lol ya ive only herd a few of them but hoenstly i dont think anything can beat my XXX setup. I love those things

 

Just another little update.

Finding wire has proven REALLY difficult. I made yet another trip to my hometown to hit up the local car audio shops. One was out of wire (AGAIN) and the other two were completely closed, despite the hours on their doors stating that were still open. Not like.. 15 minutes early; I'm talking 3 hours. I'm still WTF-ing over that one. I've never had this much trouble getting wire for the last 3 cars I've done minor installs on.

I was about to give up and just buy the wire online from Sonicelectronix, when a friend of mine that lives down in VA left me a voicemail and asked me what gauge wire I was looking for. So I called him back and told him. "Gimme 15 minutes, and I'll call you back." He works for a place that builds fire engines under contract. He told me they had a billion extra spools of various size power wire, and he asked his boss if he could take some extra, and he ok'd it. So he cut me off 30 feet of 4 gauge power/ground wire and is shipping it up to me. Yay free wire! He also said that when I was ready to weld up my exhaust to come down and visit him. One of the welders there welds up exhausts and stuff for the trucks, and does custom exhaust work for cars around the area. He said he would throw it all together for me for a case of beer. Score!

So, while frustrating, it looks like I may actually be able to make some progress next week. I'm ok with that, since it's been so damn cold and snowy, I don't really want to work outside anyway. I'm still really looking forward to cleaning up that mess in my trunk though. I thought about building some amp racks and stuff, but I don't know if I would really save any space over just leaving them mounted to the back seats. I'll probably just leave them there, cut the wires a little shorter, and loom them up so it doesn't look like a warzone.

Hey Emp, how was CES?

 

ces was pretty badass. got to do alot more then just the show this year so the trip was awesome IMO

30" pizza ftw

 

Good Lord, 30" pizza? I'm in heaven!

You get a chance to see all the Mobile/Smartphone and PC stuff too, or did you just stick with Car Tech? I would imagine there's probably not nearly enough time to see everything, but then again, I'm a gawker when it comes to this stuff.

 

**** ya lol that **** was huge.

ya a little bit. I've never seen everything because its straight up impossible but this year we spent less time at each booth and sorta sped it up. Intel had alot of cool stuff like usual

 

I was interested in their (Intel's) imaging software, and their Personal Area Network (PAN) stuff. They really didn't have too awful much in terms of new hardware from what I could tell, since they released I7 last year. I guess that's what IDF is for hehe.

 

lol ya there wasnt to much "new" stuff at ces in general but its still fun to see it all

 

I finally got my wire and got it installed. The dimming subsided significantly on my headlights, and you can't even notice any dimming on the cabin lights anymore. I was rather pleased, but ran into another problem.

A voice coil on that pioneer sub decided to **** the bed. All this with the gain way down; probably not even 1/8th of the way up (This happened before I rewired the trunk). I'd been keeping it way down and not even adjusting it or running my sub hard at all. I didn't want to put extra strain on anything while I was waiting on the stuff I needed to make it work right. Emp, you weren't kidding when you said that sub wouldn't hold anywhere near 1000watts rms. I'm really disheartened, but I'm glad I did the wiring upgrades that I did, since it will make my system much better overall and easier to upgrade in the future.

I've put the L5's back in for now, but immediately noticed that loud, loose, muddy bass that I hated in the first place. I guess there's no pleasing me. lol. I've decided that I'm just going to say screw it, and get a set of new subs. New *ROUND* subs.

I've been looking at a couple of Rockford P3's or a couple of Alpine Type-R's. I figure those would match up pretty well to my 1000.1zx amp. I haven't had a chance to hear either one in person yet, but I've heard decent things about both. When I first started to get around this stuff about 11 years ago, RF was pretty high up there on the hill. I know their older stuff sounded really nice (at least to me). Does that still hold up with the new subs too? What about the type-r's? Got any other suggestions for subs around that price or so that might suit me a little better? As a reference point, I'll be using a sealed box. I tend to like the sound of them a little better, plus I can actually fit them in my trunk.

I guess I know where half of my tax return check is going.

 

damn that sux man. p3s are nice subs along with the alpines. i would go with the p3 of those 2 personally

 

After doing a little digging, I was thinking about going with a couple of RE Audio SE 12's instead. The price difference isn't that much, and I've heard really good things about RE. The only thing is that there are NO distributors around here, so I wouldn't be able to hear them first hand. Thoughts?

 

i dont work at the second biggest re dealer for nothing

 

Haha. I forgot I had read you saying something about that before. Do those SE12's hold up pretty well in a sealed enclosure?

 

ya they are very nice speakers, sound good too

 

Then I'll probably be going with a set of those in the near future. Looks like I'll be filing taxes a little early this year. Perhaps that crappy sub was a blessing in disguise.

 

So I couldn't wait. I pulled the trigger yesterday morning on a couple of these:

http://reaudio.com/specs.html#sp_se The 12's

I'm more than psyched. Apparently I have no will power when it comes to new toys.

I found a box on ebay for them, that after sub displacement will put it at about 1.1cu ft per chamber sealed. I'm not really sure how it will sound, or if the box will even be decent. 3/4" MDF isn't bad, but it'll probably be held together with nails instead of screws, so I'll just rattle it apart. For 35 bucks I figured it would serve as a temporary solution until I can get around to building my own box. It will certainly sound better than those L5's, which are in a smaller than spec sealed enclosure. L5's in a sealed enclosure isn't the best of sounds anyway, but the ported box wouldn't even fit through the back seat. At the time the box was the only thing I could find, so live and let learn I suppose.

I'm so pumped. Finally a use for all this extra speaker wire I've got sitting around!

Once I get these going, I figured a nice set of 6 3/4" components would be in order. I was looking at the Pioneer Premier TS-C720PRS, which I could pick up for about $250 or so. Got any recommendations on something that might sound better around that price? My amp does about 35rms at 4ohm, 50rms at 2ohm.

Whatever I get, I'm pretty sure I've got enough second skin left to cover the doors, which is something I've been meaning to do for a long time.

I must be crazy to be tearing the car apart in 20 degree weather and snow, with no heated garage. :P