Just finished installing my Dual Subs, Kenwood 1000w amp, Alpine Type S coaxial 6x9 speakers, and Alpine CDE-102 Head Unit.

Prices

Dual 12" Subs.- got them from friend for $80 in perfect condition. They are not the greatest, but I'm a Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Slipknot guy so they do great. They definitely don't suck. I have one friend with 2 15" RF's and it's a waste of money. He never uses more than 1/4 of their potential power. Another friend has 2 12" Alpine R's and same thing. Why spend money for power potential that you're never going to use? Anyway, They light up at the flick of a switch and pulse to the bass which is kind of cool.



Alpine CDE-102 - 120 from Best Buy. I wanted to be able to play CD's and attach an ipod so this is great. Sound quality improved a little bit over stock. It's much more noticeable at higher volume levels. The mounting bracket I got on Crutchfield was $30 with shipping. The only problem is the bracket doesn't fit perfectly. My friends never notice the gaps, but I'm anal and a nut like most of us on this forum and it drives me crazy, but I can't really do much about it. If someone wants a pic of the gaps let me know.

Kenwood 1000w Amp- It's 2 channel. Used Rockford Fosgate wiring kit. Finding a hole in firewall was a complete pain in the butt. I've attached a picture of which hole to use in case anyone reading this is thinking about installing an amp themselves. It's driver side footwell.




Alpine Type S Coaxial 6x9 3-Way- These were pretty easy. Take old speaker out. I took a side of cereal box and cut it into a ring that is the size of the required speaker opening, then I traced onto 1/4 oak wood. Jig Saw'd that out, cut the wood down to a decent size. Drilled a hole through the corner of wood, stuck the drill bit into anchor on the door and while holding the wood there, I pulled drill bit out and put the screw in. Obviously once 3 screws were in, there was no way to put the 4th in since I couldn't peel the corner back anymore. I'm sure there is a way to get all 4, but I'm lazy, but 3 will suffice, it's really snug and doesn't rattle. Left back speakers stock because I ran out of money.

Sound system is great except for alot of time and money. Mostly alot of time since I'm 18 and have no idea how any of this stuff works. But time is money, so I guess it was just alot of money. I just wanted to brag to my friends that I did this all myself in 20 degree weather and save a couple hundred by DIY. My only problem is the back door panel rattles like crazy from the subs. It sounds as if there are 200 rattle snakes caged in my trunk, it drives me nuts. I can't justify spending 100 more bucks on 12 square feet of Dynamat for it either. Maybe I'll look into knock-off's.

Any questions, let me know.

Lookin' good man. I just installed two sets of Type S components (6.5) in the rear and front doors. Took a lot of time and goddamn was it frustrating. Haha, I hope things went smoothly..ish for you!

Did you just screw the 6x9 bracket (baffle) on to the existing bracket? probably not otherwise you wouldn't of been able to put the door panel back on... maybe not?

And also, are you powering your 6x9s off of your head unit? Or do you have an amp?

For some reason the alpine 6x9 would not fit into the existing bracket. I cut the speaker out, and I cut off the 6 or 7 supports from the bracket to the speaker and dremeled them really smooth so it was a perfectly round bracket.. But the thing still wouldn't fit. So I just made my own bracket.

Yes, they are powered by Head Unit. Unless there is a way to amp them and subs off a 2 channel amp? I have no idea, I'm bad at car audio.

The problem is I forgot to disconnect the stock tweeter so now I got 2 tweeters going. So when it gets warmer I'll take the door off again and d/c it.

You could run the sub and speaks - wire the speakers in parallel in the existing channels. Both positive wires in one input, and both negative wires in the other output. Although, I am not sure what that does to the wattage out put of the amp, and I'm not sure whether or not the speakers could handle it... I'd ask a local shop if they recommend that, but could work!

I have my stock tweeters going also - how come you want to disconnect them?

If you look at one of the sides of the box it says in tiny print to d/c the stock tweet otherwise you can ruin the speaker and Alpine cannot be faulted for it. It's a cover their ass type of thing.

Thanks, I'll ask around about that. It seems like the speakers would blow out with that much power, unless they only draw the amount of power that they need? Anyone wanna chime in?

Running two tweeters off completely different power won't ruin it at all... That's really stupid that they said that... I think...

Right now I'm running two tweets on each door. I'll take pics, i need to anyway!

No, they wont draw the amount of power that they need, i think wiring in parallel almost doubles the RMS that it would be putting out.

Mine are coaxial, not component. Both Tweet's are being powered by the Head Unit. They're not amped. So for component's, 2 tweeters is probably fine.

Yeah, I know. But I don't understand why that would matter?

Since many more people are viewing than I thought , I was wondering if someone could help me out.

When I turn my bass up a little bit the speakers distort pretty badly. It also happens around volume level 24, out of 35 when the bass is in the middle. Is it supposed to distort like that? It seems that too much bass is going to the speakers because when I turn the bass off, I can turn them up to 35 no problem.

Thanks

You should be able to set your high pass filter.

Any reason you went with those subs?

The volume setting X out of Y doesn't really mean anything. Most volume controls have more attenuation range than gain. Either you're clipping the amp or sending too much power to the drivers. There is a slim possibility that you're clipping at the preamp outputs.

An amp simply multiplies the low level signal sent from the head unit via the preouts, as the name implies. It can only do this up to the limit of its power supply. The amplifier essentially has a fixed multiplier for this amplification, once you set the gain. You modulate output via the preamp in the head unit, which cuts/boosts the source (CD/iPod/XM/etc.) signal based on your volume setting. When you increase the bass level, you're increasing the voltage of the preamp signal which in turn is multiplied by the amp before sending to your subs. Turn the bass down and you can turn the volume (gain) higher before you send that same voltage to the amp.

-Brent

Didn't feel like spending a whole lot of money. Got them from friend for $80. I'll upgrade come summer time.

Riverwolf,
thanks, ill try playing with the gain tomorrow.

Also you shouldn't turn the volume up more than like 75%. 24 would be about the max for me.