R1000 isn't even enough for a decent headunit forget sound. Best you can do is cheap headunit + incredibly cheap speakers.
1) car sound works on 4 ohms to get more wattage from 12V.
No. Normal home speakers also run between 2-8ohm. The input voltage is of no consequence, that is why it's called an amplifier.
2) Cables become important in car sound. Use nice, thick, multi-strand copper cables (softter is better).
3) There are more ways to get interference in your car, make sure your wiring is shielded and that you don't ground anything.
x2 but the shielding must be grounded at on side. Otherwise it is pointless.
4) Do some research before you buy a sub. Speakers are designed to either be ported or sealed, they're also designed to have a specific cabinet volume. If need be, make the cabinet yourself, or get it made PROPERLY.
Nope. The sub-woofer cannot make such a distinction. There is a whole lot of theory to cover in this area but any speaker that requires an enclosure can use, ported, sealed, bandpass or any other type of enclosure provided the parameters of the enclosure are correct. There are plenty of articles on the internet covering the topic. Sealed is best IMHO, it's the smallest enclosure and the easiest to make, hardest to mess up and provides decent driver control.
5) 95% of people will make the box out of MDF or fibreboard... rather use HDF or superwood. increased cost is marginal, but the sound is improved.
All the top end manufacturers recommend MDF and nothing else. By top end I mean JL, Boston Acoustics, JBL, etc.
6) Baffeling is your friend, use fibreglass roof insulation on the walls of the sub box (glued on) and then stuff it with as much insulation as you can.
Seems a bit excessive, the only requirement really is that the box does not explode from the pressure (which can be significant, especially in a sealed enclosure). And that it leak as little as possible. I've had good results with self tapping screws, no nails (the glue stuff) and silicone.
7) Match your sub to your amp correctly. More watts doesn't mean better. You need to pay attention to NOMINAL power output... basically, that means that the amp can sustain 250W RMS for hundreds of hours, and not overheat. That's something they don't advertise.
Proper brands always provide RMS ratings, example: JL only provides RMS ratings.
9) MAKE SURE ITS A CROSSOVER, not just caps.
Capacitors are used in crossovers as a upper frequency cut off. Inductors (coils) are used as low frequency cut offs. Signal capacitors and inductors are fairly cheap and can easily outperform digital equivalents unless you spend thousands of rands.
More info:
http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/cross.asp
10) IF POSSIBLE, try and get a smaller sub system and have the cones face into the car. If you do a good job insulating your backboard from the rest of your boot, you eliminate the need for a sub box and you'll get a hell of a lot more bass, not to mention cleaner bass. if you don't, and you have to go with a box, then chuck your backboard away and replace it with something that allows lots of air and thus bass into the car... otherwise, you'll have a sub that sounds AWESOME with your boot open, but pretty ctappy when it's closed.
Eish. I don't often see Sub woofers that can run without an enclose but if it specifies that it requires an enclosure you'd best use it. Unless the boot is sealed and matches the correct parameters for the sub-woofer. Too large an enclosure results in damage to the driver because there is insufficient pressure and the driver moves around wildly (which is why it is louder). It is similar to creating a ported enclosure with the incorrect port frequency or incorrect parameters. Damage to the driver is guaranteed.
11) MOST IMPORTANT
Start with a good quality Split MID and TWEETER setup... add the sub later when you have more cash. Your music will sound awesome immediately, instead of it just being loud but crappy.
Agreed. Quality split systems IMHO are better than trying to create your own mid/tweeter setup because they are already well matched to each other.
12) DO NOT LISTEN TO SALES PEOPLE.
x2 Especially if they work at hi-fi corp.
13) Try make everything LOOK standard. You don't want people breaking into your car to steal your speakers. It happened to me at varsity. So no bright neon green speaker covers that light up.
And it looks better when the car is standard anyway. Nothing says common folk like 6x9's in the back, no offense to those that have them
14) Start small... learn at your own pace. Half the fun about sound is that you can appreciate your own work while listening to your system instead of some dude doing it for you at a shop.
100% agreed!
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