Hi all,
Can anyone recommend me a decent sub and an amp to go with it for my FD?
I currently have an Alpine CDA-9855R head unit and a set of Alpine SPS-171A components up front. I\'m not after rear speakers as I shouldn\'t need them.
But there\'s so much choice. I\'m predominately into metal so tight bass is more important than outright depth. I\'m also not wanting to win any competitions, just something that will let me listen to music on the go :)
Any thoughts out there?
Cheers :D
How much space are you willing to sacrifice?
I\'m kind of in the same boat at the moment, starting to plan the install in my "pending" FD and have a bit of a hard time deciding what I want to do sub-wise
Well I don\'t really need the boot space...one of my bins is going to have the battery in it but otherwise it can take all the room it wants really :)
I was planning on trying to make use of the spare wheel well but can\'t decide.
Well, if you don\'t care about boot space I\'d say you\'ve got a couple of options regarding the speaker(s).
- Someone here had a bass box that fitted directly behind the rear seat (I think it was D1 WTF - maybe worth a gander in the For Sale section). Fit that with 2x 8" sub but make sure that (a) the enclosure is big enough and (b) that it\'s sealed and not free air as a sealed box one will go further down. This option actually leaves you with some boot space
- Buy a ready-made sub enclosure in the right size, stick a sub in it and chuck it in the boot.
- Chuck out the spare wheel, build a sub enclosure from MDF & fibreglass that uses the spare wheel well and as much additional room as you need. I\'d got for a ported enclosure if you want even deeper bass, with a 10" or 12" speaker.
- If you want to go silly, fill the whole boot with an FG/MDF enclosure and put in 4x10" and 1x15". And an uprated alternator :D.
As to amps, well the question is how loud do you want to go? On average, one says that 50% of the power requirement for music is below 300Hz so the usual rule of thumb is that if your sub has the same sensitivty as your front components, you should get an amp with similar power. For each and every 3dB less sensitivity per W on the sub, you need to double the amp power...
Personally I\'m a bit of an audiophile so I\'m looking at a Genesis amp for the sub(s) with possibly Genesis or JL Audio subs. But that\'s not exactly the cheap option.
For a cheapish option, this sub+box combo just caught my eye: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-swr1242d-p-5489.html
Looks reasonable but they\'re *very* short on tech details, even if you look up the speaker on its own. Plus, given the supposed power handling of that speaker, I\'d want at least a 200W mono amp, if not more. Actually, this one doesn\'t look too bad for the money: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-mrpm352-p-5518.html
So in theory you could thump your car for about 200 quid + cables. You may also want a second cross-over for the front speakers to cut off frequencies below 100/120Hz, depending on where you set the crossover for the sub. Point being that there is no point in having the front speakers try to reproduce low frequencies if your sub\'s doing the work.
Thanks for the info again :Thumbs-up
I was looking at the Alpine stuff as it\'ll go with the rest of the system. Looking on their website Alpine recommend some of their amps which are around £180 as they\'re multi-channel ones so don\'t understand that. I know you can bridge them but why not recommend the mono or even dual channel bridgable ones??
As for depth, well not hugely bothered about it going too deep. If it\'s deep it has to be tight and deep not flabby deep.
I\'ll go for the spare wheel well I reckon and work out how much extra room on top it\'ll need and see about building a custom enclosure :) I maybe asking more questions when I finally get round to it.
I have a couple of Diamond M5 dual coil 12in subs that would be good for your setup. Could even include a box that will work temperaryly for a single sub setup.
Definately use the spare wheel and the space these subs need is 0.75cuft sealed.
Shaun
Cheers Shaun, depends when you\'re selling and stuff. Still concentrating on rebuild bits then I can get an amp and sub....only fluids and the rebuild kit tho.
Quote from: probedbThanks for the info again :Thumbs-up
I was looking at the Alpine stuff as it\'ll go with the rest of the system. Looking on their website Alpine recommend some of their amps which are around £180 as they\'re multi-channel ones so don\'t understand that. I know you can bridge them but why not recommend the mono or even dual channel bridgable ones??
My guess is that they\'re recommending a fully amped setup, which is generally thought to be better than running the comps off the HU and the sub off a separate amp as two amps are easier to balance. You can get away with running the comps off the HU but ideally you\'d want to amp those two and forget about the built-in amp on the HU, especially as most HU amps aren\'t that powerful, plus you get a lot of heat if you have to crank them up high, which doesn\'t do the rest of the HU any good. Also, don\'t forget that most people run four speaker + sub setups despite what that does to the sound quality.
The El Cheapo option in that case is to get a multi-channel amp and run everything off the one amp. Generally, sound quality does suffer a bit in that setup but it depends if you\'re trying to re-create Carnegie Hall in your car or not.
Quote from: probedbAs for depth, well not hugely bothered about it going too deep. If it\'s deep it has to be tight and deep not flabby deep.
You tend to get better results for tight, fast and not so low with a couple of smaller subs as they react faster (small membrane = less weight), but for power/pressure level you want a bigger surface area. Old bass player\'s trick, a lot of the old skool funk bass players used 4x10" cabinets as the 15" ones wouldn\'t keep up with their treatment of the instrument.
Quote from: probedbI\'ll go for the spare wheel well I reckon and work out how much extra room on top it\'ll need and see about building a custom enclosure :) I maybe asking more questions when I finally get round to it.
Heh. Let\'s see if I get my "replace rear seats with a stealth install" started by then or if you beat me to it :D. Mind you, I need to get my hands on the car first :Giggle.
They have been in the cupboard since i bought my FD. I won a couple of SQ sound-offs with them locally and they are very nice subs.
I also have a couple of amps, a pioneer 4x100w jobbie, a Directed 600d (600w RMS) and a DLS A4 Ultimate (the big 4) which is 50wx4 (£850 new). Not really sure if i\'d want to sell them though !
The subs where 300 quid each new (i used to have 3!!!!) and are worth every penny !
Shaun
Genesis profile monoblock Focal polykelvar or Dimond sub. you WILL NOT be disapointed
Quote from: elford_timHeh. Let\'s see if I get my "replace rear seats with a stealth install" started by then or if you beat me to it :D. Mind you, I need to get my hands on the car first :Giggle.
:chat It\'s last on my list so you\'ll probably beat me to it :) Got to do an engine rebuild first!
Hmm, I think £80 for a 10" sub sounded good to me, it\'s only ever on when I\'m driving and I can hear the exhaust so no point in uber-quality for that :driving I\'ll see about going for 2 8" subs.
Hehe, I used to have a 4x12" cabinet I borrowed from a friend for playing bass....that actually fitted in the boot of my old Probe!
I had 3x12in dual coil subs in an AXGT with them firing into the car, absolutely no boot. The directed amp was the limiting factor and the system went to 139.8 db without distortion !
Shaun