Twister

I listen to a lot of hard rock, metal, punk, with a VERY rare showing of rap and techno. Lots of bass in my music, not in my system. Thats the problem! Heres my system as it stands:

Head: Aiwa CDC-MP3: This thing sucks. Doesn't even come close to looking at home in the dash, skips like a *****, and is just plain cheap. Im gonna replace it with (I think) a Rockford Fosgate RFX-9400.

Amp: Infinity Kappa 50x4 200x1. Its adaquate for now, but Ive heard from several people this amp sucks. Should I yank it and sell it? What should I replace it with?

Speakers: Stock in the rear, MB Quart Reference components (5.25" mid and 1" tweeter) These I like. I want to replace the rears though. Mid bass? Full range? what?

Subs: NONE! Big problem here. So, help me out. I want tight bass hits, nothing boomy. Suggestions?

Lets put my hypothetical budget at 1500. Now, go for it! What can you audiophiles tell me?

markbradford

Re: HU's

Skip the Rockford. Check out Eclipse, Alpine, Sony ES, or Kenwood Excelon.

Subs: Image Dynamics, BostonPro, Infinity Perfects, JL 12W3. Sealed box, about 1 cubic foot (differs for the various subs).

Rear: Leave the stock speaks and drive them with the power from the head unit. Sound should come from in front of you - the rears are just for fill, and for courtesy of rear passengers. Personally - I've got mine tuned so I can't even hear the back ones at all. Use the amp you've got (if you're keeping it) for the sub, and get a new one that's 50-75 watts for the front speakers.

VOILA!

D.Ross

He can't really use his amp. It's an infinity and all 5 channels suck. sub is ~200w

Twister

I didn't do my research before I bought the amp, and Ive been kicking myself since!

D.Ross

PPI, Xtant, or Zapco

TEDS4

biger is not always better Listen to the IDQ 10 and The ID8v2. I have 2 Image ID8s, (8" subs" and they are very tight, but will hit so hard with clarity. I personally like them for their sound. Also they take up very very little space. Take a listen. Also buy them from an authorized dealer. Image has great warranty and customer support.

This is my opinion, but many agree with me My next suggestion to Image is boston Pros. they are also great subs and are very accurate.

peace

TEDS4

www.arcaudio.com<ul><li><a href="http://www.usamps.com">http://www.usamps.com</a</li></ul>

xr4tic

Deck:
Eclipse deck w/ high voltage pre-outs (8V) It's unbelievably clear, the preout voltage does make a HUGE difference. Plus no more messing with faceplates If you can wait a little bit, you might be able to get catch a model change and get the old model deck cheap. I bought my Eclipse in December, and paid $550 for a $900 deck.

Speakers:
Leave them alone.

Subs:
A high quality single 12" sub will work great. Get something that is designed for a sealed box. I just ordered an Infinity Perfect 12, hopefully I'll have it sometime next week.
Figure $200-$300 for a nice sub.

Amp:
Sell the amp on ebay. List it's retail as $800 (which it was, but it's discontinued now) and hope some sucker buys it. If it hasn't been too long, you could try and trade it in for store credit or something.
Pick up a nice 50x4 amp for the regular speakers, and a 2 channel amp bridged for the sub. A high quality 100x2 amp should give you about 400x1 bridged.
PPI amp prices from <a href="http://www.thezeb.com/">The Zeb</a> are:
PCX-440 40x4 - $265
PCX-280 80x2 (320x1) - $280

siberian

My system is very simple... head unit, front separates, one sub, and a 3-channel amp. It has great sound quality and slam.

I think it's obvious that you should keep the front speakers.... you done good there. I'm not really familiar with how good Infinity mobile audio amps are, but if you must replace it, maybe look at a three channel amp. I'm partial to Xtant, but there are plenty of great choices out there. You can use it to power your front speakers and the sub. For rearfill you can actually get away with completely removing the rear speakers all together. I did this and my system sounds fine. Rearfill might be desirable if you care about back seat passengers hearing the music... but many compentition sound systems use no rearfill at all. I have only front components and a single 12" sub and believe me when I tell you this system sounds PLENTY big and full. Also, removing the rear speakers allows bass to vent into the cabin through the vacant holes.

For subs, there are many many great choices, but one in particular really stands out to me.... Audiomobile. The reason is that they make very high quality, beefy, great sounding subs and sell them direct over the internet... so you don't pay the typical retail mark-up. I have an Audiomobile 12" and I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am with the low bass extension, spl, sound quality, and tightness of this sub. You might consider a single 10" though... since your front components are only 5.25". I have 6.5" components up front which put out considerable midbass, so I am able to match them to a 12" sub a little better. If you have 5.25's and a 12, you might see a bit of a midbass gap. A 10" sub would probably be a better choice in your case because it can come closer to accurately picking up the frequencies where the 5.25's leave off. And don't worry about low bass.... 10's can go PLENTY low. I listen to a lot of the same stuff you mentioned.. but I wanted the 12 cuz I also listen to a lot of European techno/ industrial/ electronica/ transe.... so I wanted to hit the 20hz earth shaking stuff at high volume with no distortion. So I went with a 12" only because I could. If I had 5.25's up front though... I probably would have gone with a 10 and just built a bigger box to increase the low frequency extension a little bit.

For head unit, look for a higher output voltage. Most of the high end units put out about 4 volts. The higher the output voltage, the better it drives your amp, and the better it resists alternator noise. Also resistance to skipping is a real issue. Look for clean design... not a cluster f*ck with fifty buttons on it. Eclipse and Kenwood eXcelon are among my favorite head unit brands. I have used both in previous systems and side by side they both are excellent performers and both have equally impressive sound quality. For my A4 I chose Kenwood over Eclipse based on asthetics. The Kenwood has red lighting that PERFECTLY matches the Audi interior red lighting... and the built-in eq functions are really nice. You can set your output crossover frequencies right from the drivers seat. How cool is THAT?!?!?

Also... whatever you do... DON'T skimp on cables. Especially your RCA interconnects. Spend a few bucks more and get good shielded/twisted pair cables. Shielded and twisted pair cables help reject engine noise. You won't regret it. I bought Stinger Dream series from sounddomain.com... they have the best prices around on those cables.

For $1500 bucks, you can do a LOT. For top of the line components you could get a head unit for about $400, a 3-channel amp for about $700 to $800, and a skull crushing sub for less than $300... especially if you check out the audiomobile brand.

If you are adept at installing it all yourself, you can really save some money buying parts over the internet... just be careful of some of these fly by night e-tailers who take your money then never deliver the parts.

rap413

Yesterday I got a SIngle 10" JL 10w0 sub installed with an MTX Thunder6152 amp to my Pioneer Premier P330 hedunit. It sounds great! The Part Number is CS110r. It comes as an enclosed single 10" woofer. My favorite part is that it sounds great inside the car and is barely heard outside. I paid $139 for it fom a local audio store. It produces good crisp bass and sounds excellent!