Yes, in most cases, if you are even considering the idea,….YOU
SHOULD! With even moderate mechanical skills, and very basic tools, you
can safely and properly install your entire, high-performance sound
system in your vehicle. You'll gain the satisfaction and confidence of
understanding every aspect of the system, and you'll save about $100!
We will be offering a particular selection of quality components (listed
below) soon, that will make any vehicle sound terrific! But for now, you
can source these items from any car audio store. These, and a
proper-fitting SubSolution, are all that is needed to achieve superior
sound, since all cars today come with CD decks and quite good speakers.
What they are missing is an amp and a subwoofer, which properly
installed, will vastly improve your vehicles' sound! I guarantee that
you will not feel that you wasted your time or money.
50watt x 4 Channel Discreet Amplifier.................~$130.00
Line Output Converter..................................~$25.00
10 or 8 Gauge, amplifier wiring kit....................~$30.00
Vehicle-specific radio interface harnesses.............~$15.00
So, with the above, assembled list of Amp/install parts (~$200), and a
SubSolution ($249.99), you can have a really terrific sound system in
your vehicle for just $449.99! –TOTAL! (if you supply a little sweat
equity this weekend, under a shade tree)
Below are specific instructions and tips on installing the Amp, Line
Output Converter, Speaker wiring, and, of course, your SubSolution.
Installing an auto sound system is not too hard, and is actually kind of
fun. It's important to understand why you need a 4 channel amp: The
stock deck and speakers are actually good, but to realize their potential
to sound good, you have to have an amp, and to have a really great
sounding system, you have to "bi-amp", meaning a separate amp for the
highs and lows, and a crossover to control that process (also, see "Biamping"
below). The bottom line is that it will sound so much better - like
night and day - clarity, power, and deep bass. You'll wonder how you
ever listened to it before. And you can see that it isn't very
expensive, you just have make sure you don't buy any stuff you don't
really need (like upgrade door speakers or another CD player). If you
totally understand why the little amp in the radio is making your good
door speakers sound bad, skip this purple part ahead:
The Purple Part: Single-driver SubSolutions are very efficient. They
sound great with 100-200 watts on them. So, a 50 watt/channel amp
bridged mono is just right. However, there is another, very important
aspect to making sure the sub sounds good, that I have to tell you
about. If you add a sub and just an amp to run it, the sound system will
sound better because you've added some capacity to play more low
frequencies. However, you will still have a problem. You see, right now
you have TWO main problems keeping you from really enjoying your music.
Lack of bass, AND, lack of clarity. The deck is actually fine, and, so
are the door speakers (surprised?-the stock door speakers are really
capable of great sound). But they desperately need to have a "real" amp
hooked up between them and the deck. The little "BTL IC chip" amp built
into the radio is simply unable to produce a clear enough signal to make
the stock speakers sound as terrific as they can. It is a (very low
cost) low-power, high-distortion amp (12 watts @ 1% distortion,
minimum.), when what you need is a high power, LOW distortion one (a
typical amp is like, 50 watts@ .1% distortion, max.....that's 10 times
cleaner! Way, way better). And, all you have to do to fix it (and have
really terrific sound, instead of just some added bass), is to get a
"multichannel" amp, instead of just an amp for the sub only. It only
costs a little bit more for a multichannel amp (like the one in our
package), and then you'll have very clear sound from your door speakers
– low distortion, wider stereo separation, much better signal to noise
ratio, and enough power to play those musical peaks without constantly
going into heavy (er) distortion. And, the funny thing is, that it makes
your bass seem clearer too. Now, you're probably saying "shouldn't I get
better door speakers too?" Actually, they are almost the last thing
you'd want to replace in terms of priority in building a better and
better system. The speakers they put in cars today are very capable of
sounding quite, amazingly good. It is only the cheap little amp they are
hooked up to now that is making them sound ickey. For right now, keep
them, and your stock deck - - by putting what is called a "line level
converter" on the speaker output wires, in order to derive an "RCA"
type, line level signal, to go into the amp(s). Then, if you want to
improve the system further, the next step would be to get an
"aftermarket" deck which has line level outputs and is inherently
cleaner due to not having to convert the signal. Lastly, upgrading the
mids/highs can give you an extra degree of improvement, if you ever feel
the need to go that far, but I doubt you will. You'll find that those
stock speakers can play very loud and clear, and plenty high, when you
hook them up to a powerful, low distortion amp. AND, especially when you
understand that they will now be using a "crossover" to limit how low
they play, thereby converting them into "satellite" high frequency units
that don't need to play bass because you have..........a subwoofer!
So the way this works is, you get a 4 channel amp with built-in two-way
crossover (which they all have now) and select "High Pass" on channels 1
& 2 to your doors, and "Low Pass" on ch. 3 & 4 – "bridged mono" to your
sub. (don't bother worrying about brand names since almost all amps use
the same designs now, and are all good nowadays), and while it will be
playing 50 watts per channel to your mids, it will be actually be
putting out 200 watts mono to your sub because "bridging it mono" into 4
ohms means that it will put out almost twice as much power on those
channels. Also, a multi channel amp is neat because the other half of
the big heatsink (that isn't needed much for channels 1&2) is able to
provide extra cooling for channels 3&4 (the harder-working, hotter sub
channels!)
Doing the actual install: Step one: get a friend to help. Not that any
of this requires two people. It's just a good idea to get a friend to
help, to do all the hard parts. Step two: find a shade tree. (easier
said than done). Step three: Get an amp wiring kit (like the one in our
package), and run the big, fat wire to the battery thru the big, fat
rubber grommet that has wires going thru the firewall already. The
easiest way to do this is get a wire coat hanger, straighten it out with pliers, poke it thru the soft grommet, and then look under the dash and
find it (might need a flashlight). Once you're sure it's there, and
you've pulled it a little with the pliers, go back under the hood and
electrical tape-on the power wire, and then go back under the dash and
pull the coat hanger thru, and viola! (or walla! If you don't read
French). Then pull most of it thru, except enough to reach the battery,
put some split loom tubing and zip ties on it, be sure the fuse is not
yet in the fuse holder, and bolt up the big ring terminal to the
positive battery post, or, more likely in new cars, the place where the
positive battery connects to a giant fuse/relay box (usually about 10
inches from the battery). Even though there is a fuse on the amp it's
self, be sure you have a 40 amp fuse holder in-line, near the battery
(our kit comes with this pre-wired), to protect against any possible
future shorting of the power wire to the frame. Then you pull the stock
deck (look for a few screws under an edge somewhere, and then gently pry
the center dash bezel out, and unscrew the deck), and run two pair of
speaker wires, a single conductor "turn-on" wire, and a pair of RCA's,
from the radio cavity, to the place where you'll mount the amp. This is
usually done by routing the wires down thru the dash from the radio
cavity, over to one side, meeting up with the power wire, then pull off
the kick panel, run all 5 wires down the side wall of the kick panel,
remove the door threshold strip, and tuck the wires under the carpet as
they make their way back to wherever you've found to mount the amp. In
many cars, under one of the front seats is best. Try sliding the amp
under the seat (and leaving it there) before you unbolt and remove the
seat. That way, you'll not only know it fits, but you'll know exactly
where it fits, without being in the way of the seat brackets upon
re-installation of the seat. If there's not enough room under either
front seat, it will have to go in the trunk or just in the back of a
truck or SUV.
Possibly the hardest part of the whole install, is wiring up the line
level converter, if you are using the stock deck. If you're using an
after-market deck, you just wire power, ground, and "constant power",
and then just plug in the RCA's! But the stock deck has no "pre-amp
outs" and you need to convert the speaker outputs to pre-amp level, by
using a line-level-converter. It hooks up to the speaker wires, but
which ones? There are so many, and they aren't labeled at all! HOWEVER,
if you buy a Vehicle-Specific Radio Interface Harness kit for just your
model car, (or, "plugs", as we call 'em) from a car stereo store (these
come in our kits), then you won't have any problem doing the whole
install yourself, because it includes two plugs, one for the radio, and
one for the vehicle, and everything is labeled so that you don't have to
diagnose which wire is which. What we're going to do is hook up the
front speaker outputs (4 wires) of the radio plug that fits into the
back of the radio, to the Line Level Converter, (be sure to match up the
pluses and minuses). That's how we'll get our clean signal to the amp
(be sure to plug in the RCAs to the converter). Then connect the rest of
the "power" (non-speaker) wires of that plug, straight to the
corresponding (matching labeled) power wires on the other plug (referred
to as the vehicle plug) that fits into the vehicle's harness, and when
you are connecting up the pair that read "ignition", or "keyed hot", add
the "amp turn-on" wire that you ran thru the dash along with the two
speaker pairs, and the RCA cables. That is how the amp will turn on and
off automatically. Now, there are four wires left on the radio plug that
don't get hooked up to anything – they are the rear speaker output
wires. Be sure to tape them up to make sure they don't short out. Then,
on the vehicle plug there are just 8 wires left to hook up. These are
the 8 wires that go to the 4 speakers in the vehicle (if your car has 6
speakers, like tweeters or something, they are hooked up internally with
another pair of speakers, so there are still just 8 wires), two wires to
each speaker. So we have a right front pair, a right rear pair, a left
front pair, and left rear pair (8 wires total), and each pair has a plus
and a minus wire, all labeled by our handy plugs! So, what are we gonna
do with all these wires??? Well, we have to get them hooked up to the
two pairs of speaker wires that we ran to the amp location. So, strip
down. The wires, I mean,… and hook up the left front plus, and the left
rear plus, together with one of the positive conductors (depending on
the style of wire, this will be either gold or red) of one of the
speaker wire pairs that runs to the amp (it doesn't matter which one at
this point, but this will become the left channel amp output). Then take
the left front minus wire of the vehicle harness, and the left rear
minus, and connect them together with the other half of that speaker
wire (again, it will be either silver or black, depending on the
jacket-style of the speaker wire used). That's it! The entire left
channel of the sound system is wired up! Oh, I guess we're gonna need a
right channel as well, so hook it up the same way you did the left. And
you're done!... At least with the dash wiring. However, don't close up
the dash yet, we need to adjust the line level converter after the amp
is wired up, so just let it all hang out, for now.
Wiring up the amp: Now we need to hook up a whole bunch a more wires!
The hardest of these is the ground. Pull back the carpet a little, and
find a good place to screw in the ground wire (try to avoid where two
pieces of metal are overlapped. A single layer of metal is best). Use
some course sand paper (included in our kit) to sand away the paint from
a small (1") spot. This part is important: Screw (like with a
drill-driver) the ring terminal end of the ground wire in, using the
self-tapping screw, and the "star" washer against the car metal, and
make sure it is very strong and tight. A loose ground wire can cause
various problems to an amp. Then strip the end of that wire (just ¼ "),
and hook it up to the "gnd" or "-" terminal on the amp (all amps have
"clamping plate" style terminal screws now, so you just insert the bare
wire). Then do the same with the power wire you ran from the battery.
Its terminal on the amp will be labeled "12v" or "+". And then connect
the "remote" or "turn-on" wire. Now all that's left is the ins and outs!
Ins are easiest so let's save that for last. Take the two pair of
speaker wires that come from the dash (that you hooked up to the stock
speaker wires), strip them (1/4"), and wire them up to the channels 1
and 2 output terminals, and be sure to observe polarity (golds or reds
to "+"). Again, we don't have to worry about which is left or right yet
(amazing, isn't it?). Now we're going to run the last wire for this
system, and it goes to …..you guessed it,… the subwoofer. Decide where
your sub is going to go (be sure it is where it won't come at you in an
accident), and run the single speaker pair wire there, hiding it under
the carpet, etc. Now strip the ends and connect it to the "left +" (gold
or red half), and the "right –" (silver or black half) of the channels 3
and 4 speaker output terminals of the amp, leaving the left - and right
+ terminals empty. You just "bridged your amp mono". Congratulations!
Oh, and hook up the other end to your SubSolution, of course. … almost
done… Now just plug in the RCA's, BUT, (there's always a but, isn't
there?) but, since amp makers are too lazy to bother putting a jumper
switch in, which would cost them about a quarter, and make our install
$5 cheaper, and a whole lot neater, we have to use RCA "Y' splitters.
"Y"? I just told you why! So do that, and make sure you end up with one
channel (one half of the RCA pair) going to the channel 1 and also to
the channel 3 inputs. Then the other channel from the deck goes into
channels 2 and 4 (pay no attention to the black and red stripes that may
be around the ends of the splitters! Also, pay no attention to the man
behind the curtain!)
Darth Fader: Cars have a funny thing, unique in the world of audio,
called a fader. No one knows how or why it got started, but now people
expect it to be there (even though they still don't know what to do with
it). Fact is, it has no real reason for existing. Rear speakers have a
purpose in that when you are at a concert hall, jazz club, or even your
living room, sound, (mostly just high frequency sound) bounces off of
the wall behind you and comes back to your ears as sound cues for your
brain to enjoy. In a car, there are so many absorptive surfaces
(headliner, etc.) that these are canceled, and adding rear speakers to
imitate those reflected sounds at the concert hall makes sense. However,
the volume that they should put out is a fixed amount, and does not need
to be adjusted for any reason. The ideal sound system has a "front sound
stage" with a soft "rear fill". Which, by the way, most vehicles do
perfectly, by simply hooking up both the front and rear door speakers
together, to the "high frequency" or "high Pass" outputs of the channels
1 & 2 of the 4 channel amp. (a few vehicles need some additional
"passive" high pass crossovers in the form of a 2.2 microfarad capacitor
inserted on the way to the rear speakers to reduce the amount of
midrange they play, so that they don't ruin the front sound stage) The
only real need for a fader is that SOMETIMES (about .1% of the time that
system will be on, in its life) some people are sitting in the back
(kids, maybe) and will want the music on, while the people in the front
want to talk, and then you can either add a whole 'nuther 2 channel amp
and a dual amp balancer (about $200), or just add a $2 toggle switch to
interrupt the wires going to the front speakers.
"Yeah, yeah I get all that, now, when do we get to turn it on???"
Well!.. Hmf!.. If you're going to be impatient, then I'll just have cut
to the chase scene now, I guess. O.K., now where were we? Oh yeah, we're
done with the wiring, but now we have to "dial it in". Doesn't that
sound cool? O.K., make sure the radio is plugged in, including the
antenna. And now, it's time to…put the fuse in! (by the battery) Turn
the key on to accessory position…NO WAIT! Before you do that, let's just
take a stab at adjusting the amplifier settings to our best guess,
before turning it on. Get a small flat blade screw driver, and look on
the amp for the two dials that say "input gain" or "level" or
"sensitivity", or just "input" (they never can agree on what to call
them). Anyway, there'll be one labeled "channels 1&2" and one labeled
"channels 3&4". Turn the chan. 1&2 one to just about all the way down.
But not ALL the way down, but just about (that's counter clock-wise).
Then turn the chan. 3&4 one to about ¾ of the way up. So, that's
clockwise around about three quarters of the way to being all the way
clockwise. Then look for the crossover switches, and set the channel 1&2
switch to "HP" or "high-pass", and the channel 3&4 switch to "LP' or
"low-pass". Next, look for the dials that select the crossover
frequencies, and set the channels 1&2 one to about 80hz, and the
channels 3&4 one to about 70hz. If there is a bass boost switch or
dial(s) be sure to defeat them (turn them down or off). If there is a
remote, wired, bass control knob, mount it up front, but just leave it
turned up for the next steps (and for most of its life, except for an
occasional need on some music where the bass is way too high).
NOW we can turn on the radio and get a really small flat blade
screwdriver, and, with the radio about half the way up, turn the little
adjustment settings on the Line Level Converter up a little, and then
down a little (you have to keep doing both channels, so they match)
until the music sounds the clearest. One setting, or the other, will
sound the clearest, especially when you turn the radio up a little more.
Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you, make sure the radios' bass and treble
controls are "defeated" or, set in the "middle", and the "loudness" is
off. Once that converter is "gain matched" like that, you can close up
the dash. However, we still need to fine tune the gain settings on the
amp. To do this, play a fully modulated song on a CD (not a quiet song)
and turn it up (the radios reg. volume knob) until it distorts. If the
volume knob went all the way up, and even if it was plenty loud, if it
didn't distort, you need to turn up the gains on the amp a little more.
It should be so that you can just get it to distort, when the volume
knob is almost all the way up. That is how you know you will be using
the full potential of the amps' power, and will be able to turn quiet
music up enough to hear it well, etc. Next, try to determine, in your
opinion, whether it has the right balance of low frequencies-to-high
frequencies, and adjust the two gain controls slightly (chan 1&2 "mids",
and chan 3&4 "bass"), up or down, accordingly (be sure the tone controls
are still defeated). Lastly, (really!) check the balance control on the
radio and if you balance it left, and it goes to the right, just swap
the two RCA jacks on the channels 1&2 inputs on the amp. Done. Good job.
(now clean up, and return that tool you borrowed from your neighbor),
Enjoy!
10. Having a sub box that takes up all of my cargo room means that my
wife can't ask me to run errands.
9. I don't need to hear full, deep, linear bass. Just "one-note" bass is
fine for me.
8. My gas mileage is too good, so, having an extremely heavy sub box
helps me waste gas.
7. Having subs that show, gives my young kids something to poke holes in
while I drive.
6. Even though I have a beautiful new vehicle, I want to clutter it up
with a big ugly sub box.
5. I like the idea of an in-efficient sub, so that I can buy a huge,
gigantic amp to run it.
4. I enjoy hearing the slop and delay of large drivers. It makes the
notes blur together nicely.
3. If I'm in an accident, my huge box can kill me, so I won't have to
pay the deductible.
2. I like having a standard, ordinary, big box, like everyone else. I'm
unique like everyone else.
AND, …the number one reason not to get a SubSolutions subwoofer…..
1. If my subs show, it'll attract thieves, and get my system and CD's
stolen, so I can get new ones!
It's very important to understand the need to "bi-amp" your vehicles' sound system. That is, to make sure you have a power amp for your door speakers as well as one for your subwoofer. If you don't, and you use the little, "BTL, IC chip" amp that is in your radio ("deck", or "head unit"), you will be missing out on an awful lot of sound quality. ALL IC chip amps (despite what they say), put out just 12 watts, at 1% (or more!) distortion, rotten signal to noise ratio, crummy stereo separation, and absolutely no headroom. ALL of them. All decks. Even expensive aftermarket decks. However, when you use a real, "discreet" amp, your door speakers will receive a wonderfully clean, powerful signal, with high power, low distortion, Suddenly the music will sound so clear and detailed, that you will wonder how you ever listened to it the other way (with just the high distortion, IC chip amp in the radio). Real amps don't put up with the limit of 12 volts DC. They have "switching power supplies" that make AC, and they raise the voltage way above12 volts. Then they use "discreet" transistors just like your home amp. The reason it will sound ten times better, is that the power will go from 10 watts to 50, the distortion will go from 5% to .01%, the signal to noise ratio will go from 40 to 95, the stereo separation will go from 45 to 90, and, instead of trying to play full frequencies into your mids, you will have a crossover that will block the deep bass, allowing the door speakers to play just the midrange and highs, tracking the music perfectly! You will hear subtle parts of your music you've never heard before, and find that you can listen for hours on end, as opposed to the way it is now, when sometimes you just turn it off for a while, to give yourself a "rest" from the music (the "distortion"). Get an amp on your high frequency speakers, and it will completely change your life! (at least as far as your car stereo is concerned) Your door speakers will play a whole new tune. Your ears will hear an incredible difference. Your brain will think it's the best idea it ever had!
Amps are designed to "see" or "be hooked up to" a specific electrical
resistive load called "impedance". This impedance rating of speakers is
measured in ohms, and will always be written on the speaker. And so,
amps are rated as being able to produce a certain amount of power AT a
certain load impedance. And then it will list an even higher output
power rating at a lower impedance. For example, 50 watts per channel at
4 ohms, AND 100 watts per channel at 2 ohms. This is the same exact amp,
mind you. And so, if you buy this amp, and hook up a 4 ohm speaker to
each channel, you'll have 50 watts/chan. But if you just hook up 2 ohm
speakers to each channel (or two, 4 ohm speakers in parallel), you'll
have 100 watts per channel!!?!? Wow, something for nothing? No,
remember, that doesn't exist in physics. And here too, when we drop the
impedance, although the wattage does increase, so does the distortion
(muddier sound), the current draw (potential damage to the alternator
and regulator), and the uncontrollability of the speaker ("damping
factor" and "slew rate" decrease, causing less accurate sound and
potential speaker failure). It is always better (sound quality-wise), to
run an amp in a higher impedance configuration. BRIDGING refers to when
you gang both channels together (adding their wattages together), into a
single channel for use with one woofer. When you Bridge two channels of
an amp that would normally put out 50 watts per channel into 4 ohms
stereo, you need to provide a single 8 ohm load in order to get the same
impedance configuration ("4 ohm mode" = 4 ohm per chan. stereo, OR, 8
ohm bridged mono), and, the same total wattage from the amp (100 watts
total). Likewise, if you provide a single (bridged) 4 ohm load to that
amp, it will be in a "2 ohm load configuration", and will put out up to
200 watts (mono/total). It is a worth-while compromise to run a
subwoofer at the lower impedance (bridged into 4 ohms), since we don't
notice the increased distortion as we do in the mids, and, even the
decrease in damping factor is acceptable, in order to get the increase
in power (we need lots 'o bass in cars to play over the road rumble).
If you are doing 4 high-pass channels, in order to use the "pre-amp
fader" in your deck, just repeat the line level converter install
procedure above, on the back of the radio, then run the four speaker
wire pairs down to the amp, and set both the "channels 1&2", and the
"channels 3&4" to high-pass. Also, for the input signal, run the two
RCA's from the deck and then use the RCA "Y" splitters on the front
channels, and split off to the low-pass amp using RCA barrels and a 3'
RCA cable.