Opinions on how to improve for $300

[Souths1der]

Help me spend some money guys. I’ve got $300 to spend, and I’d like to do it on my car stereo. I’d like to see what you guys suggest. One caveat is that it has to be done with product on Amazon since that is where I have accumulated a credit balance.

I have the base stereo with the 5.0 screen, I don’t want to change out the head unit and I don’t want to do a subwoofer just yet. When I first got the truck, I couldn’t deal with the cheap speakers though so I swapped them out (maybe too hastily). My current speakers:
Dash – Polk DXi350
Front Door – Infinity Kappa 692.9i
Rear Door – Infinity Kappa 62.9i (these sound like **** right now and I can’t tell if they’re blown or it’s just the crap signal you guys say the rears get).

My initial thought was to get a 4 channel amp for the front and rear doors and keep the dash on the head unit. Between the amp, install gear, and LOC, I was at $250. Then I started looking at speaker upgrades (maybe moving the front doors to the rear and setting the low pass for a poor mans “sub”), which lead to looking at cheaper LOC’s, which lead to changing the amp I had selected…then my brain exploded. Then I thought about asking the community here. You guys all seem to have creative builds and great ideas. My goal is to improve my sound and be open for some upgrades like a sub, DSP, in the future. I like my music, but I am not looking at rattling the windows or signing up for competitions.

Any input is really appreciated because I don’t want to get crap gear and still be unhappy with my system in another year.

 

[BradKnob]

More power usually cures everything... Id start with an amp but id put it on the front doors and dash instead of rear doors. From there you can decide if you need to replace the speakers or not.

 

[Etroze86]

I'm with Brad power does wonders even on crappy speakers other thing I would look at is a roll of sound deadener.
http://www.amazon.com/Precision-Pow...&qid=1408715073&sr=8-2&keywords=ppi+amplifier
Amazon.com: FatMat 50 Sq Ft x 80 mil Thick Self-Adhesive RattleTrap Sound Deadener Bulk Pack w/Install Kit: Automotive
Just a couple of suggestions for ya.

 

[DRkNESS]

My suggestion is to buy a refurbished (4) channel amp on Amazon and run the dash and doors off of that. Let me try and find the link of the one that I would purchase.

 

[Souths1der]

The amp I was looking at was a Rockford R400-4D. I wanted something a little more compact as I want to place it under the drivers seat. I was worried that the little Polk 3.5" wouldn't run too well pushed with 75W.

 

[DRkNESS]

Sorry the refurbished one that I was thinking about cost more then it does new.
http://www.amazon.com/JBL-MS-A1004-...ef=sr_1_7?s=car&ie=UTF8&qid=1408716205&sr=1-7

 

[BradKnob]

The amp I was looking at was a Rockford R400-4D. I wanted something a little more compact as I want to place it under the drivers seat. I was worried that the little Polk 3.5" wouldn't run too well pushed with 75W.

The 3.5s claim to handle 105 watts plus you could turn the amp gains down for that channel if necessary. Just keep them in their "safe" frequency range and listen to them ******** sing!

 

[BradKnob]

Sorry the refurbished one that I was thinking about cost more then it does new.
Amazon.com : JBL MS-A1004 100 Watt x 4-Channel Amplifier : Vehicle Multi Channel Amplifiers : Car Electronics

Im runnig 3 of these, well 2 - 4 ch and the mono. EQ section on these are pretty amazing. If you apply for an amazon credit card you get a $30 gift card and get one for under $200. I would run this over the fosgate and will probably fit under the seat.

 

[Souths1der]

That amp seems pretty badass. I'm reading through the manual. It alludes to the fact that it's high level inputs are more high tech than most others. Could I get away with using them, tapping only the front speaker signal? I was planning on using the LC2i and tapping the front speakers only, and if I could get away with not needing the LOC that would help the budget.

 

[Etroze86]

For sure use the high levels but tap the front doors as they are the full range signal.

 

[BradKnob]

Amp even comes with some pretty cool hi level (speaker wire) to RCA adapters. It also has a disk you play that tells you exactly where to set your gains. Then on top of that, there's an output gain that you can adjust for each channel, aside from the input gain. Not to mention the hundreds of x-over configurations you can set. I'm surprised these suckers didn't take off more than they did

 

[Souths1der]

I'm sold. I take it that since nobody bashed my speakers that they're at least passable? I'm actually surprised that somebody didn't throw out a suggestion for some obscure speaker brand that's actually very good, costs peanuts, and is better than the ones I have. It's been so long since I really dug into this sort of thing that I only really know the major brands that I knew about back then. In this forum I read about brands that I have to look up all the time because I've never heard of them.

 

[Souths1der]

I pulled the trigger on that JBL amp and the install supplies. Should get it in before next weekend, and then I should have a fun long weekend getting it all setup.

I have some initial thoughts though. I was thinking of doing a low pass on my 6x9's in the door and a high pass for the 3.5's in the dash to see how it sounds. Right now I have two questions/comments:

1. The 6x9's have a small pre-wired-in external crossover that I make the connections to, and then it splits the signal (or whatever) inside the speaker. Should I still connect to that? I was thinking of clipping that off and just connecting directly to the woofer but I'm not sure if that's advisable. But I also don't know if that crossover will mess up the tuning I would do on this amp.

2. Since I'll be doing a HPF for 3.5's, I can go ahead and remove the cheapo bass blocker correct?

 

[Etroze86]

You can remove it and you can still run a crossover with the passive crossover if you want it won't hurt just see how it sounds.

 

[BradKnob]

Hmmm, Idunno about that. I think that x-over may protect the tweeter in the 6x9. If you remove it, then the tweeter will receive the same signal as the woofer and that will end bad.

Is there a way to wire the tweeter separately? That way u can just put a bass blocker on the tweeter and still send a full signal

 

[Souths1der]

I'll have to look. I was also thinking of maybe cutting out the tweeter in that speaker altogether. Either physically removing it, or setting that speaker with a low filter. I'm pretty sure I'd be covered on the high end by the dash. Those tweeters in the doors are firing into my knees anyway. I really like the idea of putting tweeters in the sails, but these would be hard, if not impossible, to relocate.

 

[BradKnob]

That ought to work. I think you will be good in the high side once you put some power to the dash speakers

 

[Souths1der]

Well, I have the amp installed. Those high-level->RCA adapters are a PITA, hardly any room for length and also the 14ga speaker wire I used wouldn't fit real well. unfortunately I made the amateur move of not giving myself much slack in all my cables. I also disconnected the rear speakers for now.

Sound is pretty good. I played with the settings a little bit, haven't found one that so fantastic I would stop tuning. I did find several that sounded like crap. With my door (Infinity Kappa 6x9 2-way) and dash (Polk 3.5" 2-way), what settings would you think I should try for the crossovers on them. I've been trying low pass on the 6x9's in the 500-700 range, and high pass on the 3.5's to match both with 24db slope. It certainly sound better than before but not great. It could just be this is the best I can expect from these speakers, but I just want to check if I should be trying a much lower or higher filter point.

One other concern, to those with these amps, what is your experience with the auto turn on/off? It sure does seem to take it's time turning off, has me worried that it's functioning properly. It also seems to turn on before the radio is actually turned on. The last time I checked it, I went out about an hour after turning off the car and the amp was off. I didn't put the key in the ignition, but I moved the seat and the amp turned on. Perhaps some of the other systems in the car send a pulse through the entire system or something and the sensor picks up on it. Not sure, and google is not helping me.

 

[BradKnob]

Try crossing the 6x9 higher, say 2k hz w 24db slope and take some of the load off the 3.5"s. Did you try messing with the digital output gain as well? Mine made a world of difference just going from 40 to 60


I also had the delayed on/off issues. I was using signal sensing, no remote wire, and it took a few seconds to turn on and my mono amp would stay on for hours, not sure where it was sensing signal from. I ran a remote wire and solved that. Then I turned signal sensing off all the amps and haven't had issues since.

 

[Souths1der]

Where did you tap for the remote? I had thought of just switching to that, but by the end of the day I dreaded that thought because I had buttoned everything up and didn't want to have to take the dash apart again. I also changed the default output from 40 to 60. Really made a difference.