or aftermarket can cost $1500-$2500. Any experience or advice is more than welcome. I just want to add aftermarket speakers, sub, and amps, without neutering any functionality of the stock system. It's pretty straight forward. The biggest issue was buying a cheap Chinese obd2 to usb cable and finding the correct drivers for it. It came with drivers on a mini cd but a virus scan came back with a bunch of malware. The best route is to use the recommended cable adapter from the forscan site. It's probably $60 but at least the drivers are trustworthy. After that you just load forscan and then adjust 2 or 3 values that are well documented, hit the button, it flashes the dash, do a key cycle and then your speakers are all being driven at line voltage. I haven't measured what the max voltage is, but I've run stereo after and with the volume maxed out I hear no clipping. There is also another option to enable the subwoofer out connector which is at the back of the cab. You can set it to use its own pre programmed low pass filter or you can set it to full range. I don't 100% know if the explorer has that. Our explorer is a 2014 and I haven't messed with any of the settings. I also used forscan to route the Canadian mandatory daytime running lights to the orange turn signals instead of the headlights. You can set it to American settings as well. Also I can run my fog lights and high beams at the same time "Bambi mode".
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Jul 11, 2018 21:18
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jonathan posted:It's pretty straight forward. The biggest issue was buying a cheap Chinese obd2 to usb cable and finding the correct drivers for it. It came with drivers on a mini cd but a virus scan came back with a bunch of malware. I did watch some tutorials on doing the conversion from Sync 2 to 3, and it seems like the hardest part is finding a new enough car in the junkyard as a donor. One of the videos I watched said to get a Bluetooth dongle to connect to a laptop in order to use Forscan with. Another issue I may run into is the only windows computer we own is a desktop, and I'm going to assume Forscan will not work on a Chromebook. I really just want to have Android Auto and a decent signal to amplify later down the road when we upgrade the sound system. It seems like much more work than it should be, but that's just how beer vehicles are it seems.
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Jul 12, 2018 01:34
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To be honest, the old Microsoft sync in the explorer is a nicer looking more polished looking interface. The sync 3 in my 2018 f150 kinda reminds me of mid 2000's interfaces. Like the Chrysler mygig colour scheme. With that said, it's really simple and laid out logically. And mirroring android auto onto the display is pretty neat. I just wish torque pro could be loaded as one of the android auto apps. It used to work and then Google removed a bunch of apps because people were using them as a workaround to watch movies while driving.
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Jul 12, 2018 04:54
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jonathan posted:To be honest, the old Microsoft sync in the explorer is a nicer looking more polished looking interface. The sync 3 in my 2018 f150 kinda reminds me of mid 2000's interfaces. Like the Chrysler mygig colour scheme. With that said, it's really simple and laid out logically. And mirroring android auto onto the display is pretty neat. I just wish torque pro could be loaded as one of the android auto apps. It used to work and then Google removed a bunch of apps because people were using them as a workaround to watch movies while driving. Just buy a head unit that allows HDMI mirroring and Bluetooth audio. I heard from a friend...
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Jul 12, 2018 05:51
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EightBit posted:Just buy a head unit that allows HDMI mirroring and Bluetooth audio. At least on our Explorer, that would be more difficult than converting to Sync 3. I have a perfectly good Pioneer AVH 4200NEX, but it's not as easy as just put a different head unit in. Too many features are ran through the head unit, like climate control. There is a way it could all work with an aftermarket head unit, but it would be more expensive and time consuming. With enough money, everything is possible, but I don't have that kind of money.
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Jul 12, 2018 06:08
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EightBit posted:Just buy a head unit that allows HDMI mirroring and Bluetooth audio. I'm sure it's possible but I'm not interested in making air conditioned seat controls function through an aftermarket deck.
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Jul 12, 2018 07:09
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jonathan posted:I'm sure it's possible but I'm not interested in making air conditioned seat controls function through an aftermarket deck. FOOOOOOORRRRRDDDDDD!!!! 
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Jul 12, 2018 19:02
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Uncle Lizard posted:I'm going to assume Forscan will not work on a Chromebook. Windows only. There's an Android version (which I think some newer Chromebooks can handle?), but it's not nearly as capable as the Windows version. It's worth it to buy a cheap Windows laptop with Bluetooth. Even the lower end ones (so long as you avoid netbooks) are pretty decent today.
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Jul 15, 2018 09:08
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Also it costs about 15 dollars to replace the wireless N module on an old ex-workhorse HP Elitebook with a genuine Intel combination AC/Bluetooth module from eBay. The HP and Thinkpad sandy/ivy bridge i5 models are mostly still useful for this sort of work and can be found at auction for under $200. Swapping the wireless PCIE card takes 5 mins.
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Jul 15, 2018 11:45
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Attention: The 2003 Honda Accord radio, in addition to being a stupid design that integrates the A/C controls, also has lovely grounds. Source: The engine whine from my brand new aux adapter. That is all.
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Jul 15, 2018 17:44
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2006 Miata, stock BOSE stereo. CD player is borked, looking to upgrade the head unit to something with options. Android audio, BT, mp3 discs, line in etc. Would love a system where I can have my phone's BT on and he head unit will auto connect when I get in the car. Gonna be pretty much redoing the entire interior when I garage it this winter so gonna do speakers as well. Not an audiophile but I'd like good sound. Stock stuff is great for highway cruising even with the top and windows down, looking for that quality of sound at minimum. Haven't upgraded a stereo in like 12 years so I have no clue what the go-to brands are these days. Dynamat is a waste on convertibles right? As far as I know there are 5 speakers in the car (2 on the doors, 2 next to headrests and a center channel). Not looking to break the bank but money isn't really all that tight on this.
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Jul 15, 2018 18:44
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Does anyone have an opinion on Shok ? I have 2 Shok 12" that I was given cause they blew out his windshield.
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Jul 17, 2018 09:53
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Got everything installed other than building a box. Finished just as the mozzys were coming out. I'm trying to decide if I should hide the wiring behind the panels or just leave it as is. They're hidden under my husky mats for now. Equipment is: -Forscan modded stereo to flatten EQ and send line out from headunit -0 guage power to junction at back of cab -Kicker key 180.4 class D mini amp with microphone EQ and time alignment -Kicker sx1250.1 class D monoblock (1250watts @ 1ohm stable) Coming soon: Shok 12" drivers if I can fit them, otherwise 2 or 4 kicker 8's or possibly 2 sundown 8's as they have 500watt power handling and 30mm+ of travel. If I do the 12's, they'll have to be at a 45* angle in a recess in the box as they're too deep to fit under the rear seats when they're placed downward. 8's I can mount horizontal.   
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Jul 18, 2018 05:55
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My sister bought a car for cheap, and wondered why the stereo didn't work. The shop (she's not in my town) took out the whole dash, tested the connections, traced the cables... No loving speakers.
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Jul 20, 2018 14:09
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I feel like that's the first thing I would check.
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Jul 20, 2018 14:25
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 18:37 |
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Some motherfucker is always trying to ice skate uphill. Normally it's me.
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Jul 20, 2018 19:25
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