Beginner Build

[Hookah]

Opinions?

12": JL 12W0v3-4 $130

10": JL 10WXv2-4 $90

Amp: Pioneer GM-A6604 $105

6.5 (x2): Kicker CS65 $60

HU: JVC KD-R880BT $90

Mids: Free, Choose From Collection

Tweeters: Free, Choose From Collection

Enclosures/Wiring/Other: Free, Have Materials And Skills

Details Of Above...

HU: 22x4 RMS, 4v Preamp, 13-band EQ, LPF/HPF, SW level, K2 Tech

Tweeters: A-Pillars, Imaging Enhancement

Mids: Front/Center Console, Staging Enhancement

6.5s: Outer Kick Panels Sealed As Enclosures

10": For Punch, Up To 150 Hz, sealed enclosure, 200 RMS

12": For Fullness, Up To 80 Hz, ported enclosure, 300 RMS

Amp: CEA-2006, 180x2 RMS Bridged, 2 channel LPF/HPF

Run 6.5s and Tweeters on HU front channels (full range + speaker crossovers), Console Mids on rear channels (emphasis on mid range), 10" for punch and higher-lows in rear cab, 12" for deep bass in trunk. Optimize enclosures and car interior shape/material. Utilize full abilities of HU equalizer and filters, and amp filters.

VS

Everything the same except the bass...

Amp: Polk Audio PA D4000.4 $200, 1x400 RMS bridged + 2x120 RMS, CEA-2006

12: Earthquake Sound TREMOR-X124 $75, 400 RMS

8 (x2): Audiopipe TS-VR8 $70, 8s in rear cab corners, 150 RMS (x2)

VS

Your Own Suggestion...

The Scenario is a personal setup for private enjoyment, just a driver and passenger, possibly in a hatchback and possibly in a sedan. The goal is a balance between superior SQ and maximum loudness. The budget is $500.

Click to read more...

 

[budahbuddy803 10+ year member]

Why not go the route of most sane people?

1 subwoofer ~20-80hz

Set of decent mids 80-2.5khz ish

Highs 2.5khz - up

HU

Amp(s)

Seems like a huge waste to purchase a subwoofer to cover 80-150hz, not to mention cancellation possibilities and the hassle involved.

I don't really understand why you need "stage enhancing mids" or two different sized subwoofers. If you have the skills to build a box and a collection of speakers, I would think you would know what you're doing, but from that post, I'm a little concerned.

 

[Hookah]

Why not go the route of most sane people?
1 subwoofer ~20-80hz

Set of decent mids 80-2.5khz ish

Highs 2.5khz - up

HU

Amp(s)

Seems like a huge waste to purchase a subwoofer to cover 80-150hz, not to mention cancellation possibilities and the hassle involved.

I don't really understand why you need "stage enhancing mids" or two different sized subwoofers. If you have the skills to build a box and a collection of speakers, I would think you would know what you're doing, but from that post, I'm a little concerned.

Thanks for your honest input //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Building boxes is very simple for me and having a collection of speakers does not equate to having ever built a car audio system before.

I like your suggestion of not even spending $500 by forgoing components, or buying higher quality components of smaller quantity. I assume by 'most sane people' you are only referring to beginners, since a lot of builds have several subs, amps, and other speakers.

Since the goal is to maximize SQ, I was making the assumption that some balancing and placement would be necessary. The smaller sub(s) would play as low as they can. They would simply go higher than the 12" by the 12 being filtered lower. The other purpose for the smaller sub would be to focus on punch while the larger one handles a more ambient aspect. The mids in the center help to 'pull' certain frequencies there. Imaging and staging are apparently a big part of SQ.

Since I have discovered these aspects of car audio while still being in the research phase, and you are saying those aspects do not exist or aren't worth considering, please let me know if I have been misinformed. Please be as precise as possible so I can be better informed.

What do you think of the speaker choices, and amps and head unit?

 

[budahbuddy803 10+ year member]

I suggest doing some reading up on SQ builds. Most use horn tweeters (not necessary) for a wider high frequency response, 6-8" mids dedicated to the midbass you are trying to get with you 10" sub and 5-6" mids for the, well, mid range, and then a sub for the lower frequencies. Active crossovers (rather than passive) allow you to set each individual speaker frequencies response so you can dictate the high and low cutoff points. Imaging properly can easily be done with 1 mid and 1 tweet per side, no reason for a rear stage due to imaging. For Sq, your main objective, IMO, is proper staging (sound comes from directly in front of you), proper imaging (sound hits the sweet spot (your ears)) at the same time, little to no whine or interference from your wiring/installation, "flat" response curve for all audible frequencies. I don't like a flat response curve.

Again, all this can be accomplished with a "standard" 2 or 3-way active setup. If you want it to be loud also, well, get equipment that can handle more power and supply the proper clean power. I think having all the "additional" equipment you are talking about will actually hurt your imaging, time alignment, and freq response curve. I suggest reading up on cancellation as well as other sq oriented articles.

Installation is more important than equipment. If you get the staging, sound deadening, wiring, clean power, and time alignment down, and tuning, you can run very cheap equipment and less equipment and sound better and possibly louder than people with an abundant amount of speakers.

My $0.02 is take what I say with a grain of salt and read articles by sound engineers and professional competitors. Check out the pros installations and equipment. All of that can be done very easily now n days. Good luck!

 

[Hookah]

That is excellent information. Thank You.

I am practicing and experimenting with my current setup, a mishmash of speakers and equipment while already modifying the interior as the next step in the car project, enjoying car audio to an unexpected degree. With a bit more help like this over time and a lot more research, I should have all the wrinkles ironed out and be ready to invest in better components for the final setup. It will no doubt evolve almost daily until I am finished.

 

[CSCStang]

When you decide on the sub stage hmu if you need an enclosure design and cutsheet.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[garychoffmann 10+ year member]

A small sub and a large sub can have the same bandwidth. Last night one of my daughters friends came over. He just put a system in his car. He had 2 8 inch skar ix's and a rockford 15 in the same sealed box. Same philosophy his system sounded like hell. Had an old t-line from some 8's. Threw the 8's in it. Unhooked his rear speakers and gave him an old ads to power his front hifonics components. Whole time he was saying he wanted the rear speakers and the 15. He gave me the benefit of the doubt. Blew his mind what a difference it made.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

Thanks for your honest input //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif
Building boxes is very simple for me and having a collection of speakers does not equate to having ever built a car audio system before.

I like your suggestion of not even spending $500 by forgoing components, or buying higher quality components of smaller quantity. I assume by 'most sane people' you are only referring to beginners, since a lot of builds have several subs, amps, and other speakers.

Since the goal is to maximize SQ, I was making the assumption that some balancing and placement would be necessary. The smaller sub(s) would play as low as they can. They would simply go higher than the 12" by the 12 being filtered lower. The other purpose for the smaller sub would be to focus on punch while the larger one handles a more ambient aspect. The mids in the center help to 'pull' certain frequencies there. Imaging and staging are apparently a big part of SQ.

Since I have discovered these aspects of car audio while still being in the research phase, and you are saying those aspects do not exist or aren't worth considering, please let me know if I have been misinformed. Please be as precise as possible so I can be better informed.

What do you think of the speaker choices, and amps and head unit?

Most of that does not work that way sorry to say. Ppl already mentioned why. Box design is everything. My 18s are punchier than any 8 or 10s and hits deep down to 17hz as well. That small punchy sub myth needs to die. Multiple sub sizes kill every last bit of sq

You dont need a center just a good head unit with time alignment, independent left/right speaker level attenuation and proper acoustical treatments and driver positioning.

 

[Hookah]

Most of that does not work that way sorry to say. Ppl already mentioned why. Box design is everything. My 18s are punchier than any 8 or 10s and hits deep down to 17hz as well. That small punchy sub myth needs to die. Multiple sub sizes kill every last bit of sq
You dont need a center just a good head unit with time alignment, independent left/right speaker level attenuation and proper acoustical treatments and driver positioning.

...so you would shift money from the second sub to a HU with better control or a crossover? It's good news to me that enclosures make such a difference since that's in the free column, which I had already assumed from my general experience with speakers.

Is it at all possible that two subs would make a more powerful sound, and that one could be designed/known for punchiness and have an enclosure and placement that emphasizes that effect, while having a second one in a ported enclosure that is tuned for a lower frequency if careful attention is paid to avoiding cancellation?

 

[Hookah]

Is this an accurate summary of the suggestions so far...

HU

12" (only sub)

Amp

6.5s

Crossover

Equalizer

...

-A dedicated crossover (Clarion MCD360) and equalizer (Soundstream MPQ-7XO)

-The two good 6.5s being powered by the amp

-The JL 12W0v3-4 being powered by the amp (bridged)

-My two best current speakers also up front, powered by the head unit

-My two best current tweeters up front, powered by the head unit

-Optimized enclosures, placement, and interior design/materials

...All of that is roughly $500 as well.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

I assume by 'most sane people' you are only referring to beginners, since a lot of builds have several subs, amps, and other speakers.

He means people who aren't on the spectrum. You absolutely 100% guaranteed do not have and cannot afford the processing power or testing equipment to even attempt to run a hodgepodge of speakers and try to make things sound good. Even with a precision RTA and 1000$+ worth of outbord processing (or 1500$+ MSRP head unit) you'll be hard pressed even making 3 way fronts + sub sound good in a car.

The people you see with a door full of mids are just trying to be loud for the sake of being loud. The vast majority of those sound like garbage. People who do successfully implement more fronts have a lot of money tied up in processing to balance things out properly.

To the best of my knowledge NOBODY who is seriously interested in sounding good (or getting loud) uses multiple sizes/types of subs. 80hz and down there is simply no need. If you wanted to get really fancy shoot for a 3 way with sub doing 60hz and down, 8" in the doors doing 60-300hz or so, then some 5-6" mids doing 300-2Khz and tweets from 2Khz up in the doors.

Better option as someone else has mentioned is horns under the dash and 8" midwoofer in the doors. Image Dynamics makes the gold standard 2 way horn kit for the car. If you were good with fiberglass you could probably buy a cheaper compression driver and mold your own horns, and mate with a reasonably priced 8" woofer. This is a great arrangement but simply won't fit in most cars.

Keep it SIMPLE. Some good quality 6.5" coaxials in good locations would sound far better than just throwing everything you've got at it, and the W0 12 can play every sub frequency you need.

IF you're as handy as you say and wood or space isn't an issue, have someone design a folded horn or t-line for that W0 and see what good box design can really do. *Edit* look into Dayton subs in place of W0. They're good bang for buck and partsexpress often has great sales on them.

Is this an accurate summary of the suggestions so far...HU

12" (only sub)

Amp

6.5s

Crossover

Equalizer

...

-A dedicated crossover (Clarion MCD360) and equalizer (Soundstream MPQ-7XO)

-The two good 6.5s being powered by the amp

-The JL 12W0v3-4 being powered by the amp (bridged)

-My two best current speakers also up front, powered by the head unit

-My two best current tweeters up front, powered by the head unit

-Optimized enclosures, placement, and interior design/materials

...All of that is roughly $500 as well.

Soundstream is garbage. In fact, I'd avoid outboard EQ entirely, that played out in the 80's. For the past 10 years any EQ worth using is digital and entry level for those is over 500$. Pioneer DEH 80prs can be had cheap these days and the built in crossover, time alignment, and EQ functionality is high quality and a fantastic value. You will not regret buying that head unit.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

[quote name='Hookah']Is this an accurate summary of the suggestions so far...
HU
12" (only sub)
Amp
6.5s
Crossover
Equalizer

...
-A dedicated crossover (Clarion MCD360) and equalizer (Soundstream MPQ-7XO)
-The two good 6.5s being powered by the amp
-The JL 12W0v3-4 being powered by the amp (bridged)
-My two best current speakers also up front, powered by the head unit
-My two best current tweeters up front, powered by the head unit
-Optimized enclosures, placement, and interior design/materials
...All of that is roughly $500 as well.[/QUOTE]

Outdated, inefficient and not anywhere near half as good as what today's technology offers. Also run the risk of noise with soo much things in the signal line. I'd sell all that random stuff you have to get a better budget.
Here's a much better solution.

pioneer 80 prs head unit ran active. The 80 prs has more more than double crossover and EQ options than anything you listed with adjustable slope. The built in quality audio processor already makes music sound miles better from the start as well.
https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-DEH-80PRS-Receiver-Crossover-Alignment/dp/B006Y44DAY

two best speakers on the amp, two best tweeters on the other two channels of the amp.
Then turn your door into an enclosure via deadening, sealing up all the gaps, making proper speaker baffles and prevent any sound from being trapped in the door cavity.


This amp is a better option if you can spend a little extra https://www.amazon.com/Precision-Power-P900-4-4-Channel-Amplifier/dp/B005KVEPVO



[quote name='Hookah']...so you would shift money from the second sub to a HU with better control or a crossover? It's good news to me that enclosures make such a difference since that's in the free column, which I had already assumed from my general experience with speakers.

Is it at all possible that two subs would make a more powerful sound, and that one could be designed/known for punchiness and have an enclosure and placement that emphasizes that effect, while having a second one in a ported enclosure that is tuned for a lower frequency if careful attention is paid to avoiding cancellation?[/QUOTE]

No its better to just design a perfect box that can play everything from the start. I doubt you have the years of experience nor the RTA, Termlab and DATS equipment to do a double tuned ported properly.

There is a box thats like that called a 6th order bandpass however thats extremely hard to get right as well which requires a ton of knowledge and testing and design and rebuilding even for the advanced box designers.

However best bet is to get a T-line enclosure designed by @CSCStang. We both listen to metal so yes we need our bass to punch hard on double bass pedals and we know what punch is... However even on remodified music that goes deep down low to 17-35hz, we smash those notes as well.

Main thing about subs is, you always want more output than you need, you can always attenuate via sub level or gain settings and EQ down what you dont need vs not having enough output and switching out your sub stage later on.

 

[jboy2015]

When you decide on the sub stage hmu if you need an enclosure design and cutsheet.
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

Sup stang?? you back??

 

[Hookah]

Thanks for more good info //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

At this rate, we might just decipher the ultimate $500 build, a definitive example for other people... at least until technology progresses to a completely different realm of quality vs pricing.

This is good info, but remember this is a beginner build. If comparing it to something, it should be compared to factory systems or the people who go to Wal-Mart and buy a set of Sony Xplods and call it a day, not that professional builds shouldn't be examined and analyzed, which is what I was doing before checking in here. It seems this setup will be better than 99% of cars on the road no matter what. The "cheap" crossovers and equalizers seem to go far beyond what a factory system provides. If something 1/10 the cost provides 1/2 the quality, I call that a net bargain for such a build.

This isn't exclusively a SQ build either. The goal is a combination of powerful sound and quality. I think some major ground is being covered. If the HU you guys are talking about can do more than any combination of dedicated components can do for the same price, that seems the more reasonable option, but if other aspects can be improved by shifting money to the cheaper components that can do nearly the same thing, that's worth considering too. Exactly which features should I be searching for?

Looking at box designs online, the construction is absolutely simple to anyone with minimal skills and logic. The complexity appears to be in the math. If I have measurements, material, and tools, the construction is just a matter of effort and time. It is amazing what a little labor and time can do, literally saving me tens of thousands of dollars over the years by learning to do things myself and investing the time and effort to do it. Creativity also seems to be a valuable asset, finding ways to do things that others haven't.

If we have ruled out the second sub, and people elsewhere do tend to agree that the 12s in question blow lesser competition out of the water, especially with a good enclosure, then that opens some money to put into other areas and is one less line required. If we don't have to focus solely on SQ, does that change the options any?

 

[CSCStang]

Sup stang?? you back??

Doing designs only atm. About 80% mobility so I'm getting there man, thanks for asking.