Factory Sub?

[jabz]

I am not looking to replace the factory system in my BL Legacy sedan yet, no monies But I am wanting a little more Bass.

I got this sound system, just the other way round for RHD

Was looking into the factory sub woofer, apparently not available in NZ.

It's available from here http://parts.subaru.com/ecatalog/index.cfm?startyear=2006&makeid=32&manufacturerid=1001&catalogid=201&categoryid=42060&subcat1=&subcat2=&subcat3=&subcat4=&subcat5=&modelid=657&siteid=215892&itemid=19595&retval=

Or should I go for one of the low profile underseat ones, like this http://www.jonvy.co.nz/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1375 or

http://soundgroup.co.nz/content/alpine-swe-1000

I don't want to have to wire all the way to the battery at this stage, can these be powered off the headtunit, tapping into the power and ground?

I have a couple of plugs under the drivers seat, which I assume are for the factory Nav unit/Amp for the premium sound option? Can I use the power/Gnd from those?

[Flippymoi]

Any type of bass enhancement like sub or under seat rumbler etc will absolutely need its own power source from the battery. This is very easy to do though and if you are not going with something too powerfull you can get away with a fairly small cable.

DO NOT use the power cable from the head unit. You will blow the fuse or stave the HU for power and destroy the amp.

You will probably find it easier to wire from the battery to the seat than from the head unit TBH.

You should make sure that there is an amp output from your stereo first though. Not much point setting it all up to find you can't get a signal.

[resurrection.inc]

 Flippymoi said:

Any type of bass enhancement like sub or under seat rumbler etc will absolutely need its own power source from the battery. This is very easy to do though and if you are not going with something too powerfull you can get away with a fairly small cable.

DO NOT use the power cable from the head unit. You will blow the fuse or stave the HU for power and destroy the amp.

You will probably find it easier to wire from the battery to the seat than from the head unit TBH.

You should make sure that there is an amp output from your stereo first though. Not much point setting it all up to find you can't get a signal.

fot the amp output from the headunit you can wire a rca into the speaker output wires from unit (rears)

[Flippymoi]

 resurrection.inc']

[quote name='Flippymoi said:

Any type of bass enhancement like sub or under seat rumbler etc will absolutely need its own power source from the battery. This is very easy to do though and if you are not going with something too powerfull you can get away with a fairly small cable.

DO NOT use the power cable from the head unit. You will blow the fuse or stave the HU for power and destroy the amp.

You will probably find it easier to wire from the battery to the seat than from the head unit TBH.

You should make sure that there is an amp output from your stereo first though. Not much point setting it all up to find you can't get a signal.

/quote]

fot the amp output from the headunit you can wire a rca into the speaker output wires from unit (rears)

But you loose your rears in the process don't you?

[resurrection.inc]

no if you splice into them. all u want is a signal for the sub to doof doof to so all u need to do is splice into the rear speaker wires and have that running into an rca to plug into amp

[Flippymoi]

I dont think you could go to RCA as voltage would be too high. You would need an amp with speaker input terminals (I think most have them).

[Scoobydoo]

Actually you can, I've done it, although it was A LOT of pissing around soldering wires, and NOT something Id want to do again!

I did not document this and I kinda wish i had

[boon]

Full tilt, with your car running, a headunit is outputting maybe a shade over 5vrms to the speaker outputs. Which is completely fine for an amplifiers RCA inputs... oldschool Pioneers like the P80RS would do 7v on the RCAs.... just a matter of setting the gain appropriately (i.e. all the way down)

[Pappu1]

 boon said:

Full tilt, with your car running, a headunit is outputting maybe a shade over 5vrms to the speaker outputs. Which is completely fine for an amplifiers RCA inputs... oldschool Pioneers like the P80RS would do 7v on the RCAs.... just a matter of setting the gain appropriately (i.e. all the way down)

really???

i have been using this line level to rca converter..

but if what u say is true then , just splice rca wire in a speaker wire then straight to amp with low gain.....

[resurrection.inc]

 pappu']

[quote name='boon said:

Full tilt, with your car running, a headunit is outputting maybe a shade over 5vrms to the speaker outputs. Which is completely fine for an amplifiers RCA inputs... oldschool Pioneers like the P80RS would do 7v on the RCAs.... just a matter of setting the gain appropriately (i.e. all the way down)

really???

i have been using this line level to rca converter..

but if what u say is true then , just splice rca wire in a speaker wire then straight to amp with low gain.....

/quote

Thats the one

[boon]

 pappu']

[quote name='boon said:

Full tilt, with your car running, a headunit is outputting maybe a shade over 5vrms to the speaker outputs. Which is completely fine for an amplifiers RCA inputs... oldschool Pioneers like the P80RS would do 7v on the RCAs.... just a matter of setting the gain appropriately (i.e. all the way down)

/quote]

really???

i have been using this line level to rca converter..

but if what u say is true then , just splice rca wire in a speaker wire then straight to amp with low gain.....

Theoretically... I dunno how much the headunit will like it though, it's a bit of an odd one. They're designed to power 4-8 ohm loads, not the quite high input impedance of an amplifier. So it'll sound sh!tty, but no worse than a line-level converter.

TBH I've always wondered if those things were any more than just a RCA-speaker wire converter.

Most headunits just use a crappy little chip amp driven by splitting the car's 14.4v (13.8v most of the time in a Subey) power feed to give +/-7vdc which means the maximum output you can get on the speakers is a shade over 5vac(rms)... which tells us, from P=V^2/I, that into a 4 ohm load they can only do about 6.5wrms of clean power per channel... Crazy huh?

[Pappu1]

6.5wrms damm

i thought at least 20wrms on the ones boasting 50*4

(20*4 rms) hehehe

the converters - u can get powered ones which are fairly good

there are some passive ones as well with level controlls etc

dont sound bad at all in fact

[resurrection.inc]

6.5wrms damm

i thought at least 20wrms on the ones boasting 50*4

(20*4 rms) hehehe

remember thats from a standard head deck

[boon]

 resurrection.inc']

[quote name='pappu said:

6.5wrms damm

i thought at least 20wrms on the ones boasting 50*4

(20*4 rms) hehehe

remember thats from a standard head deck

/quote]

The 50x4 ones usually produce ~12-17wrms if I remember right. Open one up, there's not a whole lot of voltage conversion components in there... stepping up voltage requires quite a few bits and pieces in a DC world like a car.