Hooking Up a Sub to a Stock Head Unit

[danronian]

Currently I have a stock head unit in my 89 Lx-i but i do believe it is from a different year since it isnt in my car's manual. But anyway, I am looking to hook up a sub and an amplifier to power it. My friend is going to give me the sub and a box but i need to buy an amp. I just really need to know how to hook it up since I have never hooked up more than a stereo and speakers. I am probably going to buy the cheapest amp that has the power i need since i have very little money to work with, about $100 at most. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Vanilla Sky]

your best bet would to get an amp with multiple channels, and speaker-level inputs... use the signal going to the rears to feed the amp, then you have the signal for the sub, and you can have more power for the rear speakers, assuming they won't blow (IE stock speakers)

[87DXHatch]

What's better than speaker level inputs, and lets you use ANY amp, is a Line Out Converter.

go here http://www.davidnavone.com and check out his LOC's...

!!!BEWARE!!!

Most people think LOC's make craptacular signals, but they DON'T if you get a HIGH QUALITY one... one of David Navone's $30+ ones. Do NOT get a wal-mart one and expect it to sound good!!

[Vanilla Sky]

hmm... learning more everyday... i have known that the line level converters were there, but i too always thought of poor sound quality and i thought this was something that consistant across the board for products of this type... i'll order up one of those and be able to amp my mom's car up and put in those forbidden subs :D (mom don't want them, but if i put them there without her knowing and she hears that it's not just to make it loud, she'll let them stay)

[87DXHatch]

Just remember to NOT get some cheapo one and expect it to sound good.

[danronian]

Originally posted by 87DXHatch
What's better than speaker level inputs, and lets you use ANY amp, is a Line Out Converter.

go here http://www.davidnavone.com and check out his LOC's...

!!!BEWARE!!!

Most people think LOC's make craptacular signals, but they DON'T if you get a HIGH QUALITY one... one of David Navone's $30+ ones. Do NOT get a wal-mart one and expect it to sound good!!

Since I am going to be buying the cheapest amp I can find since I am really not concerned about great sound would it really matter if a get a cheap Line Out Converter?

[Nospeed]

you can get a cheap line out converter from radio shack for like $15. its cheap, and it has input/output levels...i had one in my old saturn...they work good, but invest in some noise filters also.

[87DXHatch]

Just remember to NOT get some cheapo one and expect it to sound good.

[Vanilla Sky]

though, cheap isn't always bad... i've had $20 wal-mart brand subs outlast and outplay namebrands subs... by the way, the 8" aluminum cone sl-cheapos that wallyworld carries is actually a decent sub for the price... i have one sitting here bein powered by a 60x2 amp (it's a DVC sub) and this thing sounds great, and gets hella loud... and it's in a prefabricated home theatre enclosure... who knew? :P

[87DXHatch]

"cheapo" is NOT the same as "cheap" :tongue:

Cheapo = Wal-mart brands and Pyramid and the like... ALL of these are crap compared to anything decent.

Cheap = inexpensive... I know of a LOT of subs/amps/speakers/etc online that are brands no one mainstream has heard of that out-perform the same mainstream ones that are several hundred dollars more.

[Vanilla Sky]

ok... i mean cheap then, as in inexpensive... it sounds good, and for $20, i can afford to blow it and not really worry about it much, whereas if it were a $100 sub, i'd freak if i blew it, know what i mean? anyway, i like to see how well things hold up, especially the cheap stuff since it usually doesn't

Edit: i hate having to settle for the cheaper brands... it's just that i have no way of ordering online unless i bribe someone... the shops here that carry the mainstream, name brand products have such a rediculous markup that i refuse to buy from them...

[86hatchbackLXi]

you are going about this the wrong way. you will be much better off if you buy a decent cd player with sub level outputs, but thats just my opinion. if you like having people make fun of your stereo get an amp that hooks up to your line level inputs

[danronian]

I thank everyone for your replies, but after all of the work of buying a LOC and wiring it up, I finally gave in and bought a Pioneer 50X4 cd player head unit for a $50+ off sale at walmart. I then bought a bandpass box with two ten inch jensen subs in it at walmart for $75 which was half off. Compared to my friends $2,000 system its not that loud with a mere 200 watt optimus amp but it does sound pretty damn good for being so cheap. Thanks again for your input, and finally I have a system that sounds pretty good.

[AccordEpicenter]

I dont like subs smoking unless i got them for nothing or hated them anyways... been there done that. Its a good idea tho to get a $30 amp kit off Ebay (4 gauge wire, some RCA cables) and wire it up good. Ive had soo many friend's systems sound like utter junk because of poor wiring alone. My one friend tried to use an 18ga wire for his ground cable!!!! OMG never do that. Youll also notice a huge increase in sq when you switch to RCAs instead of speaker level inputs.

[87DXHatch]

You must have some RETARDED friends, AccordEpicenter :lol

18ga ground wire............. wow, just wow, that's all I have to say :D :lol

[wallyyfm]

to avoid all this crap
buy a normal head unit for 200
get an amp off ebay for 150
get a wire kit
then shut the fuck up
STOCK UNITS ALWAYS SUCK!!!

[danronian]

Originally posted by wallyyfm
to avoid all this crap
buy a normal head unit for 200
get an amp off ebay for 150
get a wire kit
then shut the fuck up
STOCK UNITS ALWAYS SUCK!!!

Next time how about you shut up and don't comment if you arent smart enough to read above that I did buy a normal head unit. And the whole point of this board is to talk. If I did have an extra $200 dollars I probably would have bought the $150 amp versus the $50 and the $200 dollar head unit versus the $120 dollar one, so next time just try to be a little bit more considerate of other people's money situations. To some people a few hundred dollars is more than nothing.:flip:

[wallyyfm]

i know what it costs...it took me 3 years to finally get everything together, i know what it costs, i put my system together after buying bits and peices every once and awhile...i know how it is
sorry, i thought you were using a stock head...junk

[AccordEpicenter]

Some of my friends are just stupid ricers...

[kennycm]

if u get a cheap amp and u want to hear a little boom, make sure you bridge the subs.

[kennycm]

nevermind, i didn't completely read the previous posts. glad to see that you made the most out of your money, i'm on a budget as well.

[87DXHatch]

wallyyfm,

Sorry, but you are a flamin' retard if you think all stock head units suck. I could imagine you thinking that our 3gee head-units suck, and I might be inclined to agree. But the stock head-units that have come out the last 5 or so years in cars are of excellent quality, and can be used to run ANY amps.

I know of a couple of SQ IASCA competitors that use stock head units and do VERY well.

[wallyyfm]

i gotta say, the flamin retard thing is pretty funny

uh, from my experience, most poeple replace their head unit for a great system, it's kinda the first thing to go. most don't have preouts on the back or rca's, unless very new. i dunno, i just never cared for stock decks, so i still think they're crap

sorry

[AccordEpicenter]

for my moms 98 lx v6 we got a 00 6 disk in dash changer (oem option deck) and it kicks ass. Im shocked it sounded as good as it does esp with the stock speakers.

[87DXHatch]

Originally posted by wallyyfm
i gotta say, the flamin retard thing is pretty funny

uh, from my experience, most poeple replace their head unit for a great system, it's kinda the first thing to go. most don't have preouts on the back or rca's, unless very new. i dunno, i just never cared for stock decks, so i still think they're crap

sorry

And you're right, that's what *most* people do. But *most* people know just about zilch as far as car audio goes too :D

Essentially all the stock decks I know of have no pre-outs, except, like you said, possibly the newest ones. What you do is get LOC's (See my first post in this thread). These LOC's allow you to have like 8 volt signals going to your amps... only super-high end aftermarket decks allow for this high of voltage (though that high can also be a bad thing if your amp can't handle it).

But I'd be willing to bet if you took two mid to late 90ish cars, hooked up an aftermarket deck to one, and LOC'd the other's stock deck with high quality LOC's, you'd be hard pressed to tell a big difference with the same amps/speakers/etc.

The biggest thing about aftermarket decks, though, is FEATURES. THAT's the biggest and best reason to buy them. CD... MP3... High pass filters... low pass filters... time correction... multiple pre-outs... that's why people SHOULD buy aftermarket decks, for the FEATURES. I suppose another reason could be ease, because if you have the money it is a bit easier just to swap in a CD player than jump through some of the hopes of using LOC's... but to each his own.

[QUOTE][IAccordEpicenter wrote:[/I]
for my moms 98 lx v6 we got a 00 6 disk in dash changer (oem option deck) and it kicks ass. Im shocked it sounded as good as it does esp with the stock speakers.[QUOTE]

I'll bet it sounds pretty good, but stock SPEAKERS are generally not very good compared to aftermarket ones. Bose, for example, speakers are pretty crappy in cars compared to nice aftermarket speakers... of course, you can always EQ the crap out of any speaker to get it to sound like any other speaker.

"No highs? No lows? Gotta be Bose!" :D

[wallyyfm]

i'm not really fighting this off anymore

i like my stereo, it works

[AccordEpicenter]

yea most stock speakers suck. Our honda decks were mostly made by alpine, the newer ones by alpine, pioneer and a few other brands. Just because its stock doesnt mean it sucks.