Sound System advice needed

[86canadaGN]

I am planning a system for my GN. So far the plan is:
Delco Cd w/eq (currently in the car)
JL Audio 300/4 Slash Series
JL Audio 500/1 Slash Series
10" JL W3 in a sealed box
6.5" JL Components for the doors
5.25" JL Component for the rear deck

Is 4 AWG wire enough for the main power to the trunk?
Should I look at 0 or 2 AWG?

Is it better to face the sub into the trunk or into the rear seat? This car is a daily driver and trunk space is necessary for the T Tops, slicks etc

I am planning the power to the truck down RH side, 3 RCA cables up the LH side for future upgrade of the head unit,

What is the best gauge for the speaker wire?
Dynomat through out the trunk, door panels, and where else??

 

[Grimster]

4 gauge is probably fine since those don't sound like huge amps.

For the speaker wire I'd use big gauge for the subs the biggest (reasonbly sized) wires you can get, and keep the run as short as possible, 8 gauge is probably where I'd stick for the subs. Personally I'd point the subs towards the back seat mostly to keep them getting beat on as bad and protect them from trunk stuff hitting them. For the regular speakers I'd probably go ahead and use 8 gauge too.

I'd use Dynomat on the floors, all in the trunk, the doors and if possible the parts of the roof I could get to (being it's a T-top you won't have much). I put 2 layers of the cheap stuff I got off Ebay in the floor of my truck and along the back wall and it seriously quietened down the ride. I only put 2 small squares on the roof, wish I'da went ahead and covered it all too while I was at it, oh well.

Oddly enough, I've found Lowe's to be one of the better and cheaper places to buy speaker wire, just FYI.

 

[TURBOV6]

2g min wire for the 2 amps and use a fuse distribution block

14-16g for the speakers will be fine

12g for the subs

Always face the subs towards the rear of the trunk because of the longer distance the sound waves has to travel.

You can actually run the rca's next to the power only if it's a twisted pair, I tried it many times and see no difference in running it on the opposite side of the car.

 

[6APPEAL]

The amps have 4 ga for the power and ground, so 2 ga or 0 ga for power and ground. Don't forget proper fusing. The speaker terminals will not hold anything bigger than 10 ga. For the highs anything bigger than 12 ga is overkill. I always run my RCA's down the middle of the car.

10W3 sealed is nice, but ported is sweet. Front or rear facing - try both ways to see which you like best. If rear facing use a good grill to protect the woofer.

Planning on building door panels to hold the 6.5"? Tweets in the pillars, kicks or doors? Lose the tweets in the rear (or lose all rear fill). Rear fill is only supposed to be noticed if missing, it's ambiance, not a source. Leaving open the rear speaker holes will allow the sub-bass to play through the rear deck.

Dynamat everything. Some areas only need strips, not complete coverage, if weight is a concern. Check Grocerygetter's CarDomain - The place to show off your car pictures and photos page for good Dynamat pics in a GN.

John

 

[86canadaGN]

Thanks guys.

The status of the project is this. I am pulling the seats and carpet to do the dynomat on the floor and thought about running the power on one side of the hump and the RCA's and speaker wire on the other. I thought this might use a little less wire and should be invisible.

I would rather face the sub in a vented or ported box into the rear seat, just to protect it. What if it fired up (ported style) into the rear deck?

I have a set of 5.25" components, and was tossed up with installing them in the rear deck to use them. The 6.5" give better sound, that's why I was looking to build them into the doors. I am building a small enclosure for the lower side of the doors and was planning to install the tweeters either in the upper door panel in the window crank hole or in the dash in place of the 3.5".

Any thoughts? I would prefer to use 2AWG for the power and ground as it is a little easier to use than 0, and I am not sure that the 4AWG will handle the load. The amps are fused at 50 Amp and 40 Amp, so I was planning to use a 150 to 200 at the battery, good wire to the back, then a fused distribution block and a 1 Fd cap with a ground distribution block so that everything is grounded together.

I am not looking to blow the windows out of the car, just looking for good sound that I can hear with the T's out at 140 mph!!

 

[6APPEAL]

I've tried facing up, but never got it to work. Try it, it might work for you. Rear facing will probably give you more output.

If you already have the 5.25" set, buy just a 6.5" to put in the door as a mid-bass and use the 5.25" set as mids/highs. I use the kick panel location myself with the Q-forms kicks because they are easy. Customs are going in the car next time.

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan in place.
John

 

[86canadaGN]

Do you have a preference on wires? I have looked at kicker, tsunami, monster etc and am getting confused.

The money they want for this stuff up here is ridiculous. For example, a 4AWG monster dual amp install kit $170. Online for a whole lot less than that.

Dynamat trunk kit here at $270 each. Again, online for $75.

Plus......we got snow and 20 below. That's it I'm moving to Phoenix!!

 

[8UWITH6]

Ive always had very good luck with knukonceptz.com wire. I wired my entire WE4 for 120 bux. Power wire, ground wire, RCA's, fuse blocks, etc. Use their high end stuff, its not bad at all! Oh, and their new Flex Kable is awesome Power Wire! You can tie it in a knot almost!

 

[TURBOV6]

Do you have a preference on wires? I have looked at kicker, tsunami, monster etc and am getting confused.

The money they want for this stuff up here is ridiculous. For example, a 4AWG monster dual amp install kit $170. Online for a whole lot less than that.

Dynamat trunk kit here at $270 each. Again, online for $75.

Plus......we got snow and 20 below. That's it I'm moving to Phoenix!!

Just find the lowest price you can fine on the power wire. Brand is not important it's the size guage wire is the important part. Don't buy those amp kits that it says for how many watts it can support because it's always smaller than what you actually need. Current is more important over watts.

 

[86canadaGN]

You guys have been a great help.

I am going with 2AWG power and ground, 4AWG between the power distribution block and the amps, 2AWG for a main ground to a ground distribution block, and 4AWG for ground wire between the cap, amps, and distribution block.

The 500/1 is a 50 AMP and the 300/4 is a 40 AMP. These will be on fused power supply. To prevent any electrical surging, light dimming, etc, should a put a 1 F cap on each amp?

Has anyone placed the sub on the right hand side of the trunk between the spare tire well and the quarter panel? I was thinking this might be big enough and allow enough sound travel. I will build a mock up today, and see if it is possible to bury it and make it invisible.

I think with the door panels, I might build a box on the lower door panel that will handle the 6.5". I have a panel and am going to mock it up and see how it looks. If I can't make it look good, maybe its Q Panels.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[TURBOV6]

The 500/1 is a 50 AMP and the 300/4 is a 40 AMP. These will be on fused power supply. To prevent any electrical surging, light dimming, etc, should a put a 1 F cap on each amp?
.

Those amps are not fused so each should have it's own fuse.

If you have the power distribution close to the amp you can get by with a 8g power wire for the 2 amps.

A 1 farad cap is more than enough. A optima yellow top in as the main battery will help with the lights dimming.

 

[86canadaGN]

I have done some measuring and the plan has changed slightly.

I will build in an amp board in the upper rear deck and build a vented sub box on the right side of the trunk. There is enough room there to build a box behind the wheel well and still allow the spare tire hole to be used.

I am planning a "wheel well" fuel cell for the spare tire hole. I am building a false floor on the truck floor that will allow the T-Tops to be stored below the new floor. Since time is not on my side, pictures will be posted as soon as I get started.

Thanks again for your help.

Now, back to business. Has anyone used the JL Audio Cleen Sweep CL441 dsp signal processor to go from the OEM high outputs to RCA outs. They are claiming some impressive things, especially when combined with their multi source switch (SES). Just thinking out loud and wondering what you think?

 

[TURBOV6]

I have done some measuring and the plan has changed slightly.

I will build in an amp board in the upper rear deck and build a vented sub box on the right side of the trunk. There is enough room there to build a box behind the wheel well and still allow the spare tire hole to be used.

I am planning a "wheel well" fuel cell for the spare tire hole. I am building a false floor on the truck floor that will allow the T-Tops to be stored below the new floor. Since time is not on my side, pictures will be posted as soon as I get started.

Thanks again for your help.

Now, back to business. Has anyone used the JL Audio Cleen Sweep CL441 dsp signal processor to go from the OEM high outputs to RCA outs. They are claiming some impressive things, especially when combined with their multi source switch (SES). Just thinking out loud and wondering what you think?

The clean sweep is "ok" but no sub output.

This is a far better choice Rockford Fosgate® - 3SIXTY.2

 

[6APPEAL]

The clean sweep is "ok" but no sub output.

This is a far better choice Rockford Fosgate® - 3SIXTY.2

Ditto on that choice. The 3SIXTY.2 is sweet and I'm not a Rockford fan.

I've seen battery boxes behind the spare tire, but not a sub enclosure. Possibly not enough room. The drivers side would work out better IMHO since there is no bar (jack attachment) in the way. I modeled the sub in a sealed and ported box. Ported blows the sealed away. I tried a variety of enclosure sizes and the sealed just was not that impressive to me.
John

 

[86canadaGN]

Thanks, another budget shot to hell!!

I started out looking for a line level converter and wound up looking into these. It looks like its a good thing I have 2 months of snow to finish this off!!

The Delco deck I was going to use it a AM/FM/ CD with 5 band eq (Delco 16085434 from a 1990 Astrovan). It looks like it was made for the car with the matching fonts, knob style etc, and when punks look in the window, they are discouraged from stealing a worthless factory deck.

In using the factory deck, the DSP would definately improve the sound quality, provide RCA converstion at 5 - 8 V, and allow aux input of Ipod, sat radio, and blue tooth.

This started as adding a couple of amps and a sub and has become much more involved.

As far as the sub goes, JL has design measurements on their site for a ported box as an example. There are not many changes needed to fit it in on the RH side. Since I am building up the floor slightly to hide the T-Tops, I think it can be fit between the wheel well and the tail light. The depth of their proposed box is 12.875", the width is 23" and the height is 12". These are external dimensions with 1.125 cu.ft volume and they recommend port tuning to 33.7 Hz.

Can the sub box be irregular shaped (like the underseat fibreglass units) without sacrificing sound quality. This is not a show car, but I do not want a sub that sounds like mud.

Also planning dynomat under the false trunk floor and on the inside of the fenders, trunk lid, trunk floor, rear panels, interior floor then installing the custom trunk liner.

 

[86canadaGN]

Ive always had very good luck with knukonceptz.com wire. I wired my entire WE4 for 120 bux. Power wire, ground wire, RCA's, fuse blocks, etc. Use their high end stuff, its not bad at all! Oh, and their new Flex Kable is awesome Power Wire! You can tie it in a knot almost!

I planned on
Kolossus Flex Cable KFX0-BK – 6 feet
Kolossus Flex Cable KFX0-R - 20 feet
Kolossus Flex Cable KFX4-BK – 16 feet
Kolossus Flex Cable KFX4-R - 16 feet

Karma KARSS4 – 6 metre
Karma KARSS2 – 6 metre
Karma KARSS2 – 1 metre

Karma SS 12 G Speaker Wire 60 feet
Karma SS 8 G Speaker Wire 6 feet

1 - Ground Distribution Block KND-23
1 - Power Distribution Block KND-23 with 1 50 AMP and 1 40 AMP fuse
1 – Inline Fuse FH-20 – 200 AMP
1 – Neg Battery Terminal KBT-30 N
1 – Pos Battery Terminal KBT-30 P
2 – GM Battery Post GMBT
2 – 1.2 Faraday Capacitors.

Is this about what you used for your car? I should have enough for starter cable, and a heavy wire to the existing 200 AMP alternator. I have an Optima Red Top in the car now with dual posts. I was going to use the top posts for the starter and stereo, and the side posts for the other existing go fast goodies.

 

[TURBOV6]

Just to let you know you are lacking sound quality with the stock deck. If you are looking for a "best sound quality" a hight volt aftermarket radio is something to really think about. I do understand making it look stock as possible but the way I look at it our cars is not an antique yet so a aftermarket radio would look that bad. If you plans on making it look stock so nobody would break in than that is a different story.

If you ever see an output of a stock radio with a oscilloscope it looks terrible and when the volume is turned up OR down the frequency response changes.

 

[GregInAtl]

I like the idea of larger wire, and a high quality cap especially when you are using a mono block style sub amp (as the 500.1 JL is). Depending on the impedance it is seeing, it'll itself need 4ga minimum. I recommend 2 ga or maybe even 0, to a distribution, or use the cap as the distribution. The enclosure design is important, and it appears the #s you have will work well but too large sealed will also sound inaccurate, so try to nail the size. The wire is equally as important, too little current is as bad a prob as any other and can kill the sound. I'd recommend not wasting money on high $ RCAs, any repuatble installer can get you the ends, and string you up a set or two at your length.....sheilding RCAs is mostly a tactic to sell products. Refer to the topic below if you want a refresher coarse in wiring and noise induction.
Good luck, and as always, Post pics!
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/ca...ator-whine-again-ground-directly-battery.html

 

[87spools]

nice system

hey man. to continue on what was said.....you seriously should upgrade your deck! the sound you get outta your system is only as good as the signal you send it. you could buy the best component sets in the world and they still wont sound good if your signal isnt great. 4V preouts on a good deck would make a world of difference. also a lot of them have crossover filters for your subs and fronts. everything else you're doing sounds good. a circuit breaker or fuse within 12" of your battery is a must. keep your ground wire less than 18". i perfer 12" or less on the ground.
as for the direction of you subs.....
move them around. every car is different. my experience has been rear facing or upwards. most of the time with forward facing you get canceling out of frequencies on most cars. move the box around and test it. if you have any other questions let me know.

gn system- completely stock
93 fleetwood (daily driver)
6.5 infinity kappa comps
2 alpine 12" type E
alpine m500 mono amp
rockford punch 250.2
2 guage wiring
1 farad cap
sony deck with 4V preouts

im old school! no rears!
thanks and good luck
j

 

[86canadaGN]

I will build the sub box in an irregular shape, keeping the volume in line with the sub spec. I was wondering how you tune the box to a frequency? I know it is a very simple answer (like setting the crossover level on the amp) but I seem to be having a brain fart today. IF the box is irregular (ie curved, narrow to go between the trunk hinge and outer fender, and then the port positioned near the rear taillight, am I sacrificing sound quality or should the box be as square as possible? Also, in building the vented box, does it matter if the dimesions of the vent are different that the "suggested design" as long as the volume of the port is equal?

Like I said "brain fart".....

I was keeping the factory unit just for the theft deterrent and the fact that it is already in the car. I am not entering contests with it and I am wondering if a redneck like me will be able to tell the difference. All of the wire I suggested above was overkill, based on using the factory deck, but while I had the interior out and the dynomat going in, I thought running enough RCA for future considerations was appropriate.

I will post some pictures soon. Right now, its a bunch of cardboard templates and duct tape!!