Lex Luthor

lex400sc, on the JL there's about 20-25mm of space between the magnet and fuel tank, plenty of subs could run into an interference issue, the W7 would be half way through the tank, hehe. Perry, I hope you have an impedance switch in your home system, you can drive 8ohm spkrs with a 4ohm capable amp all day long, but driving 4ohm spkrs with a system designed for 8ohm is a no-no. Increased heat, shortened component life, and premature and spontaneous failure are all possible and likely. I would not run the factory amp no matter what sub, more watts with a lower gain structure is always preferred. I was dismayed that JL only offered the IB4 in an 8ohm configuration, but how much power do you want to put into that poor sub? My sub amp puts out 577watts bridged, but I am running it in the un-bridged, no way a single free-air would handle that for long. Also, my mid/high amp puts out 1002watts bridged, I am also running this amp un-bridged in the interest of speaker and amp longevity. Any amp capable of 150watts or more into an 8ohm mono load will be more than fine, unless you want/need a 4ohm sub to get the most from a smaller amp, then your choices just narrowed by one. You could go straight to the good stuff and find yourself a Velodyne, but then you'll never listen to your home system anymore. My home theater is 13 speakers with multiple subs and enough power to cook a small Taliban, but I find myself sitting in the car in the driveway watching DVD's. My girlfriend starts yelling when I bring a glass of wine out there.

lex400sc

Lex Luthor, what kind of home theater system do you have? I'm more of a home theater buff than a car audio buff (though you have to admit home theater pales in comparison to car's sheer SPL). Before I had my Lexus, I spent all my money on a $15,000 home theater (think of what I could have made my SC into! )

slowtan

Does anyone know how many watts the factory stereo system is??

I have a 5 channel Sony amp with built in x-overs that I wanted to use but I am starting to get the impression that my amp is weaker than what is currently in the car.

It is 50 X 4 , + 200 X 1 .

London Bill

Having listened to the 5 channel system fitted to the Soarer 4.0L GT-L & the 4 speaker system in my Twin Turbo, I have a couple of points:

It's SH1TE, easily distorted & underpowered, and needs junking along with the cheapo paper cone speakers, I cant believe they fitted this cheap crap in a "luxury" vehicle, (well, yes I can actually, one of the worst factory systems I ever worked on was in an Aston Martin Virage).

I gave up mad **** car Hi-Fi years ago but wanted some decent sounds in my Soarer but didnt want to spend a fortune. Get a couple of decent amps to provide 50/75w RMS per corner & 150/250w RMS to drive replacement speakers and a free air shelf mounted sub. Sony, Kenwood, Pioneer, Alpine all make reasonable/affordable amps capable of producing this much power, speakers from JBL, Infinity, Boston, R/F, etc, cost a little more than average but do sound better. (The Boston subs only need a really small chamber and could be boxed around the shelf mounted sub!)

I spent about £1,500GBP to replace the whole system including a Becker CD Pro and it sounds quite good, it will never win prizes but it's ten times better than any stock system.

London Bill

Just realised I have been upgraded to "Driver" status, was it 60 or 65 posts that gave me that accolade?

I see the paid memberships can call themselves anything they like, is that correct?) any way I think the rating here should be for quality, not just who can post the most.

Supra0l2d

Ok thanks for all the help guys, im goin to let the guy who is working on, system check out your replys.

WeasleBoy

I was wondering if anyone has taken a look at the Blaupunkt ODWa1000 10" sub. I'm curious if there is enough room to get this beast in place of the stock sub on an sc3/4? There doesn't seem to be that much room between the board and the gas tank.

Hermosa

I am wondering why bass is the major issue on this post. The mids and highs are just as important. So many people concentrate too much on bass and many seem to play music loud just to be noticed. For example I went to Circuit City( yeah I know its all low end) and when I told them I wanted a stereo but I did not want the bass to overwhelm the mid to high they asked why I wanted a stereo? :eek:

I want a stereo that can reproduce the music to the greatest clarity. The speaker setup should such that the sound is crisp, clean, balanced, bright, and fast. I listen to all kinds of music. I just want something accurate. Something that has just a lot of bass to me seems ghetto.

Anyone have a setup that is very well balanced. Perhaps a custom professional install. I want to make the upgrades but I have an exacting ear and can not settle for bad sound.

Your comments to my dilemma are much appreciated. I will completely rebuild the entire sound system if I like what I hear.

slowtan

I consider my stereo system good quality sound overall.

I have 6.5" MB Quarts Components in the front
6.5" MB Quart 2-way in the back
JL10W3 Sub
1 farad cap
100 X 4 250 X 1 (RMS) is what my amps work out to

I think it is good enough considering how small our cars are. I kept the factory head unit and CD Changer. The CD changer skips quiet a bit. I think I just need to clean it though.

Stephen

lex400sc

Hermosa,

bass is the most dicussed issue because it is the most problematic in high fidelity. The reason being is because the sine wave of 20Hz has a wavelength of over 56 feet long! Most cars aren't 56 feet long therefore it will encounter a lot of reflection, absorbtion, and cancellation before it reaches your ears. Not only does this introduce bass distortion, but it rattles everything in the car from the wiring harness for the brake light in the spoiler to the plastic cover that runs in front of your engine fan. When you're talking about highs and mids, their sinewaves are all well within a foot long therefore the sound of 20KHz frequency reaches you a lot cleaner than that of 20Hz. 20,000 cycle wavelength is about 2/3rd inch.

This topic is also argued a lot in the home audio domain as well. 95% of the subwoofers on the market produce over 30% total harmonic distortion below 40Hz at 3db 1-watt/meter. Bass is the most troublesome band in the audio realm. It requires large size, large power, and large arispace to operate properly. There-in lies the challenge. I'm lazy. Instead of measuring proper sub placement, I just use dual twelves that overwhelme. I prefer large subwoofers because 8's and 10's bottom out too quick and don't have the same range. I'm not a basshead (anymore), but I get very irritated when a song on the radio comes by that bottoms out my subs. Lot of bass is sometimes good for when you're driving pissed off. It relaxes you.

I pay lots of attention to my mids and highs too. I'm using Boston ProSeries 6.5s, which run about $400 each. I was going to get the Boston 6.53s, but I didn't want to deal with making kick panels and aiming with strings. Plus they cost like $600 each.

hoops_24

Get yourself an M&K (Miller & Kreisel) Mark series sub for your home theater and your problems will go away.

I'm runnin' an MK 125 II which is dual 12's that fire slightly out of phase. I'm running a B&W CDM CSE center, 301 rears, and CDM 9 fronts.
All powered by a Denon 5800 Receiver and Sony 7700 player.
And what do I watch it on..............a @#$!% 27" TV.

Go figure

lex400sc

LOL hoops, I'm with you. My home theater has dual stacked subs: Energy EXL:S-12, Boston VR-2000, Energy Veritas speakers, Denon 3802 receiver, Parasound HCA1000A amps, etc, etc....and a 27-inch TV Though it is one of the best 27-inch tubes out there, it's still 27-inches........INTERLACED.... Hoops, are you using 7.1 speakers?

If you really want to get nutty, get yourself a Wilson Audio XS subwoofer. 700 pound subwoofer housed in an inch thick aluminum cage, driven on 1600 watts.

Here's some pics: http://www.intellexual.net/htframes.html

hoops_24

NICE! You got friggin' speakers everywhere. I didn't go with the 7 speaker surround even though I now have the capability with the 5800 receiver. I mean enough is enough at some point. Pretty soon you'll have tweeters coming out of your a**.



Not sure if you can get to my pics because they are in a Yahoo album. But if you can here you go.

My Stereo

Lex Luthor

Oh, don't get me started on the home theatre. Got most of the goodies, three subs, 43" Sony flatscreen, did the 27" thing for a loooong time, but I got good money for the bikes, so what the f#ck, right? It's 'only' 6chan, but I can't turn it up too much anyway, my cat starts freakin' like he's gonna explode!:eek:

lex400sc

Lex,

6.1-channel is good enough! 7.1 is matrixed anyway, DTS-ES 6.1 is the highest true discrete format on the consumer market. Not even Dolby Digital EX is true 6.1. SDDS has a 10.1 used in theaters, but I feel 6.1 is going to be the plateau of home theater practicality. You know less than 3% of the households in America even have a Dolby Digital 5.1 setup to begin with? We are the varsity team BTW, I hope your 43-inch Sony is an HD-ready 16:9.


Hoops,

The 5800 is the meanest receiver on the market, bar-none. I particularly like the 20 pound toroidal power transformer isolated with four heat sinks, and dual cooling fans with active thermal sensors and variable CFM rate. At CES 2002, they debuted the AVR-5803 due for release this spring. That receiver will be king ***** when it hits the market. You can buy the upgraded 5803 board for your 5800 for $700. It's available now, and it's a plug and play upgrade. It mainly features THX Ultra II post processing, and Dolby Pro Logic II EX decoding with THX Ultra 2. The AVR-5803 is currently the most advanced piece of audio video equipment on the consumer market and hte only one in the world to feature every last home theater format.