Putting together a budget system, please help

I'm trying to keep it as cheap as possible.

I already have a loose Panasonic deck to have installed. It's not the best, but it has to do, because, well... it's free.

I wanna get one Tempest, and I know I'll need an amp for it, but I don't know what brand to go with.

I'm not sure how to enclose it, and again I'm on a budget. I know you get what you pay for, but a Tempest would still sound pretty damn good even in a less than perfect enclosure I'd imagine.

I need some new front speakers, a pair of 6x9's, not sure what brand to go with or where to get them from, don't want to spend too much on them.

Do I need to amp the 6x9's?

Do I need anything else?

Also, how do I order the Tempest? I went do adireaudio.com, and the store doesn't seem to have any car audio.

youll need a huge box for the tempest but its a great sub ive heard.. anyways try to get it like 4 cubic ft. if you go ported (which would sound awesome if you have the space and skill).. otherwise i think its like 2-3.5 cu ft sealed? not sure i cant remember.. someone else will know.. but i think im gonna order from www.visionaryaudio.com

also abotu the amp.. check ebay you can get a profile ap600 from barneys electronics for liek 79 bucks or somethin.. people say that this is a good amp if youre on a tight budget.

dont know much abotu speakers though ill wait for someone else to cover that

more then 2 cuft sealed.... I'd do 3-4 cuft sealed and 5-6 cuft ported

Can you link me to some places that I can get a box for either 2 12" Shiva's or a 15" Tempest? Which would be better? 1 15" Tempest would obviously be much cheaper, almost half the price, so that seemed to me to be my best option. Would 2 15" Tempest's be overkill?

Also this is for a 2004 Cavalier, the truck is 18" tall, 34" from the front edge of the trunk to the back of the rear seats, and 36" across at the narrowest point. Would two Tempest's even fit?

Please direct me to what speakers to buy :-D, I need two pairs of 6x9's, you guys are crazy with this stuff, so I'll trust your judgment.

Any other gizmo's and gadget's I'll need? I'm guessing some sort of wire?

Oh, and I never mentioned my budget, it's around 700 bucks total. For a whole new system, minus a deck.

Your not gunna squeeze two tempests in there. Up front i'd do a cheap component set like the re comp. set. This is a good price on a good amp for it http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=18796&item=5742723457&rd=1 . Then for your substage I'd reccomend an RE SE 15 and and if you can swing an extra little bit of cash and get an elemental designs nine.1 that would be great for the SE and would allow you to get more power if you ever uprgaded to an SX or something of the likes.

Sorry for all the posts right in a row, I just ordered two Shiva's from visionaryaudio.com. They have them on sale there for 115 each, so it seemed like a good deal to me. Can someone link me to where I can get a good enclosure for these? Also still need help on the front and rear speakers...

Also about that amp someone listed above, should i get two of them? one for each sub? Or one, and hook them both up to it?

That amp isn't god for shivas unless you REALLY know what your doing..... too much power....loof for something that does around 600-800 watts at 2 ohms. As for an enclosure go for about 6 cubes NET ported tuned no higher then 30 hz or at least cubes sealed. Those deminsions are for both subs.

That amp isn't god for shivas unless you REALLY know what your doing..... too much power....loof for something that does around 600-800 watts at 2 ohms.

Thanks for your help. I don't know what I'm doing really, that's why I have you guys. So something like this is good? Two of em?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=18797&item=5742461095&rd=1

And this for my front and rears?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4950&item=5742909262&rd=1


As for an enclosure go for about 6 cubes NET ported tuned no higher then 30 hz or at least cubes sealed. Those deminsions are for both subs.

Can you link me to where I can get one of these? I've been searching the net for boxes, cant find any.

First off that phoenix gold is WAAAY better then the profile....i would get that you can also run rears off of it if you want. as far as the profile amps go you need the 2 channel one's not mono b/c shivas wire down to 4 ohms not 2.......that is if your getting two amps if your only getting one then that one will do. Build your own box ittl save you HUGE amounts of money.

Your not gunna squeeze two tempests in there. Up front i'd do a cheap component set like the re comp. set. This is a good price on a good amp for it http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=18796&item=5742723457&rd=1 . Then for your substage I'd reccomend an RE SE 15 and and if you can swing an extra little bit of cash and get an elemental designs nine.1 that would be great for the SE and would allow you to get more power if you ever uprgaded to an SX or something of the likes.

First of all tyvm stang for guiding the blind man.

Where can i get this cheap component set you speak of? What's a substage?

First off that phoenix gold is WAAAY better then the profile....i would get that you can also run rears off of it if you want. as far as the profile amps go you need the 2 channel one's not mono b/c shivas wire down to 4 ohms not 2.......that is if your getting two amps if your only getting one then that one will do. Build your own box ittl save you HUGE amounts of money.

So I should get two of those phoenix gold's to run my two shiva's? Should I be running an amp to my components? What do you mean by running rears? You mean running my rear speakers to the same amp running to one of my shiva's? Would I be better off getting two amps or one more powerful one? The two phoenix gold's seemed nice... but wasn't the wattage kind of low?

I would have no clue how to even start on building my own box. I'd be better off buying one of the crappy ones they have on ebay probably?



EDIT: Doing some searching on my own, I stumbled upon reaudio.com. I think this is the place you were talking about, but the site was very confusing and i couldnt find prices or any sort of ordering information on components.

yea RE audio is where i was saying to get the components give them a call 7028964823 ..... yes i know im a nerd i have that memorized lol. And whe i said the PG would be waay better then profile I was talkin about for the component's amp and yes you need to amp them but come to think of it one of those PG's on each shiva would be very nice.... so what the hell get three of them that's a dman good price.

with a pair of shivas you would want a single amp that does around 6-800x1 @ 2ohm, or a pair of amps that do 3-400x1 @ 4ohm. I'm fresh out of ideas on what would work well though.

edit: actually those PGs would work well, a pair on the subs and one on the front speakers, then just run the rear speakers on the headunit.

That amp isn't god for shivas unless you REALLY know what your doing..... too much power....loof for something that does around 600-800 watts at 2 ohms. As for an enclosure go for about 6 cubes NET ported tuned no higher then 30 hz or at least cubes sealed. Those deminsions are for both subs.

yea were on the same page.....The PG's should do a good 300 tho

I bought those two PG's off ebay, but when I went to my paypal, I noticed that my payment had been refunded for the two shiva's I paid for :-(

So now I guess I need to find a third PG somewhere, since that guy on ebay only had two... For my third amp (holy sh!t i'm gonna have three amps), should I get a four channel for all four of my speakers? Or I remember someone saying to have one more of those PG's for my front two, and then wire the rear two to my head unit? If I did that wouldn't my two rear speakers not be amp'ed?

Apparently visionaryaudio.com is out of stock or something, so I need to find another place to order these from. Anyone know of a site that is particularly reliable and would have shiva's in stock?

I'm gonna call about those components tomorrow... do you know how much they cost so I have an idea? And what exactly is included with it?... the details they listed might as well have been in Chinese... as if I know what a Nomex Spider is/does. Is this a set of two speakers? If so... what do I do about my rear speakers? They're oval... and theyre embedded behind the back seats in the roof underneath the rear windshield pointing upward.

Oh yea, Stang and sr20 are the awesomest guys ever. ;-)

the Re component set is 165 shipped. You don't really need rear speakers unless you want to entertain people in the back. A good front stage should be all you need, but if you do want to get rear speakers you can either power them off your head unit or wire them parallel into your amp with the fronts.

I personally wouldnt do without rear speakers. I dont have good subs, but I could have better ones if I wasnt concerned about good mids and highs so much. Im just not happy with 2 dimensional music. I like my mids and highs to come from left, right, up, down, and back and forth. (as well as sounding crisp).. and for subs, as long as they are loud and the different bass notes are distinguished, then Im satisfied. But I got off topic... what I was supposed to say is... in MY opinion rear speakers are important for the driver as well as a backseat passenger.

I personally wouldnt do without rear speakers. I dont have good subs, but I could have better ones if I wasnt concerned about good mids and highs so much. Im just not happy with 2 dimensional music. I like my mids and highs to come from left, right, up, down, and back and forth. (as well as sounding crisp).. and for subs, as long as they are loud and the different bass notes are distinguished, then Im satisfied. But I got off topic... what I was supposed to say is... in MY opinion rear speakers are important for the driver as well as a backseat passenger.

Get a good front stage (preferably with time correction) and a decent substage. Then fade all the way forward and leave it that way for about a week, then fade back in the rears and see how much you like them now.

Rear speakers annoy the piss out of me now, if I'm riding with someone I can tolerate it, but if I'm driving they're off, no matter what car it is or what the system sounds like, they're off.

At the very least he can just power them off of the headunit, it will get them loud enough for some rear fill, but not loud enough to overpower the fronts.

I'm starting to get worried now... every place I've checked does NOT have any adire subs... everything is on backorder/out of stock! Can someone PLEEEEASSEEE tell me where I can order the subs.

There always going on and off of backorder give them some time.

How much time? I was hoping to have this all delivered and installed before the end of this month?

Is there a similar sub I can get that is of equal quality and close to the same price?

Should I get some subs from RE audio instead, at the same time when I call to get the components? And if so which ones?... I don't want to wait a month or two to get some shiva's. Keep in mind I already paid for two PG amps... so whatever I get has to work well with those.

Haha well I just hung myself, but I'm happy.

I picked up two .se series 12" subs, and the .re component system. Came to $535.00 shipped. So I've just spent $700+ in the last two days... and I still need a box and one more amp. I'm sure theres more stuff I need still, right? I remember seeing "amp kits", will I need one/two/three of those?

well that's a good pick the only problem IS those pg amps won't work well with SE's because SE's are d4 you said you ordered two? IM me on AIM my s/n is rydemenmystang.

In case anyone was wondering, and also to just make a breakdown for myself, I'm compiling a list of what I've bought so far. I'm hoping there won't be anything else I'll need.

$221.90 - Two PG amps, one will be used for my fronts, the other will be given to Bumpinstang in trade for a ported box that he's going to build for me (thanks stang!)

$244.00 - HIFONICS Brutus BX1500D Monoblock Amplifier Amp 1500W

$535.00 - My order from REaudio.com. Two .se 12" subs, .re components.

$27.89 - Four gauge amp install kit.

$22.90 - Eight gauge amp install kit.

Totaling $1,051.00 for my system thus far. This is gonna be sick.

I'm not a genius... but I was studying the HIFONICS Brutus that I bought per reccomendation from Bumpinstang, he said it would be perfect for my two .se's. Anyway, I noticed that the specs were

1x500 Watts RMS into 4 Ohms
1x1,000 Watts RMS into 2 Ohms
1x1,500 Watts RMS into 1 Ohm

Usually when an amp can connect to more than one speaker it has a 2x250 watts type option doesn't it? I'm not going to have a problem with the connection am I?

I'm not a genius... but I was studying the HIFONICS Brutus that I bought per reccomendation from Bumpinstang, he said it would be perfect for my two .se's. Anyway, I noticed that the specs were

1x500 Watts RMS into 4 Ohms
1x1,000 Watts RMS into 2 Ohms
1x1,500 Watts RMS into 1 Ohm

Usually when an amp can connect to more than one speaker it has a 2x250 watts type option doesn't it? I'm not going to have a problem with the connection am I?

no man, you connect the subs to the same channel. Thats the beauty of having a 1 ohm stable monoblock amp. You can hook up both subs to one channel and wire them so the resistance is 1 ohm, thus giving you the greatest power output possible... in this case 1500 watts rms x 1, equaling 750 w rms to each speaker. A 2 channel amp would equate from 1x500 rms 4ohm, to 2x200 rms 4ohm, (typically). that really really sucks in comparison. Im not familiar with the voice coils of the subs you bought, but im sure bumpinstang will tell you exactly how to hook it up.

Could someone please, in stupid terms, define an ohm?

Ohms are the measure of electrical resistance in your subs. The SE's have dual 2 ohm coils meaning the coil is split in two with two seperate positives and negatives both being for ohms. According to ohm's law 4 4 ohm coils in parallel will yield a 1 ohm load which is then hooked up to the amp and it will supply the 1 ohm rated power of 1500 watts (brutus's are slightly overrated though, but a good 1350 shouldn't be a problem from it)