Here's the setup [lots of good audio principles]

[lpugfan2004]

Should i leave it bridged to both subs or should i hook each sub up separately

And when it stops raining around here im going to get to work on all this

if you have time could u colaborate all the advice into one step by step advice on how i should do this

~Matt

[MartinGouda]

subs should be connected individually...i am not going to simplfy cause you should really be reading this and memorizing it... learning what i teach you and putting it into use makes you a better person in the sence that you will be able to teach those around you what you have learnt.

[lpugfan2004]

Ok ill take that as advice as well

And is there anywhere else i can get the street wires from without ordering them off the internet?

Thanks

~Matt

[lpugfan2004]

Hasnt rained all day so imm go and start on what i can right now

first thing im going to reroute the audio wires to the other side of the car and do the braiding you suggested, then once that is done i will run them through the car im going to rearange things in trunk so that the box will fit better then im going to radio shack and im going to find a 2 guage wire for my ground wire because right now it is 4 guage should i still replace it? what about my REM wire its tiny should it be that small? from there ill read back

[lpugfan2004]

forget about the REM i figured that out it cant be any bigger, ok that wire was hooked into the power antenna and the wire was not disconnected so the power antenna wire was trying to push the antenna and running the amp... i know that cant be what it should be, ive got the audio wires out and im beginning to braid them atm and when i get done with that im going to radio shack to get a fuse which is hooked to the battery which i blew somehow..... and getting the 2 guage wire...

~Matt

[Fullcontact]

Hats off to you Martin those are some great tips for car audio. This should be a "Sticky" on this board somewhere.

[lpugfan2004]

Yes Sticky It!!!!

[lpugfan2004]

OK martin i did everything u told me it doesnt cut off atm and when i hook it up in series briged they hit harder than they do individually... should this be? and is it ok to leave it like that?

Thanks

~Matt

[MartinGouda]

ok the blown fuse is a whole new element so i'll talk about that in a second.

the remote wire should be as small as you can find, a single strand of wire is all that is needed to send that so don't go looking for anything more than 18g for that.

the wire seperation will clean up your audio but it most probably will not change your on off issue. do it all in the intrest of doing it right but don't concern your self with it until you solve your problem.

the grounds being the same size as the power will work but as i said larger grounds are ALWAYS a good idea. your amp is like a club for watts instead of people and if you have people coming in faster than they leave eventualy it's going to get all hot and packed in there. upping your grounds will not only protect your investment but it will be the single most important thing you can do if you start swapping amps and subs in the persuit of the perfect sound (and if you are still reading this you will, trust me). grounding is really one of the easiest ways to make sure that the system is solid and if i were asked where to spend the most time on a car it's picking your ground points (seat belt areas are usualy best as they are typicaly solid metal conected to the frame) and making sure that conductivity couldnt be better.

(mine were done in the trunk by sanding both the top and bottom of the sheet metal beside the frame, then putting gold plated copper washers on wither side with a 24k gold 2 gauge battery ring on a 17mm copper bolt and nut. my lead is about 2 feet long and is connected directly to the amp with it's own screw down's by taking the wire and stripping 2 cms then using a flat head screw driver to split the wire into two halfs and using a pair o pliers to twist them into a fork of sorts.... you can twist with your fingers but your hands will eventually lose their finger prints and become too rough to touch women with, use pliers.



so you know my amp looks like this and this way of connecting really only works well with this style of amp but your amp shares this style with mine so if i were you i would lose all those pointless and over priced 24gp'd forks and do what i do while paying close attention to making sure that every little fiber of wire is in the twist and that they will not touch any of the other terminals on the amp.) the reason. well right now you are asking the power to jump from the wire to the connecter to the terminal. this can be simplified to having it move from the wire to the terminal and that will increase flow with out a doubt. for reasons still unknown to man electricity has decition making properities. it's as if it can choose to flow or not and choose to jump from one thing to another and the more things you "ask it to do" the more that it will hesitate to do it. treat your flow like an intelegent person that has to make a trip you want them to make and do your best to make that voyage as simple and painless as you can and you'll see gains all over the place.

now back to the fuse issue. dude, i can't believe this hadn't come up earilyer. this is probably your one and only problem that lead to you not haveing the power you want. on alot of amps like yours when the fuse goes it will try to draw power via the remote cable but will not be able to pull enough to keep it on with much volume at all. the lack of a power conection could be the single reason that you are having all these issues. sorry i didn't mention it before but i assumed (my bad) that you would have checked the fuse first and formost on the amp, deck and under the hood (or where ever you put yours on the power line) personaly i keep my power fuses out of the engine bay. although it's standard practice a fuse works by being a simple thin peice of metal that can only hold so much conductivity before being burnt out. but the properties of the metal can chane significantly with heat and the motor can make it unreliable. mr gouda's suggestion here. reverse the cable, fuse in the trunk and long end to the battery. this will take the fuse outta the heat and ensure more protection for your equipment. also a blown fuse can usualy be easier to find in the trunk than under a hood on a cold dark night. and you can store a few spare fuses in the spare tire well. i am using DBLINK wafer fuses but really it's ok to use anything for your needs that will be matched to your amp.

i suggest something like this


they are called AGU fuses, they are very well designed and require no tools to swap a burnt out one, the connection is made via a pressure fitted end on either side of the fuse and they are a dime a dozen and can be found everywhere. they are not as heavy as a wafer style connection but more than you will need for the 6-700 watts you will be pushing. until you need 100 am's wafer fuses are over kill and will actually be too conductive to protect anything on your system. even 40 am wafers have often tested to 50-60 am and really they don't do anything till you hit the am's that are out of agu fuses range. which as far as i have seen is 60 am's which is also exactly where wafer (ANL fuses) fuses get to be predictible.

so to recap for 60 or less use AGU for 60 or more rock ANL

oh side note
5x AGU fuses = $6.50
1x ANL fuse = $6.50

got me?
good.



ok so back to you again, like i said this fuse alone could have been your problem but replacing it won't help if it keeps blowing so we need to know why she blew right?

fuses often blow for 2 main reasons, you are asking too much of them or you arn't letting them do their job.

think of the power in your system as water again here. and the whole system is steel piping other than the fuse which is a thin plastic pipe. the two things that can break that thin plastic would be simple. too much flow too fast in that area will blow it easily, this would come from a 800 w amp running on a 5am fuse or something. the fuse needs to be similar to the fuse on the amp in am rating. second thing would be thinking of your ground like a tap at the end of the water line. it lets the water pressure pour out the other end. if it's the same size as the rest of the piping then there will be backpressure but ver little, if it's smaller or connected poorly then it will create alot of back pressure and blow out the plastic too. this is the single most imporant reason i have been saying up size your grounds. increasing them will give your excess power some where to go.

when i am building a system i use the "water theroy" alot. flow is everything and if you have it all built in the intrest of freeflowing electicity you will have a system that sounds better than the exact same components in a poorly planed wiring enviroment.

as for doing everything i said... good show man, you make me feel like my writing isn't pointlessly wasted on deaf ears and that will build your rep here fast.

as for series... every system behaves diffrently and diffrent setups will produce diffrent sounds. bridged they should hit harder but you will lose sound quality at a higer level. when you have a better deck i would go individualy wired but with the deck you have pushing signal back there and it's lack of tuning options i would keep em bridged if you want the pounding bass. as far it being dangerous or anything... nah, that amp is fine like that. but if you want really strong bass then heres what you need to do.

AMP L+ to speaker L+
speaker L- to speaker R+
speaker R- to amp R-

strining them like this should create a much more synchronize setup that will definatly pund harder in a dual box with shared air. my box is actually a dual 12" box but the speakers are both indivdualy ported with a divider inside the box so the movement of one dosn't effect the other. if this were not the way they were mounted then if one stroked in while the other stroked out then i would be moving no air at all as they would be creating equal reactions for every action and canceling each other out. with my love of fidelity my setup means that i can have two speakers pounding independently at faster rates than one

lets say a speaker can hit it's low note once a second (that isn't a real number usualy they can hit 100's of times a second if needed but we'll use this to make sence of it all) in your system setup you can hit like this

------L---R
1.0--X---X
1.5--------
2.0--X---X
2.5--------
3.0--X---X
3.5--------

while mine can do this

------L----R
1.0-------X
1.5--X-----
2.0-------X
2.5--X-----
3.0-------X
3.5--X-----

see how it works? mine can get more coverage and create a more full sound but yours will be twice as powerfull on it's strokes.

some times the way i talk sound's kinda strange, telling you to treat power like people and water but really if you use those styles of thinking it will help you so really don't knock it till you try it. then again, last night's party may have something to do with this askewed view of things too. meh...

btw, congrats on a system that's working with out changing parts with friends, now go borrow that amp and see which you like more and give back the one you don't want.

[MartinGouda]

Originally Posted by Fullcontact

Hats off to you Martin those are some great tips for car audio. This should be a "Sticky" on this board somewhere.

thanks man,


see this button under my name? hit it and show me the love that way

[Ratko]

i have to draw you

[MartinGouda]

Originally Posted by Ratko

i have to draw you

Your why cave men painted on walls...

[lpugfan2004]

I have that same fuse holder in there, it is in the engine bay which i will move it but not right now i dont have the time to rewire that and in the beginning i had a 60AM AGU

i had no clue the fuse blew until i went into my engine bay after the ground touched the power and it sparked and i touched them again and it did not spark so i figured that it had blown which it was, could this have caused it?

thats the way i have speakers hooked up and the box you discribed as each sub having a different place like a wooden piece in between them thats what i have

The only thingi have left to do is make all the wires look nicely put and screw the amp to the box so that it doesnt move around after i do this i will get pictures..... then comes the new deck

And im going to Radioshack right now to price the 2 guage for my ground, at currently my ground is hooked into the bottom of the back seat (The back part of the back seat) in the middle. Should i move this to another place?

I also purchased new amp to speaker wires, Monster Cable i think? since the ones i had were tiny

Any suggestions a on a GOOD deck that will work nicely with this system? how much did yours cost?

I was thinking this deck: http://www.cardomain.com/item/PIODEHP7800MP

~Matt

[MartinGouda]

if the power sparked then that's what blew it....

if i had a 5th gen again and i wanted a nice deck i would get a dual din touch screen deck. i know they are expensive new but used they can be very reasonable... find some local forums and see what people have around.

anything like this

will keep you happy but anything single din will be boring in no time. you sound like you have goals for the car and really anything lower than dvd these days is really not contempory any more.

as for my deck, well i'd let it go for 1000 cdn with the gauge pack and gps antenna and rear view camera included. but you'd have to pay shipping or come pick up.

the speaker wires were a good call but they are probably the least of your worries at this point. i would still concentrate on the grounds above all else.

[lpugfan2004]

If i was to buy yours it would be a while, would have to get $900 i do want and i am interersted but you will sell your car b4 i can buy your deck

Goals? Yes swap is after my audio is working then paint, and then reapolstery then i dunno what :D

Thanks for all of your help Martin it was greatly appreciated

~Matt

[MartinGouda]

i'm in no rush to sell anything right now...the car gets more and more mint every month and at this point it's down to being nearly 100% complete which is something i can say i have never really acomplished in a car. if it dosn't sell and i manage to get it all done then at least i had some fun with her.

what rims are on your car? they look like mine.

[lpugfan2004]

Victory
Drag
17X7 5-100/11442GMM (59973)

~Matt

[lpugfan2004]

The rims are close from a distance but up close way diff :P

Can the 2 subs i have handle that PA1600 without blowing them?, im pretty sure as long as i hook them up individually it will be fine but im just double checking


Thanks
~Matt

[lpugfan2004]

ok i hooked up the new map yesterday 2 channel and it sounds crappy the subs dont hit worth shit and when i turn it up they still dont hardly hit so i was messing with it whether this is bad or not i dunno i put them in the same setpu i had them on the other amp and they sound nice, will this ruin them or should i do somethin different, also my lights dim when it hits.... im pretty sure at this point i need a cap and some different wiring

[MartinGouda]

check your crossover points on the amp and make a list of setting options and it'll help you dial it in.