audio-neon

I wouldn't suggest the epicenter to anyone with a decent subsection.

No degree=no decent job=flippin burgers or welfare that enough for ya man? J Study or else you will end up like me stuck in a hospital wiping ass, and dealing with crabby smelly people everyday.

Once again in Jacob's team, I will probably be the most abusive to the amp, as I will be stuck in street A, Single battery and car off... For bassrace, i'll definitely be staying in a lower class (129.9) knowing that I only have 1 battery and a single alt... This is mostly hypothetical as I'm not even sure yet if I will be competing in 09.

For an sq project I have been planning, I plan on picking up a mach 5 ixl18.4 and a saz-1500d and going infinite baffle.

orange, blue, orange, orange, orange, orange, orange, yellow

oh and as all competition amps are I would sell it with no warranty, except that it arrives in working condition. I know this sounds harsh but anything more than that would be a testament to your committment to your company and product.

You can blame Wayne and the new street Class restrictions.. I know I really would love to see a 5kw+ amp that is built to be as efficient as possible and due to the amount of power actually being applied to coils after impedance rise it would almost be impossible for the amp to see less than a 1ohm load. Street A competitors really need ~5kw @ 1ohm... And a competition grade amp really needs a stress in efficiency. I know that I was willing to pay over $1800 dollars for a DD z1 and wanted nothing to do with the z2. The bigger class competitos will be looking for raw power. If this is for next season, when you get a price figured out let me know.

read that big thing that ///M5 just quoted WoW people are really behind the times... Trucks didn't just start taking e85, they were actually some of the first platforms to see flex-fuel engines. I have a 99 Ford ranger in my driveway that uses e85, and the only way to make sure you get even similar gas mileage to 87 regular is by mixing the two at an almost 50/50 ratio... You actually spend more using e85 over the course of the month (especially if you do a lot of city driving, and also when its colder).

Painkillers? For what? Damn it feels good to be a gangster. well my dad had back surgery and he gets a ton of hydrocodone thru his insurance and he gives me some because i too sometimes have back pain but to be honest i do take them even when i have no pain..lol LOL, have you ever openned a drug book and look at the side effects/ long term effects of things you carelessly pop? I just felt obliged to point this out as I work in a hospital but i'm not near a drug book to list them all out for you.

You have a few options regarding your headunit. You could use the factory headunit and line output converters, using seperate eq's etc... You can buy the metra kit, gain a little storage cubby (possibly moving your hvac controls a little bit (I'm not an installer and don't know escalade's consoles off of the top of my head. Seeing as your budget is $3500, I would suggest going with a less expensive double din unit like a pioneer avic D3, Alpine IVA-w205.... So lets say you spent $1000 on a headunit, you could still spend 6-700 dollars on speakers and pick up a memphis audio belle amplifier. Headunits are generally a 1hour install tops, front speakers, the same. A mdf and carpeted box will run you ~300. Grab a group 31 optima yellowtop for a battery. The reason why I am suggesting a 5 channel amplifier is because you will get more out of your money in this case. After talking to Mach 5 audio I would suggest an ixl series 12 if you are looking for some sq that can get pretty loud with less than 1000w.

Look at hertz space series 8" midbass if you want thin, I think it's a wopping 1.75" deep (probably less)

If the new eclipse piece is anything like their old stuff it will be amazing, I'll look at the feature list later today and determine the differences between the 880prs and the 7200mkII.

WoW, I agree, I like it a lot... I'll have to check on the price later today... I know I have my 8455 again, but it might take a back seat to this new piece.

happy birthday

currently sitting at work, craving a nice jack & coke.

His original post, last 3 words. I was just trying to make a point that if he decides to do anything custom it can get very expensive. Most people don't realize when they walk into an audio shop that there is more than just replacing speakers in stock locations. There are always cheaper options, q-logic kick panels for example would probably cost ~170 dollar but improve the front sound stage dramatically.

well unlike best buy and other box shops, Most audio shops charge by the hour. Install costs are normally the most expensive part of any custom project. I'm not against sound deadening, but in all of the escalade builds I have seen it is very minimal due to the efforts cadilac put into reducing road noise. one thing I forgot to mention, most audio shops offer a discount on the labor rate if you bought the equipment from them. back about 5 years ago i had a 1999 denali and in it they installed 4 jl audio w7's,5 autotek amps,2 sets of component speakers,flip out head unit,flip down tv,all around dynamat,alarm,, and highout alt, and box, and charged me $2000 for the install..and they had my truck for 2 weeks..only because it took forever for ohio generators to send my alt..we waited about 8 days for it.. time to get this thread back on track... as you can see install costs greatly vary from shop to shop, especially dependent on where you live in the country/world as well.

Sorry for the derail in my last post, Another question would be are you trying to keep this classy like the ride itself, in that case I would suggest either vinyl wrapping the same color as your interior on a hardwood veneer the same color as the steering wheel wood.

well unlike best buy and other box shops, Most audio shops charge by the hour. Install costs are normally the most expensive part of any custom project. I'm not against sound deadening, but in all of the escalade builds I have seen it is very minimal due to the efforts cadilac put into reducing road noise. one thing I forgot to mention, most audio shops offer a discount on the labor rate if you bought the equipment from them.

Lets start off with some basics: Headunit... cheap to expensive it basically comes down to some basic features. Do you want bluetooth Ipod capability HD and/or satellite radio (than only certain brands support xm/vs sirius) Do you want navigation Can you fit a double din Do you need adjustable colors ( to match with your gauges etc) How much equalization and sound shaping do you really need. Now for speakers, find a set of tweeters you like. Mid-range is the easy part and almost always sounds good. Stay away from anything with lights in the speaker. Tweeters come ina couple different types. Tweeter location is up to you (doors, kicks or a=pillars are common choices). For amps, I ALWAYS choose a company that has great customer service/warranties as this will most likely be the first thing to break in a system, subwoofers are normally second if they are abused. (or first if truly overpowered) Labor rates are normally between 50$ an hour and 85$ an hour on custom work. Fiberglassing projects are exponentially more expensive and doing massive plexi glass things gets very expensive quick. The cheapest box coverings are veneers, carpet and vinyl wrapping. Most shops will only run 1 run of 4ga. power/ground. If you are going to use a system capable of more than 1500 watts insist on 0ga wiring. Take a look at the wiring, A good shop never uses quick connects (on alarms and starters), always has exceptional cable management (shrinkwrap, wire ties, electrical tape etc). If you get a chance look at their tools, is the install area pretty clean, do they have tools set up well or just strewn around. As for quotes, always get a written quote, take it home and sit on it for a day or two. Don't tell other shops you visit the prices you got from the other places and keep them all. When you are ready to spend money go back to the shop that was the most professional, they will almost always match their competitors pricing (although not on labor) and you want your vehicle to be treated with care. So now that that is all said and done. Decide how much money you really want in an install. My first car was all fiberglass and pretty plexi with led's everywhere, Ironically I spend 3900 dollars on my first sq car so I know this budget point pretty well as it took me 3 months to finally decide on exactly what I wanted. Head unit will be ~300 dollars for a decent piece, don't be ashamed to pick up a model from last year or a floor model (one that is out of box on display). Buy something you can look at day in and isn't soo complicated you will never figure out the features. And one of the biggest things to remember when shop shopping is that this is your car and you shouldn't be pressured into buying something you don't want.

Yet you forgot to tack on an extra 8-16 hours for the damplifier so another 600-1200dollars just in labor for sound deadening?

I love my audio-shop. We have hertz, audison, DD, image dynamics, pioneer, kenwood, eclipse, massive audio, a ton of diamond audio equipment laying around, all kinds of fun stuff, and a 30 minute drive gets me access to RF, mbquartz, jbl, kicker, etc... so all the big names are close by. I am also friends with quite a few fun people, a guy in mass with a yugo that does like 152.7dB's, and my personal favorite audio car is Jeff and Kristen's Image dynamics camaro... and well of course there are my cars, lol.

Mach 5 ixl's SSA Icon Fi Q those are all right around 300$, If it were me with 3500$ I would be leaning towards a mach 5 ixl. For amps I would do s saz-100.4 and saz-1500d for components I would do hertz hi-power series components, mb quartz qsc's or jbl c608mkII components. Now we need to factor in about 2 days of labor for a full install (erroring on the side of caution). So basically after the 1200$ in labor, and 400$ in parts/wiring and miscellaneous supplies you have a nice 1800 or so dollars for actual product. Do you plan on adding a better battery, big 3, or even an alarm/start... Are you having a box built for you? For rear speakers I would feed them deck power and use a co-axial of the same family of speakers.

There are sooooooo soooooooo sooooooo many cars that do 20+mpg average. And they don't have to be small, my dad's intrepid does 31mpg with a mixed commute (highway biased). My neon does 26mpg with no downstream o2 sensor and while being driven hard. Our jeep liberty does over 24mpg and is mostly driven in suburbia. My brothers truck does better than 20mpg on the highway. I know for a fact the viper does not get 20mpg, lol. And on the same note if you don't feel safe driving, do you live in a hostile driving environment (la/ nyc)... I have taken an omni glh down and in manhattan before (I was 19) and I felt safe driving the car. Now a cavalier on the other hand.. lol.

I think you are talking about those circular multiple-leds that shine in a 360* radius, but not up or down. I know we have used a ton of them in installs at the shop behind my house. Somewhat, I was thinking more like if the plexiglass is thick enough you could mount them on the ends pointing toward the center and have a fiber optic effect so the plexi carries the light and lights up the etching when it hits it. So your lighting up only the etching in the glass and not obstructing the view of the internals. I dont know just thinking out loud. Seems like Ive seen it done like that somewhere. You could do it that way, but don't forget that led's are directional.... I tried doing an edge lit plexi cover once and you could tell that there were brighter lines and duller lines. Basically with the led i'm talking about its the size of a dime and you just drill about 1/2 way through the plexi and put it in there (behind something like the jbl logo in this case) It works like countersinking a screwhead, has lighting on all 360* and looks sick.