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I will jump in on this one. Been in car audio since the 80's so I have done this a time or two as well as many others. There is some good advice above but I will share some of my knowledge as I was heavy into car audio through the 90's until I moved to home AV in 2000 to present. Car audio can get very expensive real quick so here are a few things to guide anyone looking to dabble in car audio.
1. Come up with a realistic budget.
2. What are your goals. SPL, sound quality, a combo of both?
3. Electronics, you get what you pay for. That doesn't mean there isn't some good equipment for a budgeted cost.
4. First thing to buy is sound deadening. This is the single most important thing anyone can do to improve their system. Road noise and reverberations from body panels you can't overcome with the most expensive equipment. There has been huge amounts of money spent on noise canceling tech. A mic is placed in the car to pick up noise then a 180 degree response is played through the speakers to cancel that noise. Kinda works but a much better solution is to get rid of the noise altogether without interrupting your sound system. The factory system will greatly improve just from doing this. Yes, it is a royal PITA to do but well worth the energy. More the better but does add weight.
5. Driver selection/speakers is somewhat important but depends on budget and system goals. Don't pay much attention to the wattage a speaker can handle unless you are building a true SPL car. Do pay attention to the sensitivity and ohms if you are building a passive system or just planing on replacing the factory speakers. Passive being you are using passive crossover networks vs an active system with dedicated amp channels per driver. Passive systems can perform just as good as an active system but they are much harder to get right. Personally, I prefer passive but I am old school and been doing this a long time. Also own an AV company and build custom speakers for clients. If you are just replacing factory speakers, make sure to replace with the same ohms as you don't want to overdrive the factory amp. Also, a 2 ohm speaker will be louder than a 4ohm but sensitivity also plays a roll. Stick with the same brand and series will help here.
6. Playing off #5, amp selection depending on active or passive. You can get more out of an active system but there is a huge amount of adjustments that can be a very daunting task to get right and then one often questions if it is meaning that they are constantly trying to tweak it. For some, that is the joy of having an active DSP system. Active can also be quite a bit more expensive. Anyway you look at it, a good amp to run the whole system is going to be $1k or north of that depending if it has DSP. Multiple amps can cost less but there will be more expense in cables and take up more room and often require more battery power as well as produce more heat. All-in-one digital amps are the way to go for most. Spend more money here than on speakers! Keep in mind, you will do more damage to speakers under powering than over powering. You are looking for a clean 75-100 watts per channel on mids and highs and a good 500 watts for a sub. There is a reason a JL HD900/5 is $1200. That is just power, no DSP in that one.
7. Sub or subs. Bass is often an overlooked area of a system. Personally, I think it is super important to get right. Way too much to get into in this post to go over subs and type of enclosures. There is a ton of good info out there on the subject. This area depends on system goals, SPL or SQ. A single 8" is more than enough for SQ but not gonna cut it for high SPL but you can get a good amount of SPL out of an 8". I currently only run a single 8" and it hammers but it is a JL8W7 in a ported enclosure with a solid 500w running it. More than enough for most people though. Again, what are your goals?
8. Factory integration. This is a tough area depending on the vehicle. We are lucky with what we got. As mentioned above, summing does work but not as good as say the PAC unit that grabs the signal off the CAN Bus. Most if not all of factory systems you have to leave the factory amp in and grab the signal after the amp. Some manufactures will cross over and DSP before the amp or in the amp itself. If you have to grab the signal coming out of the amp, summing is all you can do. What it does is takes all of the different signals/channels and "sums" them together to make a 2 channel full range signal. The JL Fix mentioned does just that. It does it well but not as good as grabbing a full range signal off the can bus before it get processed. The PAC ap4-ch41 does just that and is the way to go if compatible.
With all that said, I will list my system that is more of an SQ setup but has a good amount of SPL. I do have a 2015 STR with the HK system not the Alpine so keep that in mind.
Pac from the head unit AP4-CH41
JL HD900/5
CDT HD 6x9 mid bass in the doors (playing 60hz up to about 800ish)
CDT Unity 7.5 in the factory dash location (800ish and up)
CDT Unity 7.5 in factory rear side locations but have turned them off (just running front stage)
CDT CH-2 2" center channel passive with volume control on crossover (combined with the front channels)
CDT MX-1000 crossovers for front stage
JL 8W7 in ported enclosure with volume knob next to gear shift. (super important)
Dynamat extreme everywhere but ceiling as it was too much to get to.(at least 2 bulk pacs)
Lizard skin spray sound deadening where I couldn't get to with Dynamat (wheel wells inside)
Street Wires cables
Host of Steve Mead products for setup and gain adjustments
Hours and hours and hours of adjusting crossovers to get leveled and blended
I will be building a JL 13TW5 in a sealed fiberglass enclosure soon in the rear left corner. This is for trunk space reasons. For most, the prebuilt JL sub for the Challenger is more than enough.
There is a ton of equipment available. Come up with goals and a budget and go from there but seriously consider doing Dynamat or some equivalent of it. Got to get rid of the road noise!
1. Come up with a realistic budget.
2. What are your goals. SPL, sound quality, a combo of both?
3. Electronics, you get what you pay for. That doesn't mean there isn't some good equipment for a budgeted cost.
4. First thing to buy is sound deadening. This is the single most important thing anyone can do to improve their system. Road noise and reverberations from body panels you can't overcome with the most expensive equipment. There has been huge amounts of money spent on noise canceling tech. A mic is placed in the car to pick up noise then a 180 degree response is played through the speakers to cancel that noise. Kinda works but a much better solution is to get rid of the noise altogether without interrupting your sound system. The factory system will greatly improve just from doing this. Yes, it is a royal PITA to do but well worth the energy. More the better but does add weight.
5. Driver selection/speakers is somewhat important but depends on budget and system goals. Don't pay much attention to the wattage a speaker can handle unless you are building a true SPL car. Do pay attention to the sensitivity and ohms if you are building a passive system or just planing on replacing the factory speakers. Passive being you are using passive crossover networks vs an active system with dedicated amp channels per driver. Passive systems can perform just as good as an active system but they are much harder to get right. Personally, I prefer passive but I am old school and been doing this a long time. Also own an AV company and build custom speakers for clients. If you are just replacing factory speakers, make sure to replace with the same ohms as you don't want to overdrive the factory amp. Also, a 2 ohm speaker will be louder than a 4ohm but sensitivity also plays a roll. Stick with the same brand and series will help here.
6. Playing off #5, amp selection depending on active or passive. You can get more out of an active system but there is a huge amount of adjustments that can be a very daunting task to get right and then one often questions if it is meaning that they are constantly trying to tweak it. For some, that is the joy of having an active DSP system. Active can also be quite a bit more expensive. Anyway you look at it, a good amp to run the whole system is going to be $1k or north of that depending if it has DSP. Multiple amps can cost less but there will be more expense in cables and take up more room and often require more battery power as well as produce more heat. All-in-one digital amps are the way to go for most. Spend more money here than on speakers! Keep in mind, you will do more damage to speakers under powering than over powering. You are looking for a clean 75-100 watts per channel on mids and highs and a good 500 watts for a sub. There is a reason a JL HD900/5 is $1200. That is just power, no DSP in that one.
7. Sub or subs. Bass is often an overlooked area of a system. Personally, I think it is super important to get right. Way too much to get into in this post to go over subs and type of enclosures. There is a ton of good info out there on the subject. This area depends on system goals, SPL or SQ. A single 8" is more than enough for SQ but not gonna cut it for high SPL but you can get a good amount of SPL out of an 8". I currently only run a single 8" and it hammers but it is a JL8W7 in a ported enclosure with a solid 500w running it. More than enough for most people though. Again, what are your goals?
8. Factory integration. This is a tough area depending on the vehicle. We are lucky with what we got. As mentioned above, summing does work but not as good as say the PAC unit that grabs the signal off the CAN Bus. Most if not all of factory systems you have to leave the factory amp in and grab the signal after the amp. Some manufactures will cross over and DSP before the amp or in the amp itself. If you have to grab the signal coming out of the amp, summing is all you can do. What it does is takes all of the different signals/channels and "sums" them together to make a 2 channel full range signal. The JL Fix mentioned does just that. It does it well but not as good as grabbing a full range signal off the can bus before it get processed. The PAC ap4-ch41 does just that and is the way to go if compatible.
With all that said, I will list my system that is more of an SQ setup but has a good amount of SPL. I do have a 2015 STR with the HK system not the Alpine so keep that in mind.
Pac from the head unit AP4-CH41
JL HD900/5
CDT HD 6x9 mid bass in the doors (playing 60hz up to about 800ish)
CDT Unity 7.5 in the factory dash location (800ish and up)
CDT Unity 7.5 in factory rear side locations but have turned them off (just running front stage)
CDT CH-2 2" center channel passive with volume control on crossover (combined with the front channels)
CDT MX-1000 crossovers for front stage
JL 8W7 in ported enclosure with volume knob next to gear shift. (super important)
Dynamat extreme everywhere but ceiling as it was too much to get to.(at least 2 bulk pacs)
Lizard skin spray sound deadening where I couldn't get to with Dynamat (wheel wells inside)
Street Wires cables
Host of Steve Mead products for setup and gain adjustments
Hours and hours and hours of adjusting crossovers to get leveled and blended
I will be building a JL 13TW5 in a sealed fiberglass enclosure soon in the rear left corner. This is for trunk space reasons. For most, the prebuilt JL sub for the Challenger is more than enough.
There is a ton of equipment available. Come up with goals and a budget and go from there but seriously consider doing Dynamat or some equivalent of it. Got to get rid of the road noise!
