I am looking to fully upgrade my stero system and i was wondering how 2 big speakers of some kind behind the seat of my truck, and 2 good sized ones in the doors would sound? and which brand of gear should i use? what type of problems may i run into? The truck i am looking to put this stuff in is basicly a mudder/highschool/fun truck. Will any of those accivitys ruin my system? Also one more question, i have heard of nitrous enhanced bass systems how dose this work and dose Bazooka make the only one?

(and if it matters i have a '81 f-150 custom)

Thanks
Robert

 

1st off bazooka liquid cooled subs are a gimmick, stay away. what ur refering to is a bazooka bass tube in the shape of a NOS bottle, again gimmick for ricers. to answer ur question i would suggest picking up a good pioneer HU (even the bottom lines are good) or kenwood (same as pioneer). then start off with a set of 6.5" 3-way speakers and set them in ur doors. again i suggest pioneer as i own them and like them and they can be found for cheap and run them off the CD player. next, define big speakers. do u mean sub-woofers? will u add an amp? also i use my truck off-road and use it fairly hard and never had a problem with my equipment. i would stay away from sony xplod anything, as there not best or quality and stay away from jensen CD players, there amps are decent and can be had for a decent price for just a bush truck. i would suggest goin to wal-mart, Bestbuy, Ciriut City and give a few speakers a lissen then decide but ive had good expereince with pioneer. and i would look to Ebay for streo equipment, i bought most of mine off there and got it for cheap.

 

hey ive got a jenson amp. i love it to. as far as subs go if this system needs to be upgradable stay away from bargan basement brands and mtx. kickers are somewhat high but a used set (not abused) will do you good. pioneer makes good subs just not the best. sony makes ok subs but lower on the ladder snd wise. a pioneer hu is prolly best for mudding since they are quite a bit tougher than most. sony xplode door speakers are ok in my expierence but i still prefer pioneer. as far as an amp goes look for a 1 ohm stable 12db gain and atleast 6db bass boost. a built in cross over is a good feture to not a must have. only porblems you will run into is to much system for your alt and draing the bat. in wich case a 100 amp alt would solve that. good luck and happy bumpin.

 

Sounds like some good advice. I would just like to add anything bigger than 10's in a small truck cab is a waste. Maybe 12's, but I think 15's are too big for anything short of an suv style cabin.

Also, my luck with sony speakers has been pretty bad, I toast those more than I do bread. But, their amps are sound. I will never buy another amp that I cannot turn the crossover OFF. I hate that, its a simple switch, doesn't cost much, why not put it on there? Like that MMATS amp and pioneer head, neither one can I turn the xover off, now I got phase problems with my other subs. The only thing I can figure (besides ciruitry), is turn the xover on the amp as high at it will go and use my head's xover.

I don't think being 1-ohm stable is a big deal unless you plan on having 4 drivers all paralleled or a final DC resistence of 1-ohm. Otherwise, you couldn't get the power out of it that you could with 1 ohm. Most class AB amps are 2 ohm stable and 4 ohm bridged, which is good enough in most cases. Class D amps can go as low as .5 ohms (even bridged) and run cool, but they put out modified square waves, strickly a sub amp. Generally, sound quality goes down as ohms go down. Thats why home systems are usually 8ohms. Always match your amps to your drivers. The loads should match pretty close.:-X12

 

i have one 12" ported in my truck and its more then enough.

 

well 1ohm stable can make a difference depending on the user. myne i wanted it 1 ohm stable for several reasons. one it dont run hot.
two my kickers run at 2 ohms bridged and i like a lil room to build with.
three. yes it is a pain to find a xover switch sometimes. myne does have this. as for your prob of turning the the xover off i feel for you. i dont have this cause my amps are pure sub amps only. so for what i need lower ohms is better.

 

can u tell me how u modifed ur jensen amp and pioneer cd player

 

>can u tell me how u modifed ur jensen amp and pioneer cd
>player

im also very curious.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 26-Dec-02 AT 03:16 AM (EST)]i orignally fried the cd player so i found a new pioneer at a bone yard (didnt work though) and did a diode swap. maybe 5 watts more rms but zero distorstion) the amp i bought new and decided i wanted more power rms but it was pulling way to much power for me a i got a hold or some transformers and stepped it up just a touch (still pulls alot of juice but its alot more responsive now). didnt get more power out of it though. i couldnt find anyparts or kits for it that didnt require drimmal work so its still just 200 rms. other than adding an internal thats all i did to either. the cd player is pretty much just a salvaged one to see if i could do it. and on the amp i got lucky. if i ever figure out exacly how i did it ill write a few pages on it.

also part of the purpose of the mods was that i couldnt find a better alt and didnt want to run a sep battery but i wouldnt be beet on it. it that and cooling because the amp didnt get hot but the trunk of the car stayed hot (glasspack under the trunk was almost on the metal so it transferred alot of heat) and i didnt like that i was slowly killing my system.

 

You can get some transitors at radioshack or some places online for cheap. That ought to step it up a bit, if you got a good transformer like you say. I used to snag transformers out of old microwaves, those things are huge, weighing in at about 20 lbs or more. The plan was to make a nice power invertor for my ride that could power most anything. Never got around to it though.

 

lol. i snagged one out of an old 86 wat power supply and added it before the others. it didnt take any room and seems to have worked great. my next expieriment will be to see if i can make a passive amp to put in the speaker box. just to see if it will work. the really good thing i noticed with the trans was that i didnt fry another alt and my 1 gauge wire doesnt get hot now.

 

>lol. i snagged one out of an old 86 wat power supply and
>added it before the others. it didnt take any room and seems
>to have worked great. my next expieriment will be to see if
>i can make a passive amp to put in the speaker box. just to
>see if it will work. the really good thing i noticed with
>the trans was that i didnt fry another alt and my 1 gauge
>wire doesnt get hot now.


Did you mean passive crossover? I made a passive xover once, wound the coil myself, hooked it up, sounded like crap, threw it on a shelf to collect dust. Since then I only work with active xovers, alot easier and cheaper too. (Unless I decide to get Burr-Brown IC's.)

Should give it a try, there's alot of schematics on the net.

 

no i actually mean a passive amp. im not sure its even possible but i wanna see if i do it. im sure there is a way to do it (like fore headphones) but i wanna see if i can make a bigger one. well now that i think about more it probbly cant be done but i wanna see what the results are anyway. ive got an old 20 watt amp im going to disect and see what i can use. its burnt and i dont need it so i figure its good for something. the sliders for the eq im sure are good though. just cant use the eq.

 

Not quite sure what you mean by passive? A passive xover kinda just sits there and by virture of the eletrical components, varies its resistence with respect to frequency. It doesn't play an active role in the signal strength. An active xover, on the other hand, amplifies the signal, or parts of it, and adjusts its resistence by virtue of the circuits involved, not just the components. This amplification is the reason the active xover needs a power supply, even with a 1:1 gain. A passive amp seems like a contradiction of terms. Unless you mean drawing the power from the signal? In which case I would think the circuit would have too much resistence (anything above zero is too much) and not be able to amplify, and you would have diminishing gains. What I think you mean in the case of headphones is a variable resistor, trimming the signal strength.

I tried my hand at building amps a time or two and concluded my time was better spent seaching for good deals on the net. Just can't compete with mass production in prices. I do continue to build xovers though, they not hard, but not amps.

 

i think were off topic a little here...