First upgrade question

[wannabe]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I ran a search and couldn't find it. I'm probably going to have around $500 to start with my stereo system and that has to include the alarm. I think I can only afford decent speakers OR a decent head unit. Which is going to give me the best bang for my buck until I can afford the other? Also, are the alarms with pagers worth the extra money?

[jasonG]

Speakers are the first thing to replace. I have the "pager alarm" I think it was worth it!

[CAMAROWIDBASS]

a pager alarm is worth it but the range is limited.

If your going to go with a pager alarm might as well go all out and buy something name brand. Stay clear of the cheap pager alarms. Go with DEI,Viper etc...

An alarm like this will run you about $450 installed.

[new2thegame]

i spent 400 on my whole audio setup other then my deck look on my car domain site to see it all go to the 2nd page

[holland]

I would recommend a Clifford alarm, and you could go to ebay and find one at a reasonable price. Clifford as well as other name brand alarms have been taken over by DEI. I have had good luck with Clifford and they are fairly easy to operate/program. I have also had an UNGO alarm(pretty cheap) and got all of my equipment stolen.

As for the stereo, I would go with a nice headunit and not try to buy everything at once.

if you want info on clifford, viper, python go to www.directed.com

[T-Punk]

Do your Headunit first (make sure it has enough preamps for you to build up your system how you want it) then buy an amp and speakers that are matched (this way you can get the right speakers the first time and not under-power them which can be as bad as overpowering them). then get an amp and you subwoofer system if that fits you system. then yo can equalizers, a cap, crossovers (if needed), and anything you might need to tune your system and keep it running perfectly.

[user1101]

Originally posted by T-Punk:
...you can get the right speakers the first time and not under-power them which can be as bad as overpowering them).

Eh.... kind of.

Providing a driver with less wattage than it's RMS spec won't harm the unit at all. What causes damage is clipped signals that strain the cone material. If an amplifier's gain is properly set, then clipping should never be an issue, regardless of the specs of the amplifier.

That being said, overpowering a driver is always dangerous because you run the risk of exceeding the mechanical limits of the speaker materials. It's an easy way to tear a cone.

"Underpowering" is only dangerous when you turn the gain up in order to compensate for the lack of power and begin to clip your signal. But if you do that, it's a stupid user error -- not your amplifier's fault.

[wannabe]

Originally posted by user1101:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by T-Punk:
...you can get the right speakers the first time and not under-power them which can be as bad as overpowering them).

Eh.... kind of.

Providing a driver with less wattage than it's RMS spec won't harm the unit at all. What causes damage is clipped signals that strain the cone material. If an amplifier's gain is properly set, then clipping should never be an issue, regardless of the specs of the amplifier.

That being said, overpowering a driver is always dangerous because you run the risk of exceeding the mechanical limits of the speaker materials. It's an easy way to tear a cone.

"Underpowering" is only dangerous when you turn the gain up in order to compensate for the lack of power and begin to clip your signal. But if you do that, it's a stupid user error -- not your amplifier's fault. </font>[/QUOTE]I have no idea what you just said.

[user1101]

Originally posted by wannabe:
I have no idea what you just said.

Alright, let me try again.

Underpowering is only dangerous if your amplifier is clipping.

Overpowering is always dangerous because you might blow a cone.

Some people like to know why, wannabe. It makes an explanation more credible.

[CAMAROWIDBASS]

Originally posted by user1101:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wannabe:
I have no idea what you just said.

Alright, let me try again.

Underpowering is only dangerous if your amplifier is clipping.

Overpowering is always dangerous because you might blow a cone.

Some people like to know why, wannabe. It makes an explanation more credible. </font>[/QUOTE]your more likely to blow a sub/speaker out from underpowering it that from over powering it.

[user1101]

your more likely to blow a sub/speaker out from underpowering it that from over powering it. [/QB]

&lt;sigh&gt;

[LARRYfireBIRD33]

USER is correct here. If you consistently OVERPOWER a speaker, it will most likely blow. If you underpower a speaker, it will only blow if you turn up the gains on the amp too much. Turning up the gains sends a clipping signal which is harmful to speakers. That is how you blow a speaker by underpowering. For instance, my CDT Eurosports carry an RMS rating of 150 watts. I'm only feeding them 100. But I have the gains on my amplifier only about 60% up. They are playing beautifully and (knock on wood) are in no danger. They get PLENTY loud with my eclipse deck turned up to 57 out of a possible 80. If I were to turn the gains on the amp up to 100%, I'm sure i'd be having a set of blown eurosports on my hands within a few months.

[96firebird311]

Ahhh.... I always love these posts. Nothing like a good debate. [img]smile.gif[/img]

As far as I'm concered, you're all incorrect. You cannot blow any speaker by underpowering it. That's why it's called UNDERpowering. Confused? Tell me, what is clipping? In short, it's MORE POWER. So 80W highly clipped could technically be equal up to 160W unclipped.

Originally posted by LARRYfireBIRD33:
For instance, my CDT Eurosports carry an RMS rating of 150 watts. I'm only feeding them 100. But I have the gains on my amplifier only about 60% up. They are playing beautifully and (knock on wood) are in no danger. They get PLENTY loud with my eclipse deck turned up to 57 out of a possible 80. If I were to turn the gains on the amp up to 100%, I'm sure i'd be having a set of blown eurosports on my hands within a few months.

Larry. I believe you are still confused as to what a gain knob is for. Having it set at "60%" doesn't mean anything to us. Doesn't mean that full rated power can't be output from your amp.

[user1101]

Originally posted by 96firebird311:

As far as I'm concered, you're all incorrect. You cannot blow any speaker by underpowering it. That's why it's called UNDERpowering. Confused? Tell me, what is clipping? In short, it's MORE POWER. So 80W highly clipped could technically be equal up to 160W unclipped.

Clipping is not "more power."

Clipping occurs when the input signal demands more power than the amplifier can provide, so it "clips" the power intensive parts of the signal. This causes distortion and high frequency noise.

Look at the time series below. On the top, the gain was set such that there's enough dynamic range to faithfully reproduce the entire signal. On the lower time series, the gain was set too high and the signal is clipped.



What happens when you perform an FFT on a signal that's flat in the time domain? You get a spike in the frequency domain. Driver's don't like to reproduce this kind of noise, and tend to self-destruct instead. That's why clipping is bad. Plus it sounds like shìt.

Larry, gain isn't measured in percentages. It's measured in decibels. Decibels are a logarithmic scale of the intensity of a measured sound per some unit standard.

Back to my original point... clipping usually occurs when someone is pushing a weaker amplifier too hard. That's where the myth of "underpowering" stems from. Underpowering isn't the slightest bit dangerous if you're not clipping the signal.

[ May 18, 2004, 07:00 PM: Message edited by: user1101 ]

[LARRYfireBIRD33]

wow, now that was a good explanation. I realized that the gains aren't measure in percentages, but I drew a mind fart and just put that down so people would have an idea. As for the clipping, that's exactly what 'i tried' to say in my other post (without the technical terms and such). Good post for all though. No need for any more discussion about it.