Volkswagen Passat Forum banner
21 - 37 of 37 Posts
again, vets, don't shoot me, but you need to go back to Best Buy or Circuit City and do your best to try to talk ot one of their INSTALLERS. The sales guys are only looking to make commission so of course they are going to try to sell you the highest end, loudest stuff they can. If the installers there are worth a damn they can give you some really good advice.

Ask them if they have pics of systems they have installed and ask them if they can direct you to some of those systems so you can hear them and get their input... stay away from the bass monsters if that's not what you want... try to listen to the ones that have the sound you are looking for, then if what they have os out of your budget, the installer guy should be able to help you find good lesser priced comparables...

Another thing... invest in a subscription to Car Audio & Electronics... and believe it or not, Crutchfield.com has some really good online articles to help you get started.
 
oh, PLEASE... jd, tell us you are not telling him to get an install from Best Buy or Circuit City. I haven't read a single positive experience anyone has ever had from those two places.
 
not at all... just tryin to get him to some real life face to face people that may be able to help him... I have a really good friend that used to be a Best Try installer and he is really good.. he's actually one of the best fabricators that I know. Personally, I wouldn't let the guys at Circuit City remove my stock HU... they wanted $50 to do it. BUT, BUT, BUT... not all of them are bad... just making sure he's tapping every resource.

That being said... he may very well not get any decent help there but it's worth a try. Better than talking to the sales guys any way. It sounds like he is limited to very few installers in his area.

Potential, I really urge you not to over think this whole audio system install... you need to go with what sounds good to your ears... unless you're going for a professional show quality system, alot of the super technical specs on the stuff you're looking at aren't that important.
 
bright = emphasized high range sound, "trebble heavy," or near sibilant
dark = muted high frequency response, can be detailed

you already made a budget and you've established you can't expose yourself to much. Go to those forums I mentioned and find parts that MOST people have said good things about. Buy things that fit your budget and follow any solid tutorials to make sure your gear is installed optimally. If anything really doesn't do it for you, see if others that experienced that part preferred another part and take it from there. At least you can ebay/online shop with a clear conscience. Good luck.
 
just so you know:
Q is a term that is used to relate the different properties of a driver. electrical q represents the electrical side Qmech relates the mechanical resistances, Qts is an indicator of the entire speaker. you want qts to be less that 3.5 for sealed , between 3 and 6 for sealed and 7 for dipole (never used in cars). is basically a number that states how resistive the driver is (you need less resistance for a sealed driver than one that will be free air).

Fs this is the resonant frequency of a driver sitting in free air. You want this to be between 20-30 for car audio (25 or lower for home theater)

VAS or equilivant volume: this is the airspace that has the same resistance to compression as the driver

one way linear or x-max: the distance the driver can travel in one direction without leaving the magnet gap.

x-mech the maximum distance that a driver can travel without exceeding the nechanical limits of the driver (the spider and the surround going out or the back plate going in)

sensitivity spl: how loud it plays with 1 watt input. (the higher this is the better. the db system is a logarithmic scale. a 3 dB increase in sound requires 2x the power, so if your driver is 6dB more efficient you have effectively increased your power 4x. pay attention to this more than power handling. many manufactures are cutting sensitivity for increased power handling. This is a marketing scheme. they want to sell you the bigger more expensive amplifier)

LE: this is the inductance of the driver. you want this to be low. the lower the LE of the driver (usually) the better of a blend you can achieve with your mid bass drivers. (many companies dont display these specs because they are simply horrible look for something below 1.7mH. many subwoofers have LE well over three. That in and of itself will decrease transient response (hits). LE is stored energy. This has to be overcome to move the driver. reactance (the increased resistance that an inductor gives due to frequency) increases with higher frequencies.)

i know that was a lot of info :poke: but heres the most important thing:

Pick what sounds good to you
these numbers are just a guide (unless you have a speaker modeling program like winISD http://www.linearteam.dk/ :whistle: )
 
another forum you might want to try is DIYaudio.com . They have an entire section on car audio. they would know of more drivers that you have never heard of that sound amazing for a decent price. there are also several speaker designs with real feedback as to how they sound. there are also several books out there that could help you with your decision
 
Discussion starter · #30 ·
the word damn comes to mind..
yes i will try to get somewhere.. god only knows.. and listen to some more systems.. and i will try to get ahold of a couple of installers to get some ideas.. going to be interesting.. i just kinda fell it.. anyway
thanks for all the information and the link.. very nice.. im going to have to play with it sometime.. i feel so resticted where i live with this kinda stuff.. and i dont want to depend on people opinion so much but i dont have the resourses to go far.. or have around me.. keep on posting im going to try and do some of the things i havent already and start seeing what happens
thanks
 
I just want to clarify a few things.

just so you know:
Q is a term that is used to relate the different properties of a driver. electrical q represents the electrical side Qmech relates the mechanical resistances, Qts is an indicator of the entire speaker. you want qts to be less that 3.5 for sealed , between 3 and 6 for sealed and 7 for dipole (never used in cars). is basically a number that states how resistive the driver is (you need less resistance for a sealed driver than one that will be free air).
Listed specs are just a starting point, take them with a grain of salt, and they almost never tell the entire story. The general idea is that a driver with a low Qts. like under .3 better suited for ported enclosures, anything above that it's better suited for sealed enclosures. However, pretty much every driver can work in any application.
Fs this is the resonant frequency of a driver sitting in free air. You want this to be between 20-30 for car audio (25 or lower for home theater)
Fs isn't something I would look at to get any idea of sound reproduction from a subwoofer. Lower is not better, higher isn't any worse, subwoofers play such a minimal part in the whole grand scheme of things, so I would never base any type of decision on this spec.

one way linear or x-max: the distance the driver can travel in one direction without leaving the magnet gap.
This is me just being nitpicky, but it's not when the coil actually leaves the gap, it's usually rated at 71% of the BL at rest (BL is motor force for the OP)

x-mech the maximum distance that a driver can travel without exceeding the nechanical limits of the driver (the spider and the surround going out or the back plate going in)
Xmech is actually the point where the coil would leave the gap or bottom out on the back plate. Xsus is the suspension limits.

sensitivity spl: how loud it plays with 1 watt input. (the higher this is the better. the db system is a logarithmic scale. a 3 dB increase in sound requires 2x the power, so if your driver is 6dB more efficient you have effectively increased your power 4x. pay attention to this more than power handling. many manufactures are cutting sensitivity for increased power handling. This is a marketing scheme. they want to sell you the bigger more expensive amplifier)
Sensitivity on a subwoofer is actually one of the most useless specs out there. For one, this is usually taken at a 1000hz tone, a frequency that subwoofers don't play. Also, occasionally they are rated at 2.83 volts, instead of 1watt, 2.83volts is equivalent to 2 watts. I'd actually look at power handling more than sensitivity. Max power is useless however, RMS is something to look at to give you an idea of what kind of power requirements it will need. Under powering a sub will not blow it, over powering can if you don't act responsibly. An amp rated at 1000 watts RMS will almost never actually produce 1000 watts so you can get away with buying a bigger amp than needed (it's called headroom), as long as you know what you're doing it's not a problem.
 
"as long as you know what you're doing it's not a problem."

The problem is, he doesn't know what he's doing. (no offense, Potential :thumbup: )

All this technical jargon is frying this guy's brain. :D

While he's at it, if he adds a bigger amp, he's gonna need a new finnagan pin in his conuutin valve. :lol: :lol: :lol: :poke:

It's all good Potential... any luck in the search for audio excellence yet?
 
"as long as you know what you're doing it's not a problem."

The problem is, he doesn't know what he's doing. (no offense, Potential :thumbup: )

It's pretty simple. Don't go around with the volume cranked all the time, and if you hear any odd noises or smell something funny, you need to take it down a few notches. And since he said he doesn't want it super loud, then he'll be fine.
 
Discussion starter · #36 ·
"as long as you know what you're doing it's not a problem."

The problem is, he doesn't know what he's doing. (no offense, Potential :thumbup: )

All this technical jargon is frying this guy's brain. :D

While he's at it, if he adds a bigger amp, he's gonna need a new finnagan pin in his conuutin valve. :lol: :lol: :lol: :poke:

It's all good Potential... any luck in the search for audio excellence yet?
naw im good.. i learn pretty fast..
 
21 - 37 of 37 Posts