kickass audio

I myself have blown one rockford tweeter. I blew one my tweeters off the t1652-s component kit. I am running the tweeters at 4 ohms per channel (only running two tweeters) on a DC Audio 175.4 amp. For the 6.5's i have them running at 2 ohms per channel (im just using two channels for the mids and the other two for the highs) off the same 175.4 amp. I have only blown one tweeter because i had given it too much power. Im not trying to say you did it wrong at all im just trying to offer my help with this so please dont take it the wrong way... Did you hear any bit of crackling with the tweeters whenever you played music? If you heard even the slightest bit of crackle (similar to listening to rice krispies in a bowl of milk or opening up a piece of candy in a plastic wrapper or that your artists voices sound like they have a lisp when you know they dont sing/talk like this) then you are overpowering the tweeters just a little too much. I had a small amount of this crackling on my tweeters and i froze the diaphragm of the one tweeter the other one is still working like a champ. I tried to run just the tweeters on passive and active crossovers with the crackling so i went to my 3sixty.2 and turned down the output on my tweeter channels a little till the crackling stopped. Then i ran it like that for awhile with great success and i decided to take the passive crossovers out completely so i was running it all active. I am to this day still running a full active crossover network and an very happy with the results of it. What i would say is listen to your tweeters closely and see if you hear any bit of that crackling or hissing noise i mentioned previously in the post when you play the music because it means you have too much power going to the tweeter. For the mids, i am blasting on them with full unclipped power and am not holding back on any of it. If you could, please tell me what your crossover network is? Do you have passive or active crossovers? What slope are they set to as well as the frequency?

wow i just asked, way to get your panties in a bunch.

have you checked out lowes? they had my 5 layer birch but were a little more expensive.

i got 5 layer 3/4 mdf at home depot. it can take the air from my smd so you should be fine. it was iirc $45 a sheet and i bought two sheets.

I have a dc 5.0k and there are two massive relays inside it next to the capacitors that are on the pcb. When i took off the cover to drool over the guts i saw them and they are pretty big, in fact they are bigger than the relay for your vehicles starter. There is no problem with them clicking as it is normal operation so dont worry about it. In fact i like that it has a relay so it wont consume as much power to try and kick the amp on to start it.

I was in 5th grade at the time and didnt know what was going on. I never knew what a terrorist attack was or who the people who were attacking the nation were. When i heard about the attack i was breaking down because my Aunt and Uncle worked at the twin towers so i was frantic to see if they made it out alive or not. When we got let out of class early i went home and watched the news all day long and couldnt take in what was happening to this great nation. After 3 days from the attacks i got a call at home from my Aunt and Uncle informing me and my family that they all made it out just fine but were having breathing problems because as my aunt was leaving the towers and fled down the street she was covered in the dust and ash that fell down. To this very day i still cannot imagine what would provoke somebody or a group of people to do something like what had taken place just because it is your duty or belief. RIP to all those who served this nation, the workers who took their own lives to save everyone elses, those who volunteered their own time to help out everyone else, and to the men and women whose lives were innocently taken on that day. We will never forget any of you.

For running all the yellow and black wires together it isnt needed. The thing you need to do is find which wire is the main rail and has the most power cabability or amp rating. Finding that wire is a pain in the ass and sometimes cant be found because like my old power supply it had a protection circuit in it where if i drew enough current id shut it off so i would draw 15 amps and it would die on me until i reset it. For his setup i think a psu will get him by pretty well.

bigaltexas - you will laugh your ass off but i used a pc power supply that is made to run a desktop computer. I bought a 500w ATX case power supply at circuit city when they were going under for $90 and modded a few small things on it (mainly cutting and connecting wires together). heres a crappy vid on how to do it (idr the one i looked up when i was 13 to see how to do it). Basically heres how you do it. 1.) Get a power supply that is able to support your amp you wish to run (id get anything from 500-1000w for your system which will give you about 300-750w rms around 2 ohms depending on your amps current draw) 2.) Take the power supplys motherboard connector and look for the small all green colored wire. You need to cut this and the black wire DIRECTLY next to it on the same plug (the plug is the biggest one and has about 24 wires going into it) Take that black and green wire, strip it and twist them together and if you want solder them together. Tape the wires off so they wont short on anything. 3.) Take one of the connectors that goes into an IDE drive (it is about the size of an VGA cable and it has a red, 2 black, and a yellow wire on it. Also note, it is NOT the one that looks to have a cavity in it, this is for a floppy drive and wont supply crap for power. Look for one that is the thickest wire and use that since it is the main power wire and will give you the most amperage) 4.) Cut just the yellow and black wire that is right next to the yellow wire. The yellow wire will be your +12v wire for your amp and the black will be your ground wire for your amp. 5.) Connect the black and yellow wire to the amps power wire, then you need to take a small piece of wire (speaker wire will do) and connect it from the positive of the amplifiers power input to the remote turn-on connector of the amp. 6.) Plug the power supply into the wall and test it out, you should have a working amp/radio in your house now. Of course if you want to do it an easier way you could get a good car battery charger and do it that way with a small car battery (ONLY get a sealed battery as a normal battery will release O2 gasses which are toxic and un noticable and will kill you)

Ill help ya out since i doubt other ppl will touch this one. First of all are you talking about putting a car audio system in your house/room? If so i dont recommend you use a capacitor for the power at all. Also for your amp something like a simple 2 channel that puts out the 200w rms at the subs imp load will be fine. What impedance sub do you have if you even have one? I have two 10" subs next to my bed in my room that ran off a computer power supply (i fried the power supply from overloading it ) but it worked great for my amps. The only downfall to doing a setup like this is that you cant make it really big because pc power supplys ONLY put out 12v power, nothing more so for amps that put out more power at higher voltages you wont get this. Also another downfall is that if you want to keep upgrading your system you will quickly reach the limits of the power supply since they only run off small 14ga wire and can only handle at most a 30 amp load from what i tested. For the power of your sub, how big of a room are you planning to put it in? If its not a big room you wouldnt have much of a need for a big sub stage to "fill" the room with bass, if it is a big room you would need a decent amount of power to really fill the room with bass. I have a room that is about 14x22 feet and for my two 10's they worked well when i gave them 500w rms and they are in a sealed enclosure btw. If you could, please let me know if you are talking about putting a car audio system in your house or a normal home theater type of setup and i will be able to help you from there.

no problem bro. ive been doing this awhile to learn all the small little things like this (im ocd when it comes to details) lol. You can try to re-cut them but it will still happen. The only way you can try to get around it would be to take the the wire and brace it down to something close to the amp itself. For example since my amps are mounted on my sub box (i dont want to hear it from anyone, they are on rubber stoppers so they dont shake one bit from the bass) the wires that go to my sub amp are held in place on the side of my box with little metal/rubber tie down straps. I got the idea for the straps after my dad suggested i use them to hold my ground wires up from my old sub box in my old car and it worked great. I have one for each wire for the power and it works great. A 3/4" connector for 0ga is what will work just fine and fit it tightly. This is what i used: http://www.google.co...=1t:429,r:6,s:0 edit: since you really cant get around the wire exposing itself a small bit another thing you could do if you didnt feel like spending $5 for those rubber clamps, you could use those rubber connectors they use that go over your crimp terminal and your wire when you connect the wires to the terminal. Like if you look at this pic, http://www.google.co...ved=0CE8Q8wIwAA the red thing is what im talking about. you can take that red jacket and slip it over your wire before it goes into your amp, secure the wire in your amp as far as you can, push that rubber cover up and put some electrical tape over it to keep the wires from being exposed. edit2: and so you are aware theres no way in hell you can solder that wire correctly and thoroughly with a simple soldering gun. My dad has a 150w soldering gun and that thing puts out insane heat but it wouldnt even get halfway through the 4ga cable i had for my mids and highs before i purchased rockford 4ga since it was thicker. I also saturated the hell out of the wire with flux so it would suck the solder in well. The only good way you can solder wire this thick is with a blow torch similar to what you use to solder metal pipes together in your house. Thats exactally what i used for my wires and it worked great. Just if you can regulate the flame down low as to not burn the hell out of the wires jacket when it gets that hot and when its soldered i like to submerge the tip i just soldered in cold water to prevent the jacket from melting anymore or any solder from running. When i soldered my 4ga wire with a solder gun it just put a small amount of it on the top of the wire and the inside was still untouched.

This is normal for what you have happening. Whats going on is the wire is staying stationary BUT the jacket itself is moving. So if you were for example to take that wire and pull on it very hard as long as you secured it tightly it wont come loose from the amps terminals. What would then happen is you would see some more of the wire inside that terminal being exposed. This is because when you pull on it or move it, you are bunching up the outer sheeting and when this happens it will move away from the tip of the wire. Think of it like when you originally stripped the jacket off the wire when you first wired up your amp, remember how you cut the wires jacket and then pulled it off? well this is the same thing thats happening here. the wire is locked in place by the amps clamps that rockford uses (very great btw, they are so damn tight you have to be a strong guy to rip the wire off them when properly secured) but the outer jacket/sheeting is not and thus when you move the wire that sheeting moves with the wire. Another way you can see this would be to take a freshly cut piece of wire in which you did not cut any of the jacket off of and bend that wire around your finger toward the end of the piece of wire. What you will notice is the wire strands will be exposed more and more you wrap that wire around your finger. This is because the wires are staying the same but the outer jacket is changing its lengths. One way i kinda got around it was to take the jacket and if i can sneak a small amount of it into the opening of the terminal BUT do not have it touch the plates where the wire clamps in place. When i have this set it push in on the wire as i tighten the hell out of that terminal and im done. I also have another method of where i stick the screw driver into the opening of the wires hole and mark off the outer edge where the screw driver is no longer inserted into the hole (the very tip of the connector) and i take about 1/8 of a inch less than that when i cut the sheeting/jacket off the tip of the wire and i install it. I have done this and have a tiny amount of wire that is exposed if i pull on the wire very hard.

yea that battery sounds to be dead to me. I used to run a 1400w rms amp at 4 ohms bridged and that puppy was a power hog but i ran that off a stock 150? amp alternator with an xs power s3400 under the hood and no big-3 and it would only drop to 13.3v at full tilt with the engine on. I would slam that system in my parking lot at college full tilt for 4 hours and i could still crank the engine over without any issues. If you want to do something good you can get a battery better than optimas and get an xs power (dont bother with kinetik, they arent as good as they are hyped up to be) and do the big-3. I got away without doing the big-3 but it prob would have helped me if i actually did this on my old car first.

to chime in, i would honestly save your money. That alt looks like it has poor ventilation and as previously mentioned looks "hot modded". I have a 270 mechman for my system and i do get some voltage drop at idle (it will happen when i draw 160 amps of power at idle, lol) and the alt does get pretty warm but it has great ventilation so i can keep hammering on it and not have it fail me. The reason i think mine is hot is because its right next to my radiator hose and has a big amount of surface area mounted on the side of the engine to keep it hot. I have had mine for almost a solid year and have been beating the hell out of it and it hasnt failed me. Just do yourself and your money a favor and save up for a better alt from mechman or dc power. I have owned nothing but mechmans and have nothing but great things to say about them, even after my one alt took a crap (thank you ups for dropping the box) they were still outstanding to work with.

well to some it is dampening thats why i mentioned it

^^this. Plus i only put a sheet and 1/4 of deadner (SS Damp Pro) on my lift gate and that damn thing isnt rattling one bit. The only rattle you hear on the lift gate is my 3rd brake light and the window shaking a little but its not anything to make you walk away from due to the crappy sound of it rattling like a coffee mug full of screws. I have about 3/4 of coverage on the inner part of my tailgate and it is great for how it deadened the entire panel.

compared to fat mat, cheap ass home depot roofing dampener, etc it is more expensive for SS.

its high priced for a reason, the quality is so damn great. I have Damp Pro on just my rear lift gate and it works great. I am going to sink money into getting enough of it to cover all my doors, roof, and the rear wheel wells. I bought just a trunk pack and i have an extra 5 sheets or more left in the box waiting for my next install job of the roof next summer. Just buy it from their site and maybe see if they can give you a discount if you buy enough of it.

actually thats not what i meant at all. I meant it as in you will be able to hear it without a doubt over your sub stage. I can hear my mids and highs just fine over my SMD when i gave it 4000w rms clamped just be careful like i said with the power you feed those tweeters. They get loud fast.

I have two sets of Rockford Fosgate T1652-s components for my sound stage. I have just two of the 4 tweeters in use and they are mounted on my a pillar just above my dashboard, each door currently has one of the 6.5" component speakers in them (the back door im thinking to rip out since my rear seats are folded down until i remove them and you cant hear them at all) mine gets very loud and sounds crystal clear. I have them all running on my dc audio 175.4 amp. The tweeters operate at 4 ohms since i gave them their own channels and my mids operate at 2 ohms (i have the front and rear doors paired together per side) on their own channel. The tweeters just to warn you get super loud fast so you will have to turn down the gain on them quite a bit or they will kill your ears even though they are silk tweeters. I also am not using the passive crossovers they come with since it sucks a ton of power from the speakers and i didnt notice any difference in sound from them since i have a 3sixty.2 to control my sound. They are rated for 100w rms at 4 ohms for each mid and the tweeters are 75w rms per tweeter. I paid $340 shipped for both sets of them from CJ18 on here and they work great. I only blew one tweeter but it was 100% without a doubt my fault because i sent a little too much power to the tweeter and locked up the diaphragm on one of them but other than that i have been pounding on them and have had no problems. edit: you can hear these loud and clear even over my single SMD 18" sub stage so theres no doubt you will be able to hear them over your sub setup.

Yes tank is 100% correct on this. I have 4300k FutureVision HID's in my truck and they are great but the highs do take like 2-3 seconds to get warm and show my way. Honestly i will probably never use the highs, i just use my low and fog lamps all the time. Plus if you do a retrofit, their projectors have a wire on them where it moves a little plate inside the projector to make them high beams. IDK how well it works since mine isnt hooked up since i dont need to do that but im sure it would work great. Thats mainly for those ppl who have cars with just one bulb that performs as their low and high beams.

Thats cool. Thanks for teaching me that trick. I meant it though more for if it rains hard or something for the water to not pool up in the light, not them fogging up or anything. Either way thats a really cool trick, i wish i knew that with my old car that had dusty lens' on them

^^this. I have the same stupid design in my envoy. What i did was cut a hole through the rubber grommet that comes stock on the housing to set the grommet that the hid's come with, took the wire that was inside the headlight housing and wired it outside a little so i could plug it into my relay to energize and turn on the relay to operate both my hid's. Its not that hard to do but you do want to make sure that those connections if you choose to do the same thing i did are all sealed up. I bought some HVAC putty and put it around the connector that normally is inside the lights housing and connects to the back of the halogen bulb. You just need to disconnect that wire going to the stock halogen bulbs, route it so it either goes through the grommet to plug in externally to the housing, or run some wires and keep it housed inside the housing. Just make sure you seal it all up well or you will get moisture in your headlights.

I am familiar with how to hook up relays. Does the wire need to be hooked up so it is closed when i unlock the truck or open? What wire do i have to tap into, do you know? If you could tell me if it needs to be always open or always closed and what wire i need to tap into that would be great. Thank You

The problem with the brake is that i want the lights to NOT come on when i unlock the doors through my Viper 5901 remote. I have no problem with the daytime running lights since i did the mod to fix the voltage level as well as the relays to ensure i dont melt the tiny stock wiring harness for the headlights and i can provide enough power to the ballasts to kick them on.

I just put HID's on my 2004 GMC Envoy and whenever i unlock the truck and it is dark out so that the light sensor on my dash thinks it is dark out, my headlights and reverse lights illuminate on my truck. The problem with this is that whenever i unlock the truck and it turns on the headlights and reverse lights, the ballasts for my low beam HID's buzz to all hell since the voltage going into it is so low. I have relays hooked up to all of the HID's and i did the capacitor mod i found on Trailvoy but i wanted to see if i can disable the headlights from flashing and turning on whenever i unlock my truck. If i unlock the truck in a bright area the headlights dont illuminate, only my parking lamps flash to show me i unlocked/locked it. Please let me know if i can turn this off by programming it or if i need to do something else. I have programmed my alarm and tuned it several times so i am pretty comfortable doing it but am not sure what option if there is one i need to modify.