My
Car Stereo Career
In the beginning, there was the Bonneville. My
first car. When we clocked it from 0 to 60 mph, it took 24 seconds on a
straight stretch. That old 3.8 litre V6 had a lot to be desired in the
takoff department. 150 km/h max. I first got a Blaupunkt tape deck and
30 watt amp at a flea market for like 30 bucks. Shortly after I got that
duo, the car was used as a tradein when my parents bought their '94 Chrysler
Intrepid, bright cherry red and all sport. Fast as heck too. 220 easy (not
like I would know). So I sold the duo to a guy I worked with at the pizza
place for $50.00. Good deal eh? Then I started driving my parents 1990
Chrysler Dynasty (one step down
from a New Yorker). A fast little beast. 180 or so with a 3.3 V6 with LOTS
of pickup. But it was still considered my parents car. This wasn't good
enough for me, so I went out looking for a car of my own. So I purchased
a 1987 Hyundai Excel 4 door hatchback, rusted out
partially, but fixable. It wasn't a great looker, but it had lots of power
to spare. I purchased a Kenwood KRC-380 15x4 tape player. It was cheap
and did the job, but never got installed in the car. I kept putting it
off until I finally just
took
it back. Eventually, I gave up on the damn car and sold it to the wreckers
for $150.00. This money was added to my then growing stereo in the Dynasty.
Click on the pic to the left to see the 35 foot burnout I did with it before
I took it to the wreckers. Like most learning kids, I was taken by the
promise of great bass from a pair of ripoff subs. I got a pair of 10"
subs, noname brand for like $75. They were added to my then growing home
stereo. My first actual addition to the sound system was an Alpine CD player
for like $650 including installation and an extra 2 year waranty which
was a good deal for that model at the time. It had dual preouts, 25x4 power,
and the other basic stuff. No remote, or changer controls. When I look
back, I feel like sticking my other foot up my butt. What a ripoff. Then
came new speakers. I chose the best quality sound for my money. I got a
pair of 5 1/4 coax's for the doors and like most newbies, 6x9 coax's, all
Clarion totalling around $200. This sounded good enough, but none of the
speakers gave enough bass. I had more in the stock stereo. So I picked
up a pair of 12" MTX Blue Thunder subs at the same flea market
as I got the Blau stuff from the next year. They were around $150
for the pair in the original boxes, never used. I thought this was an excellent
deal at the time, and it was. I made a very crappy box out of 1/2"
plywood, plexiglass, vinyl and speckle paint. It sounded like shit. I used
a Pioneer GMH-22 50x2 amp that I had purchased for $230 and lent to a friend
in fear that I would never find a good use for it. The low frequencies
were filtered by a Coustic XM-3 crossover. The final product was a good
tight bass, yet sloppy at around 200 watts
bridged. Finally I learned to make a proper box out of 3/4" MDF and
covered it with matching carpet from Crutchfeild. At a soundoff, it put
about 129 DB. Not bad, but still I wanted more, so I upgraded the subs
to a pair of 12" Rockford Fosgate Punch subs for a real discount price
of $400 down from $600 for the pair. The old speakers were sold and the
money was added to a set of kick panel mounted Boston Accoustic Rally 5
1/4" seperates for $350. A new amp was also in need, so I purchased
a Blade G54 amp for around $400. This peice of crap put out around 50x4
and would cut out if any more that 2 ohms were drawn from it. With the
extra
current
draw, bigger power wire was needed, so I added 20' of genaric 4 AWG
power wire and too much 16 AWG Phoenix Gold speaker wire to count. The
next stage was yet another amp. The Blade was sold to Mark and I went for
a few weeks without any subs. Then my mother of all amps was purchased.
A Phoenix Gold ZX450. I loved this thing so much. This $1100 baby was rated
at 18 watts x 4 rms at 12 volts. This jumped up to around 80 watts rms
at 4 ohms with 14.4 volts.
Hell of a good cheater amp. I added this to the
system and wow, what a difference. Right away, I got around 132 DB in a
ported box and I can't remember what my RTA was. Only a couple more things
were added including a Phoenix Gold PLD1 line driver, Phoenix Gold level
control (bass knob), purple neon, some upgrades in wire and fuse blocks
and a new
sealed
box. This now pounded good. It stayed like this until just this past
Thanksgiving
(in November in Canada) when one late late Sunday night when myself and
3 friends went rollerblading at around 2:00 in the morning to 4:00. I parked
my car in a well lit, security guarded park and we went blading. We came
back to find my alarm wires snipped under the hood, and everything gone
except the bass knob and my box (subs were gone, though). After filing
a police report and the insurance forms the money was on the way. It only
took around 2 to 3 weeks for it to arrive (so insure with the Co-operators)
and I was $2100 richer. This was about 2/3 of what it cost for the stereo,
since I installed all of it except the headunit and Clarion speakers.
Then while all this addition of equiptment was
going on, before the theft, durring the spring of '97, I attended Mobile
Dynamics car stereo and security installation
school in Richmond Hill, Ontario (just outside Toronto). I learned so much
from this course. It was a pretty hefty tuition, $1,578.24 for the first
3 weeks, and another $500 or so for the fourth week and the M.E.C.P. certification
(mobile electronics certification program). I drove the two hours to and
from home to the school for the first couple weeks and then shelled out
like $350 for a Howard Johnson hotel room for the last week. My final marks
were between 70 to 85. Not bad. I learned so much that I didn't know or
even care about before. Each of the programs included a binder of workpapers
and notes for us to keep. All of these I still use today. If you get the
chance, go there. They have a school in Phoenix too.
took
it back. Eventually, I gave up on the damn car and sold it to the wreckers
for $150.00. This money was added to my then growing stereo in the Dynasty.
Click on the pic to the left to see the 35 foot burnout I did with it before
I took it to the wreckers. Like most learning kids, I was taken by the
promise of great bass from a pair of ripoff subs. I got a pair of 10"
subs, noname brand for like $75. They were added to my then growing home
stereo. My first actual addition to the sound system was an Alpine CD player
for like $650 including installation and an extra 2 year waranty which
was a good deal for that model at the time. It had dual preouts, 25x4 power,
and the other basic stuff. No remote, or changer controls. When I look
back, I feel like sticking my other foot up my butt. What a ripoff. Then
came new speakers. I chose the best quality sound for my money. I got a
pair of 5 1/4 coax's for the doors and like most newbies, 6x9 coax's, all
Clarion totalling around $200. This sounded good enough, but none of the
speakers gave enough bass. I had more in the stock stereo. So I picked
up a pair of 12" MTX Blue Thunder subs at the same flea market
as I got the Blau stuff from the next year. They were around $150
for the pair in the original boxes, never used. I thought this was an excellent
deal at the time, and it was. I made a very crappy box out of 1/2"
plywood, plexiglass, vinyl and speckle paint. It sounded like shit. I used
a Pioneer GMH-22 50x2 amp that I had purchased for $230 and lent to a friend
in fear that I would never find a good use for it. The low frequencies
were filtered by a Coustic XM-3 crossover. The final product was a good
tight bass, yet sloppy at around 200 watts