New to car audio - Need advice!

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So I just got my first car, a 95 Honda Accord, and my older brother passed down two 12' Kicker Comps to me.

My friend gave me an amp for $10, I figured it wasn't going to perform that well, but being on a budget, it'll work for the mean time.

Now that I've been saving up some cash, I'm looking to find the best bang for my buck and what I should use. My current set up is:

-Two Kicker 12' Comps, each in their own box.
-Kenwood Deck w/ Aux & RCA outputs.
-Alpine V12 T-303 (2 Channel Amp, don't know how many watts, but we made it work for now).

Any suggestions on what I should get? I'm still on a budget and want to save money, but I also want to use my subs to their potential.

The only way they sound good is if I turn the bass boost on the deck all the way up, plus the bass boost on the amp all the way up, which I understand is bad for the subs?

Any help would be very appreciated!
 
Make sure the boxes are appropriate for the woofers. Look up what Kicker suggests, or get the T-S parameters and plug them into a box modelling program. Make sure the amp and subs are properly matched; maybe it's better to bridge it and parallel both subs (although if they're 4 ohms, the amp would have to be 1 ohm stable).

Get a separate amp for the main (L and R) speakers. The "high power" car deck outputs are only about 12 real watts. If that amp doesn't have a crossover or high-pass filter, get an active crossover. If the front speakers don't have to take the bass, they'll play louder and last longer. It may be easier to get a 4 channel amp that has a built-in crossover.
 
What kind of 12 Comp Kickers are they? The model number...gotta give me some specs so I can throw some amplifiers your way. I know what you mean by budget...My system consists of a pair of 2 10" audiobahns ALUM10N ( $129 for both ) a dual box ($32) a hifonics hif2000d 2000watt amplifier; 2000 watt rms max ($208), a knukonceptz 0/1 power gauge set ($78) Sony CDX- GT43IPW stereo ($55) and a 3.5 farad soundquest lightning cap($35)

Well anyways. Lemme know the max wattage/rms on your kickers or the model number and I can find ya a good amp that'd be compatible with them, depending on the amp size I can also recommend the gauge of wiring you should get as well...depending on your budget.
 
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What are the specs on the enclosures you currently have those subs in? What exactly are your goals for this system (ie output or accurate sound reproduction). Can you give a more specific budget? What model Comps do you own? What impedance are the voice coils? A lot more information should have been included in your thread if you want some guidance. Depending on your current enclosures and goals you may want to start by building an optimal box to "use your subs to their potential".
 
The MRV-T303 is a 50 Watt per channel amp. You may find that it works better bridged to ONE of the Kickers, which raises it's output to 150 Watts on a 4 Ohm load. Really a good $10 amp you have there. If you do get a more powerful amp for the kickers, the Alpine would be a good amp to move on to the front speakers.

Here is a link to the Alpine ower's manual - http://vault.alpine-usa.com/products/documents/OM_MRV-F303.PDF
 
What are the specs on the enclosures you currently have those subs in? What exactly are your goals for this system (ie output or accurate sound reproduction). Can you give a more specific budget? What model Comps do you own? What impedance are the voice coils? A lot more information should have been included in your thread if you want some guidance. Depending on your current enclosures and goals you may want to start by building an optimal box to "use your subs to their potential".

Very well said.

Reminder to the poster of this thread...just in case you did not know. It's always better to overpower your subs than to under power them.
 
Lol under powering them for too long will permanently damage the subwoofers. Trust me I know this from past experience.
what are you talking about?? coz it sounds like if you don't play your sub at all which is about the same as playing it under its rated power (or you have other explanation for yourself?), you will damage it...hell no, only clip and far too much power will kill it
 
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None of this makes any sense.

The tinsel leads will only break if the cone travels too far (assuming they didn't break at the point of termination due to insufficient strain relief). This can be caused by driving the amp into hard clipping, driving too much power into the speaker or having the speaker in an unsuitable enclosure.
 
Without further details on precisely how they failed, it would be difficult to try to determine why they failed. Some speakers have been built with leads that were too short. Hard clipping (even if the amp was not rated for more power than the speakers) could cause it.

Who recommended the settings?

What were these recommendations?

When speakers fail, it's generally due to abuse by the person in control of the volume knob.

A lack of power, as long as the amp isn't driven into hard clipping for long periods of time, will NOT cause any part of a quality speaker to fail. If that was the case, speakers would blow when the volume was set low.
 
None of this makes any sense.

The tinsel leads will only break if the cone travels too far (assuming they didn't break at the point of termination due to insufficient strain relief). This can be caused by driving the amp into hard clipping, driving too much power into the speaker or having the speaker in an unsuitable enclosure.
Right on, correct
 
Explain then how a speaker can blow its tinsel lead in. The recommended box. Was underpowered by600watts and had all the recommended settings on the amp?
easy, sub made to far too little money, I never had sub that blown tinsel leads... but I kinda don't use cheap subs... even some "good" or big names in car audio still produce subs like that, but their price is far below of others
 
person in control of the volume knob.
in over 80%

A lack of power, as long as the amp isn't driven into hard clipping for long periods of time, will NOT cause any part of a quality speaker to fail. If that was the case, speakers would blow when the volume was set low.
I will go even one step above this... lets say you have this 300 or how much wrms speaker... put 1w (that is under powering it) square wave(max clip) on to it for 10 days and after 10 days, when you come back, guess what... speaker will still play
 
What kind of 12 Comp Kickers are they? The model number...gotta give me some specs so I can throw some amplifiers your way. I know what you mean by budget...My system consists of a pair of 2 10" audiobahns ALUM10N ( $129 for both ) a dual box ($32) a hifonics hif2000d 2000watt amplifier; 2000 watt rms max ($208), a knukonceptz 0/1 power gauge set ($78) Sony CDX- GT43IPW stereo ($55) and a 3.5 farad soundquest lightning cap($35)

Well anyways. Lemme know the max wattage/rms on your kickers or the model number and I can find ya a good amp that'd be compatible with them, depending on the amp size I can also recommend the gauge of wiring you should get as well...depending on your budget.

Regular Comps. The black/yellow model, 12 inch, about 5 years old. 300 Watts/150 RMS. My budget is around a hundred to two hundred.

What are the specs on the enclosures you currently have those subs in? What exactly are your goals for this system (ie output or accurate sound reproduction). Can you give a more specific budget? What model Comps do you own? What impedance are the voice coils? A lot more information should have been included in your thread if you want some guidance. Depending on your current enclosures and goals you may want to start by building an optimal box to "use your subs to their potential".

I haven't measured the enclosures, but I was thinking about buying new ones.
My budget is listed above.

The MRV-T303 is a 50 Watt per channel amp. You may find that it works better bridged to ONE of the Kickers, which raises it's output to 150 Watts on a 4 Ohm load. Really a good $10 amp you have there. If you do get a more powerful amp for the kickers, the Alpine would be a good amp to move on to the front speakers.

Here is a link to the Alpine ower's manual - http://vault.alpine-usa.com/products/documents/OM_MRV-F303.PDF

Thanks, I figured $10 for any Alpine amp wasn't bad.
I've been looking into bridging it and taking out one of the 12's until I can buy a better amp.

I was looking into using the alpine for the front speakers when I buy a new amp, but my kenwood deck only has one RCA plug, and that's being used by the sub..any way I can get around this? I was told I'd need a new deck to use the amp for front speakers while having subs and another amp in the trunk.
 
You don't need a new deck. When your shopping around for a new amp, many times you will see two pairs of RCA's on them. One set is for inputs, another set is outputs to continue the signal on to another amp. Now, I don't think the Alpine you have has this, but the next subwoofer amp you get should. Thus you only really need one set of RCA's coming from the deck.
 
Here's some amps I found:

Brand New Rockford Fosgate R250-1 250 Watt RMS Mono Car Amplifier- $97.95

JX250/1 - JL Audio Monoblock 250W RMS 500W Class A/B Amplifier- $149.95

Kenwood KAC-6104D 600 Watt Max Power Class D Mono Power Amplifier with Variable LPF - $69.99

Cobalt Series 600-Watt 2-Channel Class A/B Car Amplifier -$97.00

JBL GT5-A3011 600 Watt Monoblock Subwoofer Car Amplifier Sub Amp GT5A3011 -$119.00

JVC KSAX4302 600 Watt 2CH Car Amplifier Bridgeable Amp - $62.88

Diamond audio D600.1 600 watt mono amp -$70

HIFONICS 600 WATT RMS 2/1 CHANNEL CH AMPLIFIER CAR AMP -$99

If you want to really have a good system I'd recommend buying a good 6 gauge power wire kit...or 6 gauge kit. My recommendations are kicker wire sets...or Knukonceptz...maybe even stinger.

Since you have a 8 ohm load of your kickers, it'd be best to parallel wire them into a 4 ohm, so you get more bass out of them.

Here is a wiring diagram

http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/woofer_configurations.asp?Q=2&I=81#results
 
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