What guage wire you get depends on what size amp you end up with. What amp you should get depends on what subs you go with. With 3 subs, you're probably going to want to look into subs that are dual 4ohm voice coils so that you can wire them up correctly. As far as speakers, it just depends on what you want to spend. I'm sure people could make suggestions all day long, but everyone has their own taste...so your best bet is to figure out what you want to spend and then go down to a couple of your local car audio shops and take a listen with your own ears. Look into a component speaker system (tweeter, midwoofer, and crossover) for your fronts, you'll have to invest into atleast a small 2 channel amplifier to power them though.

 

First let me say, never turn your gain on the amp all the way up, always have the sub rating at or slightly higher power capability than the amp ( like 5-10%) if you can't get a slightly higher rating then match it and by keeping the gain down just a notch you have limited the max power down so that you have made that 5-10% margin. Never turn the bass all the way up, never turn the volume all the way up with the bass turned all the way up. lastly never let your gf who knows less than you about car audio touch anything except your preset stations on your Amplified system. Ignore these guidelines if the desired result is to blow your sub.


The fosgates are just fine for a mid range system, are you going to crack your windsheild? probably not. but if your not looking to pay $500 or more per sub then fosgate is just fine. I have used them in my setups and they work out nice, you just have to use the reccommended size enclosure and make sure it's sealed with very little to no flex. The fosgate subs are factory reccommended with just about the smallest enclosures I have seen on most subs. So for a decent price and good sound ( not the best but you can definately wake up the neighbors) in a small package they work great. Some of the sound issues come from the amp, and matching the amp and sub. You can't take a sub that's response is up to 200hz and turn the amp filter to pass over 200hz it will sound like shit. also is the amp is an 800watt and the sub is 1000watt it will work but it's not the best match. make sure the amp is stable down to at least the ohm value of the sub divided by 2. most good amps go down to 1 ohm or .5 ohm stable and your probably using a 2 or 4 ohm sub so you should be ok, with the esception of running 3, 2 ohm subs in parallel then you definately need the .5 ohm stable but that would just barely be under the .666 ohms that the subs would have in the parallel configuration.

If you can find a shop that will share some knowledge, face to face, then take that knowledge and use it. read up on the subject from magazines, and on forums like this, but in the end when you have the knowledge to install your own stuff don't ever let anyone else install it for you. Your own gf abused your shit, what do you think a crimp monkey will do?

 

thanks kender. but i have another ?. is it possible for one channel not to work. i hooked both my speakers but the left speaker works but the right one doesn't. i hooked the wires up from the left speaker to the right one to see if it was the subs that wasn't working and it worked. so what im thinking is that the right channel on the amp is not working. is that possible?

 

Try Reversing The Rca Inputs Does THAT Change Working Sides?

 

It can mean either your amp's channel is bad, or your deck's output is bad. To determine which it is, test it the way GradeA posted.

 

im gonna try that when i get out of school i do remember the rca cables coming out and i jus plugged them back so i hope thats what the problem is.