[echo1434]

Aftermarket stereo upgrade - pull on electrical system?


I'm currently in the process of upgrading to an aftermarket stereo system and was hoping someone could provide me with some info on how this could impact the electrical system of my car.

I have a 2009 1LT with most of the available options - the major exceptions being no 6-speed and no sunroof. My first step in the upgrade is to add a single-DIN JVC head unit (probably KD-R900) and a sub, along with the harness and all the other gizmos neeeded to keep the standard functionality of the Malibu.

I'm planning to run a 500 RMS amp on the sub(s), and possibly a 400 RMS amp for some interiors. I'm just wondering at what point, if any, is this going to start wreaking havoc on the electrical system? And if so, what kind of problems will I be facing and how serious will they be?

I was even considering getting a 750 watt sub amp, but I fear this may be overkill. I just know that once you get beyond a certain point, there are issues. Being this is a Malibu-specific forum, I was hoping someone might have some first-hand knowledge about this.

I know that in the more extreme cases, one may need to get a high performance battery and/or a more powerful alternator.

On a related note, I cannot find the specs for the Malibu's stock alternator. Everything I've found says "not determined" for the amperage. Needless to say, that's not very helpful.

Well, any info or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Pyro]

i'm running my interior speakers off an alpine head unit (18 wrms / ch) and a 350 wrms zapco amp to a 12" sub set to half gain. the lights dim when i run the amp hard...so i need a cap somewhere south of 175 wrms. i've run 129 dB with this same amp and a used infiniti 1230 subwoofer...so 750 wrms is not only overkill, but it's a needless expense.

regardless of your gear's continuous max output, your power consumption is based on your listening level and speaker sensitivity. i.e. a 100w amp won't use any more power than a 50w amp at the same listening level (around 90 dB). the 100w amp will just be at a lower gain. with typical speakers, it only takes a few watts to get there. my head unit will get the job done, with a little less headroom for transients.

even a jl 250/1 will move a 12" VERY well. i use a dayton 12" titanic mkIII home theatre sub from partsexpress.com. their reference and ho speakers are even better suited to cars - and they're $125. they have huge magnets, and huge excursion.

for a higher quality head unit, expect to pay around $400. look for a 24 bit DAC, 3 pairs of rca outputs, and i learned that usb connection is important. my alpine cda-9887 only connects with an ipod, and i need an extra cable to charge while driving (a 4 hr drive isn't the same with 1 hr of music).

hth

 

[dmw2692004]

i'm running my interior speakers off an alpine head unit (18 wrms / ch) and a 350 wrms zapco amp to a 12" sub set to half gain. the lights dim when i run the amp hard...so i need a cap somewhere south of 175 wrms. i've run 129 dB with this same amp and a used infiniti 1230 subwoofer...so 750 wrms is not only overkill, but it's a needless expense.

regardless of your gear's continuous max output, your power consumption is based on your listening level and speaker sensitivity. i.e. a 100w amp won't use any more power than a 50w amp at the same listening level (around 90 dB). the 100w amp will just be at a lower gain. with typical speakers, it only takes a few watts to get there. my head unit will get the job done, with a little less headroom for transients.

even a jl 250/1 will move a 12" VERY well. i use a dayton 12" titanic mkIII home theatre sub from partsexpress.com. their reference and ho speakers are even better suited to cars - and they're $125. they have huge magnets, and huge excursion.

for a higher quality head unit, expect to pay around $400. look for a 24 bit DAC, 3 pairs of rca outputs, and i learned that usb connection is important. my alpine cda-9887 only connects with an ipod, and i need an extra cable to charge while driving (a 4 hr drive isn't the same with 1 hr of music).

hth

+1 Basically sums up everything.

My suggestion: get a second battery instead of a capacitor if you are going to be running a high end system. One thing I noticed was that my malibu's lights dim even when I roll up a window or turn my wheel quickly. The electrical system is incredibly weak, and its embarrassing sometimes when I have people in the car and all the lights dim when I drive because we rolled down a window, or because I am turning the wheel.

This is why:

http://forum.realmofexcursion.com/electrical-charging-systems/17919-why-you-dont-need-capacitor.html

these guys know their stuff.

 

[Ktrace35]

the electrical system in this car is extremely weak. i put in a 7in touch screen new interior speakers with an amp and two 12" L7's and an amp. i mean im putting out 1900rms but i have a yellow top optima a 10 farad cap 0 gauge wiring and upgraded ground wires and still cant get the lights to stay on. i have my local chevy dealer getting me information on a new high output alternator. and someone said add another battery, that will just make it worse cuz the stock alternator can hardly keep one battery charged let alone two..

 

[Pyro]

interesting article on caps! i'm a mechanical engineer...if you need me to redesign your engine...lol. the article did lead me to iasca.com sqc. i'm really looking for sq, and the rules and competition will take me to the next level.

i think it's a good idea to get a better battery...and put it in the trunk. anything to kill our terminal understeer!

echo, you don't mention your intended app; spl or sq. fyi, i just called gm parts, and the alternators are either 115 A or 125 A. the 2.4 has the 125, while the v6 depends on option level. all batteries are 600 cca.

just remember, great speakers are expensive, and wattage is cheap. to make more profit, av companies sell cheap speakers, and cheap but powerful amps. clean wattage costs money.

my alpine head unit's thd is 0.008%. i'm having a heck of a time finding an amp with same, or less distortion. even focal's solid 4, audison lrx4.5 is ten times that! i'm working on a 100 wrms/ch amp with 0.0009% thd with crazy bandwidth; i expect to spend a lot less on it too. but i digress.

 

[dmw2692004]

interesting article on caps! i'm a mechanical engineer...if you need me to redesign your engine...lol. the article did lead me to iasca.com sqc. i'm really looking for sq, and the rules and competition will take me to the next level.

i think it's a good idea to get a better battery...and put it in the trunk. anything to kill our terminal understeer!

echo, you don't mention your intended app; spl or sq. fyi, i just called gm parts, and the alternators are either 115 A or 125 A. the 2.4 has the 125, while the v6 depends on option level. all batteries are 600 cca.

just remember, great speakers are expensive, and wattage is cheap. to make more profit, av companies sell cheap speakers, and cheap but powerful amps. clean wattage costs money.

my alpine head unit's thd is 0.008%. i'm having a heck of a time finding an amp with same, or less distortion. even focal's solid 4, audison lrx4.5 is ten times that! i'm working on a 100 wrms/ch amp with 0.0009% thd with crazy bandwidth; i expect to spend a lot less on it too. but i digress.

I think you can get into a little higher of a % for the thd spectrum before you even notice it..

 

[echo1434]

echo, you don't mention your intended app; spl or sq. fyi, i just called gm parts, and the alternators are either 115 A or 125 A. the 2.4 has the 125, while the v6 depends on option level. all batteries are 600 cca.

Huge thanks for getting that info, and to everyone for their input so far.

Well... 125 A seems pretty good compared to a lot of cars, but if a lot of that is already being by other devices then maybe not so great.

I'm all about sound quality here. I don't listen to music at deafening volumes — I just want a clean and powerful sound.

For starters, I'm going to get a JVC KD-R900 deck, JL 500/1v2 amp, and a JL 10W7 sub in a sealed enclosure. I'm hoping the the JVC head unit (4 x 20 WRMS) will clean up the sound of the interiors a bit. It will also allow me to route away the bass frequencies they can't handle. And yes, this does have a USB input!

The reason I went for one single 10W7 is because it seems to have a lot of output/excursion for a single sub, and I'm trying to conserve trunk space.

I'd really like to leave it at that to minimize power consumption and keep things simple, but if that's not good enough then I'd probably add something like a 300 WRMS amp to power a new set of interiors.

I'm not exactly sure how the wattage all works here, but if I'm not blasting my sub at full volume (which I'm sure I won't be), it won't be pushing the full 500 watts, will it?

But no, I can't see myself ever trying to push more than 900-1000 watts at the absolute max, so hopefully I won't run into some of the problems described above.

 

[dmw2692004]

Huge thanks for getting that info, and to everyone for their input so far.

Well... 125 A seems pretty good compared to a lot of cars, but if a lot of that is already being by other devices then maybe not so great.

I'm all about sound quality here. I don't listen to music at deafening volumes — I just want a clean and powerful sound.

For starters, I'm going to get a JVC KD-R900 deck, JL 500/1v2 amp, and a JL 10W7 sub in a sealed enclosure. I'm hoping the the JVC head unit (4 x 20 WRMS) will clean up the sound of the interiors a bit. It will also allow me to route away the bass frequencies they can't handle. And yes, this does have a USB input!
The reason I went for one single 10W7 is because it seems to have a lot of output/excursion for a single sub, and I'm trying to conserve trunk space.

I'd really like to leave it at that to minimize power consumption and keep things simple, but if that's not good enough then I'd probably add something like a 300 WRMS amp to power a new set of interiors.

I'm not exactly sure how the wattage all works here, but if I'm not blasting my sub at full volume (which I'm sure I won't be), it won't be pushing the full 500 watts, will it?

But no, I can't see myself ever trying to push more than 900-1000 watts at the absolute max, so hopefully I won't run into some of the problems described above.

what kind of door speakers are you planning on putting in? I would highly recommend amp'ing your door speakers and not running them off of the head unit if you want sound quality.. Also.. check out elemental designs for some amp and subwoofer solutions.. their door speakers/components are a bit pricey, but its all worth it.

Amps:
http://www.edesignaudio.com/index.php?cPath=1_22

I suggest pairing the nine.4 with the nine.1

Subwoofers:

http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_info.php?cPath=1_21&products_id=30

11kv.2 in a sealed box would work awesome for your application..

or you can look at putting one or two of these:
http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_info.php?cPath=1_21&products_id=785

in a vented/ported enclosure for awesome SQ.

 

[Pyro]

consider your jvc sends 20 wrms to a door, being split to two speakers - 10 wrms to each- and the crossover eats some power. so you with less than 10 w, think how loud it gets. when you put a 100 w amp in, you still use <10 w in normal listening. any amp will give you more than enough power - just make sure thd is much less than 0.3% (audible distortion). <0.03% is a good start.

you have a 24 bit dac (excellent) and 3 rca outputs (excellent). since you're using external amps, your head unit is basically just a cd player. any sound quality will come from the amps and speakers.

i find that car audio is over hyped, and/or underperforming. look at some home audio speakers. at $65 each, the aurum cantus is top quality at entry level prices: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=296-410. morel makes excellent tweeters. most of your enjoyment will come from high quality mids/highs. the higher the sensitivity, the better a speaker reproduces music. research products and reviews.

the w7 powered by a 500/1 is an excellent combo for spl. however, at normal listening levels you'll have to turn the gain down so low, you might as well get a 250/1, or the sub will overpower the interiors (seriously, I use 105 of my 350 w). the dayton 10" ho sub will keep up with the w7 for normal listening, so is it worth 3x the price? http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=295-462

 

[Someguy]

Phoenix Gold has to be one of the best amps ever made. Very low distorted wattage. I do kinda like the class d amps though that we out now BUT old school amps are the way to go.