tremorz

Sup fellas, well.......i will attemp to keep my stock head unit, attach a RCA converter to a bass output wire on my stock head unit harness to run to an amp (jbl) that will power 2 subs (jbl). The RCA converter is about 12 bucks, and an AMP kit is about 50 bucks. I already have the subs and amp...and an EQ if i need it just incase my stock head unit wont give enough BOOM to my subs =)....now this should be very simple...all i need to do is find a good bass output wire on the harness to attach to the RCA converter....then run the RCA wire into my amp, and ofcourse wire up the amp blah blah

ok...so.....any tips? comments? suggestions?

i really dont want to mess around with my head unit by putting an aftermarket...even though i have a nice 7" lcd flipout tv head unit, i rather keep my stock head unit for the clean factory look...but still have a thump in the trunk

-2006 cobalt ss s/c fully loaded.

lorenwade

I wish you luck, but the problem you're facing is the crappy speakers they come with stock. You can replace them, but then you're getting poopy power from the crappy stock stereo.

I personally would not add bass to the system unless I could upgrade the entire sound, but you're being hindered by that stereo either way.

Maybe I missed something?

tremorz

i see what your saying, thats why i have the EQ to boost the bass but not distort the stock interior speakers, i also have a crossover handy if i need to filter and clean any sound. i only wanted some more bass...and not do some serious messing around with the harness behind the radio...i also wanna keep my steering controls.

i figured this to be the most cost efficient way, under my circumstances ( i have most of the stuff like the amp, subs, eq, crossover) to get some nice sounds from the trunk

lorenwade

Alright, well, its also about sound quality. Me being the self-proclaimed audiophile I am, I say that amp puts out dirty signals (for the internal speakers).

If all you want is more bass, have at it, there are setups that can take the sound from your back speakers to give you some bass. Depends on what you want to do/spend.

Also note that in the near future there will be aftermarket stereo hookups for the steering wheel controls.

One thing I forgot to mention, is that those RCA things sound like crap.

tremorz

i hear ya, but i was thinking i could tap into the wires connecting into the stock pioneer woofer in the trunk...rig up the rca converter there...wire up my amp to the battery in the trunk and never have to go behind the head unit.....i was assuming the wires to the pioneer woofer would have a decent bass signal considering its mainly for the woofer

tremorz

i had an RCA converter powering a JL with a factory head unit in my old stang, and it brought out the full potential, i guess only 1 way to found out the outcome of all of this....
JUS DEW EET!@!~!!!~!!!#!@@!!

lorenwade

Except those things sound like crap. Even if you connect to that pioneer amp, you're still getting dirty sound, with the RCA adapter on top of that. Thats going to be the worst bass anyone has ever heard.

Cobalt4Life

Actually i did the same thing as the guy who wrote this post wants to do. I have a LS model, I have a setup that I have had for awhile brand new.. The subs I mean.. A friend sold me 2 10 inch JBLs with homemade box, 400 watts max on each sub. I got it all for less than 80 bucks.. Now here is the funny part.. My cousin had a amp that he didnt need. A old 200 watt jensen amp. He works for a place that does car repairs, builds parts, all around car and home and business type crap. He had all the wires, fuses, all that junk, and so we digged around, found a old rca to speaker wire adapter for the amp. He hooked the adapter to my rear speakers that came on the cobalt, then hooked the adapter to amp, you can figure the rest. I also bought some power accustic tweeter which had a built in crossover, hooked it all up. Did some adjustments. And bamm, it sounded great, seat thumping bass. For a 80 or so dollar setup, man did it sound good. Not as good as his POLK MOMO setup, but good enough for my first system. Tweeters and fronts mostly for highs, backs as mids, and trunk subs as lows for the bass, and believe me people can hear it from outside, and if you don't believe me, I will show anyone the setup. I carpetted it myself, looks like crap, but still it works for me. I call it my "Ghetto Box". I had to put a piece of wood pushing the box inbetween the box and middle of trunk because of fear of movement and cables ripping out. I will take some pics soon and show everyone.. The carpet job will get a lot of laughs but not once they hear it thump. My future setupd will be some POLK MOMO 12's and a bigger amp, but for the time being until christmas, I will be good till then.. And I get no distortion, only if I turn it to the max and with the amp on max with max volume, a little bit under though, it sounds great..

tremorz

i am bypassing the stock amp completely, who said anything about the pioneer amp? im finding a bass signal to convert it to RCA to lead to a JBL AMP. the amp will power 2 subs...its not an uncommon process....RCA converters are common amoung high end vehicles that want to keep stock head units...bmws....benz...and audi and VW more over because in those cars the alarm system and other eletricals are tied into the head unit harness.

UnstableSS

I have 2 12" and a 1000 Watt Sony amp .. i just spliced into the rear deck speakers (the Amp has a setting for low power speaker in).... hooked up to the battery and ran a toggle switch up front to swithch amp on and off (don't use it all the time). Sounds OK and loud when i want it.

DV8MTSP

Alpine makes a vehicle hub that comes with a cool I-Drive like controller. The unit make the stock system accept any of alpines equipment, inicluding amplifiers and signal processor that'll even allow 5.1 dolby decoding.

I plan on doing this with one 5 channel amp form Memphis Amp. The amp puts out something like 75x4 and 400X1 or somethin like that. nice insides and it should sound awsome

SRT-S2K

Why do you keep saying the LOC sounds like crap?

tremorz

i really dont know why he keeps saying that, if a LOC is enough to power a w7 with some serious bass with a stock H/U...i dont think thats crappy sound lol

mesatrin

Because they do. The speaker lines are so full of noise, and the signle is not clear. That leads to distortion. They make signal procesers for a reason. They are for people who care about sound quality not just boom.

If all you want is boom than the converter is all you need. It doesn't sound that way since you were talking about an EQ. An EQ can only do so much, it will not clean the signal (some will try but they still are far from perfect) it can only really regulate frequenceys to speakers.

If this is the setup you want and you want to keep your stock head unit I would get a signal processor rather than just a converter. I would then also get a 4 channle amp for your interior speakers, because I think they will be drowned out. The processor would also let you do front rear and sub with just one unit rather than one converter for each.

SRT-S2K

But I dont think he's looking for a lot of bass, he said he just want a littke more boom like one good 10 or 8. Other wise he can get a JL amp that runs off of low signal input(slash series).

SRT-S2K

But you are right about the distortion, but that really only applies to the door speakers, cause the subs really run off distortion.

lorenwade

Subs run off of distortion?

Distorted subs sound terrible. There's nothing worse than a distorted sub.

SRT-S2K

Subs sound terrible when the sound is out of range for the sub