Ok so I have always wanted a very nice sound system and I finally got but you ask why in a volvo but i say why not!!! My volvo has been going through some intresting times so far i just finished installing my sound system next Im doing a full paint job and some body work then tints then rims and we will see where my cash takes me as im getting a new motorcycle soon as well.

But here is my pictures of my install My friend helped me out with the wiring. Enjoy (REMEMBER DO IT YOURSELF)

15 inch Kicker Solo-baric L7 powered by a Kenwood KAC-9103D, MB-Quart RVF-210 components powered by a Kicker KX250.2. 5.25 Alpine type s rears, Alpine CDA-9884 Head unit.

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good work. one question, how do you shop at costco? where do you put the 400 rolls of toilet paper? :grin:

nicely done my friend. I am really liking the placement of the amps indeed!!

Not too sure on the sub box size/shape/arrangement, but i guess its a standard ported box specially for the sub. The kicker solarbaric subs are pretty nice units ... kicker in general are good. personally i find them to be a bit flat in reproduction, not much character but then thats my opinion.

Just a pointer here for you, you might want to put some thicker wire from the amp to the sub ... possibly 10 or 8 gauge wire. the small stuff there will easily melt, and its not nice to clear up/see when you open your boot!

i run 6 gauge from my amps to subs, and that gets warm to the touch with 2k running through.

Matt

Im running 4 gauge to my amp for my sub and then i have a distributor box which turns it into 4-8 gauge and i have 8 gauge going to the second amp for my speakers. I figured i would need thicker wire it was a pain wiring though through the engine but with a little custom frabication with a good old dremmel it was all good.

And yeah my box was made by my friend and carpeted by my friend we didnt want to get fancy really till we made the amp walls which fit perfectly. But the sub box was made out of MDF and we custom carpeted it too. I think the wood cost about 10ish and the carpet cost about 25 for a couple of yards.

But yeah if anyone has any questions on anything let me know.

nice ... btw i meant speaker wire heh heh

FYI ... i have 4gauge running from the battery in the front with a 200A switching relay them a 150A fuse ... to the back where there is another 150A fuse then into a distro block.

Got another battery in the boot from which i have 0 gauge to the above distro block and then from that i have got 4 4gauge runs to each of my amps, (about 1-2 foot of 4gauge)

the amps are all grounded to a distro block with 4 gauge, then 0 gauge to the battery, which is then tied to chassis ground with 4gauge to complete the loop for the split charge.

The battery i have in the boot is about 800A start and 560A ish nominal... its quite a beast ... but at full tilt the system will drain the battery in about half hour heh heh

Matt.

Yeah dude thats pretty freakin crazy I need to get a new battery im gona get the yellow top optima battery cuse its a beast and would deff help my car cuse my car dies if i dont drive it like within in a couple of days which sucks but hey w/e as long as my car sounds nice which it does its all i care about lol

But yeah i looked at your hook up looks nice.

-Derek!

the reason the battery dies is either you haven't setup the remote turn on wire properly to the head unit OR something such as an alarm or lights are draining it.

if its going to be parked up for a few days without being driven, you might want to consider a small mains powered trickle charger that clips to the battery terminals and leave it on to keep the battery good.

oh and cheers for comment on my kit. Its not entirely finished yet as you can see. My 940 is in the garage cos i split the turbo oil feeds - driving it too hard i think - once thats going the 740 is on the drive and being cleaned, tuned and audio finished :)

Matt

Nice dude very nice you should toss a body kit on it lol o and i already got in trouble at my college for my music lol it was shaking the doors on one of my buildings next to my dorm lol.

i am planning to body kit it, but all the decent ones are on swedish websites!!!

and i can beat that!!! i was parked up at our usual haunt where all the 'rude boys' go. people who think they are cool and can drive but really cant ... all the ones that crashed 3-6 days after passing they're test basically....

they all drive poor cars, really high insurance ... i was next to a vauxhal nova - google it - shocking car, he had his stereo going, i turned mine up, he turned his up, i turn mine up and so on...his cuts out cos it blew a fuse, i kept on going ... bosh out goes his windows ... he was about 6 foot to the side of me.

i have cracked 2 rear screens, shattered one passenger door, removed the number plate AND knackered the boot lock from ragging my system.

It may seem 'cool' and clever, but trust me it really isnt when you do things like that and your miles away from nowhere in the rain. oh and it costs money too

M

if you're after sound stories i was at a bank holiday cruise in great yarmouth (by the east coast of england) and everyone giggled at my volvo until i returned the next time with the bodykit, my old sound setup ( 3x12" vibe subs, vibe monoblok 1200amp + 2xspl1000amp, and 2 6x9 jbls with pioneer dvd flip out headunit) and had them ignoring the evos and scoobys and all clustered around me! even had some drunk blondes admiring it and amazed it was a volvo. unfortunatly i was in the pub at the time and missed them. still, the new setup will hopefully put volvo's in the uk squarely on the 'love it' side.
keep on cruising!

yes mate, i was exhibitioning my old arrangement, it was all lit up in blue lights etc... very loud, few people gathering round, then some party pooper in an office called the police to say there was someone parading around making out like they were police ... the slight difference was my blacked out windows, LOUD volume of bass etc.. and about 20/30 people all hanging round it at the skate park chilling out. police came and told me to turn the lights off ... so i did lol

i get looks in my 940 when it dumps though. bailey dump valves, gotta love them - oh and especially when i have scoobies off the line ;)

So i got some new pics added some neon to my system looks pretty nice

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now thats just cool dude ... i *did* have some neons on my old setup, but i havent finished this new setup yet, still need to carpet me box and tidy wires n stuff... i do have some led lights, but they are a bit pants and hard to setup so they stay one colour ... might just buy some cheap neons lol

all you need now is a perspex boot lid ....

Hah yeah i was planning on it but seeing as im getting either my bike or a new car soon got to keep the money on the down side lol but i had to put the neon in it looks soo cool lol and thankfully my sub hasnt blown up the neon lights inside the box lol..I still need to add one more light above the box..

As an alternative tp neon, there are some great LED systems out there tat you can do all sorts of stuff with. We use some types at work (getting into some more fancy types later though). You can get small controllers for them and make them do all sorts of things, and with some ingenuity you can make them work in conjunction with the music. You can create practically any color you want and they will mount practically anywhere. Lots of people are starting to sell the lights online, although you have to specifically look for LEDs or visit some architectual lighting places. Many of them are 12V and single power supplies can power up around 20 feet of lights. If you do happen to look into them or by chance consider buying any, make sure you buy ones that are 12V but can handle 14V+. Many will say in the fine print that they are not for car installation due to their inability to handle anything over 12v.

okay since all you guys are the experts at this stuff, my stock premium system in my 850 has gone bonkers when i am listening to the am band. just like my parents old chevy when going under bridges and stuff. do i need a filter or a new antenna, or what? please oh great stereo gurus, please tell this short haired greek what to do so that i can listen to the morning traffic without getting stuck in it. thanks, may the speed gods smile upon thee. :grin:

XM or Sirius...hehe (but what would I know, I refuse to pay monthly for radio service, so I use neither).

One of the reasons why I just redid my whole system was because my stock radio was giving me fits on FM. I had to keep punching my radio to get it to work on FM...wierd, but somethihng wa obviously loose and I didnt feel like opening it up to fix it (besides I wanted an excuse to put in a new head unit).

Anyways, a higher gain antenna may help. Do you have an eternal antenna or the film type on a window? (some even ue the defroster strips as the antenna).

It has been said that the film type will pick up AM frequencies better, but personally I am not so sure on this.

I think I mentioned this before somewhere here, but do you have an amplifier in your car (not a factory one, but one mounted elsewhere in the car? (near your antenna possibly). Mounting a class D amplifier near your antenna can caue alot of interference and possibly caue you to lose AM reception. It has been said that changing over to a class A-B amplifier will correct this issue. If this is the case, possibly relocating your amp away from the antenna may help.

Replacing your head unit with one that has a better tuner to start with may help as well. I am not a big fan of Pioneer, but they have one of the best car tuners on the market (I just wish Kenwood would use it..haha).

Have you changed anything in the car since your reception issue has come up, or has it just been slowly getting worse over time? Either answer could help point you in the direction for the solution.

There are a bunch of companies out there that advertisespecial antenna to increase AM reception, however most are way over rater and only seem to aid reception on cheapo radios (very little benefit seems to be found when used with a good radio).

I think I have also read that places outside the USA, broadcast AM in a slightly different manner, so solutions might be slightly different depending on how it is broadcast. (I thought I had read somewhere once where the BBC explained the differences, but I cannot really remember).

the car hasn't been touched, i've got it how i want it. for now. it just started. the stereo is stock, not much knowledge on stuff like that, i am a speedfreak, i like my music too much to mess with a system. last time i did a stereo was in my old trans am, screwed up three grand worth of amps and speakers because the ohm were different and ran the cable wrong, or something like that. the fm is fine, it's the am that has started acting weird. i only listen to the am band for the weather and traffice reports. it'll be stong and then go out when i get near a tall building or the elevated train tracks. the system is completely stock, head unit, amp, cd changer, speakers, antenna. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks bro.

Since AM is typically a weaker frequency, it may very well be tough to get good reception around all those buildings and other forms of interference. It's possible that recently some other form of interference ha been introduced in your area, causing the situation you are having.

What kind of antenna do you have now?regular external type or the film type on your window?

Never notice you are in Brooklyn. Due to wanting some rest instead I didnt go, but otherwise I would be in Brooklyn right now delivering some stuffto the zoo there, although we make a fair amount of things for them and the aquarium, and it seems we are heading that way every couple of months.

For me, when my AM or FM reception starts going bad, I usually just upgrade my head unit to one with a much better tuner in it. Although anymore I dont listen to the radio as much as I do music from USB or other means, so the tuners have not been as much of an importance to me (although when I do, I pretty much only listen to AM, which I still have to fi in my car as well).

Possibly going to another style of antenna may help. A higher gain one, or going to the opposite style you have now (external instead of film or vice-versa). I have heard that some of the available scanner/CB antennas designed as an all in one work well, but I have not tried this myself. However they are typically much larger and will not match the stock look of a Volvo (RadioShack usually sells them). You can also find antenna boosters, which are small powered boxes that hook in line with your antenna wire, although from past experience they seem to just boost the static more than anything else, but thiings may have changed in the years since I last used one (RadioShack used to sell those too).

Personally, if it gets to where you just cant stand the reception you are getting anymore, I would suggest trying a better antenna first (cheaper route to go), then I would just upgrade the head unit. With a $10 wiring harness it isnt much of a job, although wiring the speakers properly is important, which us why i didnt use a wiring harness and did it all myself to verify I had it all right. If you want to go that route, I can help tell you which wires to use for what and how to hook them up to maintain the proper ohm ratings.

Alot of it really depends on what you are willing to spend on the problem. and how far you want to go with it. It is also quite possible that the tuner in your head unit is just finally dying out. AM radio is still popular but it is probably one of the least worried about parts of a hea unit anymore so no great new advances have been made in its reception, unless you just have a good tuner to start with, and even they will die eventually. Some companies even made small 1/2 din units that were just tuners and could be hidden away in all sorts of locations, although 1/2 din units are not very common anymore.