Car Audio shop - thumbs down
02-16-02, 11:41 PM
#1
Guest
Posts: n/a
Car Audio shop - thumbs down
Today I took my LS to a place to get an amp installed in Torrance,CA-no names so let's just say the place is on Hawthorne blvd. If you want the name e-mail me.
I wouldn't recommed this place to anyone. I came in at about 1PM and didn't leave until 9PM! The people there were the weirdest. The guy who worked on my car reeked of alcohol and drove one of those 70's child molestor box vans with red tinted windows. The really strange thing is, a group of friends and myself actually saw this guy a month or so ago at a 24 starbucks parking lot at 2AM putting the red tint on his windows! The other guy who was working on a ES spoke little english and had a injured leg or somethin and every move he made he grunted and groaned.
They didn't take the time to take off panels slowly and carefully or note fastener locations. A couple small plastic covers and things got lost. And check this, for some reason when I got there I was feeling helpful and offered to help with removing a few things, etc, and infact I ended up doing most of the work!
Now here's the thing, we finally got everything working and and when it came time to hook up my subs to the amp, they sounded like crap. We finally pinpointed the problem to not being able to use the factory channel for the subwoofer to the input on the amp, because basically we were running an amp off another amp. I left it at that and said screw it I'll mess with it myself some other time. I plan on trying to use the high/low convertor on the amp hooked up to one of the rear door speakers instead of the sub channel. I paid $50 for this, which I guess isn't bad for the simplicity of the original job.
The owner of the shop was very tolerable and a nice guy but he seemed too busy to try and give some serious help.
So there's a couple lessons here-
- Don't take your car to a shop that looks kinda bootleg.
- If possible don't use the factory deck for upgrading your system- get a new deck- the sound quality is much better.
Anyway I'm dead tired. Anyone recommend some GOOD shops in my area?
I wouldn't recommed this place to anyone. I came in at about 1PM and didn't leave until 9PM! The people there were the weirdest. The guy who worked on my car reeked of alcohol and drove one of those 70's child molestor box vans with red tinted windows. The really strange thing is, a group of friends and myself actually saw this guy a month or so ago at a 24 starbucks parking lot at 2AM putting the red tint on his windows! The other guy who was working on a ES spoke little english and had a injured leg or somethin and every move he made he grunted and groaned.
They didn't take the time to take off panels slowly and carefully or note fastener locations. A couple small plastic covers and things got lost. And check this, for some reason when I got there I was feeling helpful and offered to help with removing a few things, etc, and infact I ended up doing most of the work!
Now here's the thing, we finally got everything working and and when it came time to hook up my subs to the amp, they sounded like crap. We finally pinpointed the problem to not being able to use the factory channel for the subwoofer to the input on the amp, because basically we were running an amp off another amp. I left it at that and said screw it I'll mess with it myself some other time. I plan on trying to use the high/low convertor on the amp hooked up to one of the rear door speakers instead of the sub channel. I paid $50 for this, which I guess isn't bad for the simplicity of the original job.
The owner of the shop was very tolerable and a nice guy but he seemed too busy to try and give some serious help.
So there's a couple lessons here-
- Don't take your car to a shop that looks kinda bootleg.
- If possible don't use the factory deck for upgrading your system- get a new deck- the sound quality is much better.
Anyway I'm dead tired. Anyone recommend some GOOD shops in my area?
02-18-02, 04:19 AM
#2
Sorry to hear you had problems, but I can tell you that I would never have had those guys on my car.
I would have just been outta there before they even knew how to open up my trunk.
You are still going to have problems using the speaker output of an amp as the input to another amp. You will have missmatches in impedence and signal strength.
I'm really surprised you didn't blow the front end out of your new amp by connecting it to the sub output of the factory amp.
What you can try is an impedence matching attenuator, you can probably find one at Radio Shack or an audio store. Probably more likely at a store that specializes in car audio.
The output of your sub is around 8 ohms. Might be 4 ohms or as much as 16 ohms and power anywhere from 1 watt to 250 watts or more.
The input to your amp is rated in the millions of ohms. The more ohms the better. The required input power is measured in Millivolts. That's millionths of a volt.
You will need an attenuator that can match 4 ohms impedence to 100 million ohms impedence and provide around 100 db attenuation.
I would have just been outta there before they even knew how to open up my trunk.
You are still going to have problems using the speaker output of an amp as the input to another amp. You will have missmatches in impedence and signal strength.
I'm really surprised you didn't blow the front end out of your new amp by connecting it to the sub output of the factory amp.
What you can try is an impedence matching attenuator, you can probably find one at Radio Shack or an audio store. Probably more likely at a store that specializes in car audio.
The output of your sub is around 8 ohms. Might be 4 ohms or as much as 16 ohms and power anywhere from 1 watt to 250 watts or more.
The input to your amp is rated in the millions of ohms. The more ohms the better. The required input power is measured in Millivolts. That's millionths of a volt.
You will need an attenuator that can match 4 ohms impedence to 100 million ohms impedence and provide around 100 db attenuation.
02-18-02, 06:40 PM
#3
Guest
Posts: n/a
Gotcha. The only reason I continued with that shop for the business was because of the money. I figured $50 wasn't bad for an amp install. -I'll think twice about that next time.
We came to similar conclusions at the shop about the differing impedance.
The reason my amp didn't blow is because it has a built in hi/lo convertor. The mis-matched impedance is still a problem but with the amp gain at about 1/4 level the subs sound fine at almost any volume level from the front deck.
Just for info my subs are Avalon LE 15"s. I have two of them in a single sealed non chambered box. The company came out of the high desert that went out of business about a year ago. They made some decent competition subs and were shortly known for a good DB rating for using foam edging and a 2" peak excursion. They are rated at 300W RMS at 4 ohm.
I knew the guy who started the company and during testing they blew a 12" at almost 1000W.
Thanks for the info ^_^
We came to similar conclusions at the shop about the differing impedance.
The reason my amp didn't blow is because it has a built in hi/lo convertor. The mis-matched impedance is still a problem but with the amp gain at about 1/4 level the subs sound fine at almost any volume level from the front deck.
Just for info my subs are Avalon LE 15"s. I have two of them in a single sealed non chambered box. The company came out of the high desert that went out of business about a year ago. They made some decent competition subs and were shortly known for a good DB rating for using foam edging and a 2" peak excursion. They are rated at 300W RMS at 4 ohm.
I knew the guy who started the company and during testing they blew a 12" at almost 1000W.
Thanks for the info ^_^
02-19-02, 07:29 PM
#4
Moderator - Electronics Forum
[QUOTE]Originally posted by additude
The input to your amp is rated in the millions of ohms. The more ohms the better. The required input power is measured in Millivolts. That's millionths of a volt.
***Actually, millivolts is THOUSANDTHS of a volt. Example... 200 millivolts is equal to 0.2 volts. What you're thinking is MICROvolts. That's millionths.
Percy
Audio Guru/Moderator Car audio/electronics
The input to your amp is rated in the millions of ohms. The more ohms the better. The required input power is measured in Millivolts. That's millionths of a volt.
***Actually, millivolts is THOUSANDTHS of a volt. Example... 200 millivolts is equal to 0.2 volts. What you're thinking is MICROvolts. That's millionths.
Percy
Audio Guru/Moderator Car audio/electronics
02-19-02, 07:33 PM
#5
Moderator - Electronics Forum
[QUOTE]Originally posted by lvangundy
[B]Gotcha. The only reason I continued with that shop for the business was because of the money. I figured $50 wasn't bad for an amp install. -I'll think twice about that next time.
We came to similar conclusions at the shop about the differing impedance.
***What amp are you using?
The reason my amp didn't blow is because it has a built in hi/lo convertor. The mis-matched impedance is still a problem but with the amp gain at about 1/4 level the subs sound fine at almost any volume level from the front deck.
***Actually the hi-low converter works kinda differently. It takes a high level signal (amplified from your stock amp) into a low "line level" signal that the amp can handle. Now if you were to bolt on 2 ohm speakers into an amp that only handles 4 ohms then you'll still blow the amp, even if you have a hi-low level converter. They're actually called "Line Level Converters", or LLC's.
Just for info my subs are Avalon LE 15"s. I have two of them in a single sealed non chambered box. The company came out of the high desert that went out of business about a year ago. They made some decent competition subs and were shortly known for a good DB rating for using foam edging and a 2" peak excursion. They are rated at 300W RMS at 4 ohm.
I knew the guy who started the company and during testing they blew a 12" at almost 1000W.
***Not surprising. There are some speakers out there that are rated for 130 watts rms but can easily handle 1000 watts peak for a certain amount of time.
If you guys have any other questions, visit the Car audio/Electronics forum. Don't worry...we don't bite.
Percy
[B]Gotcha. The only reason I continued with that shop for the business was because of the money. I figured $50 wasn't bad for an amp install. -I'll think twice about that next time.
We came to similar conclusions at the shop about the differing impedance.
***What amp are you using?
The reason my amp didn't blow is because it has a built in hi/lo convertor. The mis-matched impedance is still a problem but with the amp gain at about 1/4 level the subs sound fine at almost any volume level from the front deck.
***Actually the hi-low converter works kinda differently. It takes a high level signal (amplified from your stock amp) into a low "line level" signal that the amp can handle. Now if you were to bolt on 2 ohm speakers into an amp that only handles 4 ohms then you'll still blow the amp, even if you have a hi-low level converter. They're actually called "Line Level Converters", or LLC's.
Just for info my subs are Avalon LE 15"s. I have two of them in a single sealed non chambered box. The company came out of the high desert that went out of business about a year ago. They made some decent competition subs and were shortly known for a good DB rating for using foam edging and a 2" peak excursion. They are rated at 300W RMS at 4 ohm.
I knew the guy who started the company and during testing they blew a 12" at almost 1000W.
***Not surprising. There are some speakers out there that are rated for 130 watts rms but can easily handle 1000 watts peak for a certain amount of time.
If you guys have any other questions, visit the Car audio/Electronics forum. Don't worry...we don't bite.
Percy
02-20-02, 06:11 PM
#7
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Texas
Posts: 1,826
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Wow, I had bestbuy install my aftermarket amp and sub to the factory amp and headunit.
The guy spend like 4-5 hours taking every panel off (especially connecting the wire from the battery to the amp in the trunk). The cost for labor was total of $50-65 (I forgot actual amount).
He did a good job in fact.
Static911
The guy spend like 4-5 hours taking every panel off (especially connecting the wire from the battery to the amp in the trunk). The cost for labor was total of $50-65 (I forgot actual amount).
He did a good job in fact.
Static911
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
