ATX.WeenR

Checking back to see if any feathers were ruffled. Glad to see it's all quiet in here. Sorry guys I was at work on a break so I was trying to stretch the funk out of it. I tend to get wordy when I'm stalling.

I'm fairly new myself but this place is much better than many other online forums because many of these guys are extremely knowledgeable but the majority of them aren't "Holier than thou" Ass-Jackets with more ego than brain.... Like I experience in other corner's of the internet's AND web's too! Lol. Welcome from the other newb. Check-out the SSA store man they got good prices and the SSA speakers are friggin niiice. My new pair of 6.5s are anyway!

Ok once again don't jump on the gimp ass crippled old dude for not understanding a term or wtf-ever you consider this but I recently was seeking an active crossover with the possibility of getting an eq/line driver too since there are such beasts out there in 2018 so I scoured the web's, and the internet's too... I even looked around when I would go into someplace that sells car audio and after weighing my options I did something totally off the wall and bought a Stetsom STX2448 "Digital Audio Processor." I figured: 'Hey I get all of that, plus a parametric EQ and I can configure the xover any whichaway I feel like, PLUS I get to have my first unit that offers time alignment (or so I thought) and it all comes packaged in a box I cannot even read (because the writing isn't in American it's in Brazillion) all the way from Brazil (hence the no speaky Texican) for just over a hundred bucks! Where's the catch right?! Except for the fact that I can't read the user's manual, but you have to play give and take sometimes! I mean how many different spellings are there for "big-ass-subwoofer" are there in the world?! All right all kidding sside. This is where I stopped smelling what they're stepping upon. And this is likely where some douche is gonna want to be like "duh and s+#t dude blah blah blah yakkity yakkity...." Which I stop listening to those and go right into death threats and stuff usually so... N/m. Ok so the fuggin thing has two inputs (sucks right? Not necessarily, I'm cool with it) so there's the standard red and white rim on the RCA's so you'd think R & L right?! But above them are the labels "A" & "B" while the outputs are labeled "1, 2, 3 & 4" giving me room for 8 CHANNELS in the classic sense of the word in car audio terms. So I go through configuring this thing on it's little 15x2 character onboard, blue-backlit, LCD screen and I get to a point where, ACTUALLY THE ONLY POINT where I'm a little confused.. especially considering it's made in Brazil and I don't even speak Swahili! It's got a section called routing and the options are: (you ready for this shit?) A, B, AAAAAND.... A+B... Three options. But with it labeled a and b over the left and right input I'm thinking of it like right and left and mono. Which doesn't seem right but at first that's all I can think being that there's red and white RCA in's... I mean are there a bunch of music files anymore or at all really that are mixed to a 4 speaker front and rear surround setup? I think in the seventies they had some BS called like umm.. 'quadrasound' or 'surrounspec' or some dumb, hardly marketable name like that. The only other thing I could come up with was either a subwoofer signal in A and a mids/highs or full range signal in B... OR.... Like some units for home use that are made with respect to separate listening areas with an A,B switcher OR just like any universal A, B switch TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT AND UNIQUE SIGNALS ALL TOGETHER (which sounds totally in left field but at this point makes as much sense as any of the options) So if you haven't figured it out yet... WTF ARE THE A AND B INPUTS? HOE ARE THEY DIFFERENT? is it just left and right and like a mono mix for subwoofer purposes or what? I've searched from Google's welcome mat all the way to their nasty arse back alley for this answer and it's only confused me more... Taramps has a unit almost identical and I read that manual too and neither one says anything more than basically: "plug in RCA's to inputs A & B and then yada yada blah blah....." This units crossover is super badass and the eq's are top notch. I do have a beef with the delay function but that's another wordy-ass thread that nobody will read! WHAT THE HELL IS A & B? the unit is super user friendly, in fact I could have set it all up with no manual.... Except for this part.. ROUTING... so what is it!!????? Thanks in advance for being cool and friendly and helping me without making yourself a mortal enemy! Regards

So I just read over all of this and I have to say that it was an awesome close to a thread I've seen a thousand times finally. I have a similar situation as that I've got a car with it's own affliction(s) and I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. I've got a new toy which I'm enjoying because of the active elements regarding the crossovers but the time alignment is channel specific as in one pair of speakers is simultaneously adjusted. This is great for getting the front seat (in general) sounding good but I'd really like to have a little more separation. This thing I got only set me back a little over a bill and it's already proven to be worth the money spent. So much so that I've thought about just buying a second one by and splitting up the channels left and right. Oh yeah it's made in Brazil by Stetsom. It's a "digital audio processor" it's much cheaper than the options made by Zapco or Audison or any of the other companies but it's obviously not as nice. But certainly not worth 1/6 to 1/8th the price. This is helping in setting my Evil6.5's to a desirable frequency that I'm particularly or was particularly lacking in previously. I've still not gotten the sound I am totally happy with but I'm much closer. I think it's time to upgrade my cheap Infinity components. I will say this though. I have the Evil's mounted in the back doors which happen to fire about 6 inches behind my shoulders. I really have no place else to mount these and I know I could be happier with them in a new spot but for now I'm just trying to figure out MY next move. Anyway, I was really happy to see this thread pan out and have such a great ending.

Man you are definitely speaking the word here! When I first discovered that I was having a ground issue was when I changed my ground to go to a larger sub amp thinking I would need a better (possibly) more direct connection to the same chassis metal that the battery negative was grounded to so I drilled through the floor of the trunk in the spare tire well into what is obviously sheet metal stamped around the frame. It's what I consider an obvious frame member because it's even reminds me of the old Chevy truck "ladder" type framework. I drilled down a couple inches and then actually took my angle grinder and ground down into the paint and then took my Dremel tool and with a wire brush I kinda polished it up a bit just so it wasn't freshly ground metal and to ensure that I got any tiny paint particles out of the way. This was the worst ground I had the whole time! Which still confuses the living shit out of me because like you're thinking that should be the BEST ground I could possibly have. One thing I did not do though was to drive a bolt all the way through like I think you are talking about and that may in fact be what makes that even yet the best place for a ground. So I will try your advice and see what happens. The only thing I'm dreading is that there is a plate of some sort under the car that hides the frame of the car from being easily accessible so I think I'm going to have to go in through the wheel well and maybe drive the bolt sideways though I'd rather do it vertically. Either way I'm gonna try it when I get ahold of the drill bit and the bolt I need to do it! lol That's gonna be a chore! but the outcome might be awesome! I swear man I was getting ZERO output out of the VFL 2k amp and it would show a green light up until the first bass note would hit and then it would switch right into protect mode so I quickly pulled the battery and tried again.. and again... and again... until I had swiss chees for a trunk! lol J/K... So wish me luck.. And I REALLY appreciate the help..

Now that I look at the pics it's kinda hard to see what's going on but.... Keep in mind I put a plastic drop cloth under the amp rack so as to get the wires cut to length and not just absolutely kill the trunk mat with tiny pieces of wire and sawdust. I can't be the only person to ever deal with this!

For what it's worth I have some progress made and I'm actually about 3/4 of the way through this amp rack build which will then leave me to deal with the final routing of the wires and "tacking" them down. Mounting of course after fabricating the amp cover which will cover the amps up to the elevation of the end cap leaving you with just enough of a view of the top of the amps and the gain and crossover controls... Granted this is a basic budget build but I'm happy to have this stuff mounted safely and where I can adjust anything if I were to want to. Oh and the new sub box build. For now I have the single Sundown SD-3 and I'm happy with the output but I think I might be happier with a little more output so I'm thinking about maybe a different single sub that I can run on smaller air space or another SD-3. That I haven't decided upon yet. Any ideas. Oh and be gentle on this old f'er keep in mind I'm using my rekindled love of car audio to help me in getting out on my off days and working on my own form of physical therapy after a bad accident last year leaving me with a broken femur and hip and ribs after already dealing with a previous accident's injuries from over a decade ago that left me with a broken back. So as basic as this may be it took everything inside me to complete this. I'm hoping it's only going to get easier over time... I do appreciate the little bit of love I've gotten here at the SSA forum. Aaron you've helped more than you realize. I tend not to mention this BS but I really know that with the right range of motion and more tools I could do something I'd be more proud of but hey I can be proud of this right now because this time last year I was in a hospital bed and I wasn't able to walk again until about 3 months ago and even then I've used crutches or a cane. Yeah life sucks sometimes!!

Sorry guys upon looking at my trunk I thought it would be much better if I yanked everything out.. here's a pic. Come on suggestions! And yes the silver tank like thing is filled with gas! Crazy huh?

And that red thread pops man! Good choice. Almost too good looking to put in a box and throw a shit ton of wattage at.... Nah.. Les do this!!

p.s. the packaging... On the SSA products is bad ass. I usually toss those boxes pretty quick but those evil's came and now I keep my various odds and ends in the boxes. If the sound doesn't sell those the damn boxes will! Lol! good job, for real...

Jesus man I'm gonna have to start proof reading my posts better! I'm glad you people are somewhat intelligent because on second glance that post made zero sense. I was talking about the Otter Box! They're not quite as expensive as they once were and the V30+ is quite slim and slick as hell. Worth buying a little protection.

OK... SO I FOUND THIS! Which would have been nice to know LOOOONG ago! since I've been dealing with electrical issues since I got this car.. I was assuming they were all mostly over a burnt out or broken wire especially when I traced it down to one single wire and after jumping a fused hot wire over to the power tilt and telescopic steering controls almost ALL of the electrical things that were once non-functioning were suddenly ALIVE!!!! I thought that was crazy but it made me so extremely happy that I didn't even think that maybe there was a deeper issue. Which this is probably not a cause or even a result of that but if it were it wouldn't surprise me.. I guess I finally types what Google wanted to hear me say today and ran across this piece of info.. Which I can't believe I hadn't already seen considering I am already a member of Club Lexus's forums etc... Anyway here it is if you feel like reading.. and if you do and want to be a great person and can come up with a great solution for me in order to get good grounds up front and in the trunk too... PLEASE DO SO!!!!! MY NOT SO SIMPLE GROUNDING ISSUES... POSSIBLY SOLVED!??!

Sweet I was just about to ask about the voice coil situation but I just saw the pic of the box... And now I know what Santa is gonna bring this good boy at Christmas! Hell yeah thanks guys. I've got lots of respect and trust in the SSA name after what the evil 6.5 did for my setup! My system was totally incomplete and acting on Aaron's recommendation I ordered a pair and I still can't stop smiling when I turn on my system on!!!! Can't wait! Keep me posted guys!!

Ok so it actually got even colder so opening my garage door so I could get behind my car and take that picture but I usually park in the parking garage under our office so if I can get so lucky today even running this late I'll get that pic! I will say that you will notice that in my trunk you'll see that my gas tank is actually behind the back seat! Crazy huh!!? So strange that a cop even thought that I was smuggling shit in my trunk in a homemade tank! SMH.... Dipshit ass cop!! Lol Anyway that is now what I'm believing is the issue or at least part of it anyway. I'm not only dealing with getting my bass wave through a thick leather seat back but also a 22 Gallon metal tank full of highly flammable liquid. Not that the flammable part makes it any worse but who knows?!?? Ok give me an hour and I'll get you a pic of my seat back with the trunk carpet/screen pulled away.