Technical Info & How To's

Stereo Interconnects (RCA's) RCA's were invented in 1972 by the famous audio engineer Richard Clark, as a stable replacement for previous connectors (hence RCA : an acronym for 'Richard Clark Audio', the company under which Richard Clark first released these connectors to the world). The point of the RCA interconnect was simple : to allow connections to be made simply and securely between amplifiers, CD players, tuners, speakers, power sockets, etc, without risk of electrical shorting or loose wires. RCA's quickly caught on, and are now the connector of choice for the pro audio industry, and hence the car audio industry as well. They are somewhat rarer in home audio circl…

First off, where to buy lead wires, from terminal to coil, and second, what to seal it to the cone with. And oh yeah, how much slack should I leave? I was going to try to match the working leads.

well after about a month or so of driving with no rear view mirror i decided to get a new one. this is the second one i've had to buy since i already broke two. both times the mirror's arm has snapped from window flex/vibration. i have a nissan and they use the same mirror components basically in all their vehicles. one being the arm which is that same on every one. i don't know how familiar anybody is with the material used on these arms but to me it looks like a metal of some kind and plastic. feels strong but obviously snaps easily from all of the vibration. my theory is that since the mirror moves to a certain point and can't move any longer. the arm is the focus of a…

i have 2 kinetik 1800's and im going to put them in the back of my trunk in parallel. im getting rid of my stock battery. this is how i would wire it: i have 2 awg wire to connect the alternator to the battery. the wire will go from the alternator to battery A's positive terminal. Battery A's positive terminal will be connected to battery B's positive terminal. the stock terminal (from stock battery) will be connected to a wire that will be run to the trunk go to battery B's positive terminal. the stock terminal has 2 wires connected to it, one goes to the fuse box and the other goes behind the engine and i cant see where it goes to. my guess is that it goes to the starte…

when hooking up mulitiple amps would you run just 1 strand of remote wire to the first amp and then cut a second strand and connect both amps with the 2nd peice of remote wire? or would you run separate strands from the headunit to every amp?

I'm getting some measurments together to do a ported box for 4-SA-8's in a 4cu net ported enclosure. Using 2 of the 4" precision ports I would need each to be 11.90" to achieve my desired tuning of 35hz. I have no clue how to figure the displacement of the ports at their desired length. If someone could give me the formula or better yet just figure it out for me that would be outstanding . I have plenty of time since the subs won't be out till feb.

im trying to achieve 2 things. for the port, where it ends (inside) i'd like to know what size router bit to use when i make a pass from each size to make it a perfect half circle. also, where the port turns 90* what size bit should i use to get a full turn on 1 piece of wood. im going to start my box build without my gf's dads tools this time. im going to buy a router and the jasper jig and the 2 (or 3) bits i will need

Sorry for such a stupid question, but the owners manual isn't really specific about 1-ohm load with 2 subs. I have two infinity 100.9's (10" SVC, selectable 2 or ~4 -ohm impedence, obviously set to 2-ohm). I want to run a 1-ohm load on a SAZ 1000D. My question is, how do I wire them? Do I wire one to each set of speaker terminals and yield a 1-ohm load or will this yield 2-ohm? This is shown in the 2nd diagram on page 7 of sundown manual. ... or ... Do I need to wire them in parallel as shown being done with only 1 sub in the top/1st diagram on page 7 of the sundown manual, a method of wiring that I've NEVER seen before on a mono amp? If this were an old-school HCC…

Hey guys, I'm currently starting my (2) 12" Ethos build and I was planning on firing both the subs and the port into the cabin of my 2013 Toyota Camry. So far, I'm framing out what I can in the smaller oval shape opening behind the seats that Toyota decided needed the be there. It's about 36" wide, 15" tall, and about 8" deep. I'm basically laying 2x4's down until I get to the point where I can have a flat surface in my trunk for my enclosure to bolt up to. This oval area will be dead space from the inside of my car, so I may do some fiberglassing and "pretty" that area up with LED's, or something of that nature. Now, as this is an oval, and 2x4's are straight, I wi…

Howdy everyone, I am looking to seal off the trunk of myv 06 impala. The box was facing towarda the rear (port/sub) facing towards the trunk hatch. But now were trying to flip it facing in. ATM I'm running 1 15inch fI bl by a 1000d sundown. I want to thrown another 1000 and strap it but from research I might have option other then Ronaldo get a btl. But for the moment, for now, I want to flip the box around. I could use some tips. Or a link robs tutoral, thanks

Excursion is a large contributor to high output in any driver on the market. Typically, larger excursion (seen visually as how far the cone moves in and out) means more sonic output. However, with excursion come challenges. As the driver moves outward, the voice coil begins to move out of the gap. This causes a drop in the magnetic force (or BL) and results in a few negative effects, including a large theile/small parameter shift, lower efficiency (magnetic flux decreases), less control over the voice coil (transient response increases, making the driver sound sloppy), and introduces distortion into the output. Knowing these effects, there was a need to design a parameter…

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.

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

I recently purchased a SSA Evil 18in sub, and a 3k rms amp. my first ever real set up so im pretty new to car audio. but i have a question and in need of advice. when i turn up the volume it almost sounds like the subwoofer is bottoming out or making a clicking noise. is this normal or do i need to lower the power on it. or is there more to it than just that?

Not that newbie’s are dumb. But there have been a lot of posts on here lately that if they read the pinned thread about them. It would make the post end a lot sooner or not even start Some of those threads are what is my tuning frequency? I like reading book and proving if they are wrong or right. So one I like is a book by old colony sound labs called loud speaker cook book. It’s a good book on the general subject of box tuning. And hay you may learn a thing or two about alignments. More then what a box calculator will teach you. Another subject is what components should I buy? I do not know because it is better to listen to them yourself. I for one prefer a…

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.

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.

So you designed and built a box and think you know what it is tuned to, but there are a lot of reasons to verify that you are right. Some of these are: 1) To make sure you understand the math behind designing the box 2) To check up on the person that did the design for you 3) To check on your building skills 4) To verify where you are so that when you redesign to deal with an acoustic difficulty that you found you are able to. Whatever the reason, there is a simple way to do this. You will need the following equipment: 1) Your system installed in your vehicle. 2) A CD with a variety of low frequency tones on it, I

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 wana know if I can fix my jl w3 everything is fine with it. But the wire that comes of the cone and goes to the pos or neg I can't remember witch one I will have to look I can post a pic later to I'm just wondering if I can replace that or just buy a new sub

Subwoofer placement in a trunked vehicle Now, you have two good, and two "OK" options: Good 1. Install the subwoofer in the rear side panel (or in between the taillights and the strut tower). This is called corner loading. Since the subwoofer is as far back as possible in the vehicle, there will be no rear sound wave that can interfere. As well, you will have hard boundaries to the rear, and sides. 2. Install the subwoofer in an enclosure facing the very rear of the vehicle. Optimally, within a foot. This allows for the rear wave to exit through into the cabin of the vehicle, as well as the front wave to reflect off of the rear of the vehicle, and be reinforced by the r…

What is sensitivity? The sensitivity of a driver is typically defined as the sound pressure level of the loudspeaker given 1 watt of power input, measured at a distance of 1 meter, measured on-axis with the loudspeaker and measured in infinite space with the loudspeaker mounted to an infinite baffle. While the later part is typically assumed but not stated, the former part is the reason you generally see “1w/1m” or “2.83V/1m” stated along with the sensitivity specification. But wait, is 1w/1m equal to 2.83V/1m? The answer is only for an 8ohm impedance driver. We know this because of ohms law, where Power = Voltage^2/Resistance. If the load is anything other than 8ohm the…

So just recently my subwoofer and Amplifier started cutting out. What I mean is the speaker will play for a few seconds at the normal loud volume I play it at regularly then the sub starts making a weird noise, the amp light dims, and the speaker basically just stops playing. Any ideas what it could be? Maybe a short behind the speaker wiring? Just wanted to see If I could make this troubleshooting faster cause it's a pain getting that speaker out behind the seats of my single cab truck. I have a Sundown SA-10 wired @ 2 ohms Diablo Audio Technology 1000.1 About 1.25 Cu. Ft. Box tuned to 34 hz

Good Amp read Switching Amplifiers: The Technology and the Issues

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…