System Overview
This
section provides an overall picture of the sound system, why individual
components
were
selected, how they were set up and why.
My
full ICE set-up...
Panasonic
RD925 head unit, JBL GTO 602 6.5" two-ways in custom built kickpanels,
Kenwood
KFC 6976 6x9s in parcel shelf, two Kenwood amplifiers (KAC628 & KAC728)
in
purpose-built
boot install, Legacy 12" subwoofer in custom made ported box & fully
integrated into boot install, system controlled by 12 band Longmill crossover/EQ.
System interlinked with Autoleads competition RCA's, with power supplied
by 80amp OFC cabling and gold fuseholders. Rear wings, boot hatch,
and doors fully sounddeadened with a mixture of expanding foam, sound-deadening
matting and rubberised undercoat.
The
total effective output of the system is at least 400wRMS, with potential
peaks
of
in excess of 800w...
Firstly,
I selected a Panasonic RD925 head unit to provide the source, this has
every feature you need - RDS, EON, Tape search, etc., its also comes with
an infra-red remote control, which is handy when both setting up the system
and showing it off! A Kenwood KAC628 amplifier is used to get some
serious wattage into the kickpanel mounted front speakers. The amp
will easily put out 50wRMS into two channels, So a quality set of JBL GTO
602's were used here. These are excellent two-ways which give masses
of mid-bass and a wonderfully clear mid-range and treble...(please see
'building the kickpanels')
Onto
the bass...
Bass
is often a sticking point for many. The main thing to decide is whether
you just want to compensate for the bass lost though road noise (in which
case fit a single 8" sub or similar), or do you want to turn heads from
a 100 yards, crack the pavement and generally draw attention to yourself?
Well,
as I'm sure you can guess, I chose the latter!
Here
I faced a tough decision, Should I opt for the punch of two 10" subs or
the power and low bass of a single 12"? In the end I went for a single
12" Legacy LWF12 Subwoofer, this will cope with an input of 250wRMS and
a peak of 450w, and will drop below 20 Hz, so all in all I felt this was
going to do the job...Now i needed an amp to power it...
I
chose a Boss Sound 480w, which promptly overheated and died, as did the
second, and now within 3 weeks of finishing the whole install the 3rd has
died...As you can imagine I'm not too pleased about this, So I'm going
to ditch the Boss amp, and I've got a Kenwood KAC728 amp ordered and on
its way...This was a fairly major blow, Now I'm faced with an amp build
that won't fit and has to be re-done, but still, now at least I'll have
two matching amps which should look pretty classy. Anyway, when it
worked the Boss + Legacy Set-up, did really pump out some massive 'street-cred'
bass, From the brief tests I conducted, I gather that the 'thump-thump'
of the bass was audible from a good 150yards, and I'd certainly turned
a few heads from that range. Hopefully, the Kenwood will provide
around 100wRMS more into the sub than the Boss was capable of, so that's
quite an increase in terms of power, so therefore the granny-baiting ability
of the system should increase a nice bit!
The
sub itself was put in a 1.81 cubic foot box, ported and tuned to 45Hz.
(see
'building the subwoofer')
Components Used
