# Old School treasure found, should I go active?



## quietmouse (Dec 12, 2008)

Hey!

With help from browsing this forum I installed a nice system in my Grand Marquise this Christmas. I spet two weeks working on it and then a tree fell on the car a week after I was finished and totaled it. I had owned the car twom months.

I went out and bought a Honda fit now and I don't want to add the heavy weight and power hungry setup I had in the Big Merc into the svelte fit. So I am Back to the drawing board.

For the last five years I have driven a Volkswagon Vanagon that had a fantastic stereo in it when I purchased it. To avoid buying all new equipment I went out to my old Van yesterday to investigate what was in it. I found a Nakamichi PA350 http://www.geocities.com/p9019/nakamichi/Brochures/PA-350_Pg02.html mpunted under the dash and a set of a/d/s component speaker mounted in the back. There is a set of a/d/s plate speakers mounted in the door. Firing up the system it sounded good and clear even though I am sure the battery is weak. The paper on the speakers looks a light grey as if it has faded with the years but the surrounds on the driver looked fine.

What I am considering is installing my new head unit into the fit. (alpine 9887)
Installing the a/d/s/ components into the front doors, and running them off the Nakamichi amp. I am very unschooled on active setup's, I last ran this unit in the merc with polk MOMO components with the passive crossovers. I am assuming that running these components actively would mean dedicating one channel eack of the amp to the MID, Mid , Tweet, Tweet.

In addition to that I would run one sealed 8" woofer in the hatchback area off another amp.

My questions are:

Would this setup of two channels up front and a sub in the back sound better (in your opinion) to running four channels in the four doors with passive crossovers?

The a/d/s speakers are old but sounded pretty damn fine to my ears, can they handle being independantly driven by the Nakamichi amp? Would this damage the amp or speakers?

I will definately look further into the technical side of hooking this up if it sounds like a go, I was just wanting some opinions to those with experience in the active side of things and hopefully someone who has exoerience running these older type components. Am I just asking for trouble?

Thanks a million!


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## ChrisB (Jul 3, 2008)

My first question would be do you want to run active? If so, the 9887 is a great HU to do it with. Also, you are correct in stating that you will have to dedicate one channel of your amp per driver in the door by going active.

As for small box 8" subs, I would suggest looking into a Sundown E8 or the Credence small box series which are the original Kicker Solo-barics. There are many others out there on the market, so don't take my recommendation as the means to an end, but rather a beginning to your journey into driving yourself bonkers


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## ChrisB (Jul 3, 2008)

Autodupe got me


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## jowens500 (Sep 5, 2008)

Was the equipment in the Grand Marq messed up when the tree fell on it? Just wondering why you would spend two weeks on a system and only take the radio out and then rob parts from a van than has been "sitting around" a while to put into the new car?


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## ChrisB (Jul 3, 2008)

Don't those Polk speakers have a fairly deep mounting depth? My experience with Honda is that you have to work to make any "normal" depth speaker fit in the doors and the Fit appears to be no different


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## jowens500 (Sep 5, 2008)

I don't know about the Fit, but every other Honda I ever worked on would hold a 6.5 pretty good. I DO know the Fit has an A-pillar that SCREAMS put a 4"/tweet in me PLEASE!!


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## quietmouse (Dec 12, 2008)

The stereo in the merc did not get hurt. But the polk momo's have very little bass response at all. They are also inneficient and need 100 watts per channel to sound good. Once you drive them that hard you need some pretty big bass to fill them out. All of these things equal Heavy weight and power drain. I like the way this FIT drives and I want to preserve that. So I was considering the switch to a more efficient speaker/amp setup to save some weight and some power. This approach would make things a little simpler than the power upgrades it would take to run the amps I had in the Mercury, and avoid the heavy weight of the amps as well.

When I was considering all of this and looking at buying a set of speakers I thought ofhow good the system in the Vanagon sounded and how weak the alt/battery was in it. It had never given me trouble right? So I went out to look at exactly what was going on and that is when I discovered the Nak amp under the dash and the a/d/s 320i's.I thought I might as well give them a try.

So- I have the 9887 and I can run it either active or passive. If I run it active I suppose I need to find the crossover point for the tweeter and midrange. Anybody know where I can find this out?

-AND- Do you think the active setup would be better than front and rear passive setups?

For the sub I am going to build a cabinet for one of the two subs I was running in the Merc and power it from a lighter amp. (less weight, less power demand) I think these things will work well since the sub will be in a hatchback intead of back in the trunk.

Thanks for the comments guys!


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## ChrisB (Jul 3, 2008)

The only problem with invoking the Active Crossover is you will lose flexibility for the rears to run passive (I think). I can't remember if the Alpine activated the crossover on the internal amplifiers or not, but I know that your Front, Rear, and subwoofer RCA outs will all get used for the different frequencies.


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