Gr0dy

I was wondering how the tweeters got power/signal. The only problem with that is i have 2 subs and even if i only had 1 most of the 5 channels ive seen the 5th channel won't have enough power for me. So i guess i could do a 4 channel + a 2 channel for the subs. Last question , as far as the rear speakers , should i leave the speakers in the doors in the rear and just leave the rear deck with the grilles or put the speakers in the rear deck and leave the door grilles?

Ok fabrik thanks alot.

escortL7

your mecp certified and you told him to try a cap.

Fabrik8

So you have speakers in the front door, speakers in the rear doors, and speakers in the rear deck? That would be 8 speakers (assuming OEM mids and tweets in the front) plus the sub. That doesn't add up with what Metra has listed, unless the speakers in the rear deck are the stock sub? Or are there grills in the back deck but no speakers from the factory..?

Am I missing something here?

98formulaLS1

i would assess that the speakers in the rear deck are the 6x9 woofers. If thats the case, I would leave those woofers in place, but disconnect the speaker terminal to them. Replace the rear door speakers, the 5.25", there is a huge assortment of high quality 5.25" speakers.

Gr0dy

theres 2 speakers in the front doors(+ the tweeters) , 2 in the rear doors , and 2 subs in the rear deck. Im gonna take the subs out and put mine in the trunk. So would the speakers be better left where there at or moved to the rear?

aacjohnc

i would leave all the speakers in the doors(front and back ) and would remove the rear deck subs if not used to give more air flow in and out to the trunk to your subs . it will sound better and cleaner.

plus i dont like any bass going through my mids and highs and it will be easier to adj the gain and freq this way for your front and rear door speakers.

just my to cent.

plus if you want to add components to the rear doors down the road it will be easier to and a cleaner look as well. a little harder to add components to a rear deck led and not as a clean look as well . plus putting a component set ina 6x9 hole isnt exactly fun then you got to find a place for your crossovers to hide.

dont see no need for a cap. just get a bigger or better alternator(including wires too ) and like fab said add a extra ground wire in the engine bay .

cliff notes-
-components in the front doors and rear doors
-remove rear deck subs (6x9)and leave empty but put grills back on
-put subs in trunk.
- one 4 channels mid and high amp
-one two channel sub amp (unless your going with more subs then might need more channels but depends on you set up and speakers .)

Fabrik8

And you've drank the Kool-Aid but probably can't explain the reasons behind that debate.

I understand all of the engineering theory behind why they shouldn't work, but I've seen them have visible benefits and that's the point that is hard to argue with. I will agree that they won't do anything for the sound system or how well it performs, but they do sometimes help with headlight and dash dimming.
Do caps work anywhere near as well as what their marketing says? Absolutely not. No debate there.

A bigger alternator is definitely the better solution though, because nothing can help you if you are drawing more average current than what the electrical system can output. If you play bass heavy music, hip hop, etc., and you have headlight problems, a cap is not going to do anything for you.

So although I agree with what you're saying, I still recommend that people try them when trying to solve minor annoyance problems like quick headlight or dash dimming.

escortL7

ok i've been installing systems in cars for 20 + years, and competing for 18+years. caps once discharged they become a load (useless and a waste of money). get a better battery optima, lighting audio, odessey etc. if you want to do the alternator, browning can either get you one are rebuild yours for more power. they made me 180 amp alt for my escort. but i'm not mecp or do i have a college degree so dont listen to me.

Fabrik8

I'm not MECP cert, but that doesn't matter because I'm not an installer. My background is different, though not important.

When you discharge a battery it becomes a useless waste of money too. I'm assuming people buy batteries because of their purpose while they are charged, not while they are discharged. Same with caps.

Caps don't become a load anymore than anything else. They only charge up to the system voltage and only discharge to that voltage too, so they only become a load when the system voltage increases after something like an amp stops drawing big amounts of current. If a cap is discharged to a certain voltage level, it doesn't draw ANY current sitting at that voltage level (except for a tiny amount of parasitic leakage current for those who want to split hairs).

If you're doing something with a lot of bass, you don't have a lot of current transients. If you don't have a lot of current transients, you don't need a cap, and therefore a cap is a waste of money. This is, again, because a cap only charges or discharges during changes in voltage. If the voltage stays low during a long bass note or something like that, the cap just sits there doing nothing.. When the voltage comes back up, the cap charges back up. The amp is what drew all the current, which lowered the voltage, and now the amp has played it's note and is done drawing big amounts of current so it doesn't matter how much current the cap needs to charge back up.

Which brings me to my next point:
Caps do nothing except smooth the edges of fast current transients. They aren't a battery, don't work like a battery and don't do the same job as a battery. That is the reason that the power supply inside an amp uses a bank of capacitors instead of a battery. Caps entire function in life is to store charge, and release that charge when needed during a fast voltage change. This is why they can't do anything to stabilize voltage when amps are drawing current, but they can do something to help fast bursts of headlight dimming and dash dimming. Basically they aren't going to do anything to help your amps perform better, so in terms of audio performance they are a waste of money.

Whether the stored charge is a large enough quantity to affect something, or can be released fast enough to affect something, is the crux of the whole debate about whether caps work or not. There are some situations which make them appear to serve a valid purpose, even though the engineering analysis says they shouldn't.

So I'm going back to my previous post; caps don't (can't) do all of the lofty things that marketing says they can, but they do seem to work in some situations.

I'm not saying the OP should or should not get a cap, or use a cap. Hopefully no problems come up, and he won't need a bigger alternator or a cap or anything like that. A better battery is always a good idea, and not just in terms of an audio system.

Whether you need one or not isn't clear yet, because nothing is installed yet.

Whether it will work or not in your system is not known, because nothing is installed yet.

Making blanket statements about whether a cap does or doesn't work is crap, because nothing is installed yet.

Buy a cap because you're having a problem that it could help, not because it's on everyone's shopping list of things that they must have when putting together an audio system.

escortL7

so you wrote a 3 page book stating pretty much what i said. bravo, caps or a waste of money that is all