Im looking to add a fairly aggressive stereo to my C3. I listen to real heavy/industrial cyber-goth. Real hard hitting, rapid bass stuff. (if you gotta ask, yer not gonna get it....) Im looking to keep the install on a budget, and fairly uncomplicated. I plan on installing the dash and kick panel speakers with stock sizes. My question is in regards to a rear speaker box. Ive found on EBAY a guy who makes Sub boxes, one holds two 6x9's and one 8 inch sub, the other model holds two 10 or 12 inch subs. If I omit the 6x9's alltogether and just go with the subs, is the system just going to be one loud thud at higher volumes? (My camaro has two 12 inch subs and 2 6x9's in the sail panels, but once you turn it up, its just too much distortion and noise)

Any suggestions on a system that will give me a mild concussion but not require an engineering degree to install?

 

This is just my humble opinion.....first off if your budget is....lets say
$600....use about $200 of it for Dynamat..... then whatever you spend for the rest of the install will be money well spent...otherwise your "wasting" a lot of watts. Stereos are about balance not just giant amps and huge subs......I have 2 6x9 speakers, driven by a 200 fosgate amp and it's a pretty nice clean sound......I may add an 8" free air kicker sub and drop it in the jack storage box. Always makes me giggle inside when you pull up to a stop light and you could hear the car next to you coming for a block before he got there. You can barely hear my stereo outside the car......but, inside it is an ear full of butt kicking sound.
I would go with round Polks not 6x9..... and a small sub.....you don't need much the freaking speakers are right in your ears...it's almost like headphones. And I would do the kickpanels and leave out the dash pod speakers. Use a nice quality 5 channel amp and a good install kit with the proper size wiring.....
There are LOTS of options on quality....just depends on how big your budget is.
Here is a nice little sub amp...


then maybe the fosgate for the other speakers...



Killer sub......



are you keeping the look of the old style stereo or the newer radio

 

Here is a l ook at my set up...
Infinity kappas 6.5 in the kicks,
MB 8 in sub in the rear
Kenwood 600w 4ch amp runs everything
JVC head unit with an Ipod adaptor thats in the storage area...

Sounds awesome...My Van Halen sounds great with this set up...

 

Whatever you decide......we're gonna need a video of the finished products first sound check!!!!!!

 

Very Nice......this IS definitely as option.

 

ANd still has room for the ttops... An old forum member here built it for me..Good old Durango Boy...

 

Here is how I did our 73..

 

Still miss DB

 

Matt was/is the GURU of all things related to C3 audio installing, and was a HUGE help to me when I was choosing and installing components for my '71 back in 2008. Much of his wisdom is still available here by searching.

I know where to find him if I need him.

 

A Kicker 5 channel 700.5 will put out more then you can take in a C3. My system will hurt you if you turn it up 3/4 and sounds amazing for all types of music, rap, metal etc..
I used a L7 Solobaric 15" and kicker separate 6" fronts and 6x9's in the rear. Bought everything on eBay cheap..

 

Dude you can probably blow the T-Tops off with that much stereo...looks good.....
I like your mods as well....very cool!

 

Great job on the mods, Mewn!!!

Rogman

 

By no means do you need TWO 10's or 12's in a C3, One will do just fine.

PTROXX, you can fit T-Tops back there? Pics or it didn't happen!

 

I'll say this first up, I'm a car audio nut, so some of this might come across a bit strong. I just say it to possibly hellp you avoid costly mistakes.

I hope you understand what you're getting into by upgrading your stereo. It can be a very costly endeavor to do it right, and by right I mean being able to support the draw from the system so as to not fry your new equipment, your battery/batteries or your car. Or all of them.

I'll start at the front. Most alternators are designed to barely support the current draw from a car when everything is operating, ie: High and low beams, electric radiator fans, aircon, radio etc. This is before you add anything to it. Typically your alternator might see a 70-80% draw at any given time. As a general rule of thumb, an amplifier will draw 70-100amp per 1000wrms (Watts/root mean squared. Or the average it will play. Never look at max ratings, they are pointless).
This is a terrible example, because electricity acts similar to water but not the same, however it's the simplest way to explain it. Imagine a bucket being filled with a hose. The bucket is your battery, the hose is your alternator. Every time you tip some water out, it takes some time to refill. Whenever the bass hits on your system, the bucket is drained. Then it refills and waits for the next hit. However, if you start emptying it faster than the hose can fill it, you hit problems. First off, your alternator will be working 100% of the time and will wear very quickly. Second, your battery will always be charging and will die very fast. To the point were you can drive the car for an hour playing your system, switch it off and not be able to start it. Third, your amp starts to struggle to draw power and gets very hot, which is not good for the electronics inside it. Which brings us to the last issue where the signal the amplifier is producing becomes "dirty", also known as clipping. That means the sine wave it is transmitting becomes square (it clips the top off the wave), or alternately the AC current becomes a DC current. Which is really really bad for your subs, m'kay? That cause heat in the voice coils and your sub produces magic smoke as the coils fry.
So you need a bigger hose or a bigger bucket depending on the draw.
If you have upgraded the stock 40amp(?) alternator in your car to something decent like 140-160, then you should be ok to run up to around 1500wrms, but you will still notice your lights dimming when the bass hits. To avoid this, you will need to do 2 things.
The first is to upgrade the flow the hose (alternator) is able to provide to the battery. To do this you replace the basic electrical cables in the system, which consist of the run from the alternator to the battery, the battery to the chassis, and the chassis to the alternator. This is known as the "Big 3". Not all cars have a cable from the alt to the chassis as the alt is grounded through the engine. If you do have one or there is a strap grounding the engine to the frame, that also needs to be replaced. For a system of 1500wrms or less, 4awg wire should suffice, but I prefer to be safe than irritated at having to do it twice, so would suggest 1/0awg. Particularly since there is such a distance from the alternator to the battery. From the battery or capacitor to the amp, 4awg would be fine. At this point I'll mention wire types. There is Oxygen Free Copper (OFC) and Copper Clad Aluminum (CCA). Copper conducts electricity better than aluminum, but for a low power system and in the interests of budget, CCA would be fine for 1500wrms.
Second upgrade is to drop a bigger battery in. Absorbed Gel Mat (AGM) batteries are designed to discharge and charge quickly for long periods of time, so this is what you want. The number to look for on an AGM is the Amp Hour (AH) rating. Most are rated at 20hr periods, some are not though. I believe the biggest AGM that will fit perfectly in a Vette is the Odyssey 78-PC1500 but they are pricey. As much as everyone loves Optima Yellow Tops, they are over priced and a waste of space. Literally a waste of space, due to their spiral design. You can get similar AH rated batteries for a lot less. An example would be the Super Start batteries sold by an Irish crowd I won't mention in case someone gets uppidity about them not being a supporting vendor.
You can opt for a secondary battery or a capacitor should you still experience dimming or large voltage drops on your ammeter. A capacitor is really only good for up to about 1Kwrms, just to smooth out the lulls in the draw. Anything higher than that really needs an additional battery.

That pretty much sums up my little lesson. How do I know all of this? Some of it I learned the hard and costly way, the rest I picked up wanting to learn from other peoples mistakes. I'm gonna put my flame suit on here and bag most of the brands the prior posters have mentioned.

First picture, Boss Audio. DO NOT buy ANYTHING they make. They are insanely over rated in their specs and will more than likely burn your car to the ground. Honestly, they should come with a free fire extinguisher.
Rockford Fosgate. Great gear, but you pay through the nose for it. Save some money and buy something else.
Kicker. Decent. That's about it. Were great in their day but then were bought out and shifted their manufacturing to Korea. They will do rated but push them much past that and they will fry.
Kenwood. Cheap and nasty but reasonably reliable. Very low power on nearly everything they offer.
"Custom" enclosures offered on eBay will 90% of the time be crap. Subwoofers are designed to play best in a particular volume, and at a certain tuning should you wish to go ported over sealed. If you want a custom enclosure, build it yourself.

Depending on your budget and how "aggressive" you want to get with your system will depend on how much money you want to spend.
I can make some suggestions outside of the mainstream brands that have been put forward so far, which will get you more power and more sound for your money.

Btw, I live on another forum called Realm of Excursion, which is why I know a bit about car audio. My "aggressive" system I will be putting in the Vette I get will consist of 2 350amp alternators, 4 batteries, 4/0awg cable, a 1300wrms 4 channel amp running 2 sets of 3 way components and 2 7" mid bass woofers, and a 7500wrms @ 0.5ohm sub amp running 2 15" 2500wrms subs. And that's a "mid range" system compared to daily drivers some people have.
Why? It's an addiction.

Good luck with your install and let me know if you need a hand designing an enclosure or advice on brands.

 

The box was designed by durango boy so that the tops could fit on top of each other on the passenger side of the car... I dont have any pictures.
But they do fit... there is also a nice area infront of the box that if I did have my tops in the car I could also put a over night bag and small cooler
As you can see in the pic you can see all the room that is still available...

 

Wow...A LOT of good information here. Im going to elaborate my parameters any maybe you guys can help me dial it in even closer.

When I say aggressive, Im not looking to compete or show the car. I just want my system LOUD, loud enough to drown out the idiot 19 year old next to me whos bumping the 'yo, yo, yo mamma yo bitches yo yo gansta yo yo' rap music. Nobody expects a 40 year old white guy to crank death/cyber goth.....

Secondly, I want it simple. Head unit, an amp, maybe a capacitor, and a few speakers. I know I wont have room for my TTops, but I still need space to throw a gym bag or small rucksack.

Third, on a budget. Im not worried about using low end components as long as there isnt HUGE distortion at the top end. With my current system, all you can hear is BUMBUMP at high volumes. My vette is kind of a Frankencar hodgepodge of parts anyways, so Im not going to dump a mint into the stereo.

So, with this being said....How many speakers do I need, what kind, and what wattage. I like the 6x9 with a 8' sub box setup. (on ebay) This is the box Im looking at:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHEVROLET-CH...33059054187071.

They also make one for just 2 subs.

Using this box as a starting point, what do you guys think for an amp, speakers and such.

666WMD- thanks for all the input. Im in no way discounting your input, as I plan on upgrading the AMP and battery cables/ground, buut Im sold on that box for ease of install and availability. I can turn wrenches fine.....butchering wood is a whole other story with me....

 

1st, I like your musical taste! I keep repeating myself, this 150W sub/amp combo + 4 speakers up front give a very nice sound with sufficient bass and minimal space loss . Enough to blast 'Tumor' or 'Suicide commando' while cruising and scare people
Nick

 

Hmm, that does look like the would fit. You must put them in the Long Way, instead of side ways. Never even thought of that...love getting new ideas!

 

I Wouldnt put the 6x9 in the rear with the sub.. I think I have one of the most simple sysyems out there.. and you will still be able to fit your tops in...
I have about 700.00 in my system before install And I did the install myself..

I dont have anything special done to my wiring system, im running the 70amp alt with not one issue at all.. and I play the crap out of my system... im always thumping that thing..

And I dont here the 19yr olds BS music coming from the car next to me.. if anything they close their windows..LOL

 

You long way stacked.. works great...