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So I get this new pair of nice Kevlar Pioneer 6x9's for the Accord. I'd put Alpine amps in when I bought the car and finally toasted those a while back [:D].

The stereo shop where I had the amps installed had to use a hi-level adapter as the stock head unit had no pre-outs. So there is a huge pile of wires going front to back. For the rear deck speakers, the wires don't go straight from the trunk amp to the speakers, their leads come from the factory harness and the amp feed looks like it heads up front. Following so far?

Two problems. It looks like the mono sub amp is being driven by the left front and left rear channels, which means that I'm really getting a mono feed and no low end from the right channel. Also, I can't figure out the wiring code. Does anyone know how to check phase for car speakers?

I'll be going to the shop next week because they have to move the amp rack to accomodate the new 6x9's (they had it shoved tight up against the old neodynium speakers. Just wanting to get a head's up for when I talk to their tech

Ideas?

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Michael,

The high level adapter only needs one set of high level inputs (i.e. front right and front left) and then in-turn changes that to RCA outputs to feed the amp. You should have a set of RCA's feeding the amplifier in the rear of the car, or two sets if you have two amps. Those Rev series Pioneers are nice speakers and should be a decent improvement.

Then they would have to run the speaker leads from the amplifier's output up to the wires on the factory harness to get the amplified signals to your front and rear speakers. Perhaps, this is why you do not have speaker leads from the amp directly to the speakers in the rear.

You would need two sets of RCA outputs to feed two amplifier's so they should have "Y"'d out the single RCA's somewhere coming from the high level adapter, unless the high level adapter has provisions for two sets of RCA outs but I have never seen one like that.

You will konw if the speakers are out of phase because the bass will be apparently thin and tinny sounding. To verify this just switch the pos & neg leads at the speaker and listen you should be able to notice the difference pretty easily. If you want a real amp for that car I have a stunning old school Orion XTR-275 that is 75W x 2 @ 4 ohms, 150W x 2 @ 2 ohms, and 300W x 1 @ 4 ohms. It was built to military specs right here in the good ole' USA.

Let me know if you need any more specific help.

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Thanks Charles.

They do indeed have two sets of RCA pairs coming from up front. I'll have to detail it out. The Alpine 4/3/2 amp that runs the 4 speakers has a total of 6 RCA's into it. Perhaps some are signal for the faders? I don't understand it all. I agree that there needs to be speaker level headed back up front for the door speakers, but I can't understand why the rears aren't wired directly to the amp.

I think I'd like to have the rear amp channels go to a pair of dual banana jacks that I could mount under the amp shelf. Then I could hook small leads to the 6x9's with banana plugs, alternately being able to use the car amp for mini 'in the park' PA by hooking up external speakers.

Right now I have the 6x9's crossing over around 75 and the doors at 120. The sub amp is about 100 watts Alpine mono into a sealed box behind my seat with JBL 10". It sounds pretty tight.

Any more hints? I'm not after loud, just clean and accurate.

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Sounds like you have all the bases covered, if the door speakers are 6.5" you should be able to drop the high pass crossover point to 100Hz or 80Hz without any difficulty to give you a little more mid bass snap.

My system is geared totally towards sound quality, being able to play it loud is merely a by-product of quality components and proper setup and it sounds like you have things headed in the right direction.

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Image Dynamics, USD Waveguides and others have beat them to it. They have been making them for over 10 years. They need to be installed correctly and positioned right but the effort is well worth the results! Heard a few cars with them when I competed in IASCA '95 - '97 and boy do they image nice.

My BIL Gilbert is going to put an Image Dynamics horn set (CD-1E) with the matching crossovers and 2 ohm 6.5" midbass drivers since they can keep up with the 107-109db efficiency of the horns. My all a/d/s front stage with a matching a/d/s center channel custom mounted in the cup holder will certainly give a properly installed horn set a run for the money.

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put some horns in there you klipsch speaker dude!

Don't you need to put them on the market first? [:P]

naw, klipsch is too weinie!! i make my own and do it right (of course in my opinion.)

have a blessed day,

roy

Got any test sample destined for the dumpster?

Don't throw your old horns away!

Send them to me and let me throw them away for you!

yer bud,

Michael

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Colter: We should throw this in your trunk with about 3 kw of power, it might change your mind on that single sub behind the front seat. Btw, that is my trunk with my TC 3000 15" in it.tc300015pic1no9.jpg

Wow Michael, look at the sick rolled rubber surround on that beast! Capable of some serious excursion I am sure. I use a couple of Orion 10" NT2 DVC's in a dual sealed enclosure with an Orion Xtreme XTR-100 (50W + 50W) (very, very underrated) feeding them.

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Charles. 30 mm one way xmax ( 70% of rest Bl ) and 46 mm Xmech. Titanium cone, Alu wire 3" voice coil. 10" dual spiders. Leads stitched into double spiders.

http://www.tcsounds.com/tc3000.htm

With my Soundstream Rubicon 1002 driving this, I can 'levitate" stuff off of the rear package tray. This amp is a good 'ol amp, just like they used to make. Made in the U.S. and underrated... Hungry beast though, she sure drinks the current.

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