I recently got a 650 watt amp and a 10' sub from friend (repayment for giving him some money to pay bills) and another friends old head unit (mainly because I was tired of the stock stereo and because it was dirt cheap). The head unit is a JVC kameleon (Think the specific model is LD-LX10, but i'm not exactly sure).

Here's the problem:

After setting it up in my vehicle and getting the head unit all wired in, the sub isn't nearly as powerful as it was in my friend's car, I have to turn the bass all the way up and the volume up very high to even hear the bass over my door speakers. The only thing that has changed (aside from the vehicle) is the power and ground wires and the head unit. I've been looking at some user reviews for the kameleon and some of them say that it doesn't handle amplifiers well (among other negative feedback). Needless to say, I'm looking for a new head unit and since I'm not up on car audio systems I thought I'd ask here to see what Massassians recommend.

Any recommendations?

How much airspace are you giving it?

10 inchers need at least 1 1/2 cubic feet of space to drive properly.

It's in the cargo area of my Jimmy. There's plenty more than 1.5 cubic feet of airspace for it.

Whats the wattage of the sub?

You could be having a number of problems. Sounds like space isnt one. Check your power connections (grounds as well) and make sure you have the right size wires for the power rating of the amp. Also you might want to check and see if you have any adjustments to be made on the amp. Some have them, some don't.

Thats about the best I can muster. I've only helped a few friends with their setups, never really got into it myself.

check how you have the low pass filter set as well. you might have it locked to 50hz on the amp. that head unit should have a low pass filter you can adjust, so leave the one on the amp at 125hz

You should stop now before I stab you in traffic because I don't want to hear your bass 6 floors up in my apartment.

Is this a case of "lets turn the bass up to hideously unbalanced levels so I can let everyone know how inept I am at configuring speakers"?

Just throw rocks at them. That's what I do.

I have a relatively loud stereo system in my car but I'm generally very respectful. However, when I pull up beside some ****er that's blasting [c]rap I usually pop in something that I'd assume he'd dislike & crank it up. I find that Behemoth, Gorgoroth & Dimmu Borgir all work quite well for this. My neighbors & I actually have an unspoken feud in the arena of whose home stereo is louder. They enjoy blasting their bass, so I usually cancel it out with treble. Mozart's "Die Zauberflote Aria" is perfect for this.

I bet it's the sub woofer, if you can try to hook up another box and speaker. At the same time 650 is overkill for a 10" speaker, look for a 12 or 2 12s. I had a 400watt with a 10" MTX that sounded pretty damn good. I'm not in it for the 'pound the back window out' but I have upgraded speakers and it really balanced the mix

Considering I drive a cobra, I usually get wiggers with rusty coffee can hondas blasting the new 50 spent garbage that want to race. I drown them out by turning up some Acacia Strain and I let the 4.10's do the rest.

1) What vehicles? If he had an open vehicle like a hatchback or an SUV or a minivan, and you have it stuffed in a trunk, obviously you wont hear it like he did.
2) Check the gain knob on the amp.
3) Check the crossover knob on the amp. This shouldn't matter for deep bass though.
4) 650 W RMS? or peak?

I've been working on it for the past day or so and it looks like it's the speaker wire he gave me with the amp and sub. Sometimes everything works like it should and sometimes it doesn't work at all and I've narrowed it down to the wires going from the amp to the speaker, probably a short, so i disconnected them and am going out to buy new ones tomorrow.

Thanks everyone.

As long as the wire is of sufficient gauge to carry the current, and isn't broken in half, it's not the problem.

You're about to go buy some Monster cable, aren't you?

The speaker wire has been crimped and creased, looks like he had it pinched somehow in the back of his car and it ruined the wire (probably from folding the seat up and down multiple times over it).

Either way, replacing the wire fixed it.

Oh, you got it fixed. Well, you could still get a capacitor for it, to make it work even better

Oh oh, this makes you so so so so much better.

I mean, why blast **** when you can blast **** to the second power and piss everyone off even more. Because everyone wants to listen to mall death metal.

Hot topic called, they want their lifestyle back.

Enter the "rob" POV.

I like you didn't actually refute his claim...

No point in trying to argue or squabble. Especially with rob or jon'c.

I find that people with hearing loss have a problem listening to reason.

I think that from now on, whenever I see a moron blasting stupidly loud music out of an expensive-looking sports car whilst in a traffic queue, I'm going to walk up to the car in front and start admiring it.

Traffic is a different story, I always turn my **** down at a light or traffic jam.


Oh and rob there is one thing I should mention. Hot Topic, is more of a goth, fishnets, marilyn manson/slipknot type store then anything. I don't see where a metalcore band fits?

And if you prefer something less "mainstream" (even though acacia is really not), Necrophagist maybe?

When I said Hot Topic wants their lifestyle back I meant you should stop being an annoying loud tit that listens to bad music.