[Magman]

I just bought a 93 accord with the crapiest speakers you could imagine. im looking forward to buying new speakers, amp, and a subwoofer. Im thinking about two 12 inch subwoofers. What brand would be better quality and probably last a lot longer? Ill take any suggestions that anyone has. thanks
Tim

 

[Magman]

you will get a better response in the car audio forum.

anyways, as for factory replacement speakers, i have alpine EX3 components all around (i am very happy with them) and used to have JL Audio 12w6 on a 300watt class D 2 ohm stable amp. it pounded. the new w7 series i have heard is excellent. if you want serious quality base, you probably can get away with a single 12w7 or 13w7. make sure you use the right amp. do some homework/research before you buy anything.

So go for the factory speakers? I was just thinking about buying a set from crutch field. But maybe thats good too. So alpine sounds good. I heard they were but cost some money. Im going to wait for before iget anything. and just shop around. but thanks for the tip and the help.

 

[Magman]

I had put a full set of Alpine Type-R components all around in my friend's 4th gen. F450 4ch alpine amp, and then one single 15" Type-R sub in a custom built ported box with an alpine PDX series 1000watt rms amp with 3 1 farad capacitors. And for the deck we went with a 9853 Alpine. He had to buy everything retail cost which ran about 2800 or so. It was quite nice, but that's a bit extreme. The problem with getting Type-R components is that they just barely fit in the doors depth wise and width (6.5" models).

If you don't want to go crazy I'd recommend (if you need a deck) an Alpine 9846 which will run you around $150. It has preouts just for subs, so if you ever decide to get a 4 channel amp setup, you will need a new deck - but for the average person, it's unnecessary. And for speakers, Either go with Alpine Type-S's which will give you a decent frequency range, kind of a middle of the road speaker, you get bass and highs. They are around 100 a pair. If you are definitely getting subs, I would recommend getting some Pioneer 3 or 4 way speakers. They don't handle bass well - but obviously you won't need them to. They are a bit cheaper, around 80 a pair. If you wanted to, you could get the speaker grilles for the rear deck out of an older accord (I actually have a pair laying around) that can take 6x9's, just check the clearance of the hole in the rear deck.

As for subs, if you want a decent mid level system, I'd probably go with rockford for the subs, some nice Punch P2's with dual 4ohm coils. And grab a rockford Punch 450.2 amp to go with it. That's what i had put into my girlfriend's car and it pumps - you will definitely need at least a 1 farad capacitor with that amp or you're going to be damaging the subs at high volumes. Those subs and amp will run you probably close to around 600ish.

If you want to step down from those, I'd jump to Alpine Type-E's or Type-S's. Either of which would fair well with the M450(400rms @ 2ohm) mono block alpine amp. However you could juice them up a bit more with a bigger amp as well, such as the M650(600rms @ 2ohm).

Currently I run two 12" Type-R's and two MRP-M650 amps for the subs in my accord in a vented box. It kicks very hard, i'm glad my mirror is attached to the roof and not the glass

So the more watts an amp has does it make the bass alot better sounding and have a better bump with it. Im not looking for anything thats going to be waking up the neighboor hood just something thats gonna be nice and have a little bump to it. i was thinking to go with xpold sub's and not sure about the amps. but im starting to think just go with everything alpine or something. i gotta look around and learn more about the different types. thanks for all that though. :clap

 

[Magman]

the most important thing is to match ohms. wattage only tells you what the max. potential of you equipement is. if you have a sub that is rated at 4 ohms and put it on a 2 ohm amp, you will not have the maximum power potential no matter how many watts the amp puts out, or that the sub is capable of.

Alright,
so when im searching for amps and subs i have to match the ohms on the amp and the subwoofer or anything have the amp with more ohms. But equaling the two would be the best right? Im starting to understand a bit more. thanks.

 

[Magman]

Also, different impedances are going to make the speakers sound.. different. Because the lower the impedance, the faster they can suck up electrical energy and convert it to movement/sound. And generally for impedances lower than 2ohms in a subwoofer application, you need one badass amp to throw that power to the sub as fast as it can get it. I've seen a 0.33ohm sub setup and it was absolutely rediculous because of the tremendous amount of power that amp was throwing out.
8ohms you don't see very much in carfi, mainly in the house - but that's a bit more in depth since it deals mainly with the different classes of amps and what they are meant to do. But generally speaking in car audio Class D = for subs, and Class A|A/B is for mid/high.

But as for Parallel and Series wiring like rnstein69 said, the equations are simple.

Parallel meaning - stringing all of the (+) terminals together and all of the (-) terminals together and hooking them to the amplifier as one speaker.

Parallel is: Avg impedance of all drivers/number of drivers

So lets say as an oddball you have a Dual coil 4ohm sub and you want to wire it up in parallel with another 6ohm driver. So you basically have two 4 ohm drivers and one 6 ohm.
4+4+6 = 14 |14/3 = 4.6667 |4.6667(avg imped)/3(drivers) = 1.5556ohm load

That means the combined load of all of those drivers in parallel is putting a 1.6ohm load on the amp.

Series on the other hand is simple, it's just addition.
When you wire in series with say.. our same 3 drivers as stated in the parallel example, you simply take a lead from the positive output of the amp, to the positive of the first driver, and the negative of the first driver to the positive of the second driver and etc...

And as for calculating impedance totals, it's just:
4+4+6 = 14ohms

Alright. thanks. thats alot of info right there. thanks.for the help

 

[Magman]

oh-i just remmembered something else. some speakers, or subs have dual voice (dvc) coils opposed to single voice coils (svc), so depending upon how you wire the dual voice coils (parallel vs. series) that will result in different resistances for each sub. that can make a huge difference in power transfer and performance. so just keep that in mind as well. if you are going to a professional car audio store, they should know how to wire them up proporly, but just educate yourself so that you know what you are getting into.

ALright,
i learn how to wire everything first before i mess around with it and mess something up.If i cant figure it out ill take it some where to get it wired professionally.Thanks for the Help