pAge oNe: intro
pAge tWo: sound system design
pAge tHreE: pics of it all
pAge fOur: a bit about me
pAge fiVe: ramblings and rants
pAge siX: ********updates*********

This page is for my opinions, feelings and ramblings.

WIRING

first of all, wiring is the backbone for your entire system. Not only is the type of wire important, but how it is ran is equally important. Everyone knows the basics, like running the signal cable on the other side of the car as power and remote, simple and logical. However so many people forget or just do not know that electricity flow from negative to positive. Always has, always will. Your grounds are the most critical part of the install!! And the connections have to be done well. Ring terminals and tight bolts, never bare wire wrapped around things. Heat shrink tubing is an excellent and affordable way to protect connections and split-loom will give you the added protection while maintaining a "professional" look. That wire sometimes found on interconnects is for turning the cable into a "directional" cable. Ground the end that is connected to an INPUT. And the power wire must be ran through the fire wall, with a proper grommet, then ran down the interior of the car, out of sight, and away from all moving parts. If you see someone with thier power wire in their door jam, beware, they are a driving fire hazard. keep them away from your equipment. And EVERY installer has a multi-meter, and uses it. My Fluke 77 is my most important tool. When some one comes into the store with a problem. All i need to bring with me to their car is my Fluke. 90% of the time i'll diagnose the problem in less than 5 min. I see so many shady installs, everyone has a "friend" that does it. LISTEN UP!! just because it works doesn't mean it's done right!!!

POWER

just because your amp says 2000 watts does not mean you will get it. Power is equal to voltage times current: P=VI
If you wanna know the max your amp can do, multiply the voltage at your amp (between 12.5 and 14 volts) by the rating on the fuse on the amp. There are two main types of car amps, class AB and class D. most are class AB and are between 50%-60% efficient. Class D are for subwoofers and are almost 80% efficient. Now multiply the number you calculated above by the appropriate percent. Now this is only what it CAN do, not what it is doing. Think about your alternator, it was put in your car to match the current draw your car can have with all accessories running. It was not designed to handle a massive audio system!! You want a thousand watts, you need to upgrade your alternator. This is why class D amps are so great, their efficiency will give you more power than a class AB at the same current draw. Also, notice that a lot of amps (ahem, Alpine) are rated at 14.4V. That potential is only at the alternator, never at the battery. I've been able to maintain my car at 14v, with everything on, lights, system, fans, etc... but only by replacing my alternator. Notice that the power usually drops to 50% at 12V. Manufacturers can rate amps at whatever they see fit by altering the state of the amp. remember Orion�s 1 watt amp? it was to make a point, at that time, to change the categories in IASCA competitions. A capacitor will not achieve this. it only stores power for short bursts and the voltage given to it. it cannot increase your voltage, only your current for a few milliseconds.
Also, the impedence load on the amp will also dictate your output. Imagine how fun it would be to have a job where you feed 14.4v into a 4ohm stable amp then give it a 1/4ohm load. As it bursts into flames you record the power output. WHO made YOUR amp? I have a feeling BOSS has this guy at their plant. You need to know the nominal impedence of your speakers, especially subs to that you do not use your amplifier outside the manufacturers specifications. This will void your warranty, and cause premature aging of your components at the least. Most two channel amplifiers are 4 ohm stable when bridged. This means that you cannot run two 4 ohm subs of the amp when it is bridged.
Calculating the combined impedence of multiple subs is easy. Here's how:

Parallel
When calculating the parallel impedence you need to take the reciprical of the sum of the recipricals of each impedence you need to combine. Or more simply:
1/R = 1/r1 + 1/r2 + ... + 1/rn

This is an example of parallel wiring:

Series
Calculating series is simple. Add each impedence. R = r1 + r2 + ... + rn
Wiring series is a bit different, and not many know how to do it. But it's not hard if you look at speakers as resistors, which is how they behave.

SECURITY

you need it, thieves are dicks. i have never had my equipment stolen. alarms are important. but so is the install. put it in such that it is hard to get out unless you built it. Your security is your own business, keep it that way. Tell no one.

SPEAKERS

Two things have the largest bearing on how a speaker will sound:
1. Enclosure
2. Crossover

A speaker is nothing without an enclosure. Don't believe me, turn one on without one. And please be smart enough to realize that a good enclosure will make all the difference. And because a true single full range driver is unattainable at high volumes, we are forced to use multiple driver setups to achieve our goal. And each driver has a specific job, or range of frequencies that it must faithfully reproduce. A crossover can be very simple (6 dB/octave) or very complex (48 dB/octave). The steeper the slope, the closer to ideal. However, active crossovers result in a phase shift in between the output of high and low. -180deg for 12dB/octive, -360deg for 24dB/octive. This can be corrected when designing the active x-over with filters consisting of op-amps, resistors and small caps. A lot of design goes into a good crossover. Unfortunately, every speaker is different, so one of the reasons for high priced speaker systems is the crossover matching. You can attempt you own DIY crossovers, however i recommend designing for specific drivers. Doing this requires knowledge of Bode Plots, Transfer Functions, S domain equations, pretty much a Signals and Systems EE class. That shit isn't easy, but can be learned. Or you can just use software and programs to get pretty close.
Note: passive 6dB/octave x-overs do not cause phase shifting.

The major downfall to coaxial speakers is the use of a single capacitor in series with the tweeter. Nothing more. The woofer operates full range, and the crossover point needs to be higher than usual due to the gradual drop off provided by the -6 dB slope. Because there is no low pass for the woofer, both drivers will try to reproduce the same frequencies, with very different results. This takes place right in the crucial vocal range. Which is why most coaxial speakers sound poor. And if we have a 3-way speaker, we have two very poor crossover points in the vocal range, not to mention the low quality of the drivers themselves. And then lets distort the size of the woofer cone by stretching it, making it an ellipse. And finally let�s place the two poor mid and high drivers in the way of the stretched woofer to create reflections. And what do you have? A 6x9, or 4x6, or 5x7, or 4x10, or 6x8. A component set allows for the user have more control over the drivers. The quality of the crossover is usually dictated by the price of the set, or vice versa. Take a look at any competition car in IASCA. do you see any 6x9's in any winning cars? HELL NO!! I cannot understand why people insist on putting these pieces of crap in their cars, or even worse, they think that they are cool cuz of it!! God save us all!! My opinions are based on 8 years of experience. I have owned all types of 6x9 speakers from nappy $20 pioneer by-nines with a wizzer cone, to $280 kicker component 6x9's, and i learned that they all suck ass!!! I will never, ever waste my money and hurt my ears like that again. And my recent purchase helped remind me why i stopped buying coaxial speakers 5 years ago. So do yourself, your ears, and for God's sake, your friends ears a favor, and quit buying these evil contraptions, they only exist because automotive manufacturers are ignorant. How many elliptical speakers to you see in home audio?

SUBWOOFERS

i think that subwoofers are crucial in providing the complete aural sensation that is car audio. Bass is quite amazing, and clean 140dB bass sounds great. But it only makes up 1% of what you can hear. so please, give it 1% of your attention. Instead give acoustics the extra money. Cars are as great as they are crappy for sound. Windows and flimsy sheet metal are not common in speaker enclosures in your home. If you want more bass, sound-deaden your trunk!!! Gain does not mean Volume!!! I have NEVER blown a sub! I have owened dozens from 10" to 18" I bought 4 - 12" Hollywood subs in 1996. I sold two and am still using the other today. They were nothing special (JL-W4 identicals), but i ran those four real hard , but completely clean, for about 4 years. Subs are blown by people that are either ignorant or mistaken. Mistakes can happen, but if it is a mistake, you know it instantly (i did blow a tweeter by mistakenly swapping the mid/high output of a crossover. one second later, poof). Most people are ignorant. The problem is that a lot of people confuse distortion with loud volumes. Just because it is loud, doesn't mean it has to sound bad. This evades some people. I was taught about distortion pretty young(my father never blew speakers either. Distortion is bad, very bad. And subs usually blow from clipping (which is NOT true DC, there are harmonics which exist, but are beyond the scope if this text, ha!).
Anyway, i do understand why some prefer to put subs in their vehicle first, but make sure you address the other 99% soon after. It costs a lot of money to be musical, loud AND sound good enough for a competition judge to not laugh or shake their head. And by a lot i mean >$5,000.

WHERE DO I STAND?

do i practice what i preach? damn right. My wiring was extremely professional, since this will be shown to customers. all bases touched, terminals, firewall, grommet, split-loom, heat-shrink, gounds, invisibility. the coaxials limit my effective volume. There is a point in your volume where it stops sounding good. avoid going past that point. on my Hamburg, 50 is my max with a cd, with the Alpine 7874 it is 21. I measured the pre-amp outputs from the Alpine with an oscilloscope and it will clip a 1-kHz signal with the volume at 25. Therefore, if I turn up the volume past this point, the sound will distort because my head unit is no longer providing a clean signal. This is how you determine where to set your amplifier gains. My sub volume is matched to the volume of the rest of my speakers. it is easily described as musical. I find Hotel California, Fiona Apple (down to 20Hz on a 31-band RTA)-Tidal-sleep to dream, Sheryl Crow, and Jennifer Warrens to be good demo material. My goal was not to be loud, but to be louder than road noise at 55-75mph, windows down for two hours a day; while maintaining clean, distortion-free music (metal to jazz and a lotta trance and house, no country). I have achieved my goal.