Car Audio Question (help from the gurus)

[prochobo]

I'm in the market for some car audio and I was looking through some local ads and found this. It was 2 15" Rockford Fosgate P1 and a Sony Xplode 800 watt amp for $200. Never been driven hard, good condition, never been in a car so it seems like a good deal to me. BTW they do have their own boxes and they're going in a 96 Honda Accord.

I'm pretty new to the car audio scene and was wondering if there were any good informational sites that would tell me what I would need to do to install those if I were to get them and what I would need. For example, would my deck be limiting the power of the subs?

 

[prochobo]

Help?

 

[Howard]

Should be fine as a beginning setup. Be careful not to drive them too hard - they're sure to distort, especially if the boxes are poorly designed.

 

[quakefiend420]

why does everyone always want to start with bass?

first you will want to replace your factory head unit...don't skimp on your head unit, it's a very big part of how everything will sound later

replace factory mains with something better...then after you get all that taken care of, then you can go for bass...nothing worse than some idiot using line level inputs to power 2 15's with a 2000w amp with 8 guage wire, of course , running off the factory head unit and factory speakers, distorting like crazy and headlights dimming to 8v or so

also don't cheap out on your wiring, get decent speaker wire, a good fuseable link, and decent guage power and ground wire

search google for tutorials, i'm sure you will find something that will give you a good place to start

just don't be that loser i described above

 

[jtvang125]

Are you sure you want 15's? Really, they are huge and will most likely take up your whole trunk. If you just want some bass with your music, 2 10" would sound alot cleaner and won't take a monster amp to drive.

If you insist on getting them, you definitely need a amp kit. Wire the positive cable straight from the battery to your amp, the negative to the bare metal of the car and RCA cables from the deck to the amp. Then from amp to the speakers.

 

[bmacd]

i had two 15s in my explorer. I'm officially part deaf. Don't do it...i promise a single 12 will hit hard enough for you.

-=bmacd=-

 

[Dr. Detroit]

1 12" and a good 400w RMS amp.

RF lower line stuff is junk and Sony XPLODE is crap as well.

Get a ADIRE sub and a Blaupunk PA2150 amp. Box should be sealed and can be had at any swapmeet for $30. Ensure you get the one with internal dimensions best suited to your sub.

I definitely agree to get a nice aftermarket head unti and some decent door speakers. Even $20 cheapos are an upgrade over stock!

 

[prochobo]

Ok thanks guys. I definetely am NOT one of those guys with the jacked up setup and believe me, I've heard my fair share of them. Right now the cars got an old Pioneer CD player (no identifiers of the face, just says 4x45w) and stock speakers. I will replace those since they do get distorted at very low levels.

I was thinking that the Xplode was crap and now I know. What are some good parts and can a $200/sub $200 setup be done while sounding decent? I will be doing everything myself so leave out the cost of that. . . Thanks!

 

[prochobo]

Oh yeah, here are my options of equiptment (I want to buy locally):

Kenwood Amp 600watt 2 channel with 2x 12" subs Pioneer and JBL - $200
2x 12" Kenwood - $125
2x 12" Inifinity - $125
3x 10" JLs - $125

How are the prices on those?

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: prochobo
Oh yeah, here are my options of equiptment (I want to buy locally):

Kenwood Amp 600watt 2 channel with 2x 12" subs Pioneer and JBL - $200
2x 12" Kenwood - $125
2x 12" Inifinity - $125
3x 10" JLs - $125

How are the prices on those?

Those brands don't make just one model, you know.

 

[EyeMWing]

Start with your damn mains. Bass later. Boyracer.