Well, after a couple years of bench testing my Empeg I believe its now ready to install in one of my cars. OK I’m a bit slow but I get around to stuff, eventually.

I know how to pick out an amplifier and speakers but I’ve kind of lost touch with what brands are best.

With quality of sound (true reproduction) and reliability/longevity at the top, what amplifier and speaker brands should I be looking at?

I was planning on capping my budget at around $1,000. I would think that should put in a nice system.

This is pretty much a subjective choice. In my personal opinion, you should listen to what sounds best to your ear and go with it. most car stereo places have the speakers in an equally crappy environment, but offer the ability to run off the same head unit and amps. You can get a general feel of the speaker in comparision to similar brands, but sound quality will change with the shape of your car and the mounting location.
I've done installs ranging from 1800+ watts with 4 15" RF Punch Pros (12 speakers total), to an economy upgraded speakers and an Infinity basslink sub.
My current install is 10 speaker, 900w in a cavalier. The speakers I chose are all Infinity Kappa. (didn't start out that way, but for the performance and price between them and competing speakers, I chose the Infinitys). Both Amplifiers are Autotek. My install was right around $1k, installed myself.
Hope this helps.

If you're going to believe those zealots at the car audio forums around the net, you would end with something like:
- For Speakers: Rainbow, Diamond Audio, Focal, CDT Audio and some.
- For Amps: Genesis, Sinfoni, DLS, Brax, McIntosh and other even more obscure brands.
As for myself, I began, like almost everyone else, with stock speakers an a Pioneer stereo and right now have three Genesis Amps and plan on buying a pair of Focal Poly Kevlar 165 K2P. For subs , two JL Audio 6W0s and the real fills.. well that's not yet decided.

I've been very happy with my a/d/s amps and a ppi sub amp 800w mono pushing two phoenix gold 10's. a/d/s makes great components as well.

I run the US Amps 4 x 75 tube amp on my highs, a pair of MB Quarts. And for my pair of Image Dynamics ID3 12s a DE 500 gives me all I need But thats just me.

Thanks for the good advise. This will help a lot.

For a while there I felt a little forgotten.

Hey, are Xtant amps any good? I've seen a few installs but have not heard any.

Wow, I went to Circuit City and Best Buys last night (I live in the sticks so it was a trip to the big city). Man their stuff sounded like K…rap, and I’m not that picky. I don’t think it sounded any better than the stuff I sold as a kid in the 80’s. Except in the “O’L Days” subs were only something you ate, not listened to.

I’m going to hit some higher end audio stores now to see if I can hear anything other than Pioneer, Kenwood and Sony. Hopefully they’ll have some of the stuff you guys mentioned. I imagine I’ll end up buying this stuff “unheard” from the web.

I might also have to rethink my budget. Maybe I’ll just get a cheap piece of crap amp and live with it. However I always wanted a good system. It’s a shame I’m so damn cheap.

My recommendation here is to go, visit the high end stereo places, decide what you want but do not be pressured into making a purchase there. Go on line and find your best price. You might get a better price for decent hardware through on line vendors (maybe even ebay) once you know exactly what you want.

seemed to be a big hole between where the 6 ½” cut out and the subs cut in.

That depends a great deal on how you set your crossover frequency on the subs.

For reasons I don't understand, most people seem to think that subwoofers are for playing in the 20--80 Hz range, and if they're really brave, they'll go all the way up to 120 Hz.

I hve run my subs as high as 5,000 Hz, or even full range. Due to a system reconfiguration, I can no logner do that -- 250 Hz is the maximum my new sub amp can cross -- and I am not completely happy with the results. I may start running my subs full range and install a passive crossover somewhere around 1500 Hz.

If you are running 10" subs, let them sing. No doubt if you checked with a scope you'd see they were distorting in the higher frequencies, but if you can't detect the distortion with your ears, who cares? [bragging] Distortion or no, just about everyone who ever listened to my stereo has stated without prompting that it was the best they had ever heard, in or out of a car.[/bragging]

If you are running 12" (or larger) subs... well, you shouldn't be if sound quality is important to you.

tanstaafl.

So would you say a 10" is plenty for a car (considering I don't really go for the whole boom boom thing, but just like a full rounded sound) but open up its top end?

I did have a 10" for a while (loaned from a mate) and I had it just hooked across the rear outs (amp was set up to do that) so there was no crossover at all, but when I changed to my new Impreza, all I took was the amp (4 channel 760W) so I have stock speakers and no sub. Vaguely looking to get one, but it is lower priority than various other purchases.

Yes, the kid that was pushing this stuff was definitely in the "Boom Boom" crowd. He said his own crossover was set at 60 HZ. Seems like he could have just gotten a hammer to bang on his car to the beat of the music.

I just want the full frequency range as it was recorded and as flat as possible. I will make sure I get an amp with a crossover that can go up to at least 2000 Hz. Now that I think about it 2000 Hz sounds a lot better than the 150 Hz setting I've been reading about everywhere. I also think I want a sealed sub. I do not want the bass vibrating forever and drowning out the rest of the music.

Thanks for the advise.

So would you say a 10" is plenty for a car (considering I don't really go for the whole boom boom thing, but just like a full rounded sound) but open up its top end?


Exactly.

tanstaafl.

...you are running a vacuum tube amp in your car?! I didnt know they made them...what was your reasoning for investing in one? FWIW i thought VT amps were of much lower wattage...75 wpc seems very high...can your speakers handle all of that power?