Another Stereo Question

adriift · Newbie Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 10 City: Seal Beach

I am currently fabricating my own speaker boxes for the tower, hehe trust me you have never seen any like these and I will post pics when they are completed. Anyway I want to run 4, 6x9 speakers on the tower, 4 six inch speakers in the boat and a nice 12 inch sub, I also need a headunit that can play cd's, and I will need an amp or two to run all of this stuff and maybe a capacitor. I have about a grand saved up to spend on it give or take a few hundred and the speaker boxes wont cost me anything. What in your opinion is a good set up to get? I want to hear some music when wakeboarding and I dont know much about systems so brands and prices help. One more thing, will I need a second battery?

Chris

adriift · Newbie Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 10 City: Seal Beach

Oh ya thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

Wallrat · Posted: Aug 15, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject:

You won't need a capacitor. A 2nd battery is always a good idea but isn't required.

Your question is incredibly broad so its difficult to answer. There's so many different componants out there as well as music tastes and listenning styles. www.crutchfield.com has an advisor section that can teach you basically everything you need to know. Do some reading, then shop around a little and post what you find if you want a 2nd opinion. Since your budget is kinda low you might consider holding off for the amp in the boat. Just get a HU with 3 preouts so you can add one easily later on if its needed.

www.woofersetc.com -good selection, okay prices
www.ebay.com -good prices, good selection, questionable customer service
www.etronics.com - bad selection, awesome prices (cheaper than ebay!)

edit*-I just saw that you're in Seal Beach, I'm over at Warner/Bolsa Chica. Drop me a PM if you wanna see my setup and learn some stereo stuff.

Jensen · Posted: Aug 15, 2005 2:54 pm Post subject:

ya, you shouldn't need a cap, just make sure that you match your speakers with appropriate power rated amps, ex. you don't want to get an amp that will push too much wattage to your speakers. you want to match the rms power rating to the power rating of the amp. a good match for 80 watt speakers would be about a 100 rms from an amp. i've always heard that its a lil better to buy an amp that has a little more rms than your speakers, just keep the gains down.

i came into car stereo 4 weeks ago knowing NOTHING. i just read up on a bunch of website and got knowledge from my car and boat install. i bought my car setup prior to any knowledge of wattage and amp matches and i deeply regret it.

adriift · Newbie Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 10 City: Seal Beach

sweet, think i should make the speakers in the boat the waterproof ones? anyone know of a good headunit that can take the bumps cuz i dont want it to skip.
thanks

wallrat- sounds good, anytime you need someone to ride with hit me up, im going to the stadium early next week around sunset.

Wallrat · Posted: Aug 15, 2005 6:17 pm Post subject:

If its on Monday I'm down - i'll pitch in for gas and help ya clean up. Doesn't stadium close at sunset? I'm working nights tue, wed, and thur so that's out. Most newer HU's are pretty good about skipping. I've got an Alpine from a couple years ago in my boat and I haven't had it skip yet. Alpine is actually a pretty good route to take. Their older HU's are better than their new ones and you can find em for pretty cheap if you look around. I bought mine for $90 and it produces better sound than the $200 new Alpine HU they had on display at Good Guys. Alpine stuff is good but its overpriced. If you can find a deal on it though its totally worth it. Just make sure whatever you're looking at has at least 2 sets of preouts, with 3 being a better choice.

For speakers I ran some regular ones. For the price I paid I'm not worried if I have to replace em every year. I just make every effort to keep em dry. The marine ones are very expensive and the selection is pretty limited. Personally I'd save some money and go standard, then don't stress about it cuz you can replace them if you need to.

bkw4287 · Criminal Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 73 City: Central FL

You might want to look into the Kicker 700.5 amp. I'm running that amp in my boat and it has 4 channels for your mids/highs and 1 dedicated subwoofer mono channel. Bassically I'm running 4 Alpine Type S 6.5s in my interior, 4 Polk Momo 6.5 tower speakers and a 12" Alpine Type R sub all off this amp. It is a huge amp, but does the job of two amps. I got one off ebay for $250.

The amp is 4x85 watts rms and 420x1 rms mono sub output.

adriift · Newbie Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 10 City: Seal Beach

bkw4287, is it pretty loud? id like to be able to hear the music pretty clearly when im boarding. what kind of headunit are u running?

Wallrat · Posted: Aug 16, 2005 11:16 am Post subject:

85w should be plenty loud provided you're using an efficient speaker with the right RMS range.

bkw4287 · Criminal Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 73 City: Central FL

adriift · Newbie Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 10 City: Seal Beach

niiice

Jensen · Posted: Aug 17, 2005 2:35 pm Post subject:

wait, your kicker amp has 4 channels for speakers, and then 1 just for a sub and it puts out 420 watts rms??? that sounds hella sicc. i might have to look into that, especially if you picked that up new im supposing for 250.

bkw4287 · Criminal Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 73 City: Central FL

Wallrat · Posted: Aug 18, 2005 7:44 pm Post subject:

...And that you have to use 2ohm speakers or run them in parallel to get any real juice out of it.

bkw4287 · Criminal Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 73 City: Central FL