An-i-no

Ok, I know there are a lot of vendors here so I figured I'd ask. A good friend of mine recently came to me with a proposition. He inherited a good bit of inventory of aftermarket JDM parts (not sure on the specifics yet as this is in the baby steps phase) from his dad who ran a small eBay-based business with a few local sales here and there. The thing is, he wants to take it big and make this his living, and has offered me the opportunity to sort of spread the word and maybe buy into the company in it's infancy. First off, I'm one year out of high school and currently at a Community College majoring in Mechanical Engineering and working at a pos fast food joint making ~$600 a month. I'm at a point in my life where I'm wondering if what I'm doing will turn around and feed me later. I do live with my parents (and our relationship is stable, so I don't expect to get kicked out any time soon) but I buy all my own food (I have a special section in the fridge just for my stuff lol) in lieu of paying rent. That's a little personal lol but what I'm trying to get across is that I'm attempting to break into self-sufficiency. I would LOVE to break into the performance scene and be a big part of an independent business but sadly I have NO (nada, zero, zilch,) experience with owning a business. Honestly, I'm not really worried about that yet. What I want to know is...how difficult is it for those who have attempted it, done it, or seen it done? What does it take to be a mega-super-ballin ass eBay seller that maybe has an independent website and is a vendor in multiple places? Also...from a business standpoint, if we're in an empty market (meaning people drive a few hours away to get real performance parts) would it just be more profitable to have a brick and mortar shop that sells parts? I mean...being in the Car Audio community you see it all the time, some guy has a few bucks and calls up an OEM company or somebody starts up a little service that blows up like Toolmaker. I'm not asking for a "road map" per se, but I'm trying to judge how feasible this is. One thing I DO know is that money makes money. By that I mean...you sell enough parts on the side (which he's doing already), get a few decals printed up (which is easy), put together a demo car (94 Nissan 240SX, he already has started work on) and put your name out there and find ways to make your business grow but once again, how feasible is that? Am I in over my head here or is this a golden opportunity?

That's exactly what I'm worried about. I don't want to fall behind in school or any other part of my life that I find important. At the same time though, I wouldn't want to half ass my way through something that I've invested in. That wouldn't be fair to me, him, or a customer. We discussed a little bit of the percentages and kinda sketched out some initial income figures. Right now everything is in a preliminary stage. He orders a small amount of product at a slightly discounted rate and sells it for more. What we're looking to do is increase sales so that we can order in larger groups for better discounts which obviously = more profit. If that takes off then MAYBE we'll look at some local warehouses or open a small shop. Like I said it's 95% eBay right now but we're looking to change that. Honestly, even if it is just a little side income for a few years, I'll take that. Of course there's the pipe dream of being a nice shop or a sales mogul but I don't fully expect that.

That logic is not true. The radio or amplifier will have the same voltage output on both loads, but the output current on the 8 ohm load will be half of the current on the 4 ohm load. The radio will NOT work as hard and will only provide half as much power with the 8 ohm load. If you plan on using tweeters on the headunit, you need to be more concerned with the sensitivity rating of the tweeter more than the max RMS. that is how loud the tweeter is with 1 watt input. Also keep in mind you need a tweeter with a passive crossover, or you will have to build one (on 20 watts, it can be as simple as a cap). We use tweeters directly on the headunit all the time and it works great. Oops, my bad.

Thanks for the advice. All of those would definitely be part of the business model. Waco, about 3 hours north of Houston/Houston area. A lot of people here go to the Temple/Killeen area to get JDM stuff. That's about 45 mins away. The 240 was recently in a wreck so it's being worked on currently. Luckily the frame was fine. I'll see if I can get some pictures Yeah I'm definitely going to stay in college. Money is just tight right now and I'm not sure if this is a wise investment. It sounds 100% plausible on paper but we all know how that can end up. Thanks everyone for the replies.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean but maybe this will help. There's a lot more to sound than output power. An external amp will have a better dampening factor (cone control) and since the HU isn't responsible for being an amplifier AND a processor it will put out a cleaner signal itself (because it's not being pushed to it's limit). Remember, an 8 ohm speaker is twice as hard to drive as a 4 ohm one so don't think "oh, at 8 ohms the head unit will barely be working," because it's working just as hard but the load is heavier. An external amp will pretty much be better than a head unit (at amplifying) in EVERY way. Plus you can get a small, 4 channel amp for around $120 if not cheaper that will do the job well. There really is...no good reason to use your HU as an amp when you have the option to get an external one.

Does the charging stud have plastic around it? Check and see if that's damaged. I recently had a problem with my alt not charging once it got hot. What ended up being the problem was the weld on the charging stud had come slightly loose and when the plastic around it got hot it ballooned and the connection got very very weak. Once the car/engine had sat and cooled off it charged fine. I was baffled in the beginning though.

I can say this. If you like music as much as I do, then NOTHING on head unit power will satisfy you. Seriously. And a HU at 8 ohms....will not sound good, sorry. I don't mean to tear you down, but what you're asking for just screams "buy an external amplifier!"

Those CWM6KIT have the biggest f-king baskets I've ever seen on a 6.5 I couldn't use them because of it. It's erm...like notched...around the mounting flange and if he has 6.5" stocks you might have to cut metal. Just a heads up. EDIT: I can take pics if you need.

I'm still trying to figure out where all the amperage is coming from.....? Nice boxes and trim panels don't run amps....you need more AMPERAGE.

Double post fail

I hate when shit breaks...you can never budget for that.

Let's do some math...2 3500's will make 3875 each, so that's 7750 watts. At 14.4 volts you will need 538.2 amps to make that. At 13.5 (which is about what voltage your batteries take over) you will need 574.1 amps to make that. You have a 220 amp alt. Idk how many amps it takes to run your car but we'll say about 50. You have 170 amps left to run the system. You said you will have a stock alt as well, so lets say its 100 amps (this is just a guess). That's about 270 that you have to run the system. You have about 270 amps to use. You need about 550. Batteries will only help so much. This is why we are telling you to go smaller, you don't have the electrical to back up the amps.

It's a big ass sub from the Fi/AA family. There's a 99.999998% chance that it's an Ascendant Audio Mayhem. Why do you think it's not a Mayhem?

Pictures?

Don't second guess yourself...just take a step back and think hard about what you can realistically do. You have an upgraded alt and a few batteries right? It sounds like with a few more batts you could run one BC3500 just fine. Pair that with a couple of Xcons or Zcons (they don't HAVE to have 2000+ watts to be loud) and you could be tearing shit up. Then when you get the hang of having a bigger system and know from experience how everything works you can start to go from big to huge. It's like building a race car. You don't build a top notch 8 second car on your first try. Most people start with a street car that they added a few upgrades to and go from there. It's about experience.

Lmao

Mayhem ain't it? Yeah one of http://www.ascendantaudio.com/mayhem.php those.

Even though that's still a little big, I'd rather see this as well.

Hmm...maybe one of these days I'll stop assuming people know what unloading sounds like.

You don't need it. This comes from first hand experience. Unless the box is a LOT bigger than recommended it will control the excursion just fine.

This x2. That's awfully expensive equipment to burn up if you're new to Car Audio. You're going to need WAY more batteries or another alt because those 5500's will eat that 220 up like it's nothing.

I should clarify....he melted the pwr/ground terminals, got it fixed. Later on he arced the speaker terminals because of melted speaker wire. Then after that he blew both the 150 amp fuse for the amp and the 120 amp fuse at the battery. The amp survived all of that. It finally just died one day. I have it right here and nothing on the board is burnt or looks bad (granted I don't know shit about amp boards) and it powers up but won't come out of protection. He has the AP18001D now and it's going through the same abuse and hasn't had any trouble yet. His lights dim like crazy and his rpm drops at idIe. don't see why people hate on these amps. In my experience they kick ass.

Great starter amp. Just don't try to squeeze every last watt out of it and you'll be fine. They actually stand up to abuse pretty well, my friend put his through hell before it finally gave up. He had it on a stock electrical system and played it so hard that he melted the power/ground/remote, arced the speaker outputs, and blew several 150 amp fuses. When it finally did blow I was surprised, I didn't think ANYTHING would blow it haha... EDIT: He melted the power/ground terminals, fixed that, then arced the speaker terminals (due to his speaker wire melting) and blew a bunch of fuses. The amp survived all of these incidents and just decided not to ever come out of protect one day.

Ah! I just saw that...what frequencies is the noise happening at? Could be unloading. I know people say HDC's are made to play below tuning but...if you're at almost double rated power without a SSF then that could definitely be an issue. Did the SA's have an SSF?

i brought one from this dude he said it been recone from aa and they put a black dust cover on it It's just a sticker...?