Looking for advice here. I've never done much car audio, so I need to know if this doable as or if I need more equipment.
I've got an MTX blue Thunder 752 AMP. Yeah, it's old. It wasn't when I got it, haven't used it much but I'm ready for it now.
I want to drive two 10". No problem there. The speaker brand is Pro Thump, no idea on the specs.

The questions are as follows. (see pics for reference.)
With just my amp,
1) can I run additional speakers. I'd like 5" or 6" two ways, and perhaps a pair of 6x9 as well.
a)if so, will I need a crossover?
2)I want to use a bluetooth head unit I can run from my phone as it won't be in the dash.
As pictured for reference only, click the link for the Amazon listing. bluetooth unit. I'm open to suggestions. A unit with FM/AM would be nice, but not neccesary.

If this won't work, what would be recommended? I'm not looking to win any loudness contests, just want some decent sound.
Thanks!

(I did do a forum search, didn't find anything helpful...)

 

You will need an Amp for your Full-Range-Speakers,
a proper Cross-Over / EQ would be a great addition as well.

Are You calling a Blue-Tooth-Adapter a "Head-Unit" ????

You must have a proper Receiver, ( Head-Unit ).

The Blue-Tooth-Adapter is not a "Head-Unit", it's simply a wireless interface,
which may or may not work with what ever Head-Unit You buy.

There are Head-Units that have built-in Blue-Tooth, plus USB if You like.
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The amplifier output power stated increases as the speaker load increases, so you will be able to connect more speakers quite well.
The hard part will be connecting the source of audio to amplify. If you currently have a car receiver that hhas speaker outputs you can connect it to that 3-terminal high level input and it should work well. No need for a bluetooth adaption cobbled into the system.

 

Yes, I neglected to call it a head unit. There are blue tooth head units that can be remotely mounted anywhere (unless I'm misunderstanding the research I've done so far). I'll look harder at the one I posted a link to, but that was just a sample, not the final desired product. I may not have a head unit in my dash, so being able to remotely control whatever I end up with is ideal.

As for the other speakers, thanks. That's the sort of info I was looking for.
I don't have a lot of room, so In lieu of a second amp, I may need to go with a regular head unit.

 

No need for a bluetooth adaption cobbled into the system.

I can tell you don't have a Bluetooth receiver in your life. CD players and tapes are not in a modern car or most new home stereos, to here what you want when you want you get it through Bluetooth today.

 

I was hoping to use the layout as shown in my pic, with nothing more...if that's something that won't work, I'm open to more traditional models.
I don't currently have a receiver/head unit.

The amplifier output power stated increases as the speaker load increases, so you will be able to connect more speakers quite well.
The hard part will be connecting the source of audio to amplify. If you currently have a car receiver that hhas speaker outputs you can connect it to that 3-terminal high level input and it should work well. No need for a bluetooth adaption cobbled into the system.

 

@byakk0 How have you been doing? Do you know what happened to MM?

 

Hey Shortbus!

I can tell you don't have a Bluetooth receiver in your life. CD players and tapes are not in a modern car or most new home stereos, to here what you want when you want you get it through Bluetooth today.

I've got them. Just haven't had a radio in this car for decades (literally). I'm building the system from scratch and not a lot of room to play with. Just trying to optmize space.

 

MM is back up. Looks like it could be going away though. Current owner is looking to jump out of the business, other MM members are working out how to collectively buy it and keep it going. There's a thread there all about it. http://www.metalmeet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14494

@byakk0 How have you been doing? Do you know what happened to MM?

 

You can make it work with just your single Amp,
but I can guarantee that You won't like it.
At the bare minimum,
You will need to add 2 Passive-Crossovers to separate the Subs from the smaller Speakers.
A far superior solution is to have an "Active-Crossover" that allows You to adjust the various
Levels between the Amplifiers, and reduces Speaker-Distortion tremendously.

The newer-style Digital-Amps are extremely small, ( I have one crammed INSIDE my Dash ), and,
You really need some way to EQ the system, which You won't have with a Passive-Crossover and one Amp.
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Interesting... I'll have to look into new stuff I guess. Just trying to use what I have without adding too much more expense. Been a long time since I delved into the auto sound world.
Thanks for the ideas. This is going to be a bigger rabbithole than I had hoped for.

 

The amp is only two-channel, but it has a crossover for subwoofers built-in. So, you need another 2-channel amp, preferably with a high-pass crossover built-in, for the main speakers. Or, get a 4-channel amp that includes high-pass and low-pass crossovers; good car audio electronics outlive the cars they were installed in, so there's some bargains out there (try antique car swap meets, pawn shops, wrecking yards). I would add a passive volume control between the Bluetooth receiver and the amps, or (since I found one at a thrift store) an AudioControl preamp/crossover/equalizer like the THREE.2.
Alternatively, get a head unit with an Aux input and feed your Bluetooth through that, and use the head unit's amps for the main speakers.

 

The "big benefit" of having all of one's music stored exclusively in electronic memory is that one glitch and it is all gone, not recoverable, just gone in a instant. That is a great benefit to need to repurchase a music library, and often a challenge while traveling.
So those folks who embrace only the current fad are quite welcome to carry their music in the format of the day, and repurchase it in the next format a few months later. Chasing after every new fad is what keeps the market going, after all. So support the makers of the short-life stuff that will be obsolete in less than a year.

 

"Purchase a Music Library" .........
What a concept .......

I have at least 3 complete copies of all my Music,
( not counting the complete copies created by routine, full Computer-Back-ups ),
( that's around ~700 songs in each copy ),
and the chances of all 3 copies becoming corrupted at the same time is slim to none.
The same for all of my Pictures, ( roughly ~3000 PNG Format Files, (no Compression) ),
and many other File-Types as well.

Just pick your faves and copy to USB-Stick, then plug USB-Stick into Head-Unit.
Or, just let your Computer randomly pick song after song, or select by genre/year/etc.

Digital-Memory has gotten very cheap.
And if that's not enough, you can keep copies in "The-Cloud" for a small monthly fee,
but I trust "The-Cloud" much less than my own creativeness.
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I really appreciate all the input.
This is less about the convenience of modern media (I haven't been living under a rock, believe me) as it is about looks and space. Some date in the unknown future I may purchase a retrosound (or similar) head unit, but for now I have a stock radio (it's broken beyond repair or upgrade) but fits the era.
I was just merely hoping for a quick and easy solution to get sound out to 4 speakers from a phone.
For now though, I'll probably just get a sufficient head unit that can handle all of the above and upgrade it later for looks.

 

There are bluetooth receivers with headphone outputs, which could drive an amplifier such as the one in post #1. And that bluetooth interface might even drive the amp. That part is not clear. You will need to provide a switch to control the amp ON/OFF function, but the amp already has a terminal for that. Nothing would show except the phone. The down side is that all of the control functions will be on the phone. The upside is that nothing will show to tempt the bad actors to steal it. A broken OEM radio in the dashboard would be good for that.

 

I really appreciate all the input.
This is less about the convenience of modern media (I haven't been living under a rock, believe me) as it is about looks and space. Some date in the unknown future I may purchase a retrosound (or similar) head unit, but for now I have a stock radio (it's broken beyond repair or upgrade) but fits the era.

What about leaving the broken radio in place BUT wire the on-off switch to power up your new radio in a hiden place, like under a seat? From there the Bluetooth would control the new hidden unit, so you would then have a home brew Retrosound.

 

I've considered using the broken radio switch in the same manner....

And the down side of only controlling with my phone is a big downside.