The Ten Commandments for Car Audio Noobs

[*sic 1]

courtesy of BlackRazor of NZHondas, hes a good dude, so listen up.

1) Quality is ALWAYS better than quantity. Buy as little product as you need, at as good a quality as you can afford.

2) Wattages have nothing to do with how good something will sound. Do not base your buying decisions off watt ratings. They mean very little.

3) Dont beleive marketing hype unless they have hard facts to back it up.

4) Rear speakers are the lowest priority part of a system. Buy them last, if at all.

5) Ignore any wattage rating that doesnt have 'RMS' after it.

6) The most important part of any bass system is the sub box. Do not scrimp on it.

7) Never use the factory power and ground when wiring up a headunit, and do not twist wires to make a connection : either crimp, solder, or do both.

8 ) Always properly fuse all power wires. Cooked human is not a nice smell.

9) There will always be a cheaper deal around, but correct advice is invaluable : if you find a salesperson who gives you really good advice, support him and buy from him, he'll save you countless money in the long run.

10) Front speakers are the most important part of system. If you have to spend money anywhere, do it on these.

[bravo 35]

Good, sound advice.

Excuse the pun. :thumb:

[Surge 1]

Respect that man, He also has things to say about 6x9's..... See if you can dig up some of his gripes with them - they'll put you off ever using them.

[Gus 5]

and jesus said.....gotta pin a mother f**ker

[madnes 0]

Ill second that, i wasted a bit of money on my sounds.. I had over 1000 watts powering two 12", i have all the upgraded speakers and tweaters... but to be honest its not really worth it.. It sound awesome but all you need is ampd front speakers and 1 sub sounds fine... you can go as hard as you want but youll probly regrett it later on.. i did neways

Just stick to quality and add a little bit off bass :banghead: :mosh:

[*sic 1]

depends on what you are looking for spl or sq.

personally yes sq is a better path but you can go for all out spl and still have a good standard of sq, if you invest in some nice components up front

[325_driver 422]

ive been told not to trust mad soundz ? and the deals theyll throw at you, what do you say to that, because ive heard some pretty wierd stuff about products people buy off them new and things go wrong, and 350W speakers get tested and end up being 15W rms lol. so yea am i better off going to trademe or a parrallel import ? what are some brands i should look out for. im not too keen in the 6#9's those are the least of ma worries, e.g. front speakers and nice amp to go with them ? advice ? lol from the man him self

[*sic 1]

just do as much research as you can before making any desisions.

if it seems to good to be true it pretty much ALWAYS is.

ask

ask

ask

ask.

mad soundz are good, but if your unsure about a product research it on the net first, ask around, hear every product first.

[*sic 1]

products people buy off them new and things go wrong, and 350W speakers get tested and end up being 15W rms lol.

firstly if things go wrong you are always covered by the consumer gaurantees act..

read rule number 2 and 5, and you wont have any trouble with skewed ratings anymore..

components are the integral part of your system, spend a healthy amount here for the best quality stuff you can get.

avoid 6x9's like they are head cancer.

and remember to research and ask ask ask.

[nz320i 0]

its so true, i just put a sub and amp it and it hardly makes a diff, amping front speakers wouldve been the way to go but it sounds good when the boot is open

[*sic 1]

you have the wrong set up if a sub doesnt make a difference.

look at the positioning of it, the right amp for it? enclosure? sound deadening?

[Jerman 0]

I couldn't agree more with everything said above.

for many years i have run a pair of fusion jonah lomu components in the front (13cm) run off a 100x2 rms amp, a pair of 2 way 13cm 2 ways in the rear tray (fusion again, about 35w rms run off the head unit amp) and a sony sub run off a 500w rms amp.

a fairly limited setup by any means but it fits perfectly in the factory mountings and sounds really quite fantastic.

from my own experiences i cannot overemphasize the need for a good power supply to your amplifiers.

luckily my e30 has the battery in the boot making wiring a doddle with a phat piece of four gauge.

think about your car stereo like this; if you were to go to a concert there arent any speakers behind you are there? your car should be no different. the rears should solely be there for some fill.

[pureboiracer 0]

what this guy said is very tru. the most important part of your system exept for the front speakers is the head unit without a good one your going to get nowear. iv got a 1985 320i and im just running amped fronts and a 12" i took the rears out to help the base circulate. and it sounds amazing. the headunit cost me $600 and the rest of the system cost me around $200 and it easily out performes some of these $2000 ones

[QuickSilver 0]

thats awesome advice, can I add ONE thing if im allowed.. Be careful with Multimetres and Tester lights, alot of cars easily blow fuses abd can damage wiring with these, ESPECIALLY more modern cars! I have made some mistakes like this so i thought id post that up,

[Five Star 0]

Also, you won't need a cap. Just upgrade your grounds. Far cheaper too

[pjay 8]

Also, you won't need a cap. Just upgrade your grounds. Far cheaper too

Sure

OR, you could upgrade your battery instead.. Upgrading your grounds is one of the best things you can do, but unrelated to capacitors.

Flux capacitors are the best

[Five Star 0]

Most headlight dimming due to subs is usually because of insufficient grounding. Upgrading the battery ground and the amp ground generally solve this (plus, it's cheap as chips). After grounding upgrading the power wire to the amp and alt is the next step if problems are still there. Next is battery. After that you're either looking at an upgraded alt, a cap or living with it..

If SPLers don't need caps, you don't.

I've been on MEA far too long...

[pjay 8]

Mmm i SPL'd last year while it was all the rave and i know i certainly didn't need a cap.

Grounds from the battery should go without saying. IE, if your running a 0guage power wire to your amp, you dont leave the standard 8guage ground from the battery to the chassis. Thats just silly. It should be equal to or greater than your power feed.

I read into your comment of upgrading the grounds wrong. Apologies mea guru, i am only a humble nzice/sqnz fanboy

[Five Star 0]

NZice aint too bad. Well, for the deals anyway

Anyway I figure I might add a little more.

Sound deadening is the way to go. Although BMWs have a lot of this sorted. Go for the doors, and work your way up. Dynamat extreme is known to be the best for price and you should be able to pick up a bulk-pack for $300-350.

Sub-bass isn't truely non-directional. Just far, far harder to tell than other frequencies. The more your fronts can play bass (3 three ways, even) the better.

Increasing mid-bass will change your system completely. If you're too cheap to sound deaden your doors, just block the holes in the door with mdf cut (and painted) to size and a lot of tape. It'll make a world of difference.

Oh, and never block off the drain holes in the bottom of your door. Unless you like rust...

I'll put up tutorial links for these later.