Whats with my system?
 

I have this head unit installed, and these speakers installed (All four)

The head unit goes from 1-30 as far as volume, but when it gets to like 23+ the speakers start making a crackling noise and the sound quality sucks. I dont really understand how the head unit's "52 watts X 4 high-power output" works with the 280 watt speakers, but something is wrong here.

I'm thinking the head unit's power might be more than the speakers can handle, but I could be wrong.

I was also wondering, what if I put 2 more speakers in my car? Will that affect the overall stereo system negatively or would it work out well?

If you run a amp on those four speakers instead of running them off the cd player they would sound better and you wouldn't get the crackling noise... and i'm pretty sure that cd player doesn't actually put out that much power... you won't get the full benefit of the speakers until you put more power on em

How does an amp even work (Sorry, I'm bad with audio)? Do I connect the CD player to the amp, then the amp to the speakers and it gives them more power? Also, how do I power the amp exactly? I never understood that...

I've never actually hooked up an amp and if you don't know how you might not want to either.... but the amp has a remote wire that goes to the cd player and it has a power wire that connects to the battery and 1 ground wire... the speaker wires connect directly to the amp... but a amp just gives more power to speakers to make them reach the wattage that they are made to push......

any estimate on how much it would cost to get my four speakers hooked up to an amp (After I buy the amp)?

it depends on who does it... but something like this should get the job done and i don't think you would spend more than 200 in all
http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...roductID=21016

hmm, well maybe I'll just take your advice and get that ;)

will I need to buy anything else like wires or something or is it good to go?

Yea you will... Go talk to the people at a audio store first and they'll tell you everything you need... I'm pretty sure thats why the make the crackling noise because i just started doing the audio system in my caprice and it does the same thing...

Just got that SoundStorm F4.400 Amp for only $30 shipped on eBay :D

Looks like I'll be visiting the audio place soon :)

Any ideas of what the specs would be for a good subbox to go with it?

thats a good ass deal... i'm about to get 2 10's for my stang and the guy who is going to do my car says they make a mustang box that won't take up the little room you have already in the trunk... so look around on the net and see if you can find a mustang box

thats gonna be kind of a hassle if your going to run ur door speakers off of it.. But,, it should work out for you well hopefully.. I run my HU straight to my door speakers (theway ur are currently) and have a sub out to my subs.. I set the EQ on my doors for treble and mid range,, taking out all bass, and send the bass to the subs to make up for it all.. HOPEFULLY that will solve your problem by allowing you to set a nice low pass filter. MAybe even hi pass if it has it.

True it would be a hassle but bestbuy gets stuff done... lol..... but i switched out my cd player and i had the shaker 500 system and my touch screen pushes the hell out of my door speakers now...... they sound much better.. but i'm about to make a whole kenwood system for my car... need more bass

Keep in mind that the headunit never puts out the power they claim.

at 23 volume the crackling you are hearing is the clipping from the amplifiers. basically the internal amps dont have the balls to drive the speaker properly.

Remember, the fastest way to damage speakers is to run an insufficient power to them. CLIPPING happens when the amp cant put out the juice and it basically distorts the hell out of what would be a perfectly good audio signal, instead of a smooth up and down curve signal the signal goes up, stops dead flat, then drops back down.

this causes a VERY unnatural movement for the speaker and will cause more damage in the long run.

ive been out of the audio gig for a while, but ALWAYS overpower you gear with good clean power.

if you have a 500w amp to a 500w speaker, that amp is clipping like a motherfucker at 500 watts and is gonna screw the speaker up.

if you have a 750w amp to a 500w speaker, the amp should hopefully be able to produce a good clean signal at 500 watts and wont start clipping to 600 or 700. a 500w speaker should be able to hit transient bursts of power up to 700 without a problem.

so, go with a more powerful amp, keep the gain down a bit, and you can really pull the maximum out of your speakers.

:D

well put

Before you go spending a bunch of money on amps and stuff do a bit of research on the web. Places like Crutchfield.com and other online electronics vendors often have decent information to help give you a better understanding of what you are buying.

I'll agree that the speakers are crackling is from the headunit not having enough power to meet the volume level you were using. That's assuming that you were listening to a cd and not the radio. Radio transmissions have distortion and the more you amplify it the worse it gets.

The 52w x 4 chanels for that head unit is peak power what you need to look at is RMS ( your unit 17w RMS ) which is what the unit can output continuous. This applies to speakers and amps as well. (Your speakers are rated for 280w peak and 50w RMS) Having components unmatched like having an amp putting out 200w peak output to a speaker that can only handle 100 or even 150w peak will blow your speakers. The same is true with RMS if your amp is putting out 100w RMS per channel and your speakers can only handle 80w RMS even though the peak handling is equal to or greater to than the peak output of the amp eventualy the speakers may blow out. So look for an amp that puts out close to 50w RMS and no more than 280w peak output per channel.

The way to get the best sound quality is to use component speakers with an external crossover to split the sound levels. and an amp subwoofer combo.

MTX makes both a powered subwoofer kit and an unpowered kit that fits on the right side of the trunk blends in and takes up little space. These aren't cheep though.

If you really want to have good sound look into sound dampening as well.

I listed Crutchfield only as a source of information not suggesting you buy from them, because they are way overpriced. Check out Sonic electronix for better prices. Most shops will install things for you even if you didn't purchase it from them if you're uncomfortable installing it yourself.

Hope that helps.

True to an extent, but that is assuming you actually play at those volumes. if we were talking about subwoofers just cause throwing 500watts at at a subwoofer in a car is an every day thing

people generally wont play it louder than what is comfortable and that will pretty much keep people from pumping 100wrms to a 50rms speaker.

My personal feeling and experience is that overpowering a bit will ensure that the 50w rms the speaker can handle is getting a very clean and undistorted signal from the amplifier because it is well under the range the amp is capable of. And to adjust for the overpower just lower the gain on the amplifier and you are pretty much safe from the overpowering and the underpowering.

I have always overpowered my speakers in car audio and home audio by a 150% rate and i have never blown a speaker. (except once a hairpin from my girlfriend fell down behind my JmLabs Chorus speakers and shorted out the banana clips and it hit this tone that just VAPORIZED my voicecoil. lol.... thats when i learned that a fried voicecoil oddly enough smells like a fresh box of bandaids.


Good times

I wasn't trying to refute your post. You obviously know what you're doing and how much you need to turn down the gain to make it work safely.

The original poster stated he had littel to no knowledge about this type of thing, so I was trying to give safe guidelines.

I vaporized a voice coil or two before I learned better.

I've asked a lot of audio experts about over powering speakers and they always say its good to over power but a little bit so that you know for sure that the speakers is getting a good amount of power... Its common sense not to push them to far... Whoever hooks the system up should set the settings on the amp anyway...

did it smell like bandaids to you? it did to me. ... i thought that was odd... lol

well the volume is not meant to be turned all the way up on any head unit, but that 52 wats is a max power its true power is probably 20 watts rms, that also goes with the speakers their rms rating is a lot lower that what that max rating says, a good 4 channel amp will help though, it is relatively simple to do you have power from batery, remote turn on from head unit and a ground for the amp, also will have to run 2 pair of rca's from head unit to amp as well as speaker wire from back of head unit to amp, if you would like to do it your self and save a ton of money just let me know i can walk you through it, as for power goes it is never a good idea to overpower any speakers by that much, you always want to match the rms power equally overpowering causes damage to vc its a proven fact

I honestly don't remember it was almost 20 years ago with the cheap premade box systems you find at swap meets, that take up most of your trunk. I had a 800W 4 channel amp (generic brand) that I decided to bridge so I had 400w running to each side of the speaker box, through a powered crossover. Had some bass heavy music playing not even turned up that loud. There was a pop and then silence. Thought I'd blown a fuse. After a bit of troubleshooting I found out the speakers were blown. Since they were basicly junk at that point I wanted to scavenge the magnets. The voice coil was almost nonexistant.

I haven't felt the need to rattle the neighbors windows as I drive down the street for a while now. At least not with my music engine roar and exhaust note is another story.

Well I have this amp, and now I need to install it. I'm not paying someone $175 to install my amp so I'm doing it myself.

But I do need to know what type of amp install kit to get. There are different gauge kits and whatnot and I have no idea what the difference is except some are cheaper than others.

well it is a very small amp, so nothing special, basically find a good mounting place, get any kit should do fine, a walmart one or something. Run ur battery leads to it, ground to a bolt around the seat, and run the blue/white remote wire to the amp. as for the speakers, its a 4 channel amp, so, run the RCA's out of the head unit into the amp, and then take the speakers where they are plugged into the headunit and bypass them by directly hooking them to the amp in their corresponding places.. thats a quick rundown on how to do it. this prob made it seem more complex than it seems.

8 gauge kit will be fine for that amp, let us know if you have any questions or problems with the install shouldnt take more than 2 hours