I'm on the fence on this one. I enjoy my tunes...but this may be too much technological advancement. LOL But seriously I've been considering doing this exact thing on mine. Ditch the head unit and go with something a bit more subtle. The problem with my current setup is the engine noise overpowers the stereo. Thinking about doing some insulation to help with that.
Its funny how times change, 15 years ago I put a stereo in my Impala and it was huge, 2 subs, 6X9s and tweets , giant amp. This looks so much more appealing these days.
I need a new PAC IS75 for my system. Where did you find it for $24.99? I can only find them for around $40 which I think is pretty steep for a few wires.
Now if this would only work with a flash drive. I have CD players in both of my truck woth flash drives and 4 gigs of music on shuffle with go a entire 1 week of vacation with out a repeat.
I had a 63 Galaxie that had a 12v generator and I had a stereo head unit at 55w per channel x4 with 2 6x9's and 2 6" mids and a 600w 2 channel amp with a pair of bazooka 10" subwoofers hooked to it. worked good for about a year then the Gen took a poop. But yes it did work for a year and I really listened to music very loud then. Moral of the story here is that with a modest system like Ryan's I think a generator would be ok.
Great tech article! Ive got to get this done in the roadster! I tried to stay traditional but this thing is skipping like a mother!! Oh! Can this be achieved on a 6V system? I really dont want to swap over to 12V on my 54 chevy just quite yet!
Some real Stereo fanatics still look for the old tube amps to get good sound. Most of those amps and speakers were what most here would consider very low wattage. Most of us couldn't tell tell the difference between the best of those systems and the best of the modern systems even in a sound studio let alone in a Hot Rod. It's sort of like the wine connoisseurs who after the second glass of wine couldn't tell the difference between a bottle of vintage wine and a bottle of Gallo. Not to slur Callo because I have been told that there wine is pretty good anyway. I do not drink any of it. All of this to suggest that when it comes to a sound system in a Hot Rod unless you are going to listen to it with the engine turned off it won't make much difference what you use to reproduce the music. And if you do run it with the engine turned off you better get some extra batteries if you want to run kelowatts. Kilowatts is a measure of power just like hp. 1,000 Watts = 1.341 hp at 100% Alternator efficiency. How much hp do you think it takes a cricket to keep you up all night. It takes very few watts to generate High volume music if the Speaker is efficient. Just like hp can be used efficiently or unefficiently the same holds true for Watts of power. In years past Public Address speakers were rated 15 to 25 watts of power to blast out sound. Why then do we now require 200 or more watts in a car. It is because since the 60s there has been a Watts war between the Manufacturers. Talk about planned obsolencence. Sales Marketers have taken it to a new level with planned numbers. I can here a manufacturers engineering meeting in 10 more years. Someone will say that the competition has just introduced a 100 megawatt 24 channel automotive system. What do we do now ? They make more powerful Amps. and less efficient speakers. Anyone older than 20 will know that this is true. I will run a low watt amp with low watt speakers and get more volume than I can take anyway. Even though my hearing won't be able to tell the difference neither will most of the others listening.. One of my uncles had a very expensive HiFi, not even a Stereophonic system and classical music sounded like you were there. I think it was 25 Watts. At 15 to 25 % volume it would about break your ear drums. 100 Amps and 12 volts will produce 1200 watts at 100% efficiency. An alternator uses about 2 to 4 hp. If you have to run a 100 Amp alternator just to run your sound system in a car that limits sound quality anyway how much hp are you wasting. I understand that I will probably stir up the high power stereo people but why bother wasting all of that power in an environment that doesn't lend itself to quality sound anyway. It's like putting a parachute on a stock VW Bug. Have mans ears progressed that much in the last 50 years that we can hear better than man did after WWII when the good sound recording became available. I am very hard of hearing and thus I am no judge of sound quality but it wasn't always so. I used to enjoy music classical and contemporary and had a good ear for it. I knew people with a brass ear who couldn't tell a sour note from a good one. I also went and heard Symphonies in person and some of those HIFIs were very close to live in their sound reproduction. And when the first expensive stereos came out I doubt that many could tell the difference between them and a live performance. Every one spends their beans the way they want to but I would rather have an efficient low cost sound system and save my beans for vehicle performance. I realise that in a magazine write up 1000W stereo looks better than 25W stereo just as 800 hp looks better than 200 hp in a Model T Roadster but practicality has a quality all of it's own. Dick
Nice job! I have replaced the Ipod with a MP3 4gb player, I have issues with Ipod's! Same basic thing though.
I am working on installing a mini CD player inside a 1948 under dash mounted Philco radio. The stock radio dial will flip up to install the CD, then close. Stock knobs and no outside modifications. Cloth wiring and small bulbs mounted behind the dial give it the classic look. I have two other radio cases that I will be installing a full size CD player in as well. More projects then a hen with her chicks.....LOL.....oops that's my Nebraska talking...I mean a school of fish.......
Got this deal in the dash of my '55 Chevy pickup after seeing the original tech post HERE a while back - Ipod is velcro'd to the back of what was the ashtray door, flips down to reveal the Ipod, and closes out of site when not in use, at a cruise in / show etc. Amp is under the seat, speakers on either side of the seat and the knob on the stock radio (inop) was replced with the new volume control.
Oh crap, I have 1000 watts of stereo power but the 455 is only making 500 hp, I didn't know I needed 800 hp to match up to the 1000 watts. Unless you know of a source for some highly efficent tires, looks like it's time for a 6 71 on the Olds. I know what you are talking about as far as speaker efficiency. Did lots of car stereo stuff back when a punch 45 was the amp to use, just use highly efficient speakers.(45 watt Rockford that was a 1 ohm stable amp) I wear ear plugs to kill the wind/quickchange/exhaust/road noise. When you are running 80 mph with all the noise going on it will take a lot of volume just to be able to hear it. When you cruise around town you can hear the system and it sounds very nice at low volume. Overkill? Proably so... but so is 500 hp in a 2350 pound car.
Very nice integration Ryan. As far as the efficiency talk goes, you're comparing two different kinds of wattage as well, some very high end home amps have a rated output of 1watt, and they can get 10 times louder than 100watt systems of today. There's more to it than just the numbers and too much to get into on this thread. The best sounding system I ever heard was a total of 50 rated watts and including the $250k room it was in, the system ran a total of right at $500k. Completely overkill, but I'll gladly go listen to music there any time I get the offer. Great article, hopefully it inspires a bunch of you guys to add some tunes to your rides, there's nothing like the perfect song on the perfect road (a hot passenger helps the equation too).
I think that a great idea .............but whats wrong with just throwing a deck in the glove box and poking a small hole in the cardboard insert to run wires ? than you can play cds listen to the radio or a i pod or any smart phone with pandora for that matter .. plus a deck prob puts out more watts by 4 in case you wanna run 6x9s in boxes under the seat and tuck all your wires neatly away this way you maintain the stock interior look. Plus total cost from a pawn shop,and wire from your local auto supply would be i dunno 100 bucks max .
Mainly cuz I don't want all that crap in my glove box. I drive this car every day and need the glove box to hold all my shit.
my setup is similar to what ryan has. except I am running two amps.. one amp is 2 channel and drives 2 6x9's and 2 5.5" speakers (although if I had room I would run 4 6x9's) the other amp runs bridged to a single subwoofer. (if I had the space I'd run two) my system is LOUD.. personally I didn't like having my i phone on the seat so i moved the iphone jack to the glovebox.. where other gadgets are "hidden." the neat thing about the iphone is that you can run the ipod and SOME other apps at the same time.. in the photo above I am using "dashboard" app.. to display vehicle speed.. while the ipod is playing.. props to tokyo for taking this photo.
well i guess also the volume control on the dash is sweet as fuck because i can either charge my ipod and not have volume control without reaching over and lowering it or not charge my i pod and have volume control .And my daily is a f 100 and its a bitch reaching over to turn it down .
i did the same setup in my 39 coupe before we went to st.george utah for the early ford v8 club nat.meet in oct. works great!
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