Sounding Up A Cabby - Help!

[Tripper]

Hi Guys,

I intend to sound out my cabby 2morrow... Well to buy the bits at least.

I need some help in sounding my cabby out. I bought alpines for the rear and infinity components for the front, but the sound is still really
crappy.

If i turn the volume up it starts to distort, as if the dampers on the speakers are clashing againts the standard speaker grill covers.

Any good advise on equipment would be helpful.

Went to see an audio specialist and was asked to pay £850 for a complete sound set up on my e30...

I really want to do it myself and learn a bit more about my car. I could do with help on how to get the amp power lead into the car from the battery.

I know i'm asking alot here, but i would really appreciate it..

thanks.

[sati]

hi mate , went you say sounding up a cabby do you mean with a subwoofer? , i done many ice installs and i have most charged £200 inc parts, get a desent class A/B 4ch amp which RMS power is equal or lil more then your speakers and that will improve sound q from the speaker's and for a subwoofer as space is a minium a desent 10" sub will happly fill in the lows and wire it to a mono block amp , also look for a head unit thats has out puts for "front ,Rear ,Sub" this wiil mean 3 set of rca's being run but will be better then 1 lead spilt in to 3 with a cross over. also if u can find a 2nd but working order "audio control EQL" buy it as there £250 brand new and they make a big diffrence. take a trip to a shop called "delta car audio - on green lane" or "Kam ICE - broomhill rd, off green lane torward goodmase) as they do lots of top stuff at cheap prices. HERTz comp sound crazy and they dont cost the earth either they start from £40 to like £150

or if you got money to spend the Rainbows CS360.30-Reference comp will do!! as they sholud do at £8,000 for a set. very rare and they are hardly ever stock by high street shops

[Tripper]

Cheers Sati, Your an A+++ fella!!!

Will check this out today!!!

How much do you charge for an ice install..if you had the time?

[mrLEE30]

firstly if you are running the speakers from the head unit then you will not get very good sound quality as the amps in headunits are cheap things.

As sati says you should power you speakers from an amp, it does not need to be such a big amp somewhere around the 200-250W mark should be fine.

The main problem with the cab is the lack of rear parcel sheld and therefore a lack of abality to put some decent midrange speakers in there, so as you have done fit the best sets you can afford and run them from an amp.

For bass you need a subwoofer in a box in the boot, but again the boot space is limited due to the roof enclosure space, i custom made a box for my cab running a 12inch JBL sub, i angled the speaker and designed the box to fit under the roof enclosure, i needed 3 cubic feet of internal space so its quite big but very effective, there is a 3inch by 13 inch port which fires to the side you cannot see in the pic. As for power i never use my rear demister blower, so i removed the seat and removed the blower and i take my amp power from there (its also fused for 30A so enough for most amps/sub set ups, you can also then turn the sub on and off from the dashboard by turning the rear demister switch on/off - handy for entering dodgy areas. the only thing you need to do to use thie power supply is short out the microswitch located on your driverside under the roof frame when its folded down.


dont forget when making a boot install that you may need to get to the spare tyre at some point!!

my effort--

[sati]

there is no way the wire from the "rear demister blower" will carry the current load for 2amps as the wire for that is maybe 16 gauge which can only take 40amps at a max lenth of 7feet , and the min i have used is 8 gauge to run a 8 or 10" sub. but by running a 4awg power cables which will hold up to a 200 amp load at a max lenth of 9 feet! i charge £30 for headunit wiring and speaker replace, amp + sub £50 or £65 for both at same time . but as your an e30 onwer i will do it for £40 labour. thats about the cheapest you will find. i can also build the sub box for a ported box or can get pre made box for £50 (sealed or slot ported box tuned to 45hz). iam free on moday,tuesday,friday , saturday , sunday.

[ImysE30]

How would you get the amp wire into the boot? Are there any holes you could you or would you have drill one? I am thinking of putting in a custom made installation in my cab so would be useful to know.

[Alex]

what RMS are your speakers??? and just find an amp that produces the same RMS power and you will get the full potential out of your speakers

you could spend around 60 pound for a budget setup with a used amp and cheap 8 or 4 gauge wireing kit

[sati]

there is always a way in to the car! there anit much diffrence in the engine bay as i done a setup in my 318i saloon and next door 320i coupe, and found it to be the most easyest car ever to do. did a 15" jbl in an audi tt 3.2 quttro it was a pain in the Ass .drilling was not possible due to space limt under teh hood. but got it done in the end.

[ImysE30]

there is always a way in to the car! there anit much diffrence in the engine bay as i done a setup in my 318i saloon and next door 320i coupe, and found it to be the most easyest car ever to do. did a 15" jbl in an audi tt 3.2 quttro it was a pain in the Ass .drilling was not possible due to space limt under teh hood. but got it done in the end.

Have you done any E30 cabs?

[sati]

yes i have it was a grey one had a private plate it was Dj sumthing , e30 cab is nothing mate as the the front end is the same as all other e30, ive a few e36's as well mate, so it will be done in no time at all.

[ImysE30]

What about the rear end, did you have to drill a hole behind the seats to get the wire into the boot?

[mrLEE30]

there is no way the wire from the "rear demister blower" will carry the current load for 2amps

sorry not the fan supply, the heater supply, the read demister blower unit has two supplies, one for the fan and a second larger one for the heater element, this is fused at 30A and is quite a large guage wire it appears to be larger than 14AWG.

I have been quite happily doing it for three years running the infinity Amp you see. its powerful enough to shake and rattle the boot and plenty loud in the car.

The switch is the factory fitted relay system and the only mod was to short out the micro switch as the fan is designed to only work with the roof up.

Yes i do agree if you want to start running stupidly large amps then this is not suitable, but if the lad just wants to stick a sub in then its fine so long as you dont mind loosing the rear demister it also means no requirement to run power cables/fuses etc from the battery (in the front in a cab) to the boot.

as for the power into the boot, following my set up there are a few holes in the two fire walls behind the rear seat. If you remove the rear seat back and boot carpet it wil be obvious (you need to do this anyway to get access to the rear demister. dont forget to protect and live wires with additional insulation where they pass through the boot firewall/metal to avoid rubbing and eventually shorting out. the factory wiring to the rear demister unit has a female/male plug, the wires you need are the larger of the four, red/black one as +12V and the brown is 0V/ground, i simply found another plug from an auto factors, soldered it onto my power leads and plugged it in.

job jobbed

mrlee

[Tripper]

Sati you have pm

[BadDave]

. also if u can find a 2nd but working order "audio control EQL" buy it as there £250 brand new and they make a big diffrence.

I've got one for sale
Also have an EQX as well
An ESP 2
And
2 Lanzar Encore E15's
2 Caliber CXQ3's with remotes

The EQL, EQX and both Lanzars are for sale

[sati]

still mate, 10awg is wat is used for running any power amp in car ,no nee to drill holes as ther are sum there from factory if then it will be only 1 15mm hole. ahh i see we have sum one esle who know a thing or 2 , the EQX are hard find in good working order and with a price tag of £350 new , iam looking for a "The Epicenter" 2 maybe if there at the right price.

[cliffybabe]

Ive got an EQS in one of my motors its a 15band Eq if i remember corretly cracking bit of kit, how u doing with ur install??

[Tripper]

Hopefully this weekend...

[ImysE30]

Be sure to get some pics up

[chisel]

Can I hijack for a second, any idea how deeper speaker you can get away with in the front and rear without any modding?

[sati]

hi mate , if you still want the system done let me knw as i will be fre this weekend.

[cliffybabe]

Can I hijack for a second, any idea how deeper speaker you can get away with in the front and rear without any modding?

u can make rings up for the front and the rears is a pig tried lots of things now im looking into tweeters in the rear too

[kingcruizer]

not every ones cup of tea but ive done alot of custom installs and this one in my e30 kicks out 148.6db's



i havent got a finished photo yet but it sounds awsome.

[Alex]

^^^^^ everythings a bit in your face dont you think

[sati]

148.6db's from 2 x 12" kenwood's which take 760watts rms any proof of this claim as the box seems rather small. what amp and what size box your running.

[kingcruizer]

this claim can be proven any time. the test was carried out at my local sextons while total car audio were there. im running 2x kenwood ps401m 1 x kenwood ps501f amps, 2x pheonix gold pro line drivers, 1 x pheonix gold bass cube. 4x diamond audio mids and tweets up front. custom size boxes, all designed to get max bass through the car. sound deadening throughout, excel 900 deep cycle split charge battery system and a few more things that i cant remember.

from all of the installs ive done ive learnt that its not all about how much £ you spend. if the design is correct then your laughing. i once had a 154.2 db calibra using the cheapest stuff on the market (at the time)

[sati]

ok mate , i didnt say anything about money , or the sub were crap , just you said you got 148.6db and from wat i can only see in the pic of just the subs and power caps and pld-1 line driver , didnt see anythign esle. was the test done on "therm Lab" or an offical "RTA"?.

i have seen these sub's before , but why didnt you go for the KFC-WPS1D? was it because they can only go down to 1.5ohms rather then 1ohm?. anyways good luck finishing your install , are you going to retrim the whole car to match?

personaly speaking i wolud make the pods bit smaller so they dont bash in my knee, just me.