Someone please enlighten me!!!!

angelsfann02

Looking to go back into car audio again. Have been doing the home audio thing for a while. Anyways, I have always wondered how car amps, like polk audio mono amps, can be so powerful. How can so many watts come from such a small slim package. Also, can these amps be, or have they been adapted for home speaker use? A million thanks to all of you who answer! Peace.

MacLeod

I think its necessity and competition.

In a car you need a lot more power so you've gotta put out some beefy amps. You dont need as much in the home so the demand isnt as much.

Second is home audio prices are INSANELY overpriced so even if you want more power, which is always good, chances are you cant afford it. A 50x2 goes for what, $600? God help you if you need a 5 channel! You can get a solid car audio amp like that for under $100. So its either price home amps at realistic prices so people can actually afford bigger amps, or mark them up 900%.

angelsfann02

Thanks. I am still confused, but I am excited about setting up a modest system.

MacLeod

It's just 2 different markets brother. Home audio guys that buy amps are mostly audiophiles and don't need 1000 watt sub amps as theyre concerned with accurate SQ and not so much into being loud so with no demand, you don't see NAD or Rotel putting out a lot of them if any at all.

Car audio guys are, unfortunately, generally kids that just want to be the loudest guy in the high school parking lot so they need as much power as they can get.

If they started doing SPL competitions with home audio setups, you might see bigger home amps coming out.

Jstas

Amperage. You have much more power available to you with a 12v DC system than you do with a 120V AC system.

Typical charging systems can support 300-440 amps of current. Your typical house circuit is 15-20 amps. Granted, 20 amps is usually plenty of current to support thousands of watts but you can get close to it's peak amperage quickly.

In car audio, your biggest problem is draw. Transients that require big power can tax a car charging system if you haven't upgraded the system to compensate and still run your car effectively.

Honestly though, I don't feel like going in to Circuits 101 right now or basic electrical theory. It's not really about markets but physics. The basic theory that would explain all of this should have been gone over in high school level physics classes.

As far as whether the tech trickles to other markets, yes. The current big power amps in receivers that push, say 200W x 7 channels...that came from car audio with D-class amps as well as MOSFET power supplies. Also, quite a few amp design circuits came out of car audio because the packaging constraints required small, more efficient designs.

If you've seen newer subs from companies like SVS (SVS may or may not use this, just an example) with XBL technology, again, car audio. If you've seen a subwoofer with a BASH or Darlington plate amp, again, car audio.

There's lots of stuff that has transferred in both directions. Car audio has probably provided more for home audio, especially concerning big subs and enclosure design but home audio has donated to the cause as well. Active crossover networks and regulated power supplies are a couple areas where home audio influence can be found.

As for the power levels, they are necessary. Cars are noisy and sonically hostile environments. They also have all kinds of EM and RF interference problems. There are two ways to get around that. In home audio they use shielding and some places use esoteric and expensive parts. Shielding works in car but, since DC needs a grounding point, shielding can become problematic by itself. So one way to get around it is to have enough power in not only your amplification stage but your signal stage as well to power through it. Also, road noise is what's known as "White Noise". It is a mish-mash of various frequencies that act as harmonics and can reduce signal response of your system overall by canceling out audible frequencies. There are only two ways to combat that. You can use fancy counter-measures involving extra speakers, microphones and complex sound processing equipment. Or just use enough power to blast through all the road noise and drown it out.

Sure, with 20 watts per channel you can hear stuff but you have to play it at a volume where it clips and distorts because of those high demand transients. 100 watts per channel though, now you have some serious power to be able to hear it at a reasonable level without over driving the amp on high demand transients. If you power 4 channels, that's at least 400 watts of power now. Add a 400 watt sub and you have 800+ watts of power. That's ground shaking power in a house but moderate in a car. There is also the difference between RMS power and peak power. RMS power is a value of power that is a nominal output which is what is used to drive the transducers under a normal load. The peak power level is basically a resivoir of power that will give you a good idea on how much power is in reserve to handle those transients. That's why you see two power levels on car styereo equipment. Most people, unless it's a kid trying to impress someone, will reference the RMS power levels. So when I say 120 watts, I mean 120W RMS and peak levels are more likely 180-200 watts, maybe more.

But you need that power. Mainly for subs because frequency response in the low ranges drops off steeply because of the size needed for the drivers to play effectively at an audible level. Also, those drivers are usually large and heavy so the power needed just to get the entire motor structure in motion is pretty high. Add that to the nominal power needed to attain a listenable level in a moving car and your demands for your sub are right around 200 watts at a minimum and you'd better have a super efficient sub in a well designed enclosure at that. Granted, more efficient drivers, say, like 97 dB sensitivity, require alot less power to reach similar SLP levels than drivers rated at say 87 dB.

My Lightning has 1200 watts of audio power in it. The average driver sensitivity is 88 dB for a 1" silk dome tweeter and a 6.5" woofer with a passive crossover network. The drivers are similar to what is in the old RT and RTi lines from the early 90's. However, pull the tweeter and woofer out of those cabinets and weigh them next to my driver set and my driver set will be several ounces, probably close to a pound heavier. That difference alone affects sensitivity enough that I need at least 60 watts for a 2-way, 2-driver set up. So the 120 watts per channel I have powering the full range is necessary.

MacLeod

That's a good point about amperage, hadn't thought of that. But I still gotta think that if there was a demand for it, you'd see 100x2 home audio amps available fir 1/3 of their current prices.

And arent there 1000 watt home sub amps out now? Do those need their own custom breakers? Never seen one so I don't know.

Jstas

1000 watt amp?

12 watts/12 volts = 1 amp

1000 watts/120 volts = 8.333 amps

You can see some simple explanations here: http://www.powerstream.com/Amps-Watts.htm

That's an oversimplification because it's given at a constant voltage of 120v. Lots of people say it's 110v or 115v but a house AC power circuit is typically wired with two 120v "hot" and a neutral which is wired at ground potential. Therefore it's 120v circuit and that is the U.S. standard. You can have a lower voltage system but 120v is standard and comes off of a 220v or 240v 200amp service. (220v, 200A service gives you two poles of 110v, 100A service. 240v, 200A service gives you two poles of 120v, 100A service). If you have less than that then you likely only have a 110v or 120v service at some amperage less than 200. That is an older electrical system and while it still, likely, meets code, it's fairly outdated and you'd be doing yourself a favor upgrading the service. The older wiring should still support the new, 120v service but you should have an electrician take a look rather than rely on what some guy on an Internet forum says.

http://www.misterfixit.com/hotnot.htm
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/hsehld.html

For example purposes, 120v standard it is. But, back to the example, if you have other stuff running on that circuit as well, like, say, a pre-amp, an SACD player, a Blu-Ray player, a DAC and a TV, you can quickly run right pats a 15 amp draw. Especially if everything is sucking down 1.5 amps and the newer flat screens draw a significant amount of current for back lightning anymore anyway. Especially with an 8.3 amp draw, you can see how easy it is to get to about 18-19 amps and that doesn't include your receiver.

Then again, you aren't drawing peak draw ALL the time so you can fudge it a bit and load up a circuit with more than it's rated power. You are charting dangerous territory at that point though because, like a car, you can over draw, over heat and short out your system. Possibly cause a fire or other expensive damage.

And you can get 100x2 amplifiers for home audio at a 1/3rd of the price, you just have to get it used. Most people won't be willing to pay for a stereo amp with 100 watts per channel when 5 channels is supposedly better, right? Decades ago, before multi-channel audio became en vogue, there was affordable, big power in the home market. However, the average joe's tastes are now at multi-channel so you see the big power systems there and the high powered stereo stuff is left for the more esoteric crowds.

MacLeod

Home audio amps, receivers, etc convert the incoming AC to DC and once converted its stepped down to 12V DC correct? If its a lower voltage powering the amp beyond the power supply, would that increase the amperage draw from the socket from the 1000 watt amp?

ben62670

Home amps need huge transformers to step down the AC voltage to usable levels. Then it is rectified which bumps the voltage by *1.4. So an amp with a transformer that puts out 60-0-60vac ends up rectified to about +-83vdc. In a car you don't need the huge expensive transformers so you can take the DC directly from the electrical system and use it for amplification. Using mega gage wire and some like those big fat caps near their amps you have a nearly limitless supply of DC amperage. Output devices are relatively cheap. It is the PS that cost high dollars in home audio. Well that (which has already been pointed out)and a limited amount of currant in a home electrical system. This is why I laugh at some of the claims of power some people believe in in home audio amplification.

MacLeod

Aha! Hadn't though about the power supply either. I know when I built my PC, a good, quality power supply is one of the most expensive components. Maybe I've been too harsh on home audio amp prices cause if a 40 amp PC power supply is $100-150, I can imagine how much one big enough for a 1000 watt amp would be.

ben62670

Just for the PS only(transformer,retifiers, and caps) for an Adcom GFA-555 would be about $250. That would be good enough for 325*2@4ohms or 650watts total continous. I wanted to build a high power amp for home, but it is so much cheaper to buy used. It is real expensive to buy the transformers for a high powered tube amp. Add to that the output transformers.

MacLeod

Yikes! Well there ya have it. The 2 main reasons you dont see big **** home amps is available juice out of the socket and power supplies add a few hundred to the price tag. Thanks for the education fellas. I take back all the nasty things I've said about home audio prices.....except for cables. :biggrin:

MacLeod

All car. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a reference set of LSi's but with 2 jobs I'm not home much and when I am I've got a 1 year old running around the house or I'm playing Crysis.

Plus competing in car audio is kinda pricey and I can only afford one expensive hobby.

Jstas

MacLeod wrote: »

Home audio amps, receivers, etc convert the incoming AC to DC and once converted its stepped down to 12V DC correct? If its a lower voltage powering the amp beyond the power supply, would that increase the amperage draw from the socket from the 1000 watt amp?

I was just using it as an example to illustrate the point. I didn't want to go in to further detail about what actual draw is vs. theoretical stuff because the post was already long. Ben gave a good description already.

Besides, even if the transformer converts power, it still creates a draw and needs a certain amount of power from 120v source to support the current needs on the 12v side. You can't just magically make power out of nothing.

Then again, that's why big amps for the home usually have massive lumps of spun copper called Toroidal Transformers.They are essentially inductors and they can be made quite small. However, small inductors cannot handle large power loads because of heat soak problems. They can reach a point where the heat is so great that resistance goes to an infinite level and they burn up. They can actually melt the poloidal flux threads which are the interior coil and if that melts and contacts the toroidal flux, it grounds out the transformer and you have a pretty heavy pile of copper for scrapping. That's also usually why amps have protection circuits. They cut the link to the output from the transformer when something like the coils grounding out happens because then it doesn't transform anything and just conducts power, unrestrained, in to the rectifier circuit. Not good. It starts fires when resistors and capacitors burn up and/or explode.

Toroidal inductors and transformers are electronic components, typically consisting of a circular ring-shaped magnetic core of iron powder, ferrite, or other material around which wire is coiled to make an inductor. Toroidal coils are used in a broad range of applications, such as high-frequency coils and transformers. Toroidal inductors can have higher Q factors and higher inductance than similarly constructed solenoid coils. This is due largely to the smaller number of turns required when the core provides a closed magnetic path. The magnetic flux in a high permeability toroid is largely confined to the core; the confinement reduces the energy that can be absorbed by nearby objects, so toroidal cores offer some self-shielding.

In the geometry of torus-shaped magnetic fields, the poloidal flux direction threads the "donut hole" in the center of the torus, while the toroidal flux direction is parallel the core of the torus.

The benefit to a Toroidal Transformer vs a more typical and much less costly solenoid transformer is high levels of power handling without all the noise a solenoid transformer tends to induce. But if you want big power, you need alot of windings in the coil. That makes them quite big.

Car amps, on the output circuits, use the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) in lieu of or in tandem with the solenoid transformer. The solenoid transformer is small and compact and the MOSFET circuits can greatly increase the power making ability because they are quite efficient. Like Ben said, they don't have to convert the 12v DC power to anything other than 12v DC power. So there isn't a need for big blocks of brass or steel housings clamping down coils of copper to step down voltage. They can run a solenoid transformer or even just a MOSFET circuit on a rectifier circuit to adjust the amperage that is needed. The extra is put off as heat, hence the reason the entire amp body is a heat sync.

Again, I'm over simplifying this stuff because this really is getting in to some advanced circuit design. It's hard to explain it accurately without using the proper terminology and not confuse the living hell out of people.

The first thing you have to understand when dealing with this stuff is that there are no components in any of these systems specifically built for audio reproduction except for the drivers themselves. All of these transformers, transistors, diodes, rectifiers, resistors, capacitors and whatever else are a common design in any logic circuit. That's all this stuff is, a bunch of logic circuits that change the electrical path to create a condition that either fulfills or fails the input for the next stage. When you start thinking like that, you understand that power is power and all that matters is the numbers because they will tell you everything you need to know about what's doin' what and how. The numbers explain everything and they all relate.

Electronics are governed by the laws of physics and like Scotty says "You canna change the laws of physics, Jim!"

With that said, amps are amps, volts are volts and watts are watts no matter what you're discussing, AC or DC power. However, AC and DC behave differently so while amps, watts and volts represent the same things, how they behave in a direct current environment is different than how they behave in an alternating current environment.

If you've ever seen the back of a switching, car audio display board in like a Radio Shack or a Best Buy, the older ones usually had a massive power supply capable of providing a large amount of current, not watts and volts, but current. They were big metal boxes that looked like the power supply for a welding bench because, well, that's what they are. Pull the case open and you'd have a printed circuit board with a programmable switching mechanism and some rectifier circuits in a small section in the front. maybe a couple of coffee can sized oil-filled capacitors too. Then the majority of it was this gigantic metal band wrapped around and securing what looked like an oiled or waxed, brown paper bag. Well, inside that brown paper bag were two windings for a toroidal transformer and it was about 40-80 pounds of copper. Worth a couple grand on the scrap market. The store might have been able to run a 240v 30 amp circuit to that bad boy (or maybe 2 208V 30amp circuits) and that's what it took from the AC power feed to step the DC output up to the 60-120 amps at typically a 14.4V level. That's a 120V AC to 12V DC converter otherwise known as a bench power supply or, an arc welder. Seriously.

A power inverter that changes 12V DC to 20A 120V AC is small and cheap because it doesn't need that massive hunk of copper to step things down. Alot less heat, alot less power loss too. Sometimes you need bigger for a 240V 30A supply for a portable welder or something but either way, it's far less power needed and 99% of the cars and 100% of the trucks out there have a battery and charging system that can easily support your typical 120V inverter load.

Some links for perusal:

MOSFET
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSFET

Solenoid Transformer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solenoid

Toroidal Transformer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroidal_transformer

This is how transformers work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction

And if you ever wondered how those little doohickeys that electricans have to measure the inductance or if there is even current running through a cable work? You know, the ones they just clamp around the outside of the cable and it tells them if there is juice and how much is running through it? It's basically another type of transformer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_variable_differential_transformer

MacLeod

Ain't that the truth. Just dropped $260 on a video card.

The tweaking is what I love about car audio actually. That's why I love SQ competitions. Constantly tweaking, experimenting with different stuff and all that.

But youre right, it is pretty great to sit back on the couch and listen to music the way it was intended.

ben62670

I'm running an 8800GTX 756meg and a quad core Q6600 Intel bumped from 2.4 to 3.0 stable with very good results. I think I should be good for at least a year on that. Crysis runs smooth with the occasional hiccup at near max setting.

MacLeod

I'm running a Phenom II X2 555 unlocked to 3 cores cranked up to 4 GHz along with a 5870. Crysis looks amazing at max as does Metro. You should check out DX11. It looks amazing. AvP and Bad Company 2 look twice as good in DX11 opposed to DX10.

ben62670

I don't think I can do DX11 with an 8800?

ben62670

I'm running 10 As for car audio I still have some great equipment. I just don't care anymore about great tunes in a car. I just listen to country at a moderately low level and pay more attention to my surroundings. I am getting old too!

ben62670

WOW that snuck up on me! Time to take a break. Good night

arun1963

I've gone from only car audio, to car + basic 2ch audio and finally to car + decent 2ch setup. Yes, music now sounds better at home. The ability to just close your eyes and float away without worrying about what's wrong, is liberating. Not that the sound is perfect, just that there is nothing to tweak .

The problem with my home setup is the time / opportunity to listen to it. For six days a week, by the time I get back from work and am ready to listen after a shower and dinner, everyone at home is asleep. Listening to tunes at 10pm is not an option . So I trudge down to the car and have my couple of hours. No road noise, no engine noise, no ambient noise. Tweaking is a lot of fun. It fans my OC tendencies :cool:.

For me, the biggest difference between home and car is, that one is a near field and the other a far field experience. This has a direct bearing on the dimension of the stage. Speakers placed 10 feet apart in a decent sized room will give you a much bigger (L/B/H) and open stage. Better imaging, better tonality cause you're not dealing with reflections / cancellations etc.

The nearfield experience in a small space is totally different. The stage is much smaller and closer. Imaging may not be as precise, tonality can improve (I haven't invested any time in managing reflections and I don't run a processor) etc, but inspite of all the flaws, I connect with the sound and it draws me in. There's something very personal about this experience. Totally different experience.

k.d. lang, old David Gray, Diana Krall (at the risk of getting jumped on by young whipper snappers) performing 10 feet away and 3 feet away are very different experiences. Also unlike you'll I don't have to wonder / think about getting old..........I'm already there :cool: :biggrin:

evilgenius68

you guys are alright..great to read the posts.. to the subject...?.. if our cars had the acoustics our homes had would be no need for 2k car audio amps.lol.but they dont and you must battle road, engine, wind, cargo area noise..along with kids yelling from the backseat.lol.. I personally think car audio amplification has in many ways not improved in 20 years.. sure there are more power surging speaker blowing God wheres my battery amplifiers out there then before.,.but are any of them any better than the few we had , ?I say no..lolexample. Concord, Coustic, Hifonics , Yamaha, Denon...from the late 80s were all very good amps. and some were capable of anything you could ask from them...just sayin.

MacLeod

They've definitely improved. Back in the 80's, amps were 2 channel only, had no crossovers or tuning features at all and Class D mono amps hadn't even been thought of.

JimAckley

evilgenius68 wrote: »

you guys are alright..great to read the posts.. to the subject...?.. if our cars had the acoustics our homes had would be no need for 2k car audio amps.lol.but they dont and you must battle road, engine, wind, cargo area noise..along with kids yelling from the backseat.lol.. I personally think car audio amplification has in many ways not improved in 20 years.. sure there are more power surging speaker blowing God wheres my battery amplifiers out there then before.,.but are any of them any better than the few we had , ?I say no..lolexample. Concord, Coustic, Hifonics , Yamaha, Denon...from the late 80s were all very good amps. and some were capable of anything you could ask from them...just sayin.

There's something to be said for people who cannot put a single bit of correct punctuation in paragraph.

A car's acoustics have nothing to do with the need for 200w of amplifcation. In fact, because a car is much smaller than a bedroom or living room, less power is required to generate a specific SPL level. There is more noise to battle, but that doesn't mean we need 2kW of power to combat that. My 2kW of subwoofer amplification is enough to hurt my ears and make them feel like they could bleed. It's a bit overkill.

Car audio amplifiers have come quite a long way in the past 20 years. If they haven't, explain the advent of Class D and Class H ampliiers. While not perfected, they're a helluva lot more efficient than an A/B. On the downside, there are many cheap companies that build crappy products in Asia, e.g. boss, legacy, etc. Those amplifiers are probably 10 steps back from where we were 20 years back.

Some of them can be 100% controlled by your head unit, including gain, crossover, HP/LP/FR, subsonic, PEQ, etc.

Taken from my LSi9 or LSi25 thread:
Assclown:
A person who is laughable and detestable at the same time. Usually pretends to be a know-it-all, often enhancing their stories, knowledge, experience, and every thing in between with pure bull****.

Jstas

JimAckley wrote: »

A car's acoustics have nothing to do with the need for 200w of amplifcation. In fact, because a car is much smaller than a bedroom or living room, less power is required to generate a specific SPL level. There is more noise to battle, but that doesn't mean we need 2kW of power to combat that. My 2kW of subwoofer amplification is enough to hurt my ears and make them feel like they could bleed. It's a bit overkill.

?????

MacLeod

JimAckley wrote: »

A car's acoustics have nothing to do with the need for 200w of amplifcation. In fact, because a car is much smaller than a bedroom or living room, less power is required to generate a specific SPL level. There is more noise to battle, but that doesn't mean we need 2kW of power to combat that. My 2kW of subwoofer amplification is enough to hurt my ears and make them feel like they could bleed. It's a bit overkill.

Well not really. The problem with the car is that due to all the glass, oddball speaker locations, angles and distance, youve got a lot of phase and cancellation issues. Also a car will bleed sound a lot easier than a house. Soundwaves can go right thru the doors and windows so not only is the output from your stereo bleeding outside thru the doors and windows but any wind or ambient noise is bleeding in even if youre sitting still in a parking lot. In a house, its pretty easy for it to be dead quiet and so you dont need the huge amount of power to overcome freeway noise.

So youve got a ton more to combat in a car specifically due to not only its acoustics but its mounting locations and everything else.

But youre right though, you dont need 2000 watts. Ive got 90x4 and 400x2 running right now (soon to be 90x4, 100x2, 400x4) and its plenty. I think 100 watts per drive is the sweet spot and anything over 200 is overkill unless youre wanting to use dead level gains to combat noise like if you were running speaker level inputs.

JimAckley

I guess I'm lucky/biased, because with my system pumping, all doors closed and windows up, you hardly hear anything outside. I get a MASSIVE cabin gain until I crack my windows or a door. The loss is quite shocking once I open the windows. Windows down and doing 80 with straight pipes and a 496 = the only time that having dual 15s and 1000/1s is a necessity.

JimAckley

DSkip wrote: »

I'm only running about 440 total. Even with all the attenuations, I can't complain about decibel level. I do need sound deadening though. A camaro was not made with road noise elimination being high on the list.

I'm of the same mindset Mac is in though. There is too much going on in a car to say that less power is needed in a car than in a house.

Go test drive a GM Fullsize SUV they run pretty darn quiet, starting with the 2000 models. Is your camaro the new style or older?

Jstas

MacLeod wrote: »

Well not really. The problem with the car is that due to all the glass, oddball speaker locations, angles and distance, youve got a lot of phase and cancellation issues. Also a car will bleed sound a lot easier than a house. Soundwaves can go right thru the doors and windows so not only is the output from your stereo bleeding outside thru the doors and windows but any wind or ambient noise is bleeding in even if youre sitting still in a parking lot. In a house, its pretty easy for it to be dead quiet and so you dont need the huge amount of power to overcome freeway noise.

So youve got a ton more to combat in a car specifically due to not only its acoustics but its mounting locations and everything else.

But youre right though, you dont need 2000 watts. Ive got 90x4 and 400x2 running right now (soon to be 90x4, 100x2, 400x4) and its plenty. I think 100 watts per drive is the sweet spot and anything over 200 is overkill unless youre wanting to use dead level gains to combat noise like if you were running speaker level inputs.

What he said.

Also, strap up 90 watts to a pair of bookshelf speakers in your home and see how loud it gets. You need far less power for effective listening levels in a typical home than you do in a car.

JimAckley

I guess I'm lucky enough to have a well-dampened car. It's not dead quiet, but I'm not overrun with noise, and I'm saying that despite the fact that I have a 496ci V8 (bigger than either of the motors used in the Corvette) with straight pipes (no muffler). I could see road noise being an issue in older cars (the 90s comes to mind), but it seems they're putting more sound dampening into the newer cars. I actually had a difficult time running wires for my CB when I had a bumper-mounted whip because of the sound dampening materials installed in my car. Another noise source I've stepped around, which anyone can easily do the next time they need new tires, is swapping out from the OEM tires to some BFG All-Terrain T/A KOs, which actually run really quiet for an AT tire... much quieter than the Dueler H/T highway tires that I had on it before.

My speaker locations in the middle row are less than ideal, being at the height of my shin, so I suppose that could be counted as an "oddball" location, but that doesn't really come into play for the driver. Plus I've got some 4" coaxs in my rear pillars to bring highs into play for the rear passengers, which for the most part solves that issue.

My front stage in my '99 Tahoe was my favorite, but the front stage of my Yukon isn't bad either. Factory mounting locations for tweeters is a little "meh" because they fire along the windshield, but at least they're not using one of those dual-cone speakers down at your feet. When I had my full JBL system in, I had front pillar covers made to aim the tweeters at the passengers, but I sold those to my friend along with the rest of my GTi components. I'll get him to take some pictures to show you sometime.

I agree with you guys that there are more obstacles in car audio, but they're not that hard to sidestep around You guys are kinda making it sound harder than pole-vaulting with a coffee straw. My point is that it's really not that bad. I get more-than-sufficient volume levels with my OEM Bose system, which I'm guessing spits out probably 60wpc RMS. It's definitely not as powerful as my JBL/JL install I had in there, but it does keep up just fine when I roll the windows down on the highway, and is more than enough with the windows up.

MacLeod

I guess it depends on what we're talking about. If you're just talking about sheer output then yeah, that's not that hard to get. A factory radio has enough power. to get loud enough to damage your hearing.

If youre talking about sound quality then that's a different story. You're not going to get great tonallity, staging and imaging with mids firing into your legs and tweeters in the B pillars.

I can also guarantee you that you're not gonna make Diana Krall sound 3 dimensional to the point where you can almost feel her breath, with her imaging out in front of you, up high and with her band spanning the width of your car and maybe even beyod, with stock speaker locations powered off a head unit. There's a huge difference between a loud stereo and sound quality. I can take the mufflers off my V6 and itll be as loud as your ride but that doesnt make it as powerful.

Trust me dude, I've been chasing this goal competitively for the last 6 years and it is a big challenge. It takes power and precise speaker placement.