Trying to decide what to do regarding the car audio. Current setup is very meh stock speakers are pretty poor quality so I will be swapping them out also I do need some bass which has been sorted. Quandary though is this, I can go one of four ways on the setup an I'm stuck on which would be best. 1, Fit the new speakers and amp them using a four channel amp with the sub 2, Fit the new speakers and amp them on a two channel amp and sub from a separate amp 3, Fit the new speakers amp them plus add some 3.5" speakers which will need a hole cutting in the adaptor and a speaker ring fitting and run the extra speakers from the headunit. Again one or two amp choice 4, Fit the new speakers and amp them add the 3,5" speakers and amp those too and use three amps. Working down the list each one requires more work going from additional cables to fabbing up new mounts. I have all the speakers, amps and cabling just torn which way to go on things.
option 2 for me. I always powered my subs from a dedicated mono amp. the difference on a set of amped speakers will be worlds apart from stock. I used to run them for the highs and mids and had the subs doing all the heavy lifting
Yeah, option one will only work if the amp has a really good active XO. Otherwise you will beat the crap out of your mids if you want the sub to hum. Mind you saying that any good amp would have a decent active XO, but I used to use a separate one and a line driver any way. I fitted 3.5" speakers into my door heater vents. They were useless any way and only steamed up the bloody windows. Then I had 6.5 below, and tweeters in the pillars in front and behind of me. Was it you who bought the JL sub? if so I would repeat that only in amp terms. IE get a good one. Two separate amps are the best way (I had four in total) but then you need to start worrying about your alternator, if it can cope, power caps and so on. My system reached the point where if I ran the stereo loud without the car running it would instantly kill a car battery. Most probably because one of my amps was running at .5 ohms which caused serious drain on the battery fast.
Yes was me with the JL Sub, its currently sat waiting for its box. Amp choice wise I have the below Rainbow Dream 4 4X90W @ 4Ohm and 1X200W @ 4 Ohm Genesis ST100 2X96W @ 4Ohm Genesis SM100 Bridged @ 4Ohm to 280W Genesis ST60 2X60W @ 4Ohm Sub will happily run on either the SM100 or Rainbow 4 in three channel mode as its rated to 300W @ 4Ohm. Genesis ST100 (from its Test Certificate) 12dB per Octave high/low pass crossovers Crossover controlled by HPF in/out switch High Pass Filter 20Hz to 200Hz Low Pass Filter 50Hz to 200Hz Adjustable input sensitivity 0.3V to 5.0V Stereo & Mono operation Frequency response 20Hz to 20kHz Signal to Noise Ratio tested @ >105dB (only quoted as >100dB on specification) 2 x 50w RMS @ 4 Ohms (test certificate shows 95/94w @ 0.1% dist.) 2 x 100w RMS @ 2 Ohms. (test certificate shows 147/148w @ 0.1% dist.) 1 x 200w RMS @ 4 Ohms bridged (test certificate shows 301w @ 0.1% dist.) Genesis SM100 (from its Test Certificate) 2 x 50w RMS @ 4 Ohms (test certificate shows 90.1/89.6w @ 0.1% dist.) 2 x 80w RMS @ 2 Ohms. (test certificate shows 140.1/138.4w @ 0.1% dist.) 1 x 160w RMS @ 4 Ohms bridged (test certificate shows 280.9w @ 0.1% dist.) Signal to noise ratio 112.4dB Frequency response 20Hz to 20kHz Genesis ST60 (from its Test Certificate) 12dB per Octave high/low pass crossovers Crossover controlled by HPF in/out switch High Pass Filter 20Hz to 200Hz Low Pass Filter 50Hz to 200Hz Adjustable input sensitivity 0.3V to 5.0V Stereo & Mono operation Frequency response 20Hz to 20kHz 2 x 30w RMS @ 4 Ohms (test certificate shows 57/57w @ 0.1% dist.) 2 x 60w RMS @ 2 Ohms. (test certificate shows 91/92w @ 0.1% dist.) 1 x 120w RMS @ 4 Ohms bridged (test certificate shows 187w @ 0.1% dist.) Signal to noise ratio 105dB Rainbow numbers 4 x 130 Watts @ 2 Ohm 4 x 90 Watts @ 4 Ohm 2 x 250 Watts @ 4 Ohm bridged 12 dB High Pass: 40 Hz – 4000 Hz 12 dB Low Pass: 40 Hz – 4000 Hz (REAR only) Total Harmonic Distortions THD+N <0,2 % Signal / Noise Ratio >90 dBA Frequency Response -3 dB 10 Hz – 250 Hz Input Sensitivity Level In 250 mV - 6 V Input Sensitivity High Level In 2 - 12 V Bass Boost 0 / 6 / 9 dB I do love the look of the Genesis amps purely from a physical look big polished aluminium heatsinks Vs the plain black Rainbow. Also the 3.5"s have a mount in the car already, I'd just need to add a small spacer to give it the space to run
OMG Rainbow. Holy titty that's a blast from the past !! my mate paid a king's ransom for a set of mids and highs back in the 90s, and they went bust so he couldn't RMA them. Must have been bought out by some one. My car was all Clif Designs. They went bust again during the mid noughties and Sonic Electronix were selling them off for peanuts. Lovely they were. Any way sorry for digressing.. Erm, that unit in the pic.. Is that a 3.5" driver with an empty hole next to it? or is it a 6" with a 3.5" next to it? so hard to tell.
I don't know much about Rainbow kit as I've personally never used any but I would throw a thumbs up for the Genesis stuff - I used to run a Profile 4 splitting mids / tweeters between the 4 channels and a Profile Sub with a Genesis audiophile 30.01. Was a lovely setup and I do miss not moving it to the new car I'd go with option 2
Yeah Genesis are very good. I used to use PG amps and a Cerwin Vega Marc Anthony. The MA was nearly three foot wide lol. PG in the 90s though, absolutely untouchable IMO. Their Zeropoint amps were other worldly, as was the reactor and the Son Of Frank Amp 'n' Stein.
Its a 6.5 with a 3.5 beside it, basically all the cars came with the Dyna audio speaker pod just not the extra speakers, I think Harmon Kardon bought out Rainbow from memory. Speakers I have are a set of Hybrid Audio Imagine 6.5" comps and Hybrid Audio Unity U3 3.5"s. The comps have no actual cross over instead theres a single 225J 200V cap on the mid to cut the low end from the tweeter. I remember those MA amps, they were comically large
OK cool, so you are just aiming for something between the 6.5 and tweeter. Good call IMO that was why I did it. I guess you could use the 4 channel amp. Obviously with the second pair bridged into the sub. If you don't like it you can always get an active XO. It's cheaper than buying two amps I would imagine. Then again I know some of them cost more than an amp haha. Mine wasn't too bad (Fusion with a built in line driver) but some of the Phoenix gold ones were hundreds of pounds. You can also use your head unit too, providing it has proper front and rear outputs on the lines. IE - put the sub on the rear lines, the two inputs for the front into the mids and then you can basically fade out the sub if it's too over bearing and what not. A good trick that, providing you are not using splitters.
Well the headunit has three pre outs front, back and sub so I can faff with those easily enough plus the Genesis amps have build in crossovers to save faffing, I think the Rainbow does too. I'm sitting more to option two at the moment with the option of going to option 3 as it will just be a little fab work an not need an extra set of cables if I choose to go that way.. I know what you mean on the Active crossovers they go from cheap to Audison May play safe an get a 4 way distribution block. Because upgrades!
Sounds like a plan to me dude. Should sound the balls too. I think the best system I ever heard for clarity (I was totally a SPL guy) was my cousin's setup he had in his Golf Rallye. IDK what amp he was using, a Soundstream perhaps? that rings a bell.. Like a light metallic blue. Any way, he had Dynaudio mids and tweets. They were, honestly, the most beautiful sounding pair of mids and tweets I've ever heard. They literally punched you in the legs. And to top it all off he had a JL W6 in a fibreglass box moulded into the left side of his boot. Then again, he paid for that install and box. About £800 if memory serves. If you fancy I can upload some pics of my old gear? I didn't want to just go ahead and start piling in the pics, I find it awful rude when people do that lol.
