QuestionThose headunits are not what I wanted. the KENWOOD EXCELON KDC-X590 CD/MP3/CD-R KDC-X589 is more so what I had in mind. Combine that with a notebook portable harddrive and I might have a good music collection on the go.
As far as subwoofers I already have two boxes. One ported combining two 12" subs. The other is enclosed seperating 12" woofers. From my experience the portholes are useless and hinder the bass punch.
I want to spend about $100 per woofer. A warranty would be great. consider I had (2) 12" Orion red stripe XTR woofers and I loved them, until the company sold out and canceled the lifetime warranties. I still have the Orions but they are worn out and out-dated. Other brands I used to respect are cerwin vegas and Kickers. I never liked JL Audios much. However I realize times have changed. I do not know the woofer market now.
When it came to regular car speakers I always respected MB Quartz (german engineered) and Polk audio.
I will set my bass amp to MONO. Do you know the best bridging wire diagram for the orions I mentioned? I only have a 500 watt max amp as of now. I believe i should update the amp eventually as well.
Thanks for your expert advice and time!
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Followup To
Question -
I want to know are there any head units on the market that connect to harddrives? I had the Kenwood USB head units in mind. Basically I want to be able to have all my music stored on a harddrive or something similar.....I want to leave all my cds at home.
Also my 2 12" orion xtr's are definately worn out. Someone told me the Alpine R12's are the best out now. What are the best subwoofers for the price these days? I used to like the Dual Voice Coil feature.
Also, should I use the 'bridge' feature of my amp when running 2 woofers? Or should each woofer just get its own channel? How would i run the bridge?
Answer -
well there is actually a cd player with a hard drive built in and you can rip cds right to it! its big and expensive and has alot of stuff you may not want check it out:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-cO4W5cgfk8J/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=168550&tab=essen
Sony has also proposed a standard size cd player which info is available here but I havent seen it for sale.
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/sonycar.html
as for a sub thats "the best" out right now. there is no way to say "the best" the best sub available is probably in the $20,000 range or so, so I dont think you want/need that. What you want is what's best for you and that is determined by:
The amount you can spend.
The types of music you listen to.
The type of car you have.
The amount of space you have to give.
Your prefrence to loudeness and quality.
Do I think the type Rs are good? maybe/yes
do I think they are "the best"? not by a long shot
do I think they offer a large bang for the buck, maybe
If you answer the lines above I can help you pick something out or see if these are good for you.
Using the "bridge" feature is recomended if the ohms are right. runing mono is always better for subs.
Let me know the answers and I'd be happy to help
AnswerOk, yah I thought they werent exactly what you were looking for but they are neat huh? I dont know of one that you can plug in a 2.5" drive directly. about the closest thing to that is the units that have IPod controllers. if you have a large MP3 collection you may consider an Ipod and then there you go. I have had alot of satisfied customers get the alpine units with the IPod controller.
As for the "port being useless" Ports are definatly not useless, they can make significant gains if done right. but you are correct that the "punch" is slightly more lacking in a ported box. My favorate use for a port is to tune the box to about 30hz. much lowwer than most people recomend. it keeps the higher notes that make the bass sound punch out of the range of the port where it would effect the punch and it reinforces that deep shaking bass for rap and music with sustained deep notes. In the $100 price class yah I guess the Type-R is a great bang-for-the-buck. I've had good success with Power acoustik Fubr-12s and I know everyone hates on them but like I said, I have had good success and you can get them on ebay for $150 a set including shipping!!!!
The only thing that bothers me about the type-R is that surround. I dont know why they went with that acordian fasion. that's kindof an old design and its usually used on speakers that dont have a long stroke.
as for how to do the briding wiring I wont know that without knowing the exact model of the amplifier or at least know what ohms and watts its rated for.
Let me know.
