Alright guys as soon as the CD7000 comes out im going to be getting one and I want to go fully active once I get it. What do I need to know before I do this? I want to wire everything up this week while I am on break.

heres what my system looks like:
Rainbow Profi kickbass comps
Arc xxk4150
Alumapro Alchemy MX 12's
Arc xxk2500

Any help is appreciated!

 

Sounds sick. What are you waiting for, do it.

 

lol well I dont have time until next week, but what exactly do I need to wire up when doing this?

 

You need speaker wire going to each individual speaker/tweeter

active = no more passive crossovers.

Is the 4150 bandpassable?

 

Right I understand no more passives.

Im not sure about the 4150 though...

Couldnt I just go full range on it then use the xovers in the HU?

 

I suppose thats a possibility. Use the front input on the amp for tweets and rear for the midrange.

I'm imagining the cd7000 could have that type of workability but I haven't played with one yet so I can't be sure.

 

Alright well do you still think that I should run the wires this week not knowing either of those answers?

 

You should HP the tweets , BP the midbasses and LP the subs from the deck itself.

Set ALL chs on the amplifiers to FULL RANGE.

*** WITH THE EXCEPTION if you would like another wall of defense and protect your tweeters from ever seeing freqs it may harm them from an accident or deck malfunction- set the HP on the tweeters on the 4150 to ~1800-2000hz to be on the safe side.(likely you'll never set them lower than this anyhow)
Just be aware that whaever xover slope value you select on the amp will become 'stackable' onto whatever you use on the HU. This is actually a great way to achieve a 30db,36db, 42db or 48db slope IF needed. Same goes for other speakers.

 

So what crossover slopes would you recomend I use?

Edit: what freq should I set each speaker at as well? And do you think that there is a good chance of blowin the tweeter this way?

 

Thanks Manny. It was either you or Don that would clarify.

That deck makes things so easy.

 

If you look at Rainbows site its xover freq used on the passive xover are
2400/18db HIGHPASS on the tweeter, 2400/18db LOWPASS on the midbass and Leaving the HIGHPASS adjustable by you- but Rainbow recommends a 80hz/12db HP to be used with their Kickbass driver as lower value to be used.
http://car.rainbow-audio.de/products...=2&pro=1&lin=4

I'm confident that tweeter can play at least 2khz 12db slope the lowest.

There is no right or wrong way to do it. You have to set it by ear. This is YOUR vehicle and its acoustics may fare better with diff xover points. I say start with the same xover points as Rainbow uses, you should right away hear a huge difference simply by the fact that the filtering is being done digitally and you are not losing power to saturation of the passive (as well as the Halo protection on the profi xover)
Simply play around with the tweeter between the 2-4khz range, using diff slopes. Dont be afraid of leaving a gap or overlap between the mid and tweet- as long as it sounds good to you.

 

Manny got it right. Oh, and I don't think anyone answered this...You'll need to run 3 sets of RCA's from HU to amp...one for mids, one for tweets, annd one for the sub, as well as the speaker wires you'll need, as has already been said.

You'll love active...playing with crossover frequencies and slopes is fun, and can make such a difference. Also, like Manny said, you never know what might sound best till you play with it.

I would leave amps on flat (no x/o) and just make sure you set and save everything to some basic safe settings before you turn the volume up...and don't mess up

 

djfrestyl now wishes his AVN was active capable.

 

You can, just use your amps xovers. Actually nm, you would need an external with bandpassing capabilities....

 

Righto....

 

Right I understood everything about the wires and RCA's. Im just not to sure about the xover points etc. I am prob going to have alot more questions when it comes to tuning this, but I prob wont have the HU for a little while still.

 

Your answer is in post 11.

 

That doesnt sound to hard. I already removed the tweeter protection with in the xover so I dont have to worry about that anyway. What do you mean by the xover saturating though?

 

The filters used in the xover consume power/dissipate heat....whereas the filter on the hu is done digitally to the signal and power goes straight from the amplifier down the wire to the speaker.

 

oooo alright I understand now so you think that there will be a big difference in SQ?

 

I believe so yes... but that would lay solely onto you. A predetermined xover point(on a passive) cant work optimally for a set of speakers in every single, different car. Thats the point of going active. To better utilize a specific range of a speaker to get optimal performance from your speaker locations, in your car.

Rainbow is actually one in a few companies that I know their R&D dept uses 4 diff vehicles in their speaker testing/development . But in general a passive xover is desgned to give you optimal performance on axis , on a parallel plane being say 6" apart no more. So when you dont have that luxory and throw the vehicles acoustics(oem locations/resonances/reflections) you have to compensate with tuning.

 

Alright cool im sure that I will have more questions once it comes time to tune...