[Sami3]

Hey Im a 20/f in Australia, brisbane/gold coast, I have a 3 maxx sport bought 2 days ago. I want to put a sub in I love the way bass feels/sounds in a car. I dont wanna change the stock headdeck or the speakers. I like some techno some popular stuff.
Do I need an amp?
Would it be better with one?
Do i need to change the wiring?
Any suggestions on a sub brand/size?
Anyone tell me what is still legal here? one 12? two 12s? one 15???
Any suggestions on a person/company who will do the install for me? Ive watched it done many times and helped out too but I am just not willing to put my brand new car in an amatuer (ie:me) 's hands.
Thanks guys

xxx Sami :blue:

 

[gar187er]

Do I need an amp?
Would it be better with one?
Do i need to change the wiring?
Any suggestions on a sub brand/size?
Anyone tell me what is still legal here? one 12? two 12s? one 15???
Any suggestions on a person/company who will do the install for me?

1.yes you need an amp
2. see answer above
3. change isnt the word, but add wiring, yes.
4. depends on what you're looking for... 10"/12" are the norm.
5. legal!?!? its illegal to have a subwoofer?
6. any local stereo shop, or chain store can do it....

 

[krstofer]

Is it illegal to have subs in australia?

 

[Sami3]

krstofer - love the nick btw or is that actually how your parents spelt your name? lol but no ill not illegal to have a car sub in australia. to an extent. I have a feeling anything over 2x12" or one 15" is illegal or maybe it has something to do with the power rating... ALl I know is show quality set ups are illegal to drive around with is they are connected to your battery or turned on.

gar187er - so i dont need to change the wiring to like 8 gauge or 4 gauge? aparantly its 10 atm. i thought maybe that wasnt good enough. I think ill just get one 12". Probably in a ported box.

xxx Sami :violinbash:

 

[operator]

Lot's of good info here:
http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=40202.0
http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=4796.0

 

[krstofer]

Hi Sami,

No, I've spelled it that way for about 11 years, since college. I did name my son krstofer though.

That's weird about the power rating. in the stated, you can only get a ticket for noise if it is too loud and the police want to give you a ticket. Otherwise it is perfectly fine here. You may want to ask that question in a thread in the australia section.

 

[geewhizbang]

I just put in my sub, and it wouldn't get you into trouble in Austraila, but sounds great.

I kept the stock HU. I just replaced the fronts with some good, high efficiency components, and the rears are now disonnected and the highlevel output routed a 300 watt RMS class-D mono sub amp powering a 12" Parts Express subwoofer driver.

The amp is mostly loafing. I have played it for an hour and it is still cool to the touch.

I have about half of the excursion of the usual car sub setup, but there is still plenty of bass feel, and with the doors closed, you can't hear the system except when you are right next to the car.

Which is as it should be. You are hurting your ears if you can hear it down the block with the doors closed, as so many kids here in Seattle like to do.

I will probably eventually add some boost to the front with another amp.

 

[krstofer]

Why did you disconnect the rear speakers?

 

[operator]

My guess is he doesn't believe in rear fill. Some people don't want their sound stage to come from the rear. Me I'm one of those opposites not only did I leave mine in I changed them out and amped them.

 

[krstofer]

Yeah, me too, I like to be surrounded by sound. I changed the reares to 3-way speakers and amped them.

 

[operator]

I'll admit mine are more used to fill in my lows for the times I don't have my sub. And it's worked like a champ since I haven't had a sub in 3-5 months now. My highs (front) are also amped with 150rms while the rears are at 75rms.

 

[krstofer]

Ahh, I try to never take my sub out. If I have to, I change the output on to my doors to add lows. otherwise they are mids and highs, however I don't think they are tuned the best they could be.

 

[operator]

[quote author=krstofer link=topic=65819.msg1129043#msg1129043 date=1167749884]
Ahh, I try to never take my sub out. If I have to, I change the output on to my doors to add lows. otherwise they are mids and highs, however I don't think they are tuned the best they could be.
[/quote]

Well I've got 3 kids (not they don't go in the trunk) and strollers and such that have to go back there sometimes.

 

[krstofer]

Yeah, that's why I bought an MPV. lol. I try not to take the 3 with the kids. Only local transport.

 

[operator]

Yeh we usually drive the wifes car too.

 

[geewhizbang]

I am quite surrounded in sound precisely because I eliminated the rear speakers.

You should try it sometime. You actually get a soundstage that way. If you put speakers behind you, especially if they have a tweeter, you basically eliminate the stereo effect. This is NOT a matter of opinion. It is simple physics.

As I said, the ONLY reason why rear speakers ever were used was the wimpy output of most car speakers at the time. That is no longer the case.

BTW with the stock system I was forced to use the rears, because there was insufficient output from just the fronts. It hardly affected the imaging since the stock tweeter was mostly useless anyway.

But that is not the case with my 6.5" round Focal Access components in the front.

 

[krstofer]

The thing with stereo is, sometimes music is engineered for left/right and front/back. I have plenty of songs that move the music from speaker to speaker. Eliminating the rear speakers prevents your from enjoying the music at it's fullest.

 

[geewhizbang]

Unless you have replaced the head unit with something that does surround sound, you only have two channels: Left & Right.

There is no front-rear separate channel. There are controls for the fade, but it is a volume adjustment only, they are actually the same left & right channels.

 

[krstofer]

Ok, all I know is what I hear.

 

[geewhizbang]

If you hear some front to back changes, it is because of cancellations and/or differences in frequency response between the front and rears, so you ear is assigning some instruments behind you and some in front based on the relative loudness of the sound.

So basically, your observation is proving my point -- you are getting a confused sound stage with four speakers instead of the sound positioning from left to right like it should be and your brain is trying to make some sense of it by locating some instruments in back of you and others in front. If you like that, I guess it is fine for you but I don't.

There are also occasions where your brain can make no determination at all where the sound is coming from because of the confusing arrival times from two sources of the same sound.

In most music performances, the performers are always in front of you, so stereo does a pretty good job of recreating the sound field. There is really no need for rear speakers.

Surround sound makes more sense for movies, so that you feel immersed in the movie, and can hear things like footsteps coming up from behind you. That is not possible with stereo. But it requires 6 distinct channels: Left , Right, Rear-Left, Rear-Right, Center, and Subwoofer, and this usually requires a DVD for the source. Almost all head units, including the Mazda OEM unit, are stereo only.

There are digital decoders that take a stereo signal and create artificial rear channels, but the effect is less than realistic. The Mazda head unit doesn't do this. It just sends the same left & right signals to a total of four amplifier modules.