[islandman]

Originally Posted by navin

1. while using pricegrabber stick to merchants with a lot of votes and a 5 star rating. anything less than a 4 star rating and you are aking for it.

I realised how important the above message is and made it bold to help other Team Bhp members. I have seen a lot of young blokes in India having all sorts of problems buying from underrated merchants on pricegrabber.

Also after Sam's posts I am inclined to add a 4 channel amp with the 12" sub in a free air setting. Any specific sub and amp combo that you would suggest.

You can read details of my existing setup etc a few posts below.

Thanks in Advance.

[rsjaurr]

Crutchfield is the best one there but these guys will charge for being the best.

other website u can try out r onlinecarstereo.com,woofersetc.com,bestbuy.com,etr onics.com etc.These r good alternative to crutchfield.com.

You can also try on ebay.com[USA] from very reputed sellers with atleast 15000 feedbacks.[there r some with even more feedbacks] but risk here is maximum.

[ancer]

hi im quite a noob as far as car systems are concerned but has any 1 used a SONY XS-L120P5H 12" Subwoofer 1000w woofer

[Sam Kapasi]

Oh dear... lol

Ancer, welcome to this side of town. If you do a little search (as the thread title suggests) you will find many experiences.
In our humble opinion, the sony woofer isn't that great a product at all. If you haven't bought it yet, don't, almost every available choice would be better..
If you own one, well, enjoy it, but change it when you get the opportunity.

[Vid6639]

Ok really dumb question. Today i finally got some time to spend with my lancer and i was opening up and checking the ICE setup.
Basically one of the rear speakers (KFC-HQ698 6X9 coax) was giving a jarring sound so wanted to clean it up and see if it was just dust.
To my horror i realised the connections were wrong the +/- interchanged. I had installed these speakers from the showroom when i got the car before delivery 6 years back and i never liked the sound and complete lack of bass.
After checking all the wiring and putting all the connections right the sound improved tremendously. Just one speaker was wrongly connected the jarring one.
Even after i changed just the one connection the sound was really good compared to before. Why is that? If i connect it wrongly the back sound is really bad even if just one is conneted wrongly.

My whole setup is stock only rear speakers changed. stock front stock kenwood tape HU.
Shouldn't one of them still sound proper and the other bad?

Also, what damage will the speaker suffer since it was connected wrongly for 6 years. cos after i fixed the connection ot sounds proper and the jarring has stopped.

[rsjaurr]

sam,ancer has probably met some small car accessory shop owner who must have advised him a 12" sub and they usually have piled up sony stuff in their shops.
Recently when i went to LDH for seat cover i talked to one of more decent shopkeeper [he looked like] about choice of ICE stuff.He told me that we advise only 12" sub coz this is bigger than 10".When i asked about brands they recommend,he said that its always sony as this is cheap.
What i want to say is that unlike other elec.stuff,not many customers would know much about brands except sony or pioneer and these car accessoriy guys r taking advantage of it.Also they r not willing to experiment by recommending other better stuff and unless they take some risk,customers r not going to get good products.This is where u guys [Sam,Gunbir,B&T] have to step in educating both customers and these shop owners.

[Bass&Trouble]

You should first stop calling your questions 'really dumb' questions. Nice effort there to hunt out the culprit, better late than never.

Originally Posted by vid6639

Basically one of the rear speakers (KFC-HQ698 6X9 coax) was giving a jarring sound so wanted to clean it up and see if it was just dust.
To my horror i realised the connections were wrong the +/- interchanged. I had installed these speakers from the showroom when i got the car before delivery 6 years back and i never liked the sound and complete lack of bass.

Umm, what you described, was reverse polarity on one of the two major contributors to the bass in your car. So effexctively, it cancelled out the other 6x9, and the result is almost no bass in your car, except the little bit that is produced by your fronts. So, it is a bit unikely that only one of the speakers was jarring. The jarring must be from the cancellation, so it shouldn't originate from just one speaker. One explanation could be that you were turning it a bit too loud earlier to make up for the lack of bass. Try this, move the balance to the speaker that was supposedly causing the problem earlier. Turn the volume up a bit, and see if you can hear a scraping noise. If this is happening, you have voice coil rub on that speaker or dust in the gap. Else, you're fine.

Originally Posted by vid6639

Even after i changed just the one connection the sound was really good compared to before. Why is that? If i connect it wrongly the back sound is really bad even if just one is conneted wrongly.

This is because, rather than the bass from both speakers cancelling each other and producing nearly zero bass, now you have the sum of the bass produced by both speakers.

Originally Posted by vid6639

My whole setup is stock only rear speakers changed. stock front stock kenwood tape HU.
Shouldn't one of them still sound proper and the other bad?

Which is why I recommended the test above.

Originally Posted by vid6639

Also, what damage will the speaker suffer since it was connected wrongly for 6 years. cos after i fixed the connection ot sounds proper and the jarring has stopped

Reverse polarity in a stereo pair of speakers doesn't cause any physical harm. Like I said before, it just fools you into trying to turn up the system louder.

[Bass&Trouble]

Originally Posted by rsjaurr

sam,ancer has probably met some small car accessory shop owner who must have advised him a 12" sub and they usually have piled up sony stuff in their shops.
Recently when i went to LDH for seat cover i talked to one of more decent shopkeeper [he looked like] about choice of ICE stuff.He told me that we advise only 12" sub coz this is bigger than 10".When i asked about brands they recommend,he said that its always sony as this is cheap.
What i want to say is that unlike other elec.stuff,not many customers would know much about brands except sony or pioneer and these car accessoriy guys r taking advantage of it.Also they r not willing to experiment by recommending other better stuff and unless they take some risk,customers r not going to get good products.This is where u guys [Sam,Gunbir,B&T] have to step in educating both customers and these shop owners.

Like you correctly point out, a lot of shopkeepers are mostly intimidated to sell expensive, high-end car audio equipment usually, when installing it calls for a certain degree of specialization. They are always worried at the back of their minds that if the install goes even a lit bit wrong, the customer will never realize the difference between what they usually regard as 'tried and tested' like Pioneer and Sony, as opposed to speciality brands. And if one customer thinks that they have been fleeced by that retailer, not only will that customer never return to the ahop, nor will all other friends and other potential customers. Education here is the key. I think T-Bhp is at the forefront of this exercise. If you don't have educated dealers, atleast you can educate the customers.

[Vid6639]

Ah i see, the part of bass cancelling out never struck me.

Try this, move the balance to the speaker that was supposedly causing the problem earlier. Turn the volume up a bit, and see if you can hear a scraping noise. If this is happening, you have voice coil rub on that speaker or dust in the gap. Else, you're fine.

Yup tried this test first itself to determine which actually was the speaker. It was always the speaker which was connected wrongly. The one corrected properly was ok. After i put the connection proper for the wrong one no more jarring. Yes, your right i was turning up a bit louder to make up for the bass which resulted in the scraping in the first place.

Good to know no physical damage can occur. But arent the caps on the speaker electrolytic caps which have polarity. Caps can short if connected in the wrong way.

What would happen if both the speakers are connected wrongly? The bass wont get cancelled out but how would it be interpreted then?

Now seeing that the rear speakers are performing the way they are supposed to. I need to change the HU and front speakers.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by vid6639

arent the caps on the speaker electrolytic caps which have polarity. Caps can short if connected in the wrong way.

No baba, capacitors used in speakers (mostly as crossover/bass blockers for the mids/highs) are what are called as Bi-Polar capacitors. These capacitors work well both ways (hmm... lol)

[Vid6639]

Oh ok now i get it. Ah yes both ways (hehe).
Yup bipolar caps that also didnt strike me. Man i need to go back to college.
Anyways so i was looking around for this kinda stuff and came across this link.
I dunno if it's been posted here before but found it pretty nice:

http://www.passivecrossovers.com/index.htm

[navin]

every weekend i take a break from this forum. You see I rather play with my son (before he outgrows me).

When I "come back" n monday I am often surprised and amazed at the quality of the posts. This past weekend was one such. Nice job guys. Now I feel I can retire. The ICE genie at TBHP is out and it wont go back into the bottle any time soon (Thanks B&T, Hydrashock, Doc, Vid, and ofcourse Sam "Capo"si).

i am planning to put a clarion dfz675mc in my zen mpfi. first of all, i wanna know whether it can be done. secondly, i want to know why it is so cheap..its abt 260$..plan to get my relatives to get it down for me..
oh yeah, theres no ice in the car as of now..
some speaker recommendations would also be appreciated..budget: 6-8k
thanks

[satish_appasani]

I just closed my second level ICE upgrade. I added JBL GTO 937 to the rear and JBL CS 60.4 replaced my Sony 222 AMP.I also got JBL wiring kit. I already have JBL GTO 607c compos in the front. What a difference it makes. I am pleased with the setup though the installation expecially the wiring is much to be desired.

Now i am planning to replace my age old Sony Mp50 MP3 player. My current player is also restricting me to add a woofer (though woofer is for a later stage). Can you please suggest me some value for money HU? My budget is less than 10K. I know Alpines are out of my buget. Probably Pioneer is the only option i have. I don't mind taking the risk and going for grey stuff.

Anupam (Buffetfan), a TBHP member from Hyderabad mentioned about Pitstop where they do installations for extra cost. They did a good job in his car. I will go to them and will get the whole wiring done again. Even if it is expensive, i am planning to buy the HU from Pitstop so that they pay more attention to the installation.

Please suggest me about the HU.

[navin]

Pioneer is also available with Bill and warranty. The prices i hear are a bit steep though, I would also check out Clarion and Kenwood.