Technical Info & How To's

Dr. Albert Neville Thiele passed away at age of 91. http://www.audioprointernational.com/news/read/obituary-neville-thiele/05165

Figured I'd post some stuff up seeing as how it has been a hot topic as of late. The biggest problem with rewinding a stock alternator is the fact that most winders do nothing more than rewind the stator for additional output. This does nothing but increase upper RPM output and decreases the cut-in RPM. This is the RPM in which the alternator begins charging. This can be controlled with a lower cut-in regulator, but that is just a band-aid. The alternator will still produce nothing more than stock output at a low RPM. When looking for a GOOD unit, make sure to ask the manufacturer how the alternator was built. You want to look for one that has had a rewound rotor a…

So I failed to mark the ground terminal on my Dynaudio MD 100 tweeter when I took it apart as I want to paint the surround black (don't care for the grey). Now I find that I can't tell which is the '+' side as the speaker will go back in either way and the posts are identical. I took it's twin apart more carefully but find the opposite terminal was '+' on it's surround case. Now I'm more confused than usual. Are these tweeters not phase sensistive?

i just thought id toss up a quick how to on how to stain wood for boxes all information contained in this how-to is provided as-is i am not responsible for your screwups step 1, supplies for this how to i will be using a few things a can of natural tint watco oil a can of redwood #502 weatherproof wood stain some paper towels (bounty) gloves (nitrile) a 1 inch chip brush and some disposable paper cups (14 oz) and our peice of wood that i am staining is a piece of light grain birch plywood step 2 mix the watco oil and stain together, i like to do a 1:1 mix of oil and stain, the watco oil is a penetrating oil and a varnish in one and the stain is just regular deck stain…

Hello, I have a little problem and don't know for sure how to solve it. I have two FI 15 inch subs and am running two 5200 watt amps. They are wired seperatly but are drawing power from the two 850 amp batteries originally in the van and two additional Kinetik 3800 batteries wired parallel. The problem is that I burned up a brand spanking new 250 Amp alternator from Excessive amps. I am new to this and don't know if trying to draw the 10400 watts from the batteries overworked the amp or what... Any idea what I have wrong that I need to fix?? Many thanks I appreciate it.

So I ordered a new tool for the tool box, and received it in the mail today. And the tool of the day is: a Vellman HPS10SE O-scope Now how exactly do I go about using it? (altough it has an auto fucntion) I'm pretty much going to be using it to set gains at work and at home on my own projects. I have all the test tones one could need thanks to AutoSound 2000. Basically I need to know how I hook it up to the amp to measure the wave and what should I be using as a load? I've heard/seen of resistors (dummy loads) or reactive loads (speakers). I would assume that using the reactive loads would be better, but I have been known to be wrong before. There is a centre pin and wire…

OK- I have read more than a few times on here about 'loading' a sub or port off of objects. Can someone offer me a laymans explanation of how this affect the sound/output? Tried to do a search with no luck.

I just found this link, you guys should check them out if you get a chance, lots of cool differnt tones and sweeps Test Tones Link

http://www.youtube.com/caraudiofabrication'> Something I have always enjoyed integrating into builds or seeing used is back lit plexiglass. You can use it to light up a sponsors logo, or your own, or just to simply highlight an area of your build. In this video tutorial I show you Step by Step how you can use plexiglass and other techniques to create an awesome panel. The possibilities are endless, use it on an amp rack, use it on a sub box, use it on a console whatever! And yes, there are other ways this can be done, I just have found this way to work quite effectively! Lets learn how to make this: http://www.youtube.com/caraudiofabrication'> Enjoy, and…

hey guys im kinda new to wiring subwoofers so i need some help. i hear now a days people are using these speaker pins and banana plugs to wire up there subwoofers, how do you use both of them? and which one is the better to use? one more thing, what gauge wire would u use to wire 2 18" fi btl's? thanx

Question on wiring and fusing. I'm going to get 2/0 scha cable, from my 320a alt to my batteries I I fuse 2 times on one run right? And you add up the fuses on the run, for example if I had to use lets say 500a on the run I'd do 2 250s on the run, one by the alt and other by the battery? Just trying to be safe and get it all right

So I have a 15 FI BL and 1200 watt Hifonics amp, when i turn my bass knob (volume) up to high my amp goes protect. I know it's not an amp problem because my friend had the this system for a while in his car and it didn't have this problem. But anyway i've rewired, and adjusted the amp many times and i'm clueless. any ideas? please help me out.

Saw some people unsure of how to do this in the Hop figured it'd be really quick to make a how to on this. It's very simple to do but sometimes pictures make all the difference...Since I've cleared my cache/cookies I haven't received an error from this site Step 1: Goto chrome options - Select History Step 2: Select "Clear All Browsing Data" Step 3: Check Empty the Cache Check Delete Cookies Select Clear Browsing data and you're done.

hey guys. i know a buddy of mine whos got an RE SXX on an SAE-1200d 220a OEM series dc power alt 2 out of 3 big 3 optima yellowtop and 0ga to the amp and hes having issues with his sub cutting out randomly. the amp isnt going into protection and when it cuts out its only momentarily. i noticed he was only running one set of 12ga from the amp to the sub and told him he should step that up. my only other thoughts would be a ground problem but im not sure what else it could be. any advice would be appreciated.

Inside the Daily Grill in Los Angeles, legendary radio disc jockey

Before installing a power amplifier in your system you should take into consideration the vehicle

I have an Alpine SWR-1022D and a SWR-1023D Dual 2ohm woofers. I just checked each woofer. If I wire the two coils in series, I get about 5.6 - 5.8ohm. Parallel is 1.7ohm. Both speakers are very close to being the same coil resistance. I'm just wondering how my Dual 2 ohm coils are so far off from the resistance that they should be. Why such a higher resistance?

I have three identical amps and am using the ins/outs to pass thru the signal-- how do i guarantee my 3rd amp in the line has the same input voltage as the 1st?

I am building a small sub box for my 2001 S10 ext cab ZR2 using a shallow mount MB Quart driver. I'll be mounting on the rear wall of the cab. Anyway I pulled off that rear wall panel and discovered there is a cavity where I should be able to do some good in terms of sound deadening and wondered if using regular spray foam found at home depot will actually do some good? Is it dense enough to stop sound or should I be thinking about another solution? Mind you I'm just looking to have it better than it was to cut down on road noise since I've got that area opened up...not looking to spend a lot of money or have to order more products in.

ok so my buddy has a mazda6 with the bose system. he wanted me to help him out with his install. he found a diy for the car. basically what we did was take the signal from the factory subwoofer in the rear spare tire well and hooked that up to some rca's for the signal. the factory plug had 4 wires, 2 for signal, 1 for power (remote) and 1 for ground. i chopped the rca cables like the diy said and i soldered the wires behind the shielding to the designated wires. when we hooked up the rcas to the amp it worked and we were stoked, but when he turned the car on, there was a slight humming in the subs. i turned up the lpf and it was playing higher frequencies too. whenever…

I have an old school 10" Orion Cobalt subwoofer that has a perfect coil, but needs a new surround , dustcap and spider. Does anyone know where I can buy these kind of parts individually for relatively cheap? MAT Electronics has everything I need for VERY cheap, but I think you have to have a minimum order of $30 before shipping costs, which sucks considering the parts I need are less than 5$ for everything.. I don't need anything extreme as far as parts are concerned.. Just a simple spider that I can attach to a 2" coil and a foam or rubber surround to make this sub playable again. More for a fun little project and to have a speaker to play with than anything which is why…

first thing this system is going in a 2014 Jeep rand cherokee. I already have some pieces and Iam looking for some addition recommendations. I already have the box which was ordered from high output enclosures tuned to 33hz birch box, with kerf port just received my sub 18” XCON, the amp I will be using is a Crescendo symphony 1500.1. I plan on upgrading to a nice set of components which I will be using the crescendo 800.4. need some component recommendations. I plan on using the RF 360.3 for my processor I want to keep the Uconnect system in my jeep. My biggest concern at this point in time is Electrical advice... Batteries? wiring? Will I need a second Batt for the bac…

I recently have taken out my Fi Q and put in another sub to test/listen to before sale. During the uninstallation of my Q I fussed with my amp / tightened conections/took rcas out but not power or ground wire/ lifted it off the amp rack exc. Upon reinstalltion of my Fi sub when volume gets high, the sub seems to be skipping out on hitting its notes/ skips. I was thinking off the bat that it was my rcas gone bad, as it has happened before. Another side of me thinks that its my electrical, maybe one of my batteries is dead and is only kept charged by the rear battery. I have a horrible but operating set up -to regular starting battery 4 gauge to battery in back which i…

Hey guys, often times in fiberglass installs you will have multiple speaker rings that require being mounted at the exact same angle in order to maintain perfect symmetry. You do not want to spend hours on a piece that in the end has angles that are not the same. How can you insure that your speaker angles are perfect without measuring a million different angle and points? Here is my quick tip of the week to show you how:

I was asked by Denim to repost this for our SSA family. Original post is here: http://customizeyourvehicle.org/viewtopic.6481.html but anyways, here we go. I'm gonna seperate the sections to make it easier to read. If you have anything to add please do so. I am going to break it down into seperate post just to make things easier to read. What is the advantage of dual voice coils? The primary advantage of the dual voice coil speaker is wiring flexibility. A single dual voice coil driver offers the user three hookup choices...parallel, series and independent. In a parallel hook-up the drivers impedance will be half that of each individual coil (a dual 4 ohm speaker would…