Hi,

I just finished my sub box yesterday, and i was going to run some wires for an amp today. I don't have my amp yet, don't know which to get yet.

I was wondereing where people grounded their amp? I'm planning to mount the amp on the back of my sub box, so that it'll be behind the cargo divider.

 

i am just gonna ground it right to the body. I am just in the process of doing my audio install now too. And i recomend the MB Quart RAA 4200 it pounds very nice and i have yet to find a bad review of it for the price. Great quality and i love the quick disconect feature no more screwing and un screwing to take wires off just pop out and done. have your amp out in seconds literaly

 

Thanks Alot!

I've never done any car audio or stereo stuff before, it took me most of an afternoon just the build the box.

Does the grounding point need to be insulated? What if it's under the carpet on the body? If the carpet touches it, is there a fire risk?

The sub is a Single voice coil sub, i'm realizing that it's hard to find a 300 watt 4 ohm amplifier these days, everything seems to run at 2 and 1 ohm. I didn't realize that when i bought the sub.

 

check out the amp, and no fire risk. I how ever will be getting rid of the carpet and Im cutting a template out of MDF board so it will fit snug in the rear hatch and cover it with black leather to give it a clean look. and will be mounting my amp to it. I should have it done next week.

 

That amp looks great! but it's a bit too much for my needs. I'm looking at just a little D class monoblock.

I used to have some Memphis audio gear, too bad they don't have a retailer anywhere near where i live.

 

Oh ya i guess u looking just to run the sub right. I bought this cuz I installed 6.5" components up front as well. So i run first 2 chanels up front and bridge the rear to run my sub.

 

ohh forgot to mention i will be grounding my amp to my battery since the battery is loacted in my rear hatch now

 

I would do some research on this if I were you. I haven't done much work with car audio stuff in the last couple of years but I remember hearing some issues with grounding your amp to the battery. I'm sure you could ground your amp to the same spot as where your batter is grounded too, but I think there is some risk involved when grounding your amp to the battery. Plus it is fairly easy to find a grounding point anywhere so to be safe I would still ground it to the frame/body somewhere.

 

I asked my friend that owns a Audio shop and said it will be ok. Best ground should be used. Plus i am using a circuit breaker and not a normal fuse.

 

From the one book on car stereo that I read, that admittedly was not all that fantastic, "How to Design and Install High performance Car stereo" by Joe Pettit:


To avoid ground loops, which are the cause of 90% of all noise related distortion, ground all audio equipment to the same point: Common star grounding. This includes all amplifiers, head units, everything. Going one step further is to run all grounding wires back to the negative battery terminal.

From this, it sounds like running everything back to the negative terminal will work optimally.

 

thats why i opeted grounding to the battery seeing as my battery sits not even 10" away from my amp and sub. Short ground a battery ground has to be better than a body ground.

 

I'll check for any difference between my grounding point and the negative battery cable. I woudln't run my ground back to the batter unless there was a reason to. Do the FD chassis have bad ground? I've seen a few bays that have massive grounding kits installed, but i assumed that was more for show than anyting else?

 

I think its more important to ground everything to the same point (common star) than it is to run a long lead back to the battery.
I'd use a terminal block and ground to the nearest bare metal to your amplifier.

 

But i think the point being made is that if you still have a potential from you terminal box and your battery, you'll still likely to some kind of ground loop, unless youre terminal box is grounded back to your battery.

My vehicle is summer drive only, and hence has no (or none that i could fine anyway) in the way of body rust, so i doubt there would be much of a current anywhere.

 

If you aren't crazy serious about audio and not testing sound quality I really don't think you would notice the difference between finding a solid ground on the body/frame compared to grounding your amp to the battery.