The Mis-Adventures of a Blind Guy's Pre-Failed Car Audio

[G-Rad]

First and foremost, Hey everyone. I've been on the forums for not very long. However, I've been following Meade for a couple years on YT, but recently just being interactive.

To first explain the title; I am a legally blind man who has 20/800-20/1200 vision in my left eye. My right eye is totaly gone (not physically, of course). I suffer from Glaucoma and honestly, don't care to let that hold me down. The only thing that bums me about it is I will never be able to drive a vehicle. I am a drummer, so music is a bigt part of my life. All styles welcome!

I've learned alot from here and elsewhere on YT about car audio. Although having an interest in it since I was a teenager, I didn't really start foreseeing working on it until this year. I've already installed 3 systems within the past month. All which were amp and sub wiring and a re-wire of a pre-installed setup, which is what this topic's about, and actually was my first "install".

Anyways, let me set the scene for you guys;

My family purchased a 1998 Mercury Mountaineer that has a previously installed aftermarket Sony Xplod CDX-F5710 head unit and an Xplod XM-5022 2 channel 250 watt amp. The sell was so cheap 'cause apparently there was a problem with the wiring somewhere and the battery was almost always dead. When I turned on the radio for the first time, I noticed the rear door speakers were the only ones working, and for some reason, even they weren't very loud. I asked how this was setup and the previous owner said "I don't know, I had some one do it for me". I was puzzled on how an external amp was so weak. I could crank the head unit all the way up and it barely made any noise.

Well, recently, I decided I was going to have a look at the whole setup for myself and see if I could put 2 and 2 together. Sure enough, the first thing I noticed was the amp's RCA wires had been pinched so I forged it together and wow, the front speakers came on and made it a little bit louder, but why were BOTH front speakers coming on? I decided I was going to trace the speaker wires they had installed and here's what they did. They had the amp wired to the head unit correctly, which surprised me, after finding out what they did. But, they actually wired the front two speakers on the left side of the amp and the back two speakers on the right side. Serious? That wasn't bad enough, they ran the wires from the amp, in the back of the car, back up to the front to wire it in to the original speaker leads! Now I need a beer. Not only that, the remote turn-on was tapped into the constant 12V lead! I was able to explain why the batter kept dying afterwords though. Ever since then, we've had no battery issues.

My first order of buisness was to go look up the wiring diagram for the Xplod head unit and disconnect the speakers from the amp and just remove it out of the equation for now. When I wired up the front two speakers, I noticed a significant difference in volume. it actually hurt a little, and that's a nice start! I, then wired up the back two speakers and was satisfied beyond any point with the results. This actually inspired me to use the amp to give the stereo some much needed low end. 4 6x8 door speakers just wasn't cutting it.

This was a bit of fun and sporadic... A while back, we had a home theater subwoofer that had the plate amp burn up on it (older style sony 8" 200watt or something like that). I took all the components out of the powered sub and made it a passive box. I grabbed some extra wire and a nother set of RCAs and am now going to give that amp a useful meaning. I kept the constant lead attatched but just removed the fuse, so I wouldn't have to go through any extra hassles. I ran the new RCA lines and rewired the RMT cable to the Amp Remote lead on the back of the head unit. Ran those down the passenger side of the SUV and re-routed the battery lead to the driver side, instead of them all being on one side. Nice, so the amp is now powering on and off correctly. I wired the passive subwoofer bridged to the amp and turned it back on only to be stumped on how quiet the amp was... After looking at the settings on the amp, I now know why, so I adjusted the settings and I was blown away by this little bitty 250 and 8" driver. it was literally giving that SUV a nice recap.

I brought a friend over to give it a listen and asked him if he could guess what was back there. I was surely surprised with what I had and told me he had a spare 12" driver that was idling and he'll give it to me. Of course it being a free gift, I accepted and was handed a Q-Power 700w 4Ohm Silver Series driver (probably about 300w RMS). I took it to a friends house and he helped me put it in a good box. We built the box out of readily available materials (Plywood and 2x4's for now). We loaded the box with the 12 and sure enough, the end results are quite surprising. Here's a video of what we got...

Since that video, I fine-tuned it and got rid of the distortion, and it's now hitting even harder...

It was alot of fun, and ever since then, I've completely shifted interest to car audio and am studying up on it very hard. Ever since this, I've done 2 other installs, as I've mentioned above. and am working on another one as time passes by.

I'd love to one day do a competition and get a good setup going. I just know that kind of thing costs alot of money, and being handicapped, it's hard for me to work. Oh well, Thanks for reading and I appreciate it! Hope to hear from some of y'all on this! I'm curious to know what you guys think of having someone that's near-blind working on something of this calibur. I'm sure there'll be mixed opinions.

[gotti]

Keep it up. Don't let your disability handicap you.

[C.Sanchez.A]

Wow. Unfortunatly I'm on my phone so I can't watch the video. But from what I read, you are on your way to making some great builds.

[Team Nemesis-DJ]

Very cool !!!!!! Good job on finding the problem .

[JZeFF]

That's just an awesome story!

It's funny what personal interest can drive people to do. I have a hard time matching positive and negative wires in 4 channel speaker outputs, and im nowhere bear blind, lol.

[techforce]

My hats off to you bro! You are the type of person that I look up to because you do not let anything hold you back! I too have some serious health issues, but nothing like what you got going on with the vision impairment. But, the fact that you are a n00b in car audio and you were able to diagnose and resolve that issue is pretty dam impressive also!!!

I am glad you are interested in car audio because I myself love the feeling I get when I work hard on a system and I am able to get the enjoyment of listening to it and that feeling of acomplishment! Don't be a stranger to the forums and keep us posted on the updates and upgrades that you do and any new builds! We all love that type of stuff!

As for the mixed feelings... you may get some haters, screw them... The simple fact that you are on here posting and being legally blind is prolly more than a accomplishment than they have ever done or ever will do! People tend to be rude over the internet... don't ever let anyone get you down!

Also, lmao!!!! You got bit by the SPL Bug!!! Just wait... you will never be satisfied with what you got and you will ALWAYS want more!! LOL! This phrase will play over and over in your head... "What can I do to get just a LIL louder" LOL!

[G-Rad]

I'll admit I'm bit, haha. I'm just on a limited budget and hoping somehow I can come across some additional things to make a little extra to put into the system, otherwise it can be months, maybe a year, before I can get one decent appliance. Maybe I'll get some luck somewhere.

I'd really like to do at least ONE competition in my life. I'd just love to witness the reaction of others' in this situation. Just to show that you can never count chickens before they hatch, or never judge a book by it's cover.

[G-Rad]

Today, August 18, 2011, I run into another adventure. This time involving reviving a factory harnass.

First, I'd like to than Kickass_Audio for his help in general knowledge of the setup of Monte Carlos. However, the problem turned out to be more than we bargined for. Regardless, I took on the task, not only for the "gives me something to do" but for the experience.

My friend drives a 1999 Monte Carlo. He wanted toinstall an alpine aftermarket deck, but he didn't have the right stuff, so I told him, he needs to get a harnass adapter. he goes and gets the dapter, only to realize he got the wrong one. eagerto get his Alpine going, he cut the lines!

I do not have Volt/Ohm tester, yet... That's next on my list. I used a 12v attery operated camping fan, that is A/C optional via power suppy. Nicely enough, it did the job.

With all that out of the way, he gboes to get the correct harnass for his stero. I told him "we need to rewire the harnass so we don't run into this problem again. But having done that, we ran into another problem. WHen we wired up the harnass, the stereo did not want to power on whatsoever. Ouch.. First thing's first. W check te fuse, sure nough it was not blown, and this surprsd me. Well, I thought "which could it be?" and I went and got my "tester" out. I wired it to the contant and round only to get no power, so I wired it o the switch and sure enough, the fan powered right up.

So, I was like "well, shit, what can I do?" *lightbulb momen* I said "watch this"... went and grabbed a spare wire that has a 10a fuse in-line with itand told hi "slid this through your dash". He was puzzled and was asking what a I going to do and I told him "gonna give you your battery feed in a more-direct way". After the wire was ran through the dash, I detatched his battery terminalsand wired the eyebolt to the hot line then ran the other end into his constant on the harnass. I re-attatched the hot, the ground, turned on the key, and hazaa! We have power! Unfortunately, he had to leave for work, but all his wires are literally wire-capped. However, I have to remove the caps and put electrical tape on it, because the caps are so bulky. But, it should be fine.

Another job done, and yet, more learned! I feel very accomplished.