sound system, upgrading

Hi I've just gotten out of military boot-camp and went and bought a car to have at my duty station. I'd like to upgrade my sound system and stereo but the amount of info out there is a bit much for me to understand coherently. I have and would like: *2000 Toyota corolla *$600 dollar budget *install myself (for learning and saving money) *the only things I'm sure I want is bass, and Bluetooth radio to phone I've done shopping on www.crutchfield.com, watched installation videos over the internet. but I don't quite understand how the amp, sub-woofer, speaker, stereo relationship works (a lot of the lingo is over my head). I appreciate anyone willing to help educate me, and show me the ropes

if you can explain to us what you feel is over your head then maybe someone could explain to you what you seem to be missing. its really not that hard but i can understand that there are a lot of terms that you might not understand at first. $600 is a decent budget for a simple system. i would suggest spending that money on a nice head unit that has all of the features you want now and for the future, you should ask yourself what you will eventually want in the near future and buy your head unit based off of those wants and needs. things to think of are bluetooth and phone compatibility, sound features like equalizers, crossover filters, number of outputs for adding amps. spending money on a nice head unit will save you from having to spend money on adapters or new head units every time you want to upgrade your system. a good head unit will cost you around $200, if you want to have a screen with dvd player then you should be looking to spend around $350. as for the bass situation, the price depends on what you are looking to get out of your system. are you looking for loud, or clean, or both?

Hello soundsecurity, I appreciate you replying to my forum problem/request. I assume 'head-unit' means the radio that everything plugs into. In my head-unit I'd like to have Bluetooth connection for Android phones (don't care about iPhone), a front auxiliary input for devices that can't Bluetooth, I don't need a CD/DVD player of any sort. I know these might be elementary music production words, but I simply don't grasp what these devices do exactly. "equalizers, crossover filters, number of outputs for adding amps" Also when I go shopping online and try to choose my head-unit I cant tell if it allows 4 speakers or just 2. I don't know if its implied, but when I search around on articles or 'how to' stuff they never mention it. My bass doesn't have to be perfectly clear, I'm more concerned that when my idiot comrades just turn the volume knob up all the way it isn't gonna blow my speakers and sub, because they can't handle it.(which is what happened to my current factory standard speakers) Another device relationship i don't understand is the Amplifier?!?!?!?!

ok that frames the question a little better. equalizer it just a device that most radios already have some form of built in, when you adjust the bass, mid, and treble on a radio that is a simple equalizer. all it does is turn certain parts of the music up of down in order to get a more even sound or most people just turn everything all the way up, it customizes the sound to how you like it. the crossover is just a filter that is used to keep certain sound frequencies from being played through your speakers that could possible harm the speaker because it was not designed to play those frequencies. your blown system could have benefited from a crossover because it would have probably kept your speakers from blowing. most decent radios will have some sort of crossover to keep harmful bass frequencies out of your normal speakers, leaving the bass to be played only by the sub woofer. the outputs i was referring to are RCA jacks on the back of the radio, these are the outputs that provide the signal for any amps you would want to install, its ideal to have 3 sets of outputs, front, rear, and sub, but some radios only have one or two sets which leave you in a limited capacity if you wanted to install amps for your entire system. depending on if you think you will want to upgrade your system in the future then you will want to pick the right number of outputs that you will need to have. personally i would get a radio with three sets just because you never know how long you will have that radio and it will keep you from having to buy a new one if you ever do upgrade in the near future. every radio in existence will allow up to four speakers to be used with its internal amplifier but a radio is only limited to about 30 watts of power per speaker.

soundnsecurity wrote: $600 is a decent budget for a simple system. i would suggest spending that money on a nice head unit that has all of the features you want now and for the future, you should ask yourself what you will eventually want in the near future and buy your head unit based off of those wants and needs.

Wise words right there. The last thing you want to do is buy the cheapest head unit you can find now...and then realize next year that it doesn't have enough RCA outputs to connect a second amplifier (just for example). Plan to spend ~$200 retail ($150 online) for a decent single DIN head unit.

all an amplifier really does is provide more power to your speakers than what the radio can supply. as stated, a typical radio will give you about 30 watts and most upgrade speakers need more power than that to make them sound their best. the installation of any amplifier is pretty much the same no matter what kind of amp it is. you run a large gauge wire from the battery's positive post straight to the positive terminal of the amp, use the same size wire to run the ground wire from the amp to a spot on the car that has been sanded down to bare metal and screw the wire down to that spot. the other connections on an amp are the RCA jacks that receive the audio signal from the radio and there is another terminal called the remote power terminal. the remote wire is a small wire that usually gets ran from the amp to the back of the radio where there will be a "usually" be a blue wire with a white stripe or sometimes its just blue. if you have both colors then you should use the blue wire with white stripe. the only function of this wire is to tell the amp to turn on when you turn the key, so this wire can be ran to any power source that turns on and off with the car. that pretty much sums up the basic install of any amplifier. its not that hard, the hardest part will be running the wires through your car and your car is relatively easy to take apart too. its important to match the amplifiers power rating to that of what ever speakers you plan to use. you want to go by the "RMS" power rating, which is basically the average or continuous amount of power that speaker is designed to handle and not blow. also the speaker has an impedance rating, measured in "ohms", which is usually 4 ohms but can be 2 ohms or 8 ohms depending on the speaker. the most common rating is 4 ohms for a normal door speaker but a sub woofer can easily be 2 or 4 ohms. this ohm rating is what you use to match speakers with amps, an amps power rating is also connected to an ohm rating, it will say something like X amount of power at 4 ohms and a different amount of power at 2 ohms. so if your speakers have a rating of 4 ohms, you would look at the amps RMS power rating at the 4 ohm level and this will match up your speakers to the amp. you should try to match the ratings as close as you can, but if the amp you want gives you a little more or less power than what your speakers want then its usually ok, id say up to about +/- %10 is fine.

Wow that made everything click for me. Thank you so much for clearing the air on much of the lingo. I've always installed speakers and wiring on my own at home but i was unaware of the ratings an that some equipment wouldn't work with other gear. So then for my head-unit I need with a price range of $150-$200: *3 RCA outputs *Bluetooth connection and front aux out (should it have equalizer options and crossover protection built in?) for an amplifier i need: *(generally)a 4 ohms output for speakers (and does that go the same for the bass as well?) I know my speakers fit with a 6 1/2 to 6 3/4 inch diameter but whats a good price range for speakers? I saw sets for $100 and saw ridicules priced $400 ones. Also I'm still not sure what qualifies as a good bass? what qualities am I looking for when it comes to them?

I apologies if i take forever to reply, but I'm currently assigned to a 12-14 hour shift project for at least two weeks, and we aren't aloud to have any electronics for security reasons so my time is very limited to when I can reply. Thank you for your help, and for your passions

lingo headunit = radio equalizer, crossovers = dont worry about these yet, your amp will have some type built in. they simply fine tune your music my recommendation: pioneer f700bt - can be had used on ebay for around $300. it is a 7" touchscreen without dvd. has front aux, navi, usb, and multiple outputs. plays 4 speakers @ 50watts each right from the box (actual output is around 25w per channel) grab any name brand 12" sub and amp you can find. shoot for 500w RMS. itll give you good bump, not window breaking but decent enough to be happy. my first setup was sony xplod and it was loud. should find a deal for around $140-$180 including the box for the subs get a GOOD wiring kit, 2ga or 4ga so you dont have to upgrade later if you want more bump.

hmm, dont worry about equalizers and crossovers...? honestly you will want to get as much built in to the radio as possible, especially a decent equalizer and crossover because you wont always be able to install an external equalizer and even if you can a good one costs about $200 by itself. same goes for crossovers, the amp will usually have some sort of crossover but they are very basic, whereas, the ones typically built into good radios allow you to control from the drivers seat (the listening position) and usually let you chose slope and frequency. its just an overall better idea to buy the best radio you can afford even if it means waiting and holding off from buying the rest of your system. sorry laughbot, i had to address that response first. now, back to you, you will definitely want a radio with a good equalizer because this will allow you to make even a mid level system sound really nice if you learn to use it the right way. having a good crossover built into the radio is not quite as important because your amp will have one built in already. having a crossover in the radio is just a convenience so you can adjust it while you are listening so you can judge where it should be set to give you the best sound. now, if you decide to not have your speakers on an amp then i would shoot for a radio with a better crossover, one that will allow you to have different settings for front and rear and sub. i would classify a good equalizer as anything that has more than 7 bands, which is just the number of different points that it allows you to adjust. for example, the basic "bass, mid' and treble" in most factory radios would be a 3 band equalizer because it allows you to adjust 3 different points up or down. another acceptable equalizer would be a 3 band parametric equalizer, the parametric equalizer only allows 3 points to adjust with but it allows you to choose where those points are. this is not my favorite type of equalizer but it can be just as effective if you use it correctly. and as with any equalizer, the more bands it allows you to adjust the better you can tweak the sound to your liking. the other type of equalizer i mentioned is called a graphic" equalizer. as for the speakers, a good price range for speakers is around $100 per set. i would spend more on the front speakers than the back speakers. by having better speakers in the front it will make your whole system sound better because these are the speakers that you will hear the most. personally i dont even have rear speakers in my truck, just a really nice set of speakers in the front doors. if you can spend $300 on speakers for example then i would spend about $200 on the front and the other 100 for some alright speakers just to fill in the sound. choosing sub woofers is a bit more tricky, you need to ask yourself a few questions like: 1) how many sub woofers do you want? 2) how much space in your car are you willing to give up for the subs? 3) how big is your factory battery and alternator? 4) do you want to have the option to upgrade to a bigger system in the future? those questions need to be answered. i asked about the factory battery and alternator because this is where the bass amp will get its power from and if you want a lot of power then you will likely have to upgrade your battery and alternator as well as some factory wiring to support the amount of power the new amp will need to work properly. id guess you would be safe at around 500 watts for a bass amp and 300 watts for the high amp, without needing to upgrade your stock power supply. so with that said, a 500 watt supply will limit what you should buy. i would suggest a single 10 or 12. depending on how much space you have available, this will also narrow down your choices because different subs need different size enclosures to perform their best. the relationship between the sub woofer and the size of the box is one of the most critical parts to getting good bass. you can choose a low end sub and install it in the perfect box and it will still sound good, but if you buy a nice sub and stick it in the wrong size box then it will most likely sound horrible or at least not as good as it should. so, with that said, i would suggest you decide how much space you want to sacrifice, look for a pre-fabricated sub woofer box that fits where you want it, and then buy your sub based on the amount of airspace inside of your box. if you are willing and able to build your own custom sub woofer box then you can save yourself from hunting for a box that fits your sub woofer. instead you can buy whatever sub woofer you want and build a box to suit it. as far as sub woofer qualities to look for, you want to find something with a nice stiff cone. cones made out of plastic are usually flimsy and that makes them sound distorted at high volume, there are exceptions to that statement but those sub woofers are pretty expensive. cones made out of pressed paper or aluminum or carbon fiber or woven material are nice. dont get very caught up in the size of the magnet, you want it to be a decent size compared to the size of the woofer but some companies make subs with insanely huge magnets and that just isnt necessary. you will want the power handling of the sub to be around the same as whatever amp you buy, make sure to use the RMS power rating on both sub and amp to match them up. if your sub or amp is only rated by its "MAX POWER" then dont buy it because it is piece of junk, only junk equipment is rated by its max power. the other main spec for matching a sub to an amp is its ohm rating and the number of voice coils. the voice coil is what physically moves the cone of any speaker. sub woofers come mainly in single and dual voice coil flavors, and the only difference is that a dual voice coil sub woofer just allows you to have more options for wiring it to an amp. if you plan to buy just one sub woofer then you will want to look for a sub woofer with dual voice coils and a 2 ohm rating, which means that each coil will be 2 ohms. a dual 2 ohm sub woofer will allow you to get the most out of any amp because you can wire the coils together to get a total ohm rating of 1 ohm. also when buying an amp to match your sub, you will be looking at the amps RMS power rating at 1 ohm. if the amp does not have a rating at 1 ohm then that usually means that it is not stable at 1 ohm. just like i explained with the ratings of high amps, bass amps will give you ratings of X amount of power at 4, 2, and 1 ohm, the power will increase every time the ohm rating gets lower, that is why i said to buy a sub that can be wired to 1 ohm, this way you will get the amps maximum power output. i know this is a lot of information to take in but its really not that difficult, it just sounds difficult because im explaining it in detail for you.