New Entertainment Setup....in car!

Depends on your power and price bracket really. For more budget stuff, JBL is hard to beat.

I have an groundless soft spot for Orion stuff. And it's what I'm gradually upgrading everything to.

As far as maintaining boot space, have you decided how you're going to mount your gear yet? The most space effecient would be to fabricate a false corner or back of your boot, mount everything on it and run the cable behind.

You need to start considering the basics first. Where are you going to route the power cable from the battery to. Where are you going to ground. How big is the gear in question, how big is your sub enclosure, what gauge wire are you using.

Before you start deciding on brands and whatnot. You need to set a definate setup, a budget to stick to, and all the basics of wire gauges and routing.

Ant :cool:
 
Hey Ant,
I think a 12" sub would suffice, and I'm very tempted to go for an active enclosure, just to save space and money. It would sit at in the back-right corner of the boot, right up to the back of the rear seats. For the matter of grounding, I'll have a look later, but I think I could probably connect the ground to the right suspension strut, as I think it's just under a bit of plastic. Running the cable from the battery, has anyone got any suggestions to the easiest route? Brand-wise I'd rather stick to the higher end makes such as Pioneer and such, as audio quality is a big thing for me. Cheers, Chris.
 
If audio quality is a big thing for you then don't bother with any but the very expensive enclosures. Personally I wouldn't bother.

Don't know about the fiesta. But on my escort, there is a small watertight plastic plug about 4" below the bottom door hinge. I popped this out by removing the plastic panel opposite it in the passenger footwell, moving everything out the way and banging it out with a screwdriver. I then drilled a hole in the plug, slightly larger than the gauge of my wire and fitted a rubber gromet over my power cable and ran in through. Then I replaced the plug and cut the wire, mounting the fuse inside the panel, before replacing it. Then I just ran the cable along the left hand side, underneath all the plastic covers, underneath the rear seats and into the boot.

I'm grounded on the suspension strut too, but there was no bare metal so I had to scrape a load off, be really thorough as lots of people get problems and poor grounding is the first culprit.

I use a 12" too. They're lively enough to keep pace as long as you spend money, and they offer serious thump.

What's your budget? What do you listen to? Any particularly important things you need?

If this is your first build, I'd recommend you stick with front comps and a subwoofer for the minute. So you'll need.

Mono Amp
Subwoofer
Stereo Amp
Front coaxials/components
Mounting brackets

You can fabricate mounting brackets if you want. You need to work out how much depth you've got for mounting the front speakers, and decide on how large a speaker you can get, 17cm fits in a scort.

If you're definately getting rears, then buying a multichan instead of a stereo amp means you can plug them straight in rather than buying another stereo for them.

Then you need to decide how you're mounting in the back. You could either fabricate a corner box to shroud the suspension strut and create a flat section to mount your amps, or you could run a flat peice and create a false back for your rear seats. Its up to you how complicated you make it. You could just make an enclosure similiar to that you've got your sub in, and mount the amps on that.

Personally I always go for Alpine head units. Amps, you get what you pay for, so its really down to budget. And speakers... Well Hertz and Rainbow seem about quality, SPL dynamics are about thump, and JBL is about bang for buck.

Ant :cool:
 
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Hey Ant,
I'm a music student, and I listen to everything; from heavy rock to ballads, to pop, to reggae, to dance, techno etc. I'm a radio and mobile DJ, so I have to be into everything :D

I'll go for what you've suggested, and I'll probably go for rear speakers in the end, just to make the experience better for back seat passengers. I could always upgrade them and run them off of the head unit amp, saving me a bit of money. As for the mounting of the amps, I could fit them to the back of the back seat, or on the side of the subwoofer. I'll look into Hertz and the rest of the makes you suggested, and try and get a pricing list up. I'll have a good look in the boot in the morning and maybe post a few photos. Thanks for all of your help and advice, it's much appreciated. Cheers, Chris.
 
easyrider said:
Built a Car PC for my BMW E46

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17860684&highlight=easyriders

External HDD for media?

Na.

I run a batch file on my car PC's desktop that syncs my media with my NAS Box in the house over WiFi ;):D

101_0125.jpg
Click to expand...

I'd quite like to convert my current 2DIN 7" touch screen dvd player into a similar type of thing, may have to look into this type of thing. Could do with not having to burn dvd's or mess with SD cards to have new music in my car. hmm
 
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