help on new head unit

ipartywhenuhurt

my ...... head unit died i need to buy a new head unit and im not sure what to look for, i have everything aftermarket except for my head unit

what info would u guy need? my price range is around 300 and i love cds

all i know is i love music and cant live without my music playing (((((

pentoncm

If you can stand to wait, get the new pioneer p80prs, i think its gonna go for $350. Its gonna have some sweet tuning features. Dual 16 band EQ, 5V preout, Time Alignment, 3 way crossover.

Will be out in the spring.

If tuning is not your thing, go for something like the new Kenwood Excelon x596 or a comparable pioneer.

ipartywhenuhurt

I wanted to add a four channel amp to my system like the pa500.4 for the front since I was thinking about adding the sr6500 I have in the front and also my dxi5250 and i wanted to run another 2 channel for my back, would the excelon be able to support having up to two 4channel amps and a mono for the subs?

Thank u for the suggestions

pentoncm

The max preout you are going to find is going to be 4 for full range and 2 for sub. The exception is the pioneer p99 which is $1100 which has 8 preamp outputs. I would highly suggest going front stage + sub. It will sound much better that way.


Technically you can add Y RCAs to add in extra amps but it splits your signal in half so you will have a higher noise floor because you will have to turn your amp gains up a bit.

Your best option for sound would be to run a 4 channel amp on the front, get the pioneer so that you can go active and ditch the crossovers and rears.
Do the new PA amps let you go active? I think they do, I'll have to check on it.

ipartywhenuhurt

Im not sure on the active part, that territory is kinda the unknown scary place like bi-amping is to me

ipartywhenuhurt

If I had 4 volts and did a rca split wouldent that give me 2v which should be ok right? Cuz I know if u do a split on a 2v that gets complicated and bad sq or no sound at all, but what about a 4v or a 5v?

ipartywhenuhurt

I already have one set of sr6500, dxi5250, and dxi690 and I want to use them all in my car at least the sr6500 and dxi5250 in the front in kickpannels. And the dxi690 in the back so I need at least a 4-channel, and a two channel for the back and a mono for my 13w6

pentoncm

Ok the problem is that although the HU can output 4V, that is at full power and only going to happen with a test tone, sine wave etc. Real music will output in the 1 to 1.5V area because it is dynamic. This is why you can't just match up your amp gains to your HU output.

So 2 V is going to be giving you .75V or less of real world signal.

I would highly recommend not using more than one series of drive in the front. You should only mix when you are using the other series as rear fill.

Don't be afraid of Active.
(1) Theoretically up to 1/2 of your power is sucked up by the crossovers, active gives you all the power.
(2) You can change the crossover and slope. By using a steeper slope on a nice HU or processor you reduce distortion on your drivers.
(3) The control of your amp on your drivers (Damping) is dramatically improved.

KaosTsoc

pentoncm wrote: »

If you can stand to wait, get the new pioneer p80prs, i think its gonna go for $350. Its gonna have some sweet tuning features. Dual 16 band EQ, 5V preout, Time Alignment, 3 way crossover.

Will be out in the spring.

If tuning is not your thing, go for something like the new Kenwood Excelon x596 or a comparable pioneer.

Where did you find the info on when they plan on dropping the new P80PRS?

Thanks.

pentoncm

It says Spring on the Pioneer website.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/CD-Receivers/DEH-80PRS

1st bullet point.

KaosTsoc

Nevermind. Found it. It always help to google it, or go to the comp website before asking stupid questions.


Thanks.

ipartywhenuhurt

what does the three way cross over do? is that what you need to go active? and how do u get a slope for the speakers???
pentoncm i dont want to blow my sr's ive dreamt about them for years and i would be greatly sad if i broke , if it was the dxi or even the mm i wouldent care since i would just buy a new one but the sr6500 took me about a yr to get them and now i have them and am HAPPY

ipartywhenuhurt

the p80prs sounds really nice , really thinking about it. I would have already ordered one if they where out already, the wait is kinda a downer

pentoncm

I know that you don't want to blow up your really nice speakers.

All that your stock crossovers are doing is separating the frequencies so that the proper ones go to the right drivers. The problem is that it is a passive system meaning that it is occurring after the amplifier stage causing you to lose power. This loss of power happens because the parts inside the crossover heat up and absorb energy from the amplifier. At a minimum, going active will give you the maximum clean power to each component. In my view, as long as you know what you're doing (aka know what frequencies to use) you will be less likely to blow or damage speakers by going active. I say this because you will have more clean power available from the amp and you will be less likely to try to make it louder and clip the signal. Also there is a benefit to going active if you do in fact enter clipping. This is because if you do clip the signal when you use a passive, you send a very damaging signal to the tweeter making it possible to blow it. It is much harder to blow a woofer than it is a small tweeter. By going active you send each component its own power. Don't be worried about overpowering the tweeter if you're amp is rated for a lot of power. This is because you will not use as much power for the tweeters. If you do then you have things wrong and the music would be extra bright. At a max I would expect you to run your tweeters -3db when compared to the woofers. What does this mean? Lets say you send your woofers 75 W, that means if set the tweeters to -3db they would only be getting half of that power being 32.5W. This is only at max power. Lets say you run the HU at -3db compared to max, now you half those figures again.

The stock crossovers for the SR are 18db/octave. By using the crossover on the p80 you will be able to use 6db,12db, 18db, and 24db/octave filters. 24db/octave is what many of us use because usually the steeper the filter the better it is for sound. At a minimum you can set the crossover to the same points as the factory SR crossover which is 3.1kHz. But with the increased steepness of the Pioneer filter, sound quality will increase because of two factors. (1) you will reduce distortion of the tweeter because lower frequency information will be cut at a faster rate, and (2) there will be a smaller overlap in the crossover region between the woofer and tweeter (this helps because a smaller area is susceptible to phase interference and cancellation).

You will have a crossover for the sub, the mids, and the highs. The sub will be a LPF cutting frequencies that are above a certain point (ideally 50 to 60Hz). The mid crossover will be a bandpass which is a combination of LPF and HPF. You will use the HPF to protect the woofer from frequencies that are too low that could damage it (your passiive crossover does not have a filter like this) so you would match this to where you have your sub (50 or 60Hz). You will use the LPF to cut frequencies above 3-5khz depending on your taste (Going higher will not hurt the woofer). Lastly you will have a HPF for the tweeter. You will set this in the same 3-5kHz so that it matches where the woofer is crossed. This system is active because the frequencies are filtered before amplification.

Beyond all of this you will have access to time alignment which will help you get all of the drivers in phase and help you eliminate cancellation.

We can help you tune the 16 band EQ too which will be awesome. Active is pretty popular on this forum as well as running 31band EQ.

ipartywhenuhurt

so what exactly do i need to go active? i thought the crossovers on my prime500 did the filtering on my sub set at 60hz and if i got a four channel that would take care of the HPF for the mid woofer and the crossover would take care of the rest??

im still kinda confused i understand what your saying, but where do i get the crossover to cut the frequencies? is it in the head unit? or do i have to buy extra parts besides the p80prs ? or a different head unit?

what exactly would i need?

ipartywhenuhurt

this is what i have :

1-SR6500 ♥

1-dxi5250

1-dxi690

3-dxi124 svc (one in a t-line)

1-sr124 svc

2-jl 13w6 dvc

1-pa880

1-rf prime 500

1-pa330

2- boss audio phantom1500

1- jl 1000/1v2

1- mtx amp i dont know what it is

and no head unit


what else would i need to go active? or is this enough?

ipartywhenuhurt

whats installed in my car

dxi 5250
dxi 6500

1 jl 13w6

and the prime 500

pentoncm

The three way crossover is in the headunit, the 80prs. You would set everything electronically. The HU will limit what frequencies go out on each set of preamp outputs.

Some amps let you go active because they have HPF and LPF for each channel. This isn't as easy to work with because you have knobs and are kind of guessing about what frequencies you are using.

ipartywhenuhurt

so no external parts just the p80prs? it also takes care of the HPF and the LPF on the midwoofer? and the slope steepness? and let amps filter be full pass?

pentoncm

Yes you got it. The HU will take care of it all.

If you want to read up more on features check out this pdf
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/StaticFiles/Manuals/Car/DEX-P99RS_OperationManual0428.pdf

The manual for the p80 isn't out yet but this is the manual for the more expensive p99. The p99 has a 4way crossover while the p80 has a three way but you can get an idea of how to set it up from the manual.