Amp and Sub for Car Audio

[Touch The Universe]

For electronic music playing a lot of fast bass notes (progressive trance, psy), what setup would your recommend?

What are you using and what genre do you make?

[Touch The Universe]

Notes for future reference

Right away there is a choice. SPL Loudness (a wall of bass sound, detail lost) or Clarity SQ (better for reference source).

SQ (Sound Quality) is about having clarity and fidelity while being able to hear every single frequency of the song nice and clear.

SPL (Sound Pressure Levels) on the other hand is about being loud & measuring cabin pressure in dB's (Decibels).

SEALED SUBWOOFER ENCLOSURES

Some people prefer sound quality over SPL, or “tight”, more accurate bass over rattling the mirrors off their car. Sealed enclosures aren’t typically as loud as ported enclosures but they still enhance the listening experience greatly by providing more defined low frequency passages such as kick drums. The bass can still be felt in your chest and in the seats of the vehicle as if you were front row at a concert.

Sealed enclosures reproduce the low frequencies more accurately than ported enclosures because the air inside the box acts like a shock absorber, allowing the subwoofer to move back and forth in more control. The sound waves are reproduced more accurately than with a ported enclosure but the subwoofers may require slightly more power from the amplifier to get the woofers to move as much as they would in a ported enclosure. Sealed enclosures are generally smaller and easier to build because there is no port to tune. You simply build the enclosure to the proper specification for your chosen subwoofer(s).

PORTED / VENTED SUBWOOFER ENCLOSURES

If you like your music “boomy”, vibrating your car’s body panels, you want to consider a ported (vented) enclosure. These types of enclosures, when built with the properly calculated volume and tuned to the correct frequency for the subwoofer, are generally louder than a sealed enclosure. In a vented enclosure the woofer and port work together with the port resonating like a pipe organ. This works with the woofer to generate more bass than a sealed box.

Right now, I've narrowed it to SQ Sealed enclosure Subwoofers Making progress ...

[fluffy_little_something]

Focus on the traffic! Loud and distracting music can hide important sounds from outside the car.

[Touch The Universe]

I think I've got most of the grounds covered so far.

I have a 10 speaker Bose factory that is 300 watts. This limits how much sub and amp I can get to maintain the system balance and not have the subs overwhelm the rest of the frequency spectrum. I can go dual channel which can give me more RMS output options if I need, depending if they are connected in series or parallel. For instance, if the sub is too much, I can wire it in series which will double the Impedence in Ohms, and thus halving the RMS output in watts (1000 watts to 500, etc) hopefully balancing out the spectrum again, without hopefully being too lacking.

I want to hear the system beforehand if possible, but the shop I was at yesterday looked like he was never asked such a question. I guess people drop 500-1000 on a system, not sight unseen, but sound unheard, and hope it suits there tastes and needs. Not my style though... Might have to shop around, making shi* even more complicated...

[tdh10]

Focus on the traffic!

[Touch The Universe]

Barking up the wrong tree

[Hink]

Parking up the wrong tree

FTFY and you might be if you dont pay attention to traffic

[stratum]

you can have a look at the inspiring local silly stuff with possibly more expensive sound systems than the cars themselves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRsASqw0kRg