Help on audio equipment
 

How's it going guys..

New to audio equipment so I figured I'd ask you guys for information regarding the size/wattage/type speaker and amp I should buy for my LS400. The interior speakers are fine however when I turn the aftermarket head unit to 50 + the bass becomes unclear and begins to break up. What do you all recommend for a noticable amount of bass?

I'm considering on purchasing my friend's 12 inch sub with the ported box and 1200 watt amp. He's also got 2 10's in a ported box with Pioneer 820 watt amp. I'm looking to have something installed this weekend

How loud are you looking to make it? A little bass, bass you can rock out to, or bass you can use to set off car alarms and get pulled over for?

My personal opinion: so long as you are using an aftermarket head unit, leave all the factory speakers alone if they are not blown and just throw a subwoofer in the trunk. This allows you to tune the speakers to handle the higher end notes and let the Subwoofer do the bass work, as most door speakers, even nice ones ,will start to get muffled once you start cranking the bass level up.

I have built several systems in some of the cars i've had over the years, and I feel that this has good output and keeps it relatively inexpensive.

My 89' 4Runner has the dead stock 1980's speakers in it combined with a 200 watt RMS amp, and a 10 inch ported box subwoofer in the cargo area. It rocks very well certain low note songs can actually hurt your ears.

IMO RMS wattage is the only real rating to go off of, as that what the system will continually run at. The 200ish range is decently loud, the highest i've gone is about 400 RMS which can get quite noisy, but would probably work well in an LS400 due to it being better insulated than most cars would be.

If you want to set off peoples car alarms, the 1200 watt amp will probably do that, but you may run into electrical issues, and as far as i'm concerned, it makes the music sound like a rumbling cacaphony

Thanks for the response Yoshiman. I would like something that I can rock out to but not something to make the body panels rattle. I don't know ANYTHING about RMS, wattage, etc but I'm trying to learn more about it. I was looking at the 12 inch sub and 1200w amp because It won't take up as much trunk space as a box with two 10's.

With the 1200 watt amp, what kind of electrical issues would I run into? Would this be only at full power?

You will need to run a dedicated power feed from the battery at least to the amp. Use heavy gauge wire. Go look up crutchfield and do some studying.

1200W is peak power, the RMS is a lower voltage. any time you run an amplifier you will always need to run a power feed from the battery directly to the amp.

1200W is overkill if you're not looking to make the body panels rattle, as you said.

I'm running the factory Pioneer head unit, Memphis Audio 12" non-ported sub with 450W Sony X-Plod amp (originally had a 300W Memphis D-series amp until it bit the dust). It's more than enough to make your head hurt inside and hear it coming a block away. Unsure of the RMS. Replaced the rear door speakers with some $35 5.25" Pioneer speakers from Best Buy and replaced the fronts with JBL GTO-528, as they were the about the only 2 ohm units I could find. I also retained the factory tweeters, which ended up bumping my tweeter count from two to six, so the highs sound great.

i am certain that upgrading the headunit alone will improve overall sound quality. Expo, what headunit do you have?

my LS400 is a 96, do any of you guys know who made my stock amp that came with the car originally and what the RMS wattage is?

I know the head unit was made by Pioneer

Eclipse CD5030 (Multi-source receiver/built in A2DP Bluetooth wireless technology). It probably has improved sound but when you turn it to about 40+ the bass sounds like it breaks up.

I'm still trying to figure out what will give me a decent amount of bass without being to powerful so I'm going to wait it out and do more research

are you still running the stock amp? i would assume so. im not familiar with that model Eclipse but the older units i've dealt with always required an external amp to power the speakers. it may be that your headunit and the stock amp is not working well with each other.

I have a 5channel amp. 500w RMS to the sub 200w RMS to the 4channels :thumbup: