No problem, I do understand that lunch is the #1 cause of sneaky farts. Glad I could help.

That looks delicious! :party:

Anywho, how would I know how much I could push the powered sub, until it'd do something bad to my existing stereos?

In real english.. how high can I go with my current setup?

Some other guys on a different forum recommended this particular sub:
http://www.frys.com/product/6388611?...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG
Said he used it himself and seems to like it..
How's it compare to the Pyle?
Seems like the Pyle is specced better?

Also seems to get excellent reviews on amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Dual-SBP8A-Sin...rds=DUAL+SBP8A

About $100 shipped from fleabay/other stores..

I'm limiting myself to $100 for the sub, maybe $15 or so for the wiring should be good?

Here's what you do- You set the HPF on your front speakers. Then, before the sub is hooked up, turn the radio up until the front speakers start to distort. Let's say you turned it up to "30" before you heard distortion. You now know the limit, 30 is too high, don't turn your stereo up past 28. The fronts won't sound the greatest with no bass playing, but be patient, the bass is on the way. Now play some music at 28 (your safe level) and start turning up the level on the subwoofer. Continue to turn up the sub until you hear distortion, then back off a little. Doing this should prevent anything bad from happening to your current components.

The one you linked to and the one I linked to are sort of an apples/oranges comparison. They both seem like a good solution for the price.

The one I linked to will probably play a little louder and will have better sound quality, but it takes more room.

The one you linked to is nice and small, but bandpass enclosures have the worst sound quality of any subwoofer enclosure.

You also have to remember sound is just moving air. Bass requires lots of air to move. That's why little door speakers can't produce good bass.

I linked you to a 10" woofer, you linked to an 8". The 10" will obviously move more air (more bass).

I'd measure the cargo area and determine how much room you have. With bass, bigger is always better, but you still need to be able to use your vehicle.

Gotcha, I think I'll probably be struggling at connecting the remote turn on wire to the stereo head unit & RCA cables..

Are they clearly labeled?
I took a quick look at the manuals on the Sony Support Site, and can't seem to find them being color coded... Colors are so much easier!

Do I splice into the sub/remote on wire or is there a connection waiting to be used?

The remote wire will be blue coming out of the radio. I may be labled anenna remote.

Rca will be red and black. On the sub it does not mater which way you plug them in as the amp will bridge the channel inputs.

What guage should I be looking at for the dedicated power to the amp?

Looking at 8GA for +12V/-12V, remote turn on wire (is this a special wire? Could I just use regular speaker wire?), and some RCA cables (same with this, regular RCA or special?)

I know at work, we have a huge roll of speaker wire we used for about 15ft for a project.. and we have never needed it since.. I could probably grab about 10ft of it to use on the remote turn on wiring?

In the other forum, a member who used this exact sub bought a few ft of regular power extension cord, and wired it that way.
I feel like this is a really good idea since people are familiar with regular household plugs, and would be able to unplug/plug really easily, in the case that it gets knocked off/whatnot.. In the case that I'm not around to "fix" it.

Though, Anderson PowerPoles, I already have.. and would be a quick and easy way to do it.

Basically, I'd like for it to be easily removed in case I need the extra cargo space.
Also, it'd make it really easy to transfer to another car (when this thing dies).

Any suggestions on the sources of wiring?
I feel that I'm most scared/worried for the head unit installation..
Ripping apart my entire dash sounds annoying.

EDIT: any suggestions for a ported sub?
Debating between the Pyle (Sealed) and DUAL (Bandpass).. so now I'm at a lost of words.
Ported seems to be the king of boomy bass, so maybe that might be what I'm after?

The pyle I linked to is ported, the port is on the back, opposite of the woofer.

8ga. will be good for 12v+/-. Speaker wire will work great for the turn on lead. Any regular RCA cable will work. I feel extension cord might be on the light side, unless you get an 8ga. extension cord.

Power Poles sound like a good idea for +/- connections.

Get in there and rip that dash out and put in the head unit, it will be another skill you have and will be a learning experience.

Most auto parts stores have wire available by the foot.

Oh, did not know that.
Sweet, I was leaning towards Ported, anyways!

Oh, that's true, plus I have a feeling if it were unplugged, and I had occupants messing around my car, they would test the extension cord and plug in a regular device.

Since it's a sub, should I still separate the RCA/Sense cables away from the power ones?
I've read that since it's mostly low frequency, the high frequency static won't matter much.

I think I may just go to a hardware store and get wire there, sounds like it would be a lot cheaper.
As far as RCA cables, I'll want male to male, right?
Perhaps I can run speaker wire, and pick up RCA connector heads, and just have them as such.

I'm no guru but I learned a lot when I installed my first real high end system.

To port or not to port;
A unported sub box will not need as much power to be driven as a ported box so depending on the RMS capabilitys of the Amp this is going to help decide.
A unported box will have a much tigher bass sound than a ported box as well so what your bass expectations are will dictate also.

I had a professional build a unported box for my Jeep because I didn't want a huge speaker box taking up all the room in the back, I'm really glad I went this route because it sounds incredible. The sound of a unported box is way more universal if you listen to a wide variety of music, if you want lots of bass then ported is what you may want.

I personally prefer a properly designed ported box with a suitably chosen driver. I like the sound better, generally has more audible output, and driver excursion is GREATLY reduced at lower frequencies (the sound is generated mostly by the port rather than driver excursion at the tuning frequency). However, it is VITAL to have a subsonic filter when using a ported box!! Below the port frequency, the port is just a hole in a box and doesn't limit driver movement at all. That, and output drops precipitously (-24db/octave IIRC) below port tuning frequency. Have to use the right size port too or you'll get "chuffing" noises. You can use dual ports or a single larger port, but keep in mind the larger in diameter, the longer the port needs to be for a given frequency.

A sealed box can go deeper and tends to have a flatter response curve, but it takes 4x more excursion (and more power) for each drop in octave to get the same output.

But, you can't just toss a driver in any old box you happen to have. The driver must be suited for ported or sealed or free-air or band-pass, and the designer must use the proper formulas based on the driver's Theille-Small parameters to design the proper box dimensions.

The actual geometry of the box makes a difference too. A cube box will tend to be boomy. The reason most boxes have different size dimensions is to reduce standing-waves from multiplying inside the box.

Then, you have to use proper materials. Whenever I built an enclosure, I use no less than real 3/4" thick MDF dado'd and glued into place. Then, fiberglass all the internal seams. I usually used a double layer for where the driver mounts to allow a flush driver installation. Then, use the right amount of poly-fill (makes the box seem acoustically larger). Don't be surprised to have a heavy box; my boxes (which were usually for a single 10" or 12" driver) weighed around 60-70lb by itself (without speaker).

Wiring is not too tough if you take your time. Head unit wiring is MUCH easier if you just go get a wiring kit for your vehicle. That way you can just wire it all up outside the vehicle - the wiring kit color-code is the same as most head-unit color-code, so it's easy. Vehicles use all sorts of wire colors and I will say to properly identify each speaker and the proper speaker polarity can be a pain (isn't too bad if you know a few tricks though). Just get the kit and save yourself the headache. If a previous owner did the dumb thing and cut off the stock vehicle harness, you can get color codes from here: http://www.the12volt.com/

As far as amplifiers are concerned, size/wattage depends on the person. If you're a basshead, then no amp is big enough. But, if you're looking for decent sound, I generally go with 2-3x the power of the regular speakers. So, if your deck puts out 20w x 4 (rms, not "peak" - gotta read the specs carefully), I'd go with between 160w-240w rms power for the sub amp. Use a crossover on the main speakers to limit the bass (either use the "active" HPF in the deck, or use a "passive" 200uF non-polarized electrolytic cap in series with each speaker), and set the amp's LPF for around 100Hz or lower (the higher the LPF value, the more voices you'll hear out of the sub and you don't want that).

For total amplifier power of 500w rms or less, 8GA power wire is adequate. Up to 1000w, use 4GA. Higher than that and you'd better know what you're doing.

For subwoofer power, get a sub that will handle the value of the amplifier. It won't do any good to get a 1000w sub and hook it to a 100w amp - subs that large will likely be less sensitive and won't sound good with low power. It's also bad to run a 1000w amp on a 100w sub (obviously). However, if you do it right, they don't have to match exactly. I ran a 300w Alpine TypeR sub for several years on a 600w rms PPI amp (yeah, old school stuff) with no issues whatsoever. You just have to run it clean - no amp clipping and no mechanical distortion.

All right, that's car audio 101 in a tiny nutshell. Probably more than you wanted to know, but there ya go.

Why oh why are there soo many possibilities!

Brian, beside the custom build all the way, would you have any specific systems for about 115 all said and done?

For the Pyle, does positioning matter?
I was thinking of having the back/wire end going towards the backseat (where I assume the ported vent is at), and having the open/grill facing outwards.
Another possibility would be having it perpendicular to the car, parallel with the backward where the port side is driver side and then grill would be passenger side?

I'll give a butter knife a try and see how that goes..

But when I do get it out, will I need to splice into anything, or will everything already have connections?
For the RCA..remote turn on?
I believe I have RCA on the back, but the remote turn on?

Thought about it some more, and thinking I'll just give the Pyle a try.
It should fit snugly in my back, I plan on putting it perpendicular to the car (parallel to the back seats, if that makes sense?), the "front grill" would pointing to the passenger side of the car, and the connections will be made from the driver side of the car.

Will be going with KnuKonceptz 8GA wiring kit, I know it's a little overkill for this guy, but hey.. if I'm going to do it, might as well do it safely, and not risk burning up any wiring..

(http://www.amazon.com/KnuKonceptz-KC...ds=KnuKonceptz)

As far as the Pyle source, thinking about nabbing the cheapest one to keep budget down, so:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PYLE-PLTAB10...item2c6612b1c2

This shouldn't be that bad, right?
Hoping the install will be a breeze.

How do I test the resistance of a ground point with a volt/multimeter?

just grind whatever metal that is your ground point so it has good contact, even if it is bare metal hit it with a grinder or sandpaper to get good contact. You don't need to test it with a multi meter

Looked around a bit more, and read up some of the reviews on the Pyle PLTAB10..
A little disheartening.

I bought the KnuKonceptz 8GA kit, and now just debating on the sub.
Would there be a dramatic leap if I raised the budget up to say, about $120/130 from 100?

Starting to lean back towards the DUAL SBP8A.

Cargo space is not that much of an issue, it's not like I go buy groceries, or anything.
Most of the things I throw into the backseat, anyways.

I'm leaning towards this one a bit more consdering the Amazon reviews it's gotten, 5 stars with 41 reviews!

The Pyle has gotten 13 stars with 14 reviews, most of those reports saying that the sub hits are very little, if at all.

However, it irks me that the DUAL is a bandpass, if only there were a ported version of the DUAL, that has the same excellent reviews for roughly the same price, I'd jump right on it.

(I see a current website having the DUAL for $80 shipped, then FRYS will ship it for $90 shipped)...

Any ideas/suggestions?
I would love a ported box since those seems to the midway between tight and quiet, or loud boomy and shallow..

I'm not that big of an audiophile to be bugged out by the inaccuracy of the bass.. so I might be leaning towards the bandpass if no other option arises.