CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Anyone else into car audio as a hobby?

Now that it's finally getting warm out it's about time to start designing a system for my truck,so I just wondered how many other people here mess around with car audio either on a serious or even just a beginning level?and what you've got?

For now there's not much in my truck:( but hopefully by may/june that will change.


Last year I had my system hooked up in my car it consisted of:
For main Control:
Alpine 3 disk in dash changer
Pioneer Deq 9200 - eq-rta-parametric

For Highs and mids:
[url=http://www.cdtaudio.com/car_audio.htm]CDT HD series[/url] and classic series powered by an xtant 2200 and an xtant 2100

For bass:
2- [url=http://www.ddaudio.com/caraudio/woofers.asp?series=9500e]DD 9512's[/url] powered by 4 [url=http://www.xtant.com/html/index.cfm]xtant 1001dx's[/url]

For power:
Optima yellow top batteries
0 guage wire between all batteries and distribution blocks
dual 4 guage wire from the alternator
Stinger - for all conecting parts

extras:
about 200 sq feet of generic sound dampening material
about 100 sq feet of dynamat (to prevent sound loose and rattles)
9 cans of expanding foam - to quiet any remaining rattles

Last year was cool I metered 158.3,158.8 and 159.6 on termpro mics and 164 on a generic mic but all the weight that was aded to my car got old,since my motor needed rebuilt I decided to try to go the speed direction with the car so everything was pulled from the car.


This year I'm looking for what I'll put in my truck - not sure what I want yet,but it won't probally be anything as big loudnesswise but I think I'm going to go for straight sound quality again and maybe add some visual stuff,like a dvd player or PS2 and some monitors.

Need to find some good amps - now that xtant was bought out by mitek (mtx-parent company) I don't like the downgrades they've made

I thought about doing something with the sound in my camaro, but it came stock with "Monsoon" sound and it's pretty good as is. I might look into it later. Right now I'm wanting to get a surround sound system for my Living Room. Maybe some of you guys know about that kinda thing. If so, any brands or watts that ya'll prefer would be helpful .

I know a little about home system but not as much as I do car audio.

Those monsoon stock systems don't sound bad for driving as long as your not trying to go to compititions or anything,kinda why I didn't do much to my truck before it's got the infinity systems which sounds fine too and is pretty load but a few months now without some serious tunes is makeing me want to hook something up.I don't want the weight back in the sebring though,since the local NHRA track opens back up next month:D

[quote]any brands or watts that ya'll prefer would be helpful[/quote]
For brands for home:
Top end- Harmon Kardon is always nice as well as B & k
top end lower power - Bose is unbeatable

Decient sound on a budget - Sony , pioneer and dennon are always good choices.


Supposedly the best speakers to use in home theater type situations are Digital Designs - [url]http://www.ddaudio.com/[/url] on their site they're mostly marketed as car audio but the same 12's I had in my car are supposedly what Mtv and many recording studios use - if you ever want something that loud,call DD and they will give you ANY help they can and give you any information you want. I honestly think they're the best large company I have ever dealt with - they were nice before and after I ever bought anything from them

For home theater and high quality sound - monster cables (brand) is always worth the few extra bucks for their wireing and connectors.


watts <--- that is the amount of power a given component can either give out or recieve,so that would be different depending what your trying to do,how loud you want things to be and etc..
- *Like say an infinity or monsoon system in a car is about 150watts and the custom install I did was about 4,800 watts

The easiest way to figure how many watts you need or want is:
doubleing power = 3 decibles(db's)
(also)doubleing speaker cone area = 3 decibles
(these rules don't apply much after 135db's though)
usually when you gain 3 db's you lose .5-.8db's
( long story but you do)
so if you have 100 watts and want something twice as loud shoot for 250watts etc..

Ok now I'm confused..LOL. Are the systems at Bestbuy that are complete with speakers and everything not good to get?

Here are a couple that I have looked at.

[url]http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11101296&m=1&cat=1552&scat=242[/url]

[url]http://www.bestbuy.com/detail.asp?e=11161128&m=1&cat=1552&scat=242[/url]

Any thoughts on those?

My pick of those two would be the sony.

The kenwood has more features but the sony will still probally be louder and clearer as well as easier to operate,be more reliable and if one of the two needs fixed after the warranty is over it's easier to find a place that repairs sony (at least around here) too.

But thats just my oponion stongly influenced by never haveing anything kenwood last more then a few months. And on the other hand even though some of the sony stuff I have isn't top of the line it's lasted years.

since this is about car audio, im very much interested in cars and audio. but my friend just got his whole system stolen. he had a kenwood head unit, phoenix gold amp and sub, and kenwood speakers all around. he spent about 800 on the whole system. im just scared if i do it and i also get robbed. is there anything out there that can keep me safe?

Stillearnin! I'm impressed you know ur stuff. What do your fish think about ur music lol. What kind of music are you into?