ogahyellow

The best wood would be a hardwood void-free ply. But it is more expensive than MDF, but it is a lot lighter. I usually go to the lumber yard --NOT Lowe's or Home Depot-- to get mine. I just get the regular birch play they have, but I have heard talk of marine grade baltic birch as being the best. You want something with a lot of ply's. The stuff I get has 13. And don't forget to add your bracing.

Another HU idea...Clarion DXZ775USB is right around $200 new. It has 3-way + TA. Online Car Stereo has $169 refurbs. Here's the manual:http://www.clarion.com/us/en/support/product_manuals_2/index.html?pdf='../../../../../../MungoBlobs/938/650/DXZ775USB-ENG.pdf'

please excuse my ignorance about horns, but I thought the size of the mouth depends on both horn placement and desired bandwith. So In full space you need a mouth where the circumference equals the wavelength. But in 1/2 space you need half, in 1/8th space, an eighth, etc. Assuming a 30hz horn, (wavelength ~38ft) we would be talking about a mouth with a 12ft diameter in free space, but in a car, with corner loading, we are talking about a much more managable 1.5ft diameter. The idea behind the wornock is that you will also be able to use the car's boundaries to increase the effective length of the horn. The problem I would see is that you would have a much harder time getting the geometry of the horn correct, and figuring how to fold 9.5 feet into a managable enclosure for a typical car. If i was into SPL, I think it would be worth looking into. But since not, I'll leave it be.

Well everyone's title was "Hello", so I decided to do things a little different. Anyway I have a car, it has my second system in it. It is an old maxima and came with a Bose system. I thought it sounded great, until it crapped out and since it had 1-ohm speakers, it meant getting a head unit and new speakers too. That was maybe 2 years ago, so now I'm rolling in my ultra-budget system. It's more of an experiment always in progress. This week I sealed my doors and also got the circuit diagram for and built a PWM LED Dimmer so I can make my ride ultra-sexy for the ladies. lol. Anyway, I lurk here and DIYMA for the knowledge, and at CA for the drama. So hello all! and thanks!

I think if I knew now what I did then, I'd feel the same way. Looking at your sig, I see you are running seas fronts. I would feel much safer buying something like that used than what I did get. As long as you do enoughh research he should be fine. I'll admit it took getting burned to learn my lesson. Learning how to get good gear on the cheap is a lesson in of itself...

I just sealed my doors this week using the plexiglass method. Instead of using liquid nails which is permanent, or silicone adhesive which took too long to set up when I tried it, I used 3M Weatherstrip Adhesive (http://www.tooldiscounter.com/ItemDisplay.cfm?lookup=MMM08011). It sets about 10-15 minutes after you put it on, and it has held up good so far. Something like it kept the water shield attached for as long as I've had the car (6 years), so I hope it works as good as the OEM. Working the plexiglass was pretty hard on some parts with compound curves, I just couldn't get the heating right. I ended up cutting the plexi to cover the big holes in half to get all the curves right. I've never used FG, so I can't comment as to the relative difficulty, but I will say that re-routing and anchoring the wires, cutting the plexiglass and moulding it, and then attaching it to both of my front doors took me a long time -- about 4 hours. The first door probably took 3, the second one was a piece of cake after the first one. I also don't have any deadening in the doors, because I really can't go for it when my car only needs to last until December. But after they were sealed I contemplated running without a sub. Lol. Yeh right!

you could try the whornok: http://www.decware.com/whornok.htm that site also has some other stuff on horns. Some people have apparently tried to use the horns in cars, but I don't know how much it would work as compared to a room. with a car you get serious cabin gain, and the sound doesn't work the same way as in free air.

check this out: www.bcae1.com/fuses.htm that should answer all your questions and help you with how big of fuses you need. Personally, I'd fuse them all. I'd rather be safe than see my car catch on fire. I'm pretty anal too, but I don't know how far anal would carry me in an accident...

I'm with sqguyib here. Just read up and try to find some good deals. I'll tell you this though, I would NOT buy anyone's front speakers used. I have gone used 3 times and each time I got less than I expected, whether it be something is loose, broken, rattling, whatever. For $500 you can have a system that will bump, but you will have to do the work for it to sound good. I put my first system together with less than that. My most expensive item was the wiring since I wanted 0 gauge because I knew I was going to upgrade. A lot of people will hype you on an expensive sub. Really I don't get it...how loud are you going to listen to it? IF you are trying to impress your friends I doubt they would know the difference. The best thing I think I've done for my stereo was to seal up my front doors. Then I got bass without a sub. It made me realize that a sub should be playing an octave or an octave and a half at most. Why should I outspend everything else in my system for this great sub? Anyway... look at the PG RSD 65cs they are like 100.00 shipped on ebay, or the pioneer ts-d1720c on newegg.com, they are like $112 shipped. For an amp, sqguyib mentioned the cerwin vega exl line. They are cheap but have the same board as the ARC audio stuff that goes for way more. You can get a 400.4 for like $90 shipped. So we are at $200. You could probably pick up whatever wiring you need of the forums for about $50, so $250 for an amp and sub, and box. Box you can build yourself, so figure a sheet of MDF and glue $35. Take this ED sub off special http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_info.php?products_id=721 for $70 and figure $30 shipping which leaves you about $100 to find a used amp to run it. Voila, everything under $500, and you get almost everything new and it will bump. You can use the left over budget to send me a 6-pack. The best part is the experience of it all. To me, you gotta start somewhere, and I wouldn't wanna start buying the expensive stuff and have somebody with more experience on a budget leave me pwnt.