# recommendations? Please check it out/



## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

Alright. I decided this december, I would treat myself to an audio setup (as a little break from the performance side). 

I've been a bit upset at my paper cones lately, and this guy's lookin for some nice sound to accompany my trips to lowes. 
I'm not by far lookin for the loudest bass in the neighborhood, hell, I'm not even looking for subs just yet. All I want is some clean sound.

Here's what I have so far:
I want some good sound imaging, and from what I've heard, tweeters in the front always make a more realistic setting of sound (as if the music's coming from in front of you). I also want to do infinity kappa series all around. I figure I'll start with some 2-piece component speakers in the front. Infinity Kappa 60.5CS should do nicely.

for the rear, I've been a bit fearful of 2-way speakers; I dont really see the use of another set of tweeters, especially in the back. I really want something that just has the mid or woofer in a 6 1/2 form. ANY SUGGESTIONS??? If I go with 2 way I'll do the Infinity Kappa 62.5i.

now. Once again, i want a clean sound, so I want to do a seperate amp as well. ANY RECOMMENDATIONS ON BRANDS/MODELS? I'm thinkin a 4-ch 300-400watt amp would be plenty.

since I'm a DIY kinda guy and I'm also doin an external amp, I figure I'm gonna tear out the stock wires and start clean. what gauge/type of wires should I use to run to each speaker? What gauge wire to power the amp?

I will later be expanding to fit another amp and some subs (I'll think about that later on). 

Anything else I should know?


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

oh yeah, I forgot to mention. My source unit has 2 RCA pre-outs. I shouldn't need a crossover at all.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2002)

sounds good, you could get some nice rockford 6.5's, it's like 150 bucks for a pair and the tweeter is seperated from the mid woofer, but it might be a waste to just throw away the tweeter though. I would say for the bass though if you want some subs, since i know that you don't want a crapload of bass shakin your whole car to bits like i do, well, i would say go for a 12" sealed box, and a sub that can hit pretty low, you can download bass tests that go down a step every other beat, it's good to test it all out too, but uhh, i would say go for a pioneer 12" 450-watt, just because of the fact that i haven't heard anything bad about them, and i know they can hit pretty low, and i would say go with a 200-300 watt amp to go to that, 160 even since they are rated at 160RMS, but yea, that's just my opinion. IM me if you wanna hear more, hehe. peaceasy man


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2002)

oh and one thing, for your 2 RCA preouts, you won't need a crossover for the mids or highs, but if you want bass you'll of course need a crossover, but with a newer amp, they are almost always built with a bass crossover, just another 2 cents. laterz


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2002)

DA5785 said:


> *sounds good, you could get some nice rockford 6.5's, it's like 150 bucks for a pair and the tweeter is seperated from the mid woofer, but it might be a waste to just throw away the tweeter though. I would say for the bass though if you want some subs, since i know that you don't want a crapload of bass shakin your whole car to bits like i do, well, i would say go for a 12" sealed box, and a sub that can hit pretty low, you can download bass tests that go down a step every other beat, it's good to test it all out too, but uhh, i would say go for a pioneer 12" 450-watt, just because of the fact that i haven't heard anything bad about them, and i know they can hit pretty low, and i would say go with a 200-300 watt amp to go to that, 160 even since they are rated at 160RMS, but yea, that's just my opinion. IM me if you wanna hear more, hehe. peaceasy man *


Pioneer PREMIER 10" sub + 62.5 watts = smoke... bad juju... 

Pioneer subs are the devil... the trunk of my Corolla STILL smells like a toasted sub after many carpet cleanings... anyways, enough with that... 

My personal favorite for subs is Kicker, I have a single 10" DVC 2-ohm Kicker CompVR running bridged mono from a RF 250a2... and it fills my B13 quite nicely...


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## cranium (Oct 8, 2002)

i think you are on the right track with what you want. of course everyone is going to have there opinion, and mine is to get eclipse. 

i have NO personal experiance with infinity so i will have little to say other than hear thay are very nice.

seperates for the front is a wonderful idea, coaxails for the rear will be more than ok. a good 4-channel amp with seperate gians for ch. 1-2 and 3-4 so that you can run a lower gain to the rear for proper imaging. also with imaging, kick panels may be a good idea(makes speakers more equal-distant to your ears).

as far as the brand of the amp, like i said i am partial to eclipse. since i have a thing about keeping the different brand names of equipment in my car down, i run eclipse (at least in my 96 maxima), thats why i like eclipse they make all aspects of the system(componet wise). i have an eclipse 85x4 amp for my mids and tweets in my sentra(2 pair 5.25"pioneer seperates and 2 pair 6.5 polk seperates) at 2 ohms and i is a wonderful amount of power.

and now to wire. i feel that you will get a wide variety of opinions on this matter. my opinion is that get 4 gauge for the amps, now you may have alot of people disagree with me BUT by the sound of what you are wanting you probably will not exceed more that 600watt so you should be just fine. just remember the cost of 1/0 gauge wire, around here 4guage is about $2-$2.50 a ft and 1/0 will cost upward of $5-$8 a ft. the gain with 1/0 is marginal for your application, just get 4gauge.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

I could use some more opinions. Any more recommendations on amps and such. 

BTW, does infinity make any coaxial speakers in the kappa line? that's what I'm lookin for in the back.

I really want to fo infinity speakers all around. I don't mind putting in different brand amps and subs, as long as it's a nice setup.


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## nismosilvias14 (Oct 12, 2002)

I have infinity kappa components in front and sony 6x9 in back and they sound beautiful with my sony deck with DSO on. Im gonna replace my sony 6x9 with infinity 6x9. For you, you can get infinity 6 3/4 for the rear and its like 120 on ebay? On an amp i say for the value, go with JBL. If you want check out ebay from time to time and look for infinity kappa 255a amp. Those are some real nice amps with dual powersupply. BTW, Infinity and JBL are both divisions of Harman Kardon.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

nismosilvias14 said:


> *I have infinity kappa components in front and sony 6x9 in back and they sound beautiful with my sony deck with DSO on. *


I don't really feel like cutting out 6x9 holes , but ounds pretty nice, especially when you get the infinities. I'm not a big fan of sony. 


nismosilvias14 said:


> *you can get infinity 6 3/4 for the rear and its like 120 on ebay?*


yeah, that's basically what I want to do. do they have any coaxials in that size (kappa series)?


nismosilvias14 said:


> *If you want check out ebay from time to time and look for infinity kappa 255a amp. Those are some real nice amps with dual powersupply. *


I wasn't sure if they had amps or not. I may get that. how many watts is that particular amp?


nismosilvias14 said:


> *BTW, Infinity and JBL are both divisions of Harman Kardon. *


 sweet, I'm a big fan of Harman/Kardon. I have alot of products at my house; best stuff you can get.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

hey, I was looking up the infinity 255A. It looks nice and all, but it's only 200W total and it's HUGE. Any other model #s that would be a bit closer to 300-400W?


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

hey, anything look good on the JBL 80.4 amp?


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## mirrortints (Aug 15, 2002)

You should choose the jbl, I've heard that they are good, and don't break unless you want to. I would stick with the jbl's cause infinity only made amps for a few years, and their amps that you can buy are older amps. You could get the infinity amp, but do you really want one since they only made it for a few years? Sounds like something was wrong with them so they decided to stop making them. Stick with jbl, if you want power, go for audiobahn. Makes awesome amps, don't buy their subs tho, wouldn't trust their subs.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

any model #s on the JBLs or Autobahns? I'll be doing some searchin myself, but does anyone know any specific models that are 4 channels and 3-400Watts?

also, the JBL 80.4 says that it runs:
80x4 watts @ 2ohms
40x4 watts @ 4ohms
the speakers I'm getting run at 4 ohms, so is there any way to get it to run 80 watts to each speaker? I was reading a bit on the ohms thread but I still have very little knowledge about the ohm and such when it comes to audio.


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## mirrortints (Aug 15, 2002)

Definately, you can get 80 watts to each. Since it says 80x4 @ 2ohms, you can wire the speakers in parallel, go to jlaudio's or rockford fosgates website, they will show you exactly which wires go to which. You basically have to wire one channel to 2 speakers, and the other channel to two speakers, therefore only utilizing 2 channels, and could use the extra 2 channels, if you got the 4-channel and use it for future subs, etc. 

I have the audiobahn a4601q amp and it works great! It's 75x4 @ 4 ohms RMS. 

Or you can always get a a2401 and parallel the speaker wires to get that 2-ohm load.

The great thing about audiobahn is that they don't get hot. The built-in cooling fans work great!!!


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

all ssounds good, but if I run 2 speakers in parallel to achieve 80 watts, wouldn't that just mean that each speaker is only getting 40watts?


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## nismosilvias14 (Oct 12, 2002)

The infinity kappa 255a is a 50X4 + 200X1 5 channel amp with dual power supply. Mirror tint said something wrong with them? If you do your research you'll find that infinity amps were the benchmark. If your looking for a sub amp infinity beta digital 300 (on ebay now for 150) runs 1000x1 at 4 ohms and the amp is 1 ohm stable. Im not trying to be an infinity freak but i think most people arent giving you enough information. If your running a mild system, a 40X4 amp is good enough. Thats should be the RMS since most head units run 15 rms and u can underpower distort and blow speakers like that. With an amp you run 40 rms and that should be enough for your application. To what mirrortints said about the audiobahn, any amp will not get hot if you set up your system right even a POS 60 dollar jensen one. Another amp to consider are clarions. They have come out with some great amps as well close to the JBL prices.


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## cranium (Oct 8, 2002)

> *all ssounds good, but if I run 2 speakers in parallel to achieve 80 watts, wouldn't that just mean that each speaker is only getting 40watts?*


that is correct and only assuming that the amp is 100% efficent(which to my understanding, most are not)


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

hey, I think I decided on an amp....
I was at audiobahn's webpage and I found a pretty sweet looking amp. It's the A4601Q; Pretty much has 75watts x 4ch @4ohms. Sounds like the perfect amp for my application.

now, lastly, what should I do about the back? Are there any 6 1/2 kappa coaxials or should I go for the 2-way?


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## nismosilvias14 (Oct 12, 2002)

http://www.infinitysystems.com/caraudio/products.asp


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## bickmade (Aug 16, 2002)

Let me know what kind of sound your looking for and what your willing to spend. I have a good amount of experience with sound. Not the uber, but some knowledge.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

testing...........


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

sorry, I had to test and see whether my posts are working (I couldn't post b4)

here's what I wanted to say:

I think I'm gonna do 2-ways in the rear. That should give me a full range for the entire interior. I want to have all infinitys in the car.

here's the setup I'm gonna do:
Front: Infinity Kappa 605cs 2pc component
Rear: Infinity Kappa 62.5i 2-way
Amp: Audiobahn A4601Q 75x4 @ 4ohms

thanks for all the help, BTW what gauge wire should I use for speakers and power?


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## Honest Bob (Nov 7, 2002)

You can use 8 guage wire, or you can go over kill and go for 4 guage. With the 4 guage you can upgrade and dont have to worry about running new wire. 12 - 14 guage for the speaker wire.

Personnally I would go with a JBL or a US Acoustic amp. The USX4085 is 85X4 and can be found for $174.99 at http://www.thezeb.com/caraudio/us_acoustics.html. They are nice amps too. I just woulndt trust Audiobahn...


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

hmmmm, I think the power inlets support 4-6gauge wire. what I might do is run a thicker wire from the battery, and split it into 2 smaller wires (one for my new amp, and one for my future Sub woofer amp).

As for the speaker wires, I'm redoing the whole thing. I'm yanking them stock wires outta there, first chance I get. Is there any difference on speaker wire, or do I just go in and ask for "speaker wire"?


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## cranium (Oct 8, 2002)

just ask for "speaker wire". unless you are going for ultamate in sound quality, most people will not hear the diff.

also please DON'T forget to put an inline fuse on the power wire aprox. 12" from the battery. otherwise if something shorts for some reason (car accident, ect........) it won't be fun. (i know)


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

oh yeah, definately a fuse. BTW, how many amps should the fuse be? (will be powering this 300watt amp, plus a 600-1000watt amp in the future) Also, I plan on adding a 1/2 - 1 fared capacitor when I get the subs.


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## cranium (Oct 8, 2002)

for now, once you find out how much your amp draws at maximum, put a fuse that is ever-so-slightly higher so if you reach that maximum then you won't have any problems. later when you put another amp you will have to put a new fuse.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

ic, so I guess I need to test it with some kind of amp meter (not sure what I'm supposed to use), then crank the volume....


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## cranium (Oct 8, 2002)

most amps in the instruction will list a number of specs for the amp and that list "should" include max amp draw.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

ic


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## wes (Apr 30, 2002)

*More input.*

You should pay the MOST attention to your front stage. Get the best front speakers and amp you can afford. When was the last time you went to a concert and the speakers were behind you? 

Anyway, EVERYONE that heard my car with the kicks in place was amazed at the sound, they were even more amazed when I told them I didn;t even have rear speakers! 

ALso, get the most power you can for your front stage. The classis misnomer is that you only need 1/2 the power for your front stage that you do for your subs. This is false. The transients that occour within the frequency range that is handeled by the front speakers are harder to reproduce than the frequencies a sub reproduces. I fed my front stage about 250 watts a side. Not that you need that much power, but believe me you will be SURPRISED as heel when you hear a properly powered and setup front stage.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

that's true. that's why I'm putting nice 2 piece components in the front. it's not entirelly true that you need alot of power in the front. What you need is higher, more defined, frequencies.

Tweeters should ALWAYS go in the front and lower (less defined) tones should be all around. The sound will always seem like it's coming from the tweeter area.


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## wes (Apr 30, 2002)

*HUH*

How can you get higher, more defined frequencies? Speakers play within their limits, crossover points and placement has a LOT to do with what your hearing up front. While it's not required that you have a LOT of power for the front, it will certainly make a HUGE difference! 

That's correct, 90% of the cars that compete that use rearfill have the rear speakers bandpassed. They do this to try and mimic a live venue. They try to recreate the effect of sound passing you in a concert hall and the what is heard when the sound reflects off the rear wall and comes back past you. The higher and lower frequencies roll off and what comes back is basically the midrange information.


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## Ninety-Nine SE-L (May 5, 2002)

well, I may not have described it too well, but I know that the sound tends to come from the tweeter area.


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## wes (Apr 30, 2002)

You right those frequencies tend to be VERY directional whereas lower frequencies cannot be localized as easily.


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## cranium (Oct 8, 2002)

> *ALso, get the most power you can for your front stage. The classis misnomer is that you only need 1/2 the power for your front stage that you do for your subs. This is false. The transients that occour within the frequency range that is handeled by the front speakers are harder to reproduce than the frequencies a sub reproduces. I fed my front stage about 250 watts a side. Not that you need that much power, but believe me you will be SURPRISED as heel when you hear a properly powered and setup front stage.*


this is very true when i had my system in my car, i had an eclipse 85x4 running a pair of 5.25 pioneer seperates and a pair of polk 6.5 seperates in the kickplates. i had the same amount of speakers in the rear but i turned the gain down for proper rearfill. for my subs i had a pair of 10" JL W3 in a custom box running 50watts per coil. that combo was simply awesome for the amount of power i was running. 

remember (kinda a fast and furious cliche') it's not how much power you run but how it set up. 

i heard an old IASCA system in the 50watt and under class blow away anything i had heard before (running an old Orion 225 HCCA loaded to 1/2 ohm!, which they are stable at. that is 16 4ohm speakers running at 25watts per speaker off of one amp).


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## superfro86 (May 15, 2002)

damn wes you running 250 to each channel? what components do you have? 8" midbass/midrange and a 3" tweeter?? it is true that if you send a substantial amount of power to your front stage you will get better sound since youre components don't have to "strain" as much i to produce the frequencies. most good components can take well more than there rms rating if they are crossed over right. oh yeah it is a myth that underpowering speakers blow them. thats like saying you can't drive a 1000 hp skyline slow (not that you would want to) what blows them is if you try to compensate for this underpowering by turning up the gains way up and in the case of a HU turn the sound processing features up to much and clip the amp. when a amp clips it produces for a split second around 3 to 4 more power than it normally would normally. if you were to do something like try to run a DD 1915 off of a small amp like a jbl 300.1 and clip the amp it wouldn't even damage the sub since its so severly underpowered.


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## Equivocal (Sep 6, 2002)

Hey it seemes like you guys know what your talking about, let me ask a question. I just got Inifinty 62.5i Reference speakers all around. since it was a good deal. when I crank it up to 30, my normal listening volume. the bass was a little distorted. and it kinda drowned out some of the mids. Is this a power problem? do these speakers need a better power source? I just turned the bass to like -2 off the settings on my cd player. To help with the problem.


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## wes (Apr 30, 2002)

*YES*

I was running 250 watts to a 7" mid-bass and a 1" tweeter. The main thing about lots of power is headroom. This is important lots of musical passages have large transient changes. When the recording goes from a lower volume to a higher volume the amplifier needs to immediately respond to that increase in power. 

YEs you would benefit from a seperate power amp. Think about the size of a seperate amp. Per se look at a 50 x 2 Alpine amp. Think about it's size, now think about a headunit that says it has a 100 watt amp built in. Now you see the difference.


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## Honest Bob (Nov 7, 2002)

*Re: YES*



wes said:


> *YEs you would benefit from a seperate power amp. Think about the size of a seperate amp. Per se look at a 50 x 2 Alpine amp. Think about it's size, now think about a headunit that says it has a 100 watt amp built in. Now you see the difference. *


Exactly what I try and tell people around here. Do they get it? Hell no  

At home, I AM surrounded by idiots


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## Guest (Dec 25, 2002)

I just say get mb quarts all the way around and a 12 inch jl w6 or w7 and some rockford amps and call it a day. Nah j/k, the setup you have is pretty good if it is just for the ride and not to go and compete and stuff like all the others out there. Wait a minute I am one of those others(oh well). You can pm me if any questions about quality of speakers, there are just some crappy ones out there-the kappas are good for just the ride and thats what everyone should go for unless they are competing. The amps don't need to be perfect but you do just need a reliable one to run the system you are running and make sure it is all hooked up right, b/c there are certain ways to put the wires to make subs sound different-but you are probably not looking at subs right now as I feel stupid for replying anyway.For just the ride I had a 200 kenwood watt amp running my 2 w6's and a 200 kenwood watt amp running my mids and highs and they hit harder than most of my friends setups but then I went loco and went for top of the line to compete. anyways peace


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