Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Black88GTA posted:

What's your goal with this setup? Are you just trying to go louder?

What style box is it? Back maybe 15 years ago I had a box with a window on one end, the sub mounted inside, and a port on the other end. A bit hard to describe, and I can't find a pic of it. I want to say it was an MTX Thunder box, but GIS is failing me for the exact style. Anyway, I got a 2nd sub (same size), mounted it in the same box right up against the existing one (facing it) and wired it out of phase, so that it would be "pulling" when the other was "pushing". holy poo poo. It was the loudest poo poo I'd ever heard. Power handling went way up, since the two speakers were limiting each others' movement. I've since outgrown that sort of thing, and just have a single 10" in a sealed box in my main car now, but that old setup was super loud, and very clean. I didn't have to sacrifice any more trunk space either. Only problem was that the car sounded like it was going to rattle apart on the outside. Never was able to fix that.

Those would be called a single reflex bandpass box, and then a "clamshell" isobaric single reflex. Bandpass boxes are amazing if they're built correctly, but they're harder to design and build than most others. Isobaric is nice too if you have no space.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2012 19:18

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:24

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Kynetx posted:

Any alarm experts here? I have a Smartstart setup with alarm and I would like to pair a new transmitter to it. The instructions mention a Program button on the alarm box, but all I have is a Valet button. Does this require wiring a switch into one of the connectors?
Directed are dicks who don't affix labels that give model numbers to the alarm box, so I can't search for a manual that they probably would sue someone for posting.

It also has this weird tendency to not respond to the remote once the engine starts. Shutdown or Unlock has to be handled through the stunningly suck-tastic mobile app. This is loads of fun in the rain.

Any ideas?

I don't know what exact setup you have, but the button you're looking for is probably mounted on the antenna. They intend for you to mount it on the front windshield to blink it's bright rear end LED but usually installers just stick it up in the headliner or under the dash or something. I wouldn't be surprised if it's mounted somewhere really noisy which is giving you signal problems with the car running but only on the little fob remotes.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2012 07:03

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Black88GTA posted:

I got a Viper 5904 over the summer that I want to install in my car. I don't suppose you'd be able to get ahold of alarm related wiring diagrams for a 1994 BMW 840Ci? I've done shitloads of car stereo installs, but never an alarm / remote start.

The12Volt.com is just as good as some subscription places when it comes to that stuff. Which is to say, not very good, but enough to get you through it. I've had the Python version of that alarm in my 540 for a while and it's been great. Automatically rolling up your windows and sunroof when you lock the car is awesome.

Lowclock fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Dec 8, 2012

# ¿ Dec 8, 2012 03:56

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Sadi posted:

Second, the miata battery doesn't seem up to task for powering the set up. At slightly loud volumes the lights dim and idle drops. If im having a good time with the top down on the highway, the lights seriously dim and you can tell its having an impact on the sound quality. A friend recommended a capacitor, would this fix my problem? Or is my battery the issue here?

A capacitor might make the lights not dim as much, but it doesn't really solve the problem of not having enough power. If you've already upgraded the alternator power and ground, I'd check into a fresh new nicer battery and then maybe an alternator. Caps are getting better, but the good stuff is expensive. Screw the little half farad walmart/best buy pieces.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2012 06:00

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

jonathan posted:

What I want:

Is there a double din touchscreen deck out there that has smartphone-like functionality, Maybe something that runs on android ?

I want DVD playback while in motion, as well as blue tooth, navigation, and media streaming. I'd like it to hook up to a wifi supplied by my phone for youtube/email/music streaming services etc. Is there anything out there like this ?

Just screw a Nexus 7 case/dock into a dash kit, and get a decent crossover/preamp and you have a better deck then pretty much anything else.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2012 07:39

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Motronic posted:

My question about that as a viable setup would be appropriate software (would have to be something purposed designed for this as the requirements while driving are much different than those while using it "as designed")

There's 8 bazillion different skinnable interfaces and poo poo for this.

Motronic posted:

the ability to send A2DP to it/through it (play things off of your phone or iPod), and if there's any possibility of bluetooth handsfree integration.

The Nexus supports like every Bluetooth profile that exists, as do a bunch of other tablets.

Motronic posted:

and if there's any possibility of bluetooth handsfree integration.

See above. There's pretty much an app for everything even if you just restrict yourself to the Play store.

Geoj posted:

The Nexus 7 (and similar low-priced tablets) would make a so-so choice for ICE because they lack external memory

Not really. You can connect whatever through USB, but you need an app or a hack and a USB OTG cable, not a normal one.

Geoj posted:

Apparently there are Android powered headunits in the works that would make this a lot easier (ie, gently caress fiberglassing a 7" tablet into your dashboard.)

That article posted:

"running Android 2.3"

Sounds like fun. Also is 600 bucks, no cell radio, probably some ancient single core processor with 256 or 512 megs of ram, and pretty much unsupported.
Fiberglass isn't that hard, especially on something that size. Make a small buck out of wood and a double din dash kit and lay a couple layers down.

Lowclock fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Dec 14, 2012

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 03:45

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Blah quote is not edit.

Lowclock fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Dec 14, 2012

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 04:07

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Geoj posted:

(at least without doing a major workaround with adapters and a full-size USB hub.)

Yeah sorry I missed that at first. Well you only have to do it once, but I also don't know if you can somehow switch between charging and USB OTG. Something like that would be easy to make but good luck buying one.

E: VVV Nice.

Lowclock fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Dec 14, 2012

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 04:32

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

jonathan posted:

Subwoofers: Which ones are accurate/fast

This is more up to the enclosure, unless you get some really really awful subs. If it's properly designed and tested, you can make any style of box (and dare I say, sub) sound great.

jonathan posted:

and also go below 20hz ?

Again, up to the enclosure, and that is crazy. There is practically no material down there, and that's not even really sound anymore. If you actually tune a box down that low, everything is just going to sound terrible. If you really need to call some elephants, look into a Phoenix Gold Cyclone or some Velodyne servo subs.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 18:08

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

I don't know about movies and stuff. Every car I've ever done focused on sound you can hear. I'm interested what these sub-20hz songs are.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 21:15

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Motronic posted:

Google Play Music and TV and Movies and Maps and Navigation that all come on the thing are all miles ahead of anything you'll find in an aftermarket car deck. These apps are very simple to control (but lots of features) and made to be used with a touch interface, not hacked up windows programs with big buttons. You can tether data to your phone and bluetooth your whatever, but I don't really know specifics because I don't use it that way. If you want external USB storage, a USB OTG cable and a simple piece of invisible software will do it. The little task switcher button that is always there will let you easily switch between your recently used apps. You also get the latest version of everything with brand new hardware instead of some old hacked up Android 2.3, or totally proprietary closed garbage running 10 year old hardware. If you have huge hotdog fingers, you can change the DPI and make stuff smaller or bigger. There's also plenty of custom roms to change the way things look and function. Plus there's Torque and thousands of other apps.

Inside the big space left behind in your dash you could throw a couple little tripath amps or a preamp and a USB hub or whatever you need. Sure you have to do the backbreaking work of connecting a couple wires and making a fiberglass piece smaller than a piece of paper, but that sounds a lot better to me than Pioneer's latest $800 piece of crap for like half the price.

Lowclock fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Dec 16, 2012

# ¿ Dec 16, 2012 19:59

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Knyteguy posted:

I like this idea, but how would you hook this up to your car speakers? Would you sacrifice sound quality?

I would say just hook the headphone jack up to a preamp/crossover/line driver whatever to an external amp. If anything it might be cleaner than a regular deck because the source isn't on that noisy power, and you can get more than the average 2-4v and a little control out of a decent one.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 01:23

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

I have never heard of Helix before, and sensitivity is not something you should care about. Get some cheap Pioneers from Amazon or something if you're not going to switch to components.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 04:31

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

I guess Helix is at least one of Rockford's other brands, so they might not be that bad. But their stuff ranges from pretty bad to pretty good, and I wouldn't want to be the one to find out exactly where.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 05:02

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

The ability to move your sound stage sounds a lot better than just keeping perfect phase with the other driver. Coaxials usually have lovely first order crossovers anyways which make them out of phase anyways. Even if you did have nice 4th order crossovers on that same speaker, you wouldn't hear the phase difference anyways. The higher the frequency is, the easier it is for the ear to detect it's directionality and location and blah blah ear stuff. Ever try to find out who's bumping their system in traffic? It can be pretty hard because bass doesn't have this effect. If you put in properly aimed tweeters though, it seems to move everything because of the opposite. If it sounds the best with the tweeter on top of the mid/woofer or someone really doesn't want to mount them, then cool, go for it. I've never heard a car that sounded best that way though.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 08:36

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Knyteguy posted:

If someone doesn't mind, can you let me know how this build would end up working?

What do you mean with the "2 2-channel line out converters" part? All you should have between the 4 channel amp and the 3.2 are the RCA cables, unless I'm misunderstanding you.

Yeah that should sound pretty nice if it's installed well. That Three.2 throws out a ton of voltage and will be a great volume control. There's also some different DSP and EQ stuff built into some apps too. Should work great.

Knyteguy posted:

Is this setup pretty copacetic? I'm probably going to go pickup a Nexus 7 in the next few days if so. I'm still undecided/ignorant about amp/speakers and the electrical ratings of them (impedance should be the same on both? RMS on amp should roughly match speakers?)

Long story short, you want as much power as you can afford at the speaker's rated impedance. Pretty much every component set is going to be 4ohms, so you don't have to worry about the different numbers as much. It's much better to have too much power than not enough.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 20:39

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

e: beat

Yeah don't do that. I don't even know what kind of car you have, but I bet you can pop the sill trim and pull the carpet back enough to run a pair of RCA cables and make them invisible a lot quicker, cheaper, and easier than hacking it up like that. RCA wires are not huge, but sometimes power wire is. There are charts out there with appropriate ratings for the different AWG sizes. Any half decent amp is going to be too much power for the little stock speaker wires, and really should be replaced.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2012 00:53

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Knyteguy posted:

Hey so real quick you think I should re-wire through all the doors and such? Local audio guy said it probably wasn't necessary but then again he might think I won't buy if it's too much work.

Personally, I would re-wire to prevent hacking up any stock wiring, and to actually have some decent gauge wire.

Knyteguy posted:

The only problem is it doesn't have a volume knob.

The three.2 has a bigger volume control knob on it. The Kicker doesn't have one at all.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2012 06:53

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

JackRabbitStorm posted:

God drat, I need to get myself a new car.

Yeah you probably don't want a used one.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2012 00:00

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Knyteguy posted:

In the first post of the thread it mentions using lovely wires... would these qualify as lovely wires? http://www.knukonceptz.com/productDetail.cfm?prodID=KOL-AK4-4 It's about $250.00 cheaper than my local audio shop wants for an 8 gauge install kit (this is 4 gauge) for the same OFC w/ RCA wires.

E: Also would the RCAs included in that kit power all 4 speakers?

E2: Nevermind looks legit. My local audio shop is just over the top expensive for just about everything.

Not lovely at all. I've used the Flex many times and it works just fine. Even their super cheap CCA wire is good enough for most stuff.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2012 15:22

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

the posted:

What should I do?

Replace the Sound Ordinances with something else and order it all from Amazon instead.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2012 08:36

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

I usually start out with both the high and low pass set around 120hz and do it by ear from there. Maybe separate them a little more if they're not nice 4th order (24db/octave) filters.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2013 23:08

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

There's these things, but they seem to have really hit or miss AVRCP support and probably won't work.

If you don't have navigation, but can control a satellite radio module, you can use one of these. They're kind of expensive, glitchy, slow, but it's at least something made to work with your car.

If you have navigation, you are completely screwed and should be glad it works as well as it does!

# ¿ Jan 4, 2013 21:03

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

What kind of space do you have to work with for the sub box? I'm guessing the current one is sealed? Build this instead.(Thanks ddaudio)

Just run that sub and amp at 1 ohm. In the real world it will be plenty higher at the times when it will actually matter. I'm not a huge fan of either the sub or amp, but with a nice box they should sound great.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2013 01:12

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Knyteguy posted:

Re: 1 ohm sub to amp, would that be safe for the amp?

Yeah just don't go too crazy with the gain and you'll be fine. It's not like it's a 1 ohm resistor. It will change depending on things like where the coil is in the gap and how it's moving and stuff, and it will be more, not less, especially in a sealed box.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2013 05:01

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

intheflesh posted:

I would like to put a great stereo in my car, but I'm having issues finding things that are of high quality that also fit.

I wouldn't really bother with a 3 way unless your car is already set up for it, and even then it can be more of a hassle than it's worth. I would agree with the kick panels for some 6.5" or even 5.25", and then put the tweeter up on the a-pillar or dash or wherever sounds better, and a pair of coaxials on the back shelf. It will lack bottom end no matter what you do, so yeah that's what a sub is for. Don't put it in the deck, put it in a box, although firing through it might not be a bad idea. A 10 in a nice box will sound surprisingly loud without taking up a ton of space.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2013 23:00

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

atomicthumbs posted:

Is there any hope for re-using this jumble (like plugging the stereo wires into the old connector), or should I just buy a new wiring harness?

I don't know what kind of car that is from the picture, but Amazon or even Best Buy probably has what they call a reverse wiring harness to get you back to the OEM plug, but unless it really bothers you, it won't really make a difference if you just cut the old one out and directly wire up the new deck's harness.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2013 18:49

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

atomicthumbs posted:

Thanks for all the help, guys. I've cut off the original one, isolated and labeled the speaker wires, and now it's much easier.

Question: the constant 12v wire for the previous stereo has what appears to be a choke (the box on the orange wire) in it. Will its absence degrade my sound quality any, or is a modern stereo immune to anything that'd come through there?

LloydDobler posted:

It's there to improve sound quality by hopefully cutting down on alternator whine. Either way it shouldn't hurt.

That's not a ground loop isolator. It's a fuse holder.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 20:35

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

I guess you could be right now that I went and looked at the full sized pic and realize the wire colors change and I can't see if 1 wire or 2 come out of it and its maybe a little big. That's more of a mess than I thought it was at a glance, haha. I saw decent crimps and kept scrollin.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2013 21:28

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

telarium4 posted:

-Is it poor form to keep the stock components and only add a subwoofer?

Unless you're gonna enter shows or something, who cares? If you think it sounds fine, keep what you got. If it's not, get some new ones.

telarium4 posted:

-Is it always necessary to pierce the firewall to power the amp?

Pretty often, yeah you don't have much of a choice. Some cars have stock holes you can fish it through, but usually they're crammed full of other wires or in crappy spots around moving stuff like brake pedals and steering columns. Drilling a little hole is a lot less of a deal than people make it out to be anyways.

telarium4 posted:

-Roughly how much should an install cost given the equipment below along with another custom fiberglass enclosure?

Without the custom box, probably around $100. Depends on what kind of fiberglass work, but even the most basic glassed box will probably run you at least another $100.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2013 18:30

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Reggie Died posted:

I've got a sealed enclosure I built awhile ago. I pulled it this weekend to re-finish it, since it's a solid 3 years old, has more blemishes than solid paint, and want to finally re-do my cable and amp set up.

I noticed that, while there is significant resistance when pushing the cone in, I hear air escaping through the binding posts. Is this a concern? FWIW I think the sub sounds fine (CSS SDX10 in a .9cf enclosure), but it's audio so.....you can always do better.

Not really a concern, but if you want to fix it, fill cavities with a mixture of sawdust and wood glue and then paint over that and all the seams with fiberglass resin and some strips of nice heavy mat.

If you want to just build a new box, I highly recommend this one.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2013 11:32

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Reggie Died posted:

The inside corners were all caulked with silicone 2 when I built it. I ended up using bonds on the outside seams, but that was more for aesthetics and not for sealing purposes.

The only air escaping is happening at the binding posts. I have a recessed binding post box cut into the side of the enclosure, fully sealed around the perimeter. But where the posts themselves are leaking.....not sure there's much I can do but I've never read anything regarding that so was wondering ifits irrelevant (and a common issue).

As for the box....why exactly would you recommend that? It's vented (mines sealed) and vented boxes need to be designed around the sub. My sub would want a vented enclosure around 1.8cf, tunes to 24.5 (not even sure what the link you provided was tuned too). I eat to try vented eventually, but designing one seems daunting.

Yeah I wouldn't really worry about the leak if it's that tiny. I've even heard that a little leaking is a good thing, but I don't really build sealed boxes unless I have to.

I'm just not a big fan of sealed boxes. They were a great crutch back in like the 80's when there weren't really many specialized subwoofers, and the ones that did exist were garbage by today's standards. Now we have subs with long gaps, huge excursions, big cooled voice coils, better suspension, and nicer electrical characteristics, and we don't really need any of the stuff that sealed boxes were good for anymore in the first place, except maybe for the fact you can do really tiny enclosures.

I guess they do sound a little different, but unless you're trying to impress an RTA, I personally like the sound of a good ported box more. They're louder, more efficient, have better power handling, still sound great if you do it right, they're just bigger than sealed boxes.

Just ignore the manufacturer's recommendations, even if just for that fact that those are for boxes in a house and not a car. They're an OK place to start, but just because they recommend it doesn't mean it's the best or necessarily any good or even been built outside of a simulator. 24.5 is tuned pretty low and wasting a bunch of energy for something that is in maybe 1% of all songs for any length of time. I went through my whole music collection of like 5000 songs took the one with the lowest bassline I could find and threw it in an audio editor and measured the period. 34hz. There was someone earlier in the thread who mentioned tuning to like 15hz or something silly for playing movies, which I guess is okay if you prefer earthquakes over music, but otherwise there's no point.

Pre-fab boxes aren't inherently wrong because of the fact they weren't designed your particular woofer, but because they are poorly designed to begin with. They do weird poo poo like make 2.4 cuft each of airspace for a 2 woofer ported box tuned to 35 hz or something which is fine, but they do it with a single slot port right in the center that's barely an inch wide siamesed between both parts of the box across the back wall with not even some deflection. This works fine in a simulator or in outerspace with 2 speakers playing the exact same amplitude at the same time, but we're working in a car. Even pre-fab sealed boxes end up crappy because they do stuff like glue the carpet into the seams to save time, and probably neither of them will have the correct cutout diameter for your sub, usually being too big so you end up with screws barely into the edge of the lovely particle board.

Technically the thing I linked is a pre-fab because it's not made specifically for your application, but it works very well on anything without a really tiny or huge Vas or Fs. It has just the right amount of port area and volume per box volume with great geometry that actually works in a car and real life with music.

Sorry for the wall of text.
tldr: Still build that box.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2013 23:44

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Reggie Died posted:

Sidenote: what constitutes a "tiny or huge Vas or FS"? I ask because despite only being a 10", the SDX10 is quite beefy, with a Vas of 53 and Fs of 26. I don't pretend to fully understand those numbers or their ramifications, which is why I'm asking.

To try to keep it really simple, that would basically mean a sub with a really soft or hard suspension or a really light or heavy cone. I don't know of any modern subs with really weird parameters, so it's not even much of an issue anyways. You usually don't want to build a box that is bigger than Vas or tuned lower than Fs.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 06:48

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Black88GTA posted:

Anyone have any suggestions?

Might as well just mount the JL with the motor out. (Not kidding)

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 23:38

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Yeah that should be better than that alpine at least. If you're set on using that amp and only 1 sub, might as well get the dual 2 ohm version.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2013 09:23

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

davertron posted:

So I wired up my amp this weekend and...it works! I haven't actually mounted it in place yet because there is a high-pitched whine when driving (none when the car is off) when listening to audio. I've searched around and sounds like it could be a bad ground? I'm going to try moving the amp and see what happens. If that doesn't work I'll try a different ground on the chassis somewhere. Any other tips?

Make sure you run your RCAs as far as possible from other wiring, especially big power wires. Also it's a good idea to actually scrub away the paint where your ground wire connects.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2013 03:00

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

davertron posted:

Guess this means I don't need the ground loop isolator so hopefully I can send that back.

Probably the reverse, actually. You like, super need it.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 08:59

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

I'll try to do these in order.

Haven't seen one in the US in years.

Yes.

More like $3 if you go to Amazon.

Everything has fast forward/reverse.

I don't recall seeing a deck without a pause.

Most decks use soft dials now that make going through menus faster than mashing buttons. Best advice I could give you would be to go to Best Buy or somewhere and just play with them. Usually they're really similar between manufacturer lines, but they're kind of universally crappy. I also hate Sony decks.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2013 21:10

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

If they are installed and set up right they're fine. Put it near the amp.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2013 23:54

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:24

Lowclock: Oct 26, 2005

Screwing a ring of MDF or plastic to your door is not a lot of work.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2013 08:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Ask Us About Car Audio, Part 4: Gasp Harder

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