Audio for car help

Howard · 21 Oct 2013 at 08:15

Rybo89 said:
Why would anyone want something like this in a car? You would look like a complete utter knobhead whilst vibrating down the road with a stupid racket coming from your car.

Put this with people who have stupid silly loud halfords exhausts.

Nice generalisation there, Mr Aftermarket Exhaust

I have a sub in my car but it isn't to annoy people in the vicinity.

I do need to build a slightly better enclosure for it, though.

rodenal said:
That's what was confusing me! This is a hiwatt 200w head and 4x12 cab (in which I don't know what the drivers are rated to, more than 200w obviously) too, you'd be off your rocker to want that volume level in a car but I guess it's more complex than w=loud! (though I find it hard to believe it's not a good indicator, if the sub can supposedly handle 800w or even half that if driven by a powerful enough amp then it must be ridiculous)

It's to do with speaker driver efficiency and the frequency response of said drivers, your cab will be designed for a very punchy sound in the lower and mid frequencies - say, down to probably 40-50hz and the driver will be designed thus. Also most cheap consumer and car hifi probably doesn't measure wattage continuously, rather a 'burst rate' with a specific frequency. And a car amplifier might be able to deliver 800 watts for a short period into a 2ohm load but if you work that out for a 4 or 8 ohm load, it will be a lot less. You'll probably find higher quality car amps that have high quality power supplies and output stages with 2, 3, or even 5 times less "wattage" than a cheap FLI amp will simply blow it into the weeds given some real usage.

You'd need some serious current to draw 800watts from a car amplifier even if the amp is 100% efficient, which it won't be. You'd need a 40a fuse to supply even 600 watts at around alternator voltage. It's all a marketing ploy and the 800w probably refers to the power handling when supplied with a short burst and not a continuous sine wave. If you fed said sub with anywhere near 800 watts from a proper amplifier with appropriate power supplies, you'd probably see smoke.

That said, in a car and taking cabin gain into consideration (big old peaks in the frequency response), the sub that the OP has mentioned will probably make a fair old racket. It probably won't produce particularly accurate or musical or truly deep (20-30hz without a significant roll-off) bass, but it'll be "loud" (albeit with some harmonic distortion).

Rybo89 · 21 Oct 2013 at 08:45

Stormster said:
Must have grown up a HELL of a lot since your Fiesta ST. Loud exhaust was on that, no? Was there a loud exhaust on your VXR? Loads of daft "you wouldn't catch me doing that" comments lately?

They was hardly loud, I'm talking 6" on a 1L Corsa. Big subs in back of a car are just daft, they shake you and the car half to death, sound stupid, music sounds nothing like it is ment to sound.

2400watts in a car is just daft. Never liked subwoofers, I love music though

Matt82 · 21 Oct 2013 at 08:50

Howard said:
It probably won't produce particularly accurate or musical or truly deep (20-30hz without a significant roll-off) bass, but it'll be "loud" (albeit with some harmonic distortion).

20-30hz range is just for lolz though, i dont think any music goes to that range, especially on compressed sources and interiors really seem to hate it too

id really like to buy an old JL 8" sub, make up a really nice slot port box for it. yould only have to run it with a few hundred rms and it would absolutely kick ass

Howard · 21 Oct 2013 at 08:59

Matt82 said:
20-30hz range is just for lolz though, i dont think any music goes to that range, especially on compressed sources and interiors really seem to hate it too

Depends entirely on what you listen to though. Like church organ music? You'll need some serious air movement to faithfully reproduce that. Same with certain hip hop and electronic music. Or certain recordings of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with the cannons, that'll make most subwoofers whimper

You'll need drivers with a decent xmax and a well designed cabinet, though, which I'm sure the FLI has neither of

Amusingly, my interior doesn't appear to rattle when I feed it with a 25hz sine wave! There is about an 8-10db rolloff at that point with my sub though.

Matt82 said:
id really like to buy an old JL 8" sub, make up a really nice slot port box for it. yould only have to run it with a few hundred rms and it would absolutely kick ass

You won't even need "a few hundred" watts - a decent 150-200w amp will suffice.

Tom|Nbk · 21 Oct 2013 at 09:33

m8 get a sub.

Firestar_3x · 21 Oct 2013 at 09:45

Are all factory fit subs chav items then?

Rybo89 · 21 Oct 2013 at 11:21

Big silly box taking all the boot space up and speakers in the parcel shelf = chavvy.

A little subwoofer, fair duse.... But them great big bloody things what take up half the boot space are just rediculas and massive overkill for a car.

Atari · 21 Oct 2013 at 11:29

I bought a set of second hand Kicker CompVX 12 subwoofers once. The box needed to be shoe-horned to fit in the boot my E46 (which is a reasonably spacious boot). Damned thing was so large you couldn't even get access to the CD changer

For some reason, whoever had the built the box had tuned it to some ridiculously low frequency so the ultra low frequencies would resonate the **** off the car. Rear view mirror would go nuts when it really shouldn't.

Have since popped one out and put it into a 1l sealed box and tuned the amp properly so it now is nice and subtle 99% of the time.

Howard · 21 Oct 2013 at 11:45

Atari said:
put it into a 1l sealed box .

Really?

Atari · 21 Oct 2013 at 11:55

Howard said:
Really?

LOL Monday morning fail. That should have been 1cu ft

Coffee. Need more coffee.

Stormster · 22 Oct 2013 at 01:10

Rybo89 said:
Big silly box taking all the boot space up and speakers in the parcel shelf = chavvy.

A little subwoofer, fair duse.... But them great big bloody things what take up half the boot space are just rediculas and massive overkill for a car.

Is a vtec this sticker chavvy? Do be quiet m8.

As said you don't need big power for good bass. You just need quality kit. My amp is able to put out 175w RMS @ 4ohm, the gain is nowhere near half way and if I want it to, it can rattle the car to bits! lol. I have a volume control up front for the sub wired in though so I can fine tune the levels somewhat dependant upon what I am listening to.

Again Rybo you are wrong also. Drum and BASS, Hip Hop, Dubstep, loads of forms of dance music are heavily bass led, your piddly speakers won't drop to 30-40Hz and give you the frequencies WRITTEN into said music.

Rock etc.. BASS guitars, drums... You into a bit of vanessa mae violin music or what?

I don't know what's actually more annoying... a boyo brapping it up with a load of cheap subs and 4 exhausts, or someone who doesn't actually know what they're on about trying to make out they know what they're on about

Rybo89 · 22 Oct 2013 at 08:10

The sticker was just comedy to wind up the Vtec boys, obviously worked eh?

My speakers are just fine, the whole world doesn't need to know what i am listening to in my little metal box.

Yeah love a bit of classic music, Bit of Julie London: Cry Me A River.

Makes me think of you babe <3

Howard · 22 Oct 2013 at 08:19

Rybo89 said:
Yeah love a bit of classic music, Bit of Julie London: Cry Me A River.

That's Jazz

Rybo89 · 22 Oct 2013 at 08:29

Shhhhh you, go use your 'duck' tape and tape up some ducks

Howard · 22 Oct 2013 at 08:51

What?

Sasso · 22 Oct 2013 at 11:58

ahhh car audio xD I remember the ludicrous number of speakers in my mates v6 vectra many years ago xD

had pioneer tweets and normal speakers in the front and rear doors, don;t think he had 6x9's...but then at one stage had 4 12" subs in the boot.... omfg....that s*** was LOUD!!!!!

when cranked up we couldn't hear ourselves scream. Rear view mirror vibrating? more like the wing on the boot oscillating a few inches in either direction!!! was funny but my god.... we must have looked special haha xD

following that and a down size we made a custom boot instal in an mx-5 using a 10-12" sub, single amp and build the box ourselves. was soooo easy!!!! just find out the volume you need internally, take some other measurements/stencils of the shape of the boot, mark it all out on some MDF, cut it, screw/silicone seal it, glue on acoustic felt trim stuff, leave dry... HOORAH! boot box

from plan to tuning took an afternoon and a few beers

most I did personally to a car I've had was when I had my L plate escort i took out the 5x7's, took a jigsaw to the mounting holes and put in some 6x9's unamped and a sony head unit. cheap...simple.... gave be a better audio experience when driving about, would get a bit distorted when really cranked up (due to no amp) but i didn't really do that.... sure it would be loud but not stupid loud xD i.e. still able to hold conversations.

oh yea, none of this house music pumping from my car.... was more the likes of Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Frank Sinatra, Journey etc...etc..

and a bunch of metal heads sat in back head banging xD