Car Amp Question

[somthingwierd]

Hey all, I'm not sure where to post this topic but, here goes.

I'm looking to upgrade the current amp in my car with a more powerful one. I found a good deal on some planet audio stuff and wanted to know if these things are any good. Do any of you guys have any experience with these guys?

[Electronics Wizardy]

They look cheap, id stay away.

[bob345]

I would stay away from planet audio products. They are built like absolute crap.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Look at there specs 3000 watt amp with 2x30amp fuses. There is no ways you can get the rated output power.

[2FA]

I would recommend a Boss monoblock. I've used one previously that I got from a friend and currently my brother has one. They are pretty decent and not super expensive.

[kirashi]

6 hours ago, somthingwierd said:

Hey all, I'm not sure where to post this topic but, here goes.

I'm looking to upgrade the current amp in my car with a more powerful one. I found a good deal on some planet audio stuff and wanted to know if these things are any good. Do any of you guys have any experience with these guys?

I will reply back to you within a few days with a complete recommendation of what to buy, based on your answers to the following questions:

• Year, Make, Model, and Trim of your car (trim is usually the letter code on your trunk, for instance CE, LE, S (Sport), etc.)
• Do you already have an aftermarket stereo headunit installed?
  • or are you looking to install one to get extra features like Bluetooth and AUX?
• Have you already upgraded the stock speakers?
  • or are you looking to upgrade the speakers to a set that produce a clearer- higher-quality sound?
• Do you currently have a subwoofer?
  • or are you looking to install one now, or later down the road, for improved bass response?
    (please keep in mind you DO NOT need a sub for good bass, but it can definitely help)
• Your estimated budget for the amplifier, or entire project if you're looking to completely overhaul your entire car audio solution

DO NOT BUY ANYTHING from Planet Audio - you'd be better off burning your money, or just sticking with the amp your car has.

[somthingwierd]

5 hours ago, kirashi said:

I will reply back to you within a few days with a complete recommendation of what to buy, based on your answers to the following questions:

• Year, Make, Model, and Trim of your car (trim is usually the letter code on your trunk, for instance CE, LE, S (Sport), etc.)
• Do you already have an aftermarket stereo headunit installed?
  • or are you looking to install one to get extra features like Bluetooth and AUX?
• Have you already upgraded the stock speakers?
  • or are you looking to upgrade the speakers to a set that produce a clearer- higher-quality sound?
• Do you currently have a subwoofer?
  • or are you looking to install one now, or later down the road, for improved bass response?
    (please keep in mind you DO NOT need a sub for good bass, but it can definitely help)
• Your estimated budget for the amplifier, or entire project if you're looking to completely overhaul your entire car audio solution

DO NOT BUY ANYTHING from Planet Audio - you'd be better off burning your money, or just sticking with the amp your car has.

 

I already have a completely redone system with 2 amps new speakers and subs.  the works. My boss just said he has a way to get planet audio stuff for cheap and I have never heard of them before. Just wanted some knowledge, and after looking around the internet there are a lot of mixed reviews. Some people swear by them while others like yourself say they aren't worth their weight in shit.

[straight_stewie]

15 hours ago, somthingwierd said:

I'm looking to upgrade the current amp in my car with a more powerful one. I found a good deal on some planet audio stuff and wanted to know if these things are any good. Do any of you guys have any experience with these guys?

What is your current setup and please be very specific about the brand and model of speaker and amplifier that you are using. Also, having a budget would be very nice.

BTW, people who "swear by [planet audio]" are people who don't really know what they are talking about with car audio. Planet Audio is a Walmart/BestBuy brand, they are complete junk, and their specs are a joke.

[somthingwierd]

10 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

What is your current setup and please be very specific about the brand and model of speaker and amplifier that you are using. Also, having a budget would be very nice.

BTW, people who "swear by [planet audio]" are people who don't really know what they are talking about with car audio. Planet Audio is a Walmart/BestBuy brand, they are complete junk, and their specs are a joke.

 

Well, upgrading the amp isn't a necessity at this point, just wondering because the price was right. but since you asked . I'm running 2 RE Audio SCX12D4 v2 SCX 12" with a Rockford Fosgate P1000X1BD Punch behind it. The doors and rear deck have Kicker 40CSS674 and Kicker 40CS6934 with a Rockford Fosgate R400-4D behind those. The only reason I'm sort of in the market for a more powerful amp is because after I installed my system I noticed a significant amount of alternator whine. I consulted my local shop and he said they had the same problem in their show car, A 2005 Bonneville btw, and he couldn't fix it with anything. I also consulted various forums and tried several solutions. None of them worked. So my idea was to get a more powerful amp and leave the gain at 1. There for leaving out the alternator whine while still being as loud as it is now.

 

[kirashi]

18 hours ago, somthingwierd said:

Well, upgrading the amp isn't a necessity at this point, just wondering because the price was right. but since you asked . I'm running 2 RE Audio SCX12D4 v2 SCX 12" with a Rockford Fosgate P1000X1BD Punch behind it. The doors and rear deck have Kicker 40CSS674 and Kicker 40CS6934 with a Rockford Fosgate R400-4D behind those. The only reason I'm sort of in the market for a more powerful amp is because after I installed my system I noticed a significant amount of alternator whine. I consulted my local shop and he said they had the same problem in their show car, A 2005 Bonneville btw, and he couldn't fix it with anything. I also consulted various forums and tried several solutions. None of them worked. So my idea was to get a more powerful amp and leave the gain at 1. There for leaving out the alternator whine while still being as loud as it is now.

Although your idea of using a louder amplifier and leaving the gain lower might work, it is not the correct solution.

You want to find the entry point of your alternator whine and eliminate the interference before it enters your audio loop.

[somthingwierd]

54 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Although your idea of using a louder amplifier and leaving the gain lower might work, it is not the correct solution.

You want to find the entry point of your alternator whine and eliminate the interference before it enters your audio loop.

 

My local shop said that the problem starts at the factory when the car is made. He said that somewhere in the wiring a ground was forgotten or just never made so throughout the whole body of the car there is a floating ground. The other thing he suggested was that it might just be the alternator. But the only way to test that is to get a new alternator, and that's an expensive experiment to just try out.

[bob345]

1 hour ago, somthingwierd said:

My local shop said that the problem starts at the factory when the car is made. He said that somewhere in the wiring a ground was forgotten or just never made so throughout the whole body of the car there is a floating ground. The other thing he suggested was that it might just be the alternator. But the only way to test that is to get a new alternator, and that's an expensive experiment to just try out.

I highly doubt that. I used to work at a shop an have rarely came across any noise issues that where cause by factory wiring. Its almost always the installer or the equipment that causes it. How are the amps grounded? Where are they grounded and are is the paint properly sanded away from the grounds? Also, where are you pulling your power from?

[kirashi]

4 hours ago, somthingwierd said:

My local shop said that the problem starts at the factory when the car is made. He said that somewhere in the wiring a ground was forgotten or just never made so throughout the whole body of the car there is a floating ground. The other thing he suggested was that it might just be the alternator. But the only way to test that is to get a new alternator, and that's an expensive experiment to just try out.

2 hours ago, bob345 said:

I highly doubt that. I used to work at a shop an have rarely came across any noise issues that where cause by factory wiring. Its almost always the installer or the equipment that causes it. How are the amps grounded? Where are they grounded and are is the paint properly sanded away from the grounds? Also, where are you pulling your power from?

Yeah, um, that's not how it works. If you didn't have alternator whine with the stock speakers and stereo system, then it was introduced with the aftermarket parts. If you're not the original owner of the car, then I can understand you might not know what it sounds like with stock speakers, but trust me 100% that new cars don't come with alternator whine in the stereo system. Not at least without the customer complaining about it and the car being fixed.

 

As @bob345 has said, it's the installed equipment that's introducing the noise here, which indeed can be caused by a bad ground elsewhere in the system. However, if your amps are grounded correctly, and you have noise filters in place if necessary, you wouldn't hear the whine.

• ALL the 12volt power wires in a car are usually run down the drivers side, and the speaker wire/RCA cables are run down the centre or passenger side
  • this helps to minimize any electrical noise you'd hear in your speakers, such as hiss, crackles, or pops
• Your in-line fuse for the amp should be within 1-3 ft of the positive terminal of your battery to prevent fires and interference
• ALL amplifiers in a connected system should be grounded at the same point, using very similar [short] lengths of grounding wire
  • this ground point should attach directly to the car's body - all paint should also be sanded down where this connection is made
• ALL wiring in your car needs to be of an appropriate gauge - I usually use one gauge higher than recommended to allow for upgrades down the road
  • if your amp recommends 8 gauge, I personally use 4 gauge - generally you don't need any larger wiring than 4 gauge for non-competition amps

Now, in my car, I have 2x Alpine Type-R 6.5" speakers for the front doors, 2x Alpine Type-R 6x9" speakers in the rear deck, and a dual voice coil Alpine Type-R 8" subwoofer in a non-ported enclosure in the trunk, for a wee bit of kick but no butt rumble. It's all controlled by a Pioneer Stereo Head Unit in a custom fit Scosche Dash Panel that looks at home in my 2003 Toyota Corolla. To power everything, I'm running an MTX TD75.4 4 channel amp (75watt RMS @ 4ohm) and an Alpine MRV-M500 mono channel amp (500watt @ 2ohm stable) from a single 4 gauge power cable through a distribution block to both amps.

 

Why am I telling you this? Because even with all my knowledge and friend's expertise in car audio, I ran into a hissing problem after adding the second amp and subwoofer to my setup. It's not an alternator whine (which varies in volume as you accelerate/decelerate) but more of a light hissing noise. When I'm driving, I don't hear it, but stopped at signal lights or warming up my car in the morning you do notice it, barely. I ended up fixing it by adding an RCA ground loop isolator between the RCA cable run coming from the stereo head unit and the subwoofer amp. Fixed the problem right up, albeit while lowering my sub volume a bit, but nothing a little gain control couldn't fix.

 

So I'd start by following Crutchfield's Noise Suppression guide and see if you can isolate what's introducing the noise.

[bob345]

4 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Yeah, um, that's not how it works. If you didn't have alternator whine with the stock speakers and stereo system, then it was introduced with the aftermarket parts. If you're not the original owner of the car, then I can understand you might not know what it sounds like with stock speakers, but trust me 100% that new cars don't come with alternator whine in the stereo system. Not at least without the customer complaining about it and the car being fixed.

 

As @bob345 has said, it's the installed equipment that's introducing the noise here, which indeed can be caused by a bad ground elsewhere in the system. However, if your amps are grounded correctly, and you have noise filters in place if necessary, you wouldn't hear the whine.

• ALL the 12volt power wires in a car are usually run down the drivers side, and the speaker wire/RCA cables are run down the centre or passenger side
  • this helps to minimize any electrical noise you'd hear in your speakers, such as hiss, crackles, or pops
• Your in-line fuse for the amp should be within 1-3 ft of the positive terminal of your battery to prevent fires and interference
• ALL amplifiers in a connected system should be grounded at the same point, using very similar [short] lengths of grounding wire
  • this ground point should attach directly to the car's body - all paint should also be sanded down where this connection is made
• ALL wiring in your car needs to be of an appropriate gauge - I usually use one gauge higher than recommended to allow for upgrades down the road
  • if your amp recommends 8 gauge, I personally use 4 gauge - generally you don't need any larger wiring than 4 gauge for non-competition amps

Now, in my car, I have 2x Alpine Type-R 6.5" speakers for the front doors, 2x Alpine Type-R 6x9" speakers in the rear deck, and a dual voice coil Alpine Type-R 8" subwoofer in a non-ported enclosure in the trunk, for a wee bit of kick but no butt rumble. It's all controlled by a Pioneer Stereo Head Unit in a custom fit Scosche Dash Panel that looks at home in my 2003 Toyota Corolla. To power everything, I'm running an MTX TD75.4 4 channel amp (75watt RMS @ 4ohm) and an Alpine MRV-M500 mono channel amp (500watt @ 2ohm stable) from a single 4 gauge power cable through a distribution block to both amps.

 

Why am I telling you this? Because even with all my knowledge and friend's expertise in car audio, I ran into a hissing problem after adding the second amp and subwoofer to my setup. It's not an alternator whine (which varies in volume as you accelerate/decelerate) but more of a light hissing noise. When I'm driving, I don't hear it, but stopped at signal lights or warming up my car in the morning you do notice it, barely. I ended up fixing it by adding an RCA ground loop isolator between the RCA cable run coming from the stereo head unit and the subwoofer amp. Fixed the problem right up, albeit while lowering my sub volume a bit, but nothing a little gain control couldn't fix.

 

So I'd start by following Crutchfield's Noise Suppression guide and see if you can isolate what's introducing the noise.

Very well said.

Another thing i want to mention for the op is that some head units are quite picky on grounding and you need to make your own ground strap instead of using the factory one. I find this usually happens in cars where the stock systems amp is separate from the head unit.

[somthingwierd]

17 minutes ago, bob345 said:

Very well said.

Another thing i want to mention for the op is that some head units are quite picky on grounding and you need to make your own ground strap instead of using the factory one. I find this usually happens in cars where the stock systems amp is separate from the head unit.

 

 

29 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Yeah, um, that's not how it works. If you didn't have alternator whine with the stock speakers and stereo system, then it was introduced with the aftermarket parts. If you're not the original owner of the car, then I can understand you might not know what it sounds like with stock speakers, but trust me 100% that new cars don't come with alternator whine in the stereo system. Not at least without the customer complaining about it and the car being fixed.

 

As @bob345 has said, it's the installed equipment that's introducing the noise here, which indeed can be caused by a bad ground elsewhere in the system. However, if your amps are grounded correctly, and you have noise filters in place if necessary, you wouldn't hear the whine.

• ALL the 12volt power wires in a car are usually run down the drivers side, and the speaker wire/RCA cables are run down the centre or passenger side
  • this helps to minimize any electrical noise you'd hear in your speakers, such as hiss, crackles, or pops
• Your in-line fuse for the amp should be within 1-3 ft of the positive terminal of your battery to prevent fires and interference
• ALL amplifiers in a connected system should be grounded at the same point, using very similar [short] lengths of grounding wire
  • this ground point should attach directly to the car's body - all paint should also be sanded down where this connection is made
• ALL wiring in your car needs to be of an appropriate gauge - I usually use one gauge higher than recommended to allow for upgrades down the road
  • if your amp recommends 8 gauge, I personally use 4 gauge - generally you don't need any larger wiring than 4 gauge for non-competition amps

Now, in my car, I have 2x Alpine Type-R 6.5" speakers for the front doors, 2x Alpine Type-R 6x9" speakers in the rear deck, and a dual voice coil Alpine Type-R 8" subwoofer in a non-ported enclosure in the trunk, for a wee bit of kick but no butt rumble. It's all controlled by a Pioneer Stereo Head Unit in a custom fit Scosche Dash Panel that looks at home in my 2003 Toyota Corolla. To power everything, I'm running an MTX TD75.4 4 channel amp (75watt RMS @ 4ohm) and an Alpine MRV-M500 mono channel amp (500watt @ 2ohm stable) from a single 4 gauge power cable through a distribution block to both amps.

 

Why am I telling you this? Because even with all my knowledge and friend's expertise in car audio, I ran into a hissing problem after adding the second amp and subwoofer to my setup. It's not an alternator whine (which varies in volume as you accelerate/decelerate) but more of a light hissing noise. When I'm driving, I don't hear it, but stopped at signal lights or warming up my car in the morning you do notice it, barely. I ended up fixing it by adding an RCA ground loop isolator between the RCA cable run coming from the stereo head unit and the subwoofer amp. Fixed the problem right up, albeit while lowering my sub volume a bit, but nothing a little gain control couldn't fix.

 

So I'd start by following Crutchfield's Noise Suppression guide and see if you can isolate what's introducing the noise.

 

I've followed every noise suppression and whining fix/guide I could find. All RCA's are run straight down the middle of the car. Both fuses are within the 3 foot from the terminal. Both of my amp wiring kits are using 4 gauge wire. I'm using some Rockville RWK41 wiring kits. Both amps are grounded at the same place as the battery with the paint stripped. I did try moving the amp's ground, but it made the problem worse. I tried moving the head unit's ground to a different place, my head unit is a Pioneer FH-X720BT, but I don't think it was a very good place to put a ground, so that is something I could try again, but from my testing a few months ago I found that when the rca's are disconnected from the amp, the whine is still there which means it's a grounding issue, but if both the amps are grounded at the same place as the battery I don't see a better place to put it. I also tried using some ground loop isolators but they didn't help either. I also tried the old wrap some wire around the RCA's at the back of the head unit  to ground them, didn't work either.

The power for the speaker's amp is being pulled from the bolt that goes into my fuse box 1 foot away from the battery, My bass amp is drawing directly from the battery. The reason for this is the terminals on my battery are too small to fit the ring on, I had to Dremel it a bunch to even get 1 to fit.

When I got the car it did have the original sound system, and no, I didn't hear any whine when it was stock.