I'm looking for an amplifier powerful enough to drive my subwoofer, but small enough to fit onto the central console in my 308. Any suggestions? Alternatively any suggestions on active subwoofers that would fit into a 308?
Don't know about the center console (which is pretty small for space) but the PO of my car put an amplifier behind the pasenger side footwell plate. John
I put my power amplifier (100 watts from Radio Shack) under the passenger seat. The amp is flat and fits pretty well there on the 1976 308. But even with 100 watts I rarely play the radio or tapes since listening to the car is always more entertaining than anything I've heard so far on the radio or any tape. FYI: Took out and threw away the original dealer installed radio and speakers years ago. Did this when I re-leathered the seats, door panels and center console. Installed new radio under glove box just above passenger feet, power amp under the passenger seat, 8" woofers in the rear quarter panels, and 5" mid-range with dual coned tweeters in the doors. No radio or speakers in the center console now.
You need to put it under the front hood either on the spare tire (if it is a temp spare like mine) or inside the wheel like Mike Charness did. It it the best place and big enough to get a bigger amp. I just drilled another hole in the back of the footwell and put a grommet in it. Looks like a factory wire hole. I then did the same on the side of the spare tire well. I bought a round piece of wood from Home Depot and covered it with black felt from a car stereo shop. I mounted the amp and CD changer on it and drilled a hole in it for the spare tire hold-down screw. This keeps it from moving around. It sits on top of my spare tire and looks great.
"on the console" or "under the console"? Go to www.crutchfield.com they have many choices with specs and dimensions. Another good mounting location (no my first choice), and where the previous owner had a plate amp mounted in my GTS is behind the passenger seat, against the firewall. It his hidden either by the vinyl cover when the top is on, or by the top itself when removed. The amp is only 1.5" of so, so plenty of clearance and does not touch the top in any way. Now if you have a GTB this may not look very clean.
Andreas I thought you'd think of the engine sound as music? Have an in dash radio/CD player in my car, reasonably good speakers etc., never play it. Thought about taking it out in favor of the brushed alum plate, but the plate has a fairly steep price on it. To each his own!
I realize this is a controversial one. Just for the record: I do take my car out on long hauls. I also do consider myself a total Ferrari nut. Having said that I still think on those long cross country hauls you do want to have something else than 5th gear going at 4,000 rpms or whatever the speed limit allows. And even in short sprints "Iron Eagle 1" comes to my mind where the kid (granted I'm about three times his age) puts in his favourite rock'n'roll tape to get into the groove. Anyway, I have seen the behind the seats installation, actually even in a 348 and know that would work. I also know and am a happy customer of crutchfield. But when I do a crutchfield search I get several hundred amplifiers back. So does anybody know of a compact one off hand? I also know of Mike Charness' solution (actually saw it in person just last month), but I would prefer something "inside the cabin". The place on the middle console looks like ideal to me, kinda wasteland with no function.