Monsoon Experiment, A work in Progress

**MadSeason** · 11-01-2005, 04:42 AM

So like some of you out there you're speakers are dieing, but now what to do.
The Goal, Retain stock look and have premium sound on my 2000 Formula Firehawk

Well the monsoon system is rated at 500 watts, but that's peak power, and there's 10 speakers it has to power between the head unit and the amp, but it's not exactally 50 watts per channel either. So what to do.

To keep everything 2 Ohms I'm going with Infinity Kappa 60.7cs components for the front doors. They're rated at 90 Watts RMS and come with their own passive crossover which has one input and two outputs (tweeter and woofer)

For the Sail panels I'll be going with Elemental Designs Eu-700 DVC 4ohm speaker, when wired up just like the stock DVC it will be 2 ohms also. They are 100 watts RMS and I'll be making my own passive crossover for them.

For the rear speakers, well I really don't give a damn about anyone who sits back there since it rarely happens long enough to enjoy the stereo. And well there's not enough room back there to put on Barry White and get down with my hot lil lady so, I'm taking those out as part of my experiment.

So normally there's 10 seperate channels for the audio, 2 in each door, one in middle, and 2 in the back. I'm cutting down to 4 Channels. One two each Door and one in each sail panel.

To get the full potential out of the amp I still want to use all the channels, otherwise I'd be underpowering the speakers and risk ruining them. To do this I will need to bridge a couple channels. I have a few tools from an electronics class I took in college and I'm going to put them to good use to see exactly the best way to balance the power to the 4 speakers ( I'm counting the door woofer and tweeter as one since they ride off one input into the crossover and run at 90w rms)

I will bridge the rear channels with the middle woofer and the crossover will help with any sounds that aren't supposed to be there and give me insurance incase they are underpowered and clipping occurs (which I will be able to tell with my tools) The front 2 channels will be bridged into one and hooked up to the input of the crossover for those speakers.

Now the factory amp doesn't have that much rms power, but when you bridge channels on an amp you actually take the original channel x4, if the world was perfect this would mean I'd be pushing 125 watts rms to each of my 4 Channels now, but in actuality it will be roughly 87.5RMS, just under the wattage ratings of 90 and 100 for my speakers I'm using.

I'll keep anyone who's interested in the outcome updated and answer any questions. I don't want to get to technical here with Ohms law and such, just keeping this easy to read for any one who's messed around with the system before. I don't know the correct way to bridge the channels yet as the amp wasn't designed for it, basically I'm going to do trial and error to make sure the speakers aren't out of phase espically the DVC woofers in the sail panels.

That's all for now, just waiting on the last shipment of speakers to arrive

Ed

**DrMilhouse** · 11-01-2005, 07:09 AM

good luck with that

Just as an "If I remember right" the only speakers that are really run off the amp are the two sail panel speakers and those are the only speakers that are at 2 Ohm.

**boone94** · 11-01-2005, 12:06 PM

I wouldn't recommend going with the infinity kappas. I had the best ones installed all around in my old car (97 Camry) and was not pleased with them.

**MadSeason** · 11-01-2005, 01:50 PM

I've used the kappas in the past and was very pleased, also they're all 2ohm as I've replaced just about every speaker with a stock one

mcG · 11-02-2005, 06:58 AM

i've been running infinity kappas for a few years, 60.5 components and 63.5i midranges, and have been very happy. and they are only running off the head unit, no amp.

**slayer6x6** · 11-03-2005, 03:27 PM

let us know how it turns out.

**MadSeason** · 11-15-2005, 09:41 PM

Well I've found out the front tweeters and speakers in the rear all run off of the Head Unit at 4ohms, the only thing the amp powers are the woofers in the front and sail panels, might try making a seperate crossover to put power to the front tweeters at 2ohm off the head unit only and just reuse the amp for what it already powers... might also consider replacing the amp with a 4 channel one and just run 2 line out connections off the head unit to get it to work, don't want to loose functionality of the 12 disc my swapping out head units unless I could find a compatable one. So i'm left just scratching crap out on paper right now

-Ed