Quote:Hi Steve,
Read your book, read it again and then once more....There is great info there...lots of it...but I really get lost in the technical stuff... you know, the caps and micro-farads and other stuff but I learned quite a bit...about the principles of car systems...
Now, I realize that in your book, you say that one should not redo the whole audio at one time but, as a owner of a C4 Corvette with a O Noes it's a Bose system...you pretty much have to "go big or go home"...the way it is incorporated into the car and being almost 25 years old make it impossible for the 'average joe' to do anything but rip it all out and start over...
Coupled with the fact that the temperature and noise inside this car make it almost unbearable...I decided that I wanted to do something special...I'm not interested in creating a Seismic event, I just want a great sounding system for Jazz, Classical, Blues, and some Rock...and I want as good an environment as possible....
I've been reading up on panel dampeners, thermal barriers, sound barriers, and such and have unceremoniously emptied my car of its interior...I thought that while I am doing this...I should think about wiring the car ahead of time for the new audio gear...
The Bose set up in a Corvette has separate amplifiers at every speaker and nothing at the head unit...as a result the whole car has to be rewired if you want aftermarket equipment...I have an Alpine CD head unit and CD changer from another vehicle that I sold that I would like to use as the source for the system...
There are provisions for factory speakers in the top of the dashboard, the doors, and in the rear pillars in the hatch area...there are 2
compartments(plastic) right behind the seats...I was hoping to use one of these, with modifications, as a box for a subwoofer, an 8 or 10" and the other to house the electronics(amp(s) and crossovers.
Your book does not say much about the newer amplifiers on the market...they now have all these 1,2,3,4,and 5 way amps...it is really confusing...I had a decent sounding system in my Grand Cherokee, but I want something for a more discerning ear in this car....
Can you give me any direction to make this successful?
I don't want to end up as Fred or Bill...
Sincerely,
Kirt Adams
Since you have the interior pulled, the more sound deadening you install, the less power you'll need and the better dynamic range you'll have.
When you get ready to install speakers, anything you can do to stiffen up and deaden the actual "enclosures" the speakers fit into will go a long way towards sound quality.
I would put a pair of good quality soft dome tweeters in the dash locations. Check Madisound.com for some good hi-fi tweeters for home audio (not car). Vifa's work well. When choosing between two or more drivers (in this case tweeters) always pick the more efficient.
Buy a 12dB passive crossover for the tweeters.
In the doors, use 6 inch (or the largest that will fit) driver with the highest balance of efficiency and sound quality that you can find. If you can't find any component drivers for the doors, you can use a coax design, and simply un-hook the tweeter.
Run the door speakers without a crossover.
Drive this with a two channel amp of good quality. Get this to sound as good as possible before you add any more stuff.
Once you're happy with that, add a pair of full range speakers to the rear shock towers and use the "time alignment" idea on the web site to wire everything up off the same amplifier.
Last, add a subwoofer that will work well in the amount of space you have for it. You can assume this driver will be less than efficient in order to work in such a small place. Not a problem, because it will need it's own amplifier. The amplifier should be 3 to 4 times the power of the main amp for your other speakers.
Add an active crossover to control both amps. Set the crossover point to around 90Hz.
-Steve
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Factory Bose system (Read 1394 times)
