Guidance needed for a complete ice newbie

[Adam]

Hello every1,
correct me if i am wrong on anything,
1/the headunit you get is your music source(cd tuner), if it has an output of 4x45watts does that mean that it will drive 4 speakers(so say 2x13cm speakers in the doorcards) and two 6X9 speakers in the parcel shelf. Will the headunit power this decently to impress my mates. What makes of headunit have the best performance-from reading i think that i have found the best two budget models-Kenwood and Pioneer-am i correct in thinking that they are the best models

2/Then you defo need a headunit with a RCA out, which is a phono type connector that plugs into your amp, the sub is then drove from the amp to provide pure bass,
If the amp has 4channel output would that mean that i could use two channels for the sub and the other 2channels for the 6x9's, i have heard heard about bridging the sub,what does bridging mean?

3/How do you supply power to the sub and what do you need to make the amp switch on when you turn your headunit on,(does the amps volume increase when you increase the headunits volume)

4/Finally, are SPLx components from MotorWorld ne good cus i have seen a complete package of 400Watt 12inch sub(with MDF carpeted Box), a 400 Watt 2 channel amp, and all the needed wires for ?99.99. Which seemed quite a good deal,i would of searched for these topics but all searches come up with no results
thanks for everyone trying to understand my post

[peester]

i'll just deal with question 1. others will do all the others for you mate. go and buy a sony mp40 headunit. its got good power, all the rca's you need has a infra-red remote control, lights up blue and red and at the mo at halfords its ?150 with free fitting. the only downside is in its looks. its ...odd-ish. but some will like it some don't ,as with everything. youre right about the speakers but the impress ya mates thing is the tricky bit. maybe this week they'll be impressed, but next week? they wont. you could bridge the front speakers off the headunit and amp the rear 6x9's. if youre getting a sub though, dont bother with the rear 6x9's. spend all youre money on sorted fronts. skipping to question 4, i can't see all that SPL stuff for 99p being any good no. go halford again and they are doing ?99 JBL 2 channel amp (down from ?150) and ?50 JBL (matching) sub. (down from ?100). get two of each. laffin'. impress youre mates. yes i work for halfords. :lol:

[LANKYPASS]

i with what peester says apart from question 4

splx are cheap but @ the same time they do make do make some good quality subs and amps to power their subs. i know some 1 who has a 350watt splx sub and matching amp in the back of a pug 306. Dam does it thump so i can imagine what 400watt splx sub and amp could do in a nova. In my eyes it would be a very gud investment for a ?100 and will impress ya mates.

hope this helps ya :D :wink:

[Hodgeheg]

1/Yes, the headunit is the Cd/Tuner/MD player e.t.c . I have a 130 quid kendwood one and it does power two front speakers and two rear speakers quite well. Most stereos will be roughly 4x45watt or 4x50 watt, this means that the stereo has an internal amp, either mosfets (on better models) or Transistor amp. These are just names of the components used to make the amp. the stereos internal amplifier provides 4 outputs of lets say 50w RMS. This means it can power 4 speakers, one on each output, providing those speakers do not exceed 50w RMS each, most 6x9's are 200w or 300w or 400w, don't be confused. this is PEAK , not RMS, my sony 3 ways are 300w peak, but they are infact 50w rms, so they run off a stereo. If you start gettin 400w 6x9 speakers, this is wen u need an amp to run them because they'l probably have an RMS recommended wattage of more than 50w. If you wanna know what RMS and peak is. If you have a sound wave, the RMS is the average of the wave, the peak voltage power of the wave is the RMS x √2 (square root of two) this is kinda how they work it out, but as you will realise 50w x square root of two doesn't make 300w. i think this is because your talking about power and not voltage, as this is definetly how you work out volatges.

2/The Amp runs out of the Phonon Style RCA outputs from your stereo. if you think about it this way - Before the signal goes through your internal AMP in your stereo it's also tapped off and runs out of the RCA outputs, so you get an un amped signal, if you put a speaker on it, it would not work (or it'd create a huge impedance n drag the voltage outputted from the internal amp down to make all speakers crap) So You take this unamped singal out of the RCA leads and provide it as the input to your amp. Then you run a subwoofer off the amp, because of the size of a sub it needs alot of Juice to do this, this is why you typically get 1000w subs, remember that's 1000w peak not RMS, it depends on how your amp is rated, you'l only need about 190wRMS to run a 1000w PEAK sub reasonably well. Amps with 2 channels usually have evenly split , like 75w and 75w to make 150w total. You can bridge the outputs and make 150w or use two seperate outputs to make 75w and 75w. AMps with more channels usually have 2 smaller ones, and a bigger one say.

3/The Amp will power the sub. the sub is just a BIG HUGE speaker, and needs a loada power delivered from the amp to make it move. Your amp is connected to your battery, wiring kits will show you how to do this, so wen you start your ignition your amp starts. The amp will have a powr switch on it. As you turn up the volume of your head unit the sub will increase in volume too, because your increasing the size of the unamped signal that runs into the amp (from the rca output) so if you amp is making the signal 10x bigger , and your singal is 2.5v it'd be 25volts, but if you increase the volume of the singal (using head unit) you'd be inputting say 3.5v and getting 35 v out . these Figures are just for illustration puproses, you'd noway near get 2v singal !. The amp makes the signal bigger by a set amount, 10x 20x 30x e.t.c. im not sue about every amp, but on good ones you can change this figure, which is called the "GAIN" so you can control the volume using your amp and your headunit. but the headunit is easier as it's closer to you. It also means that you can make your SUB realllllly loud, by turning up the gain of the amp, but have your stereo run speakers quiter . because they aren't turned up by the amp, they're turned up by the stereo control. But if you run the Gain of the amp tooo high with your stereo volume too high, your signal will clip, this means the top and bottom of the wiggly sign wave wil be cutt off, making it Distorted ! . Usually good amps have an Anti Clipping feature which stops the gain once the wave has started to clip.

4/SPLX are quite good. Good for a beginer. I was tempted and still am to buy splx stuff, as i've yet t buy a sub and amp. They'r probably veyr similar to expensiver stuyff but your not paying for the name. I know that kit in motorworld. SPLX stuff starts to b good wen it's branded with the logo on the sub's cone. That specific amp n sub kit has a kinda budget sub in it. 400w would be ok, i'd recommened looking around, because for 130-140 quid u can get a JBL sub and amp, much better quality and usually more watts.

As for your setup, you can run two doorspeakers and two 6x9's off the head unit. As long as they are up to 50w RMS each. It usually says something like 300w peak power, 50w Rated power. They will be good, but if your after perfection you would amp everything to get the full potental out of each speaker, but that costs more. I have 2 sony 6x9's in the back that are 50w RMS each, and two Front Sony 13cm speakers that are 25w RMS each so i'm using 150w RMS of the 200w stereo power. It works well enuff, but ne more than that n your headunit will struggle


A question, can you split RCA outputs, i.e make 1 output into 2 outputs, as i have only 1 but am wonderin if i could run two amps out of it.

I think that's right, ignore bits u don't understand, because i don't fully undrstand it n i done A level electronics. Don't beat me if im wrong ! :-0
you'l understand it all once u get the speakers n playt about with tjem

[Jules]

Hello every1,
correct me if i am wrong on anything,
1/the headunit you get is your music source(cd tuner), if it has an output of 4x45watts does that mean that it will drive 4 speakers(so say 2x13cm speakers in the doorcards) and two 6X9 speakers in the parcel shelf. Will the headunit power this decently to impress my mates. What makes of headunit have the best performance-from reading i think that i have found the best two budget models-Kenwood and Pioneer-am i correct in thinking that they are the best models

Pretty much spot on, I've had a few Kenwood headunit and I've always found them to give good sound qualty for a reasonable price, they usually come loaded with helpful features aswell.
Wether it'll impress your mates depends on what standards they have but for general everyday use it'll sound OK.


2/Then you defo need a headunit with a RCA out, which is a phono type connector that plugs into your amp, the sub is then drove from the amp to provide pure bass,
If the amp has 4channel output would that mean that i could use two channels for the sub and the other 2channels for the 6x9's, i have heard heard about bridging the sub,what does bridging mean?

Pretty much right again, you don't bridge the sub you bridge the amp. what it mean is that the amp will allow you to join 2 channels into one louder one so you can run a single speaker (sub) from it. Not all amps offer this function but most of the decent brands do.
If you had a 4 channel amp that could be bridged then it'd actually be a 2/3/4 channel amp. I.E you could bridge all 4 channels down to 2 and run 2 subs from it, or, you could bridge one pair of channels and run 2 6x9s and a sub (3 channels), or you could bridge none of them and run 2 pairs of 6x9s off it if you wished.
Also it won't provide 'pure bass' as you put it unless there is some kind of filter on the amp, most bridgeable amps will have a hp/lp filter switch on it, the hp filter means 'high pass' and allows all the high frequencys through and nothing else (Tweaters and some midrange), the lp filter stands for 'low pass' and will only allows the low frequencys through (subs), if your amp doesn't have this then you'll need to purcahse a crossover (active - adjustable. Passive - non adjustable) which will do the same job.


3/How do you supply power to the sub and what do you need to make the amp switch on when you turn your headunit on,(does the amps volume increase when you increase the headunits volume)

To supply the amp (not the sub) you need a constant +12v supply (Normally from the battery but use a inline fuse near to the battery terminal), a -12v which is a earthing point anywhere on the car chassis and a switched +12v which will turn the amp on when the stereo is turned on, most stereos will have a switched +12v lead out of the back of them (It's normally blue).
And yes as you turn up the stereo the amp will get proportantley (spelling - been drinking!!) louder.


4/Finally, are SPLx components from MotorWorld ne good cus i have seen a complete package of 400Watt 12inch sub(with MDF carpeted Box), a 400 Watt 2 channel amp, and all the needed wires for ?99.99. Which seemed quite a good deal,i would of searched for these topics but all searches come up with no results
thanks for everyone trying to understand my post

Generally speaking in car audio you get what you pay for, SPLX stuff is cheap so don't expect too much, they might be just what you're looking for however in which case they would seem to be a good purchase, personally I'd look for something a bit better but I've had a decent sounding stereo (if not the loudest) since I've been driving so you could say I've been spoiled, but we all have to start somewhere.

[Adam]

Just what i needed
Thanks for all the help guys,cheers