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Bad info from shady car audio shop?


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I went by a car audio place today in San Diego. Probably my third time going there in the past 1 1/2 years. Each time it's the same; I go there to ask questions and understand more but end up with the feeling that I'm being bullshitted and I'm getting smoke blown up my ass. 

 
 I get it, probably annoying to the dude behind the counter having to deal with a noob and my stupid questions, but I try to keep it short simple and not question too much about what they say. I mean if I was going to pay them to do any work I'd ask a helluva lot more questions and call them out on what I think is bullshit....but I'm really not trying to get any work done from them (I don't let them know that explicitly or lead them on) and I'm looking at it as more of a learning experience minus the cost and grief of getting scammed and shitted on. 
 
I've been investing in my system for about a year now. Yeah, I can't really justify to my wife dropping all the money at once for a system, so I've been doing a little here and there. I've changed out my head unit (practiced my soldering skills on the wiring harness...turned out great), bought a Fi Q-15, got an enclosure designed by RAM design built to spec by Johnny (fits PERFECT in my Highlander and looks pretty sweet if you ask me. Wish I had enough tools and equipment to build it myself but that's later on down the line), a Skar RP-1500 amp, and now I'm shopping for cables and trying to decide if I might need a secondary battery or an alternator upgrade. Definitely doing the big three, because why not, right?
 
So anyway, I go to the shop to see if I might be able to get the footage of cables I need locally, or if I should just go ahead and order a spool of what I need. Here's some things that were said that made me go WTF?!?....
 
- 50 ft of Stinger 1/0 costs them $300. 
 
-My Skar amp will definitely fry...its only a matter of time. It's too cheap and I need to spend more or i'm going to fuck my shit up. They just did a build with 4 Sundown 12's and the Skar amp blew, presumably because it's a piece of shit and not because they did anything wrong. 
 
-Setting gains is not as complicated as I was making it. No need to check distortion or anything like that, just look at the instruction manual for the head unit set the gains on the amp to the pre-out voltage. I couldn't get him to elaborate on exactly HOW they would do it just that there is only one way to set it and that's it and quit overthinking it and once they set the gains don't fuck with it. 
 
-If I have 4 gauge terminals on my amp then I only need 4 gauge cable. Using a reducer at the amp terminal is stupid and a waste. 
 
-A second battery is a bad idea and will overstress my stock alternator, and fuck the batteries up. (I plan on upgrading my alternator anyway sometime in the near future, but is a second battery really a bad idea for now?)
 
Some other things were said but that's all I'm recalling right now. Keep in mind...I'm trying to learn. I want to know what's going on, why it's going on, and use that information to better myself and not be at the whim of some shady car audio place just because I want some bass in my ride and I don't know any better. And I want to build boxes and install systems as a hobby....I really think this shit is cool as hell. 
 
So my main point is....is my bullshit detector calibrated properly so far? Am I justified in thinking that 0 gauge cable is a good thing and that reducing down to 4 gauge at the amp terminals will have very little negative effect? Are these dudes fucking wizards and know something about setting gains that I have yet to understand? Is a secondary battery really a bad idea? Does Skar suck as hard as they say it does?
 
Hope this isn't too much to read and I appreciate any input y'all have. Like I said, I'm here to learn, school me please!!
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Don't go there anymore lol.

1. Wire is cheaper than that.

2. Skar is not a bad brand.

3.You can set gains that way but I would prefer a oscope or DD1. Also better to measure preout voltage rather than consulting the manual.

4. It will not hurt anything to run 0 and reduce to 4. Probably overkill for a 1500 but it would not hurt.

5. An extra battery would be fine also. Possibly not needed but it's not going to destroy your alternator.

6. Your bullshit detector is tuned properly :)

7. Your skar amp may fry if you let them install it ;)

 

Sitting around waiting to be installed:

  4 FI X 10

 270 CES alt

D3400/73ah lithium

 AA 3800.1

  (2) AA 75.4

     

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30 minutes ago, Wishuponasub said:

Don't go there anymore lol.

1. Wire is cheaper than that.

2. Skar is not a bad brand.

3.You can set gains that way but I would prefer a oscope or DD1. Also better to measure preout voltage rather than consulting the manual.

4. It will not hurt anything to run 0 and reduce to 4. Probably overkill for a 1500 but it would not hurt.

5. An extra battery would be fine also. Possibly not needed but it's not going to destroy your alternator.

6. Your bullshit detector is tuned properly :)

7. Your skar amp may fry if you let them install it ;)

 

Thanks for the input!
 

Tell me more about measuring the pre-amp voltage if you wouldn't mind. I'm still not tracking on how that makes a difference if I'm ultimately measuring distortion to set the gains. I mean, wouldn't the o-scope or distortion detector be effective regardless of what the pre-amp voltage exactly measures as long as it's within the tolerance of what the amp can take? And, what way is it that they were talking about? Granted, yeah they are full of shit, but the dude specifically said they don't set them by ear, or use an o-scope, multimeter, or distortion detector. If you aren't using any of that, what other way is there?

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Here in hawaii, 50ft of 0 guage stinger cost me 337$ shipped. They could have exaggerated the price a bit.

your skar RP isnt bad of an amp, i used to own a pair and sold them to a friend. Still going strong however its still a 200$ amp so keep that in consideration.

Setting gains properly really is not complicating at all for people who do it multiple times daily, however if they are just turning knobs by ear then thats considered half ass and incorrect.

0 guage IS overkill for that amp, but nothing wrong with some headroom for future upgrades.

It would depend on battery size,type,rating ect. An alternator can only take so much load before the voltage starts to sag and the depth of the sag will heavily depend on how much resistance you put on the alternator. 

 

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An extra batt will for sure put more strain on the alternator, doesn't mean it will kill it though.

I ran two batts on a stock alt and it lived through it for years, doesn't mean youll have the same results.

The rest is bullshit.

That being said a lot of people's definition of "music" is a clipped 30 hz sine wave with some 80 IQ knuckle head grunting about committing crimes and his genitals.

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2 hours ago, slowfkncar said:

Here in hawaii, 50ft of 0 guage stinger cost me 337$ shipped. They could have exaggerated the price a bit.

your skar RP isnt bad of an amp, i used to own a pair and sold them to a friend. Still going strong however its still a 200$ amp so keep that in consideration.

Setting gains properly really is not complicating at all for people who do it multiple times daily, however if they are just turning knobs by ear then thats considered half ass and incorrect.

0 guage IS overkill for that amp, but nothing wrong with some headroom for future upgrades.

It would depend on battery size,type,rating ect. An alternator can only take so much load before the voltage starts to sag and the depth of the sag will heavily depend on how much resistance you put on the alternator. 

 

Setting gains doesn't seem complicated at all to me. Using a DD-1, if I'm not mistaken, I'd just check the head unit for max volume without distortion, and then using the same volume setting set the amp gain until right before distortion happens. Easy, right? Don't know why the dude at the shop would think that checking the head unit for distortion is a stupid idea. Bad signal in means worse signal out, right?

 
I wouldn't trust a multimeter and math to ensure I'm not sending a bad signal through my system, especially when I've spent $400 on a sub. My wife would have a field day on me if I blew that sub, not gonna risk it.
 
How do you set gains? Just curious; I know there isn't any one perfect way, although the DD-1 seems to be it. 
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i would not run the RP line from skar. they are the chineese models. get the SK they are korean. you can get 1/0 wire from KNU for like $3.50 / ft.  that being said. unless you are willing to put your own money and ass on the line and do your own install and risk burning things up. you are just going to have to deal with shop prices and shop bullshit. i would rather burn up an amp than let douchebag mcgee hook up my gear.

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1 hour ago, strangeduck said:

i would not run the RP line from skar. they are the chineese models. get the SK they are korean. you can get 1/0 wire from KNU for like $3.50 / ft.  that being said. unless you are willing to put your own money and ass on the line and do your own install and risk burning things up. you are just going to have to deal with shop prices and shop bullshit. i would rather burn up an amp than let douchebag mcgee hook up my gear.

Damn it seems that no matter how much I try to research something.....

 
Thanks for the heads up on the Chinese manufacturing tip. I thought that all of Skar's stuff was Korean. Not that Chinese is necessarily bad, just that I've heard about their QA being not so good, depending on who's doing the work. 
 
Now I'm a little bit worried and maybe I should've forked out the extra $200 and got a Sundown. 
 
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never go to that shop again.  any shop that is going to down talk companies and charge you high prices must clearly be making enough money......to go out of business soon!  find a new spot.  just search around this site for a bit.  be respectful of people and the knowledge will come in time.

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5 minutes ago, neuspeedescort said:

never go to that shop again.  any shop that is going to down talk companies and charge you high prices must clearly be making enough money......to go out of business soon!  find a new spot.  just search around this site for a bit.  be respectful of people and the knowledge will come in time.

I've been lurking for a long time, registered about a year or so ago, and I've got to say that most of my car audio knowledge has come from either SMD forums or Car Audio Fabrication (shoutout to Mark!) 

 
If it weren't for places like this I would still be in the Stone Age vaporizing wires with my house speakers in my parent's caravan. Don't ask. 
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