Car Stereo Advice

[Hot Pocket]

why are you putting all this together if you can't figure that out?

Thanks for the helpful reply! I'm assuming the impedance would be 8 ohms since crossovers dont severely affect impedance, only frequency; however, I have never seen a bridged setup on a passive crossover and I want to make sure that I'm not overlooking something small.

I posted this here hoping someone who actually knows their **** when it comes to this stuff, Seth, Flem, any others, might be able to offer up some advice.

I originally wanted to run a 4 ohm mid and 8 ohm tweet, but found that it would not work out well for power balance.

Back on topic, I'm doing it partly for the learning experience, partly to save money on the task at hand. The same reason you try things with your rig that you've never done before.

I'm assuming the nominal impedance would be 8 ohms at the amp, just wanting a second opinion before I wire together a bunch of expensive car stereo components.

[Seth]

Where are you getting 8 ohm stuff for mobile audio? I think you are too focused on running bridged. Run your mids and highs 4 ohm.

The amp will see 8 ohms in that setup fyi. Crossover is just splitting and crossing.

[Hot Pocket]

Dayton Audio. Have read nothing but good things about them. They're more focused on home audio stuff, but a lot of people have had a lot of success running their equipment in a car stereo setup. Another big reason for choosing them over Focal, hertz, morel etc. would be the fact that they offer a more-than-decent 4" driver. (and price isn't bad at all either). The reason I'm bridging the amp is because I'm expecting the amp to see 8 ohms, so I'm hoping to bridge the amp to make up for the power loss seen by the higher impedance.

Dayton offers the 4" mid in either 4 ohm or 8 ohm, the tweeter; however, is only offered in an 8 ohm. Since I don't want to have to deal with the headache of figuring out a crossover running one driver at 4 ohm and the other at 8, i decided to just go with both drivers at 8 ohms.

What are your thoughts?

[Seth]

I'd run 4 ohms...Keep it simple.

[Hot Pocket]

Alright Seth, time to pick your brain some more...

I've decided to take your advice and go 4 ohm all around and ditch the passive crossovers.

So here we go.

The H/U I have has a HPF that I can adjust (will probably wind up putting it on around 50-63 hz.

Keeping with the 3-way components, can I buy an amp that has an active crossover built in to eliminate the need to buy an external active xover? The H/U has 6 sets of preouts (2 for sub outputs) so I am thinking I can use the first set for the front stage, second set for the rear, third for subs.) I realize this is going to be a 4 amp setup, but might as well just do it right the first time.

I'm thinking if I can find a 4 channel with a bandpass filter on it, I can just run active straight to the tweets and mids and use the amp to cross the tweets appropriately (3500-5000hz, depends on what sounds best in the car) and the mids the same way (probably 250-400, again depends on sound)

Then another 2 channel for the 8s (will be better anyway since the 8's can handle more RMS power)

Not even going to mess with the rear right now. Focusing on getting the front stage finished up.

[Sparling]

I have these in the doors of my truck and the stock stereo.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...ries/TS-G6844R

To keep it simple, the driver side speaker sounds like it went out on the radio but on CD it sounds okay. Speaker problem or stock 12 year old head unit problem? I'll find some other ones to test in the next couple of days to see what happens but I'm just trying to get an idea of what it might be.

[BroncoJo]

I have these in the doors of my truck and the stock stereo.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...ries/TS-G6844R

To keep it simple, the driver side speaker sounds like it went out on the radio but on CD it sounds okay. Speaker problem or stock 12 year old head unit problem? I'll find some other ones to test in the next couple of days to see what happens but I'm just trying to get an idea of what it might be.

Old head unit, have had similar problems

[Sparling]

Well, can anybody recommend a lower end double din head unit? I just want a decent head unit with a set of preouts auxiliary port in front and doesn't feel cheap.

[Hot Pocket]

It's most likely the head unit if the speaker works fine on one input and not the other.

If you want to be sure it's not the speaker, take a DMM and set it to measure resistance. The coils should read out to be around 4 ohms if they are 4 ohm speakers, or 8 ohms if they are 8 ohm speakers. A reading of 3.5-4 is considered acceptable.

Also, you can have my Kenwood head unit that's in the bronco. Has a detachable faceplate, front aux and usb. Works good, pretty basic head unit. It's a KDC-208 I bought about a year ago off of crutchfield. $40?

[Sparling]

I'll find my meter and test it. Thanks for the tip. I'm looking for a double din head unit so no dice.

[colman]

I'll take the head unit. Plus you can come over and check out my shop

[Seth]

You can just get a standard head unit and a kit and give your self a lot more choices.

[Seth]

HP I will look and think some more in a few. Going to catch up first.

[Hot Pocket]

**** just got real

[Hot Pocket]

Finally got it all finished and tuned.

Fully active, 4-way system with:
Hertz HV 165XL getting 200 rms each bandpassed 80-800hz.
Hertz EM100 getting 75 rms each bandpassed @ 500-4khz
DLS Classic Tweeter @ 75 rms each HP @ 4khz
2 Sundown Audio SA-12 @ 1000 each. Box tuned to 32 hz. Crossovers @ 25-100hz
Memphis Pro Coaxials in the rear @ 200 rms.

Last on the list is a crapton of sound deadener, another battery, and some 4/0 to 1/0 reducers.
Onto the prons--