Sound system advice

[Rob..]

Ok guys, I am really rubbish at workin out how the best sound systems go together but basically, i have 2 15 inch subs in a ported box that are amped, a Sony Xplod CD player (not sure of the specs just yet) and 4 JVC 6x9's.

I have a £200 budget and need an amp to power the 4 6x9s and 2 additional front speakers. For those that dont know i now own an estate (306... sorry guys) and plan on putting the 4 speakers in a custom built parcel shelf, my questions are:

Would the 2 left and 2 right parcel shelf speakers be better run in series, parralell or on 4 different chanels?

And what amp, front speakers and size wire would you recommend? Bear in mind the £200 has to cover amp, speakers, connectors and a decent size wire.

Its all to be placed in the boot and i will run the wires to the front and into the door pods for the front speakers

Any help will be greatly appreciated (Y)

 

[NeX]

Ok guys, I am really rubbish at workin out how the best sound systems go together but basically, i have 2 15 inch subs in a ported box that are amped, a Sony Xplod CD player (not sure of the specs just yet) and 4 JVC 6x9's.

I have a £200 budget and need an amp to power the 4 6x9s and 2 additional front speakers. For those that dont know i now own an estate (306... sorry guys) and plan on putting the 4 speakers in a custom built parcel shelf, my questions are:

Would the 2 left and 2 right parcel shelf speakers be better run in series, parralell or on 4 different chanels?

And what amp, front speakers and size wire would you recommend? Bear in mind the £200 has to cover amp, speakers, connectors and a decent size wire.

Its all to be placed in the boot and i will run the wires to the front and into the door pods for the front speakers

Any help will be greatly appreciated (Y)

first of all 6X9s are a waste of time especally in the shelf.
Secondly you never run speakers in series ever, there is so many reasons why that is bad

you are better off with getting component speakers

there is mutant amps on ebay for about £40 and they are 4 channel too, if you insist on using the 6X9s. they come with wiring and have the daisy chain option to connect to your sub amp.

but it depends on what speakers you have to what amp you should get because they should match the power ratings. so there are some infinity speakers on ebay, they are shallow mount so they will fit in the doors of a k11 and they are 90watt rms component speakers, the go perfectly with the 70watt RMS of the mutant amp which also has a stable 2 ohm amplifier which is the same as the infinity speakers meaning it takes less power to run them, and you can run them for longer on the battery.

 

[Rob..]

I see. Basically when buying amps i should obviously go for a lower RMS than the speaker i will be attaching to it? The 4 6x9's are mainly for show more than functionality, im only installing all of them since i already have them. So i will be better off with component speakers also?
How about seperate tweeters? and were should these be put?

I'm doing alot of reading on talkaudio.com and its pretty useful so i'll probably have it worked out soon enough anyway.

 

[Retepetsir]

Common misconception, but 6x9's are perfectly fine if installed correctly.

I'd say you are better going for 1 pair of speakers in the shelf then 1 pair up front. No need for 2 pairs in the rear shelf at all, it also makes wiring easier.

With amps, its actually better to go for a matched/higher rms amp than the speakers (if you can) as there is less chance of driving the amp into clipping and damaging it.

Nex is wrong, you can of course run speakers in series but in this case you wouldn't want to as it would make the resistance of the connection too high for your needs.

Most amplifiers are 2ohm stable, but often designed for 4ohm loads. That means that if you want to you 'could' run 2 4ohm speakers off of each channel (i.e. your 6x9's) so have....

- 4 Channel amp
- 2 x front speakers on their own channels (2 x 4ohm)
- 4 x rear speakers wired to 2 channels (2 in parallel on each channel = 2 ohms)

That would work.

However I suggest you go for a 4-channel amplifier and run 4 speakers (2 pairs, so one front one rear) off of them.

I'm a regular on talkaudio and have gone through a fair number of my own installs, and helped others too.

How is your sub amp currently wired up, and with what wire (how thick)? As you'll need to run power cable to the new amp, you may need a new thicker cable to power both amps, or otherwise if the other cable is big enough you can just split that near the amps to power the too.

As you say you'll need speaker wire too, probably about 15 metres worth to wire all of the speakers up.

However as it seems you already have 4 6x9's, then stick with them if you have to.

Component speakers tend to be better than coaxials but again they are the more expensive option. If you want and solution to just wire in up front in your speaker pods then stick with coaxials. Components come with seperate mids and tweeters, coaxials are all in one.

I have a free delivery code for Car Audio Direct if you order from them (postage is usually around £10) but it depends if you want new or second hand...

A quick suggestion (I don't know what size your 306 speakers up front would be):

This amp: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/jbl-gto504-p-6324.html

These speakers (components): http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/jbl-gto6508c-p-7193.html

or these speakers (coaxial): http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/jbl-gto6528-p-7190.html

That's £138-£160 so far.

You'll then want speaker cable, so as an example:

2 of these (20m): http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/celsus-cable-pack-15mm-p-7265.html

That's £154 to £176 so far...

Plus a wiring kit if you need one: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/audio-8awg-p-6011.html

You may need a pair of RCA splitters in order to split the one RCA lead into 2 for a 4-channel amp, so add another £5 for those if needed: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/celsus-rcastyf2m-p-1034.html

Which makes the total £174 or £196 plus free delivery (if you ask me)