question about audio/speakers

Hi i have a 96' ford taurus and im pretty sure it has stock speakers but it has a jenson (i think) cd player thats 45 x4 watts (i think).

so i was thinking about getting 2 10" subs in the back, but i know nothing about this kind of thing..

do i need an amp?

how do the speakers fit in the existing holes if they are so much bigger (10")?

and where is a good place to buy them online? or should i buy them in a store?

Yes, you will need an amplifier. If you want the subwoofers to survive and have decent bass, don't skimp on the amplifier. A cheap amplifier will be just that, cheap. You will probably experience a lot of distortion during bass-heavy music.

You will need to build a box for typical subwoofers rather than mounting them in the stock speaker locations. Plus, you will want to keep full-range speakers in the deck to give you some midrange and treble. I'm guessing that since you are planning to put in two 10" subwoofers you will have the bass cranked and probably not hear the distortion over all the rattles, so a proper box is recommended with a quality amplifier.

Another option would be to use free-air subwoofers which use the trunk as the enclosure and do not require a dedicated box. Going this route though would still benefit from a quality amplifier.

Now, if you are looking for all-around decent sound rather than just a lot of bass, you should upgrade the factory speakers and probably the deck as well.

For a price-conscience audio "beginner" I would suggest you surf around on Parts Express for reasonably priced audio components (www.partsexpress.com). You'll want to find out if the Rear Control Unit (RCU) in the trunk has been bypassed or is still in use. If it has not been bypassed, you may want to purchase a bypass cable.

-Rod

thanks man ill check it out.

I was just wondering how an amp works?
like do you have to make a seperate connection to the battery straight to the amp or what?

oh yea, wtf is a rear control unit? what does it do? i didnt think there was anything back there except the speakers ill have to go take a look.

oh yea 1 last thing. would i use a 2 or 4 channel amp?

would the front speakers need to be amp'd? or just the subs?

i checked out the website and im a little confused but heres what i found tell me if its okay

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=267-806

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=293-351

why is pyramid so cheap?

In many newer Ford products, Ford uses a Rear Control Unit that contains the stere tuner, audio controls, audio amplifier, and power antenna logic circuit if you have a power antenna. The unit in the dash is basically just a control and display unit. The RCU in the sedan is mounted under the trunk liner on the driver's side. To access it, you need to remove the trunk liner on the driver's side and you will see the RCU mounted to the body of the car near the trunk floor.

An amplifier should be connected directly to the battery with an appropriate fuse as near the battery as practical. The general rule of thumb is 10 amps of fuse for every 100 Watts of amplifier power.

The amplifier uses a high-current power source (battery) to provide supply to the primary side of a DC-to-DC converter which steps up the voltage to high-current, bi-polar rail voltages. These high voltage rail voltages are the supply voltages to output transistors that are driven by the low-level signal from the deck. So, a low voltage input signal turns output transistors on and off linearly (ideally) to provide an amplified output to the speaker(s). If the amplification fails to stay linear, distortion/clipping will result.

There are also lower-quality and usually lower cost amplifiers that use hybrid amplifier ICs to provide the amplification. These can provide quality sound if built correctly, but in the car audio world, these are usually of inferior quality and do not usually incorporate a high-current DC-to-DC converter to step up the voltage.

You could use either a mono, 2-channel, 3-channel, 4-channel amplifier, or a combination of these depending on what you want to do. If all you plan to do is add a subwoofer to the current system, you could use a mono amplifier or a 2-channel bridgeable amplifier. If you would like to add a subwoofer and upgrade the rear deck speakers for better sound, you could add a 3-channel or 4-channel amp that is bridgeable to 3 channels with the bridged channel powering the subwoofer.

Pyramid amplifiers are inexpensive I think because they do not advertise and I suppose don't care to make as much profit. They also don't have the large R & D that other manufacturers do. As for their quality though, I don't think they are really much lower than most other brands. I've owned a couple of Pyramid amps and never had any problems with them. As a hobby I repair electronics so I take new products that I buy apart, photograph them, and list the document the parts that are common to fail. I've friends that only buy high-end audio equipment, and they've managed to blow many of their items up. I've had my Pyramid amps apart, I've repaired Alpine MRV series amps, a PPI amp, a couple of Phoenix Gold M-44 amps, an Audiobahn amp apart, and a few I'm sure I'm forgetting about. All of the above use the same parts for their DC-to-DC converters (IRFZ-44N MOSFETs, TL494 PWM IC) and the same family of output transistors.

If you want a system that you'll be happy with, I'd suggest replacing the cabin speakers first with decent ones and maybe even amplifying them before adding a subwoofer. However, if all you are interested in currently is loud bass, then go with the subwoofer, a decent amplifier and crossover, and a well-built, appropriate box. You can use the deck's amplifier to power the cabin speakers once you bypass the factory amplifier or use the output of the RCU to provide the signal to the amplfiier. This will require a line-level converter if the amplfiier you select does not have high level inputs.

As for the items you provided links to, you really do not need to get the DVC (Dual-voice coil) subwoofer since the Lanzar is bridgeable. If at this time you do not plan to replace the cabin speakers and amplify them, then don't get more than one 10-inch subwoofer. You'll end up turning the bass down a bunch in order to be able to hear the mids and highs, unless you want to be one of those kids I always laughed at because all you could hear from their car was bass (barely audible over all the rattles) and no mids or highs.

-Rod

wow thanks man,

so i think im going to look for a 5 channel amp that can just control everything than i can just upgrade all my speakers.