14-year old station wagon in near-new condition mechanically and cosmetically, inside and out. (No, you do
not want to ask about the ridiculous amount of money I spent accomplishing this -- madness, pure madness!) The only visible sign of any stereo equipment is an inexpensive Panasonic CD player in the normal dash position.
What I have:Panasonic CD player.
4" MB-Quart co-axial speakers in corners of dash at base of windshield.
6" MB-Quart speakers located high inside the front corners of the doors
5.5" MB-Quart center channel speaker inside the dash behind the HVAC controls
??" original factory speakers located in the roof at the rear of the car.
10" Orion Cobalt series dual voice coil subwoofer inside the 16" space-saver spare wheel in the left rear of the cargo compartment.
50-watt (25 watt per channel) PPI amplifier bridged 2-ohm mono --> 100 watts to drive the 10" Orion.
100-watt (50 watt per channel) PPI amplifier to run all other speakers. Both amplifiers hidden under the passenger seat.
3 L-pads (potentiometers) to individually attenuate the volume of the 6" and 5.5" MB-Quart speakers, mounted next to amplifiers..
2 Oz crossovers mounted next to amplifiers. (They are not connected to anything, but I get competition points for "other devices"!)
1 fused distribution block next to amplifiers.
Separate fused 12-gage wires to each amp. (Yeah -- 12 gage. I'm pulling 100 watts maximum on an 8 foot wire run. 18 gage would do it!)
Lots of first and second place trophies won in IASCA car stereo competitions. (Hehe -- yes, I'm bragging!)
And most important of all -- better than average ears to tune and tweak and get the best possible sound quality!
What I don't have:Anything gold plated.
Anything neon-lit.
Anything motorized.
Anything fancy.
Big, unnecessarily heavy gage cabling.
Any kind of equalizer
Big boxes full of subwoofers filling up the whole car
Any SPL (sound pressure level) more than 114 decibels. :-(
One nickel spent on the system that doesn't make it sound better. (OK - you caught me -- the Oz crossovers.
)
And most inportant of all -- I don't have an empeg! :-(
tanstaafl.
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"