My Audio Setup
 

This may or may not be of interest to anyone looking to going from Blose to sweet sweet car audio. This is going to be a picture log. Any questions, ask away.

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Plus an assortment of Stinger wires. I crossed out the crossovers (no pun intended) because the headunit can cross between low/mid/high as long as you're only running front speakers. It also does separate L/R EQ.
Something I didn't realize until I installed them was that the tweeters match the air vents quite nicely.
Steering wheel controls work perfectly.
Installed pics will come soon.

You're only running front speakers? That tends to have a really poor sound stage. But if you like it - it's your car, man.

lol

x2!

Running only a front stage is the IDEAL set up. You don't go to a concert to turn your back to the band or the orchestra do you?

That looks like a pretty damned good system. I'm not sure what pioneer has done with their amps in recent years, but I hope they're better than they were 5-6 years back. That's the only 'uhoh' I see. It could be completely unjustified too. I know they went from producing average components to the premiers that you posted that are supposed to be great, so maybe their amps wen the same way.

I'm not sure yet, but I'll let you know. I have demo'd the 720PRS and they sound amazing even with the passive crossovers on headunit power. The PRS 12" is something of a legend in car audio and I hired a local guy to build me a 1.0 cf sealed enclosure for it. He's an amazing wood worker. He also hosts a west coast DIY mobile audio BBQ every year in my city, and has won quite a few IASCA awards in his lifetime.
I went with the PRS amps just to do everything PRS and see how good it sounds. We'll see how it goes! I'm still waiting on my head unit and raamat to arrive.

I forgot to mention that the headunit also allows you to adjust time alignment!

did the box builder post on Elite Car Audio when the site was up and running? That sounds like a VERY familiar story. Being in OK, I never attended, but I remember reading about an annual car audio BBQ on that site.

I remember when Pioneer first showed those subs back in the 2000 or 2001 OKC IASCA world finals. They sounded amazing in the demo install. I assume they've tweaked them some since then, so I'm sure they're great.

If you've never used a deck with time alignment, you'll be very very happy. I swapped to a Pioneer deck with T/A in my older car and it made all the difference in the world. I didn't have to do much since I had a lot of help from Matt Bougardt from Image Dynamics when building my kicks, but it fixed the problems with the car design that install couldn't overcome. I was surprised Matt was willing to jump on the phone and AOL IM with me to tell me what to listen for and how to adjust things as I went. I didn't have a circuit of ID equipment in the car at the time either.

I'm not sure. I found out about him from the guy I bought my sub from on eBay. I do know he posts his BBQ information at DIY Mobile Audio though.
I can't wait to start tuning. I've spent all weekend so far messing with the door molexes though. By far the hardest part of this installation...

cool, interested to see how the deck works out.

Progress updates. I have the headunit in and everything works. I haven't played around with settings too much yet, since I don't have the doors sound deadened yet. Plus these speaker baffles I'm using kind of suck. There are holes in them because of the construction so I had to dump a bunch of clear RTV all around them.
Just playing with the "position" settings on the headunit though moves the soundstage pretty close to center, just kind of low. Shouldn't take too much at all to dial it in later.

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The wires should clean up pretty nicely. I've just become very lazy after going through all the work of running them to the doors.

I got everything buttoned up for the most part. I'm still using the same crappy baffles and haven't deadened the doors yet but it still sounds decent. My friend and I did some initial tuning. We got the crossover points and individual levels set. The time alignment worked out really well and we've got that set as well for the most part. The EQ is still flat. The midbass is a bit muddy because of the door situation so there's no point in tweaking it too much yet. But overall this system sounds great so far.

Oh yeah, for those worried about amps overheating in that location I rode around for a good 30 minutes in 80 degree weather with the stereo blasting and no problems. I'll probably take the cover off if it gets hotter though.

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you plan on hiding the wires better?

nope

is that the oem cargo tray and does it come with that cover?

yep OEM and comes with the carpeted cover

I just had to drill some holes for wires so I could get the cover on

I got it from www.finishlineperformance.com

nice, its very clean. i have my amps in that little depression but just on the carpet and cut through it to bring the cables in. does it just sit down in there??

yeah it fits perfectly

If you are happy, that is fine. Personally, there is no way that a car would leave my shop with a install that looks like that. For such a investment in product, it is shame to see it basically thrown into a car. The tweeters I hope you at least tried them in different mounting angles before you decided to just flush them in. A little bit of hot glue, bondo and paint would have had a far better outcome for them. Again though, it is your car and if you are happy that is all that counts.

Nice way to promote yourself - crap on other people's installations.

It's a good thing I'm not a professional installer and I'm not trying to charge anyone for what I did. It's also a good thing I'm not trying to win a show, AND that none of what you are talking about has any effect on the quality of sound coming from the system.

Sorry Dude but I agree Tuck Them Wires... and it will make your install look alot cleaner..my $.02

Sweet install. Looking good.

Now hide the wires under the carpet. I know you're tired from running speaker wire through to the doors but it's actually really easy to do, you just have to remove the panels on the sides of the trunk first, then just thread em underneath. Instant clean install. You might need to cut a small hole in the carpet but so what?

As for the tweeter sail pods. I've got mine stuck in the stock location and angle, and I'm not thrilled with them. Were I not going for a stealth look, I would point the tweeters towards back towards the driver/passenger, rather then having them point at the dash board like they do stock.

I've got the RCA cables and remote power wires under the carpet already. I might run the speaker wires under there as well. Like I said, I'm not trying to sell this to anyone, and to me the wires showing doesn't bother me.

Anyone mind explaining why I should point the tweeters?

I hear you on not cleaning up because you aren't selling. I've had my EQ sitting velcroed to my trunk in a temporary state for months and months now. One of these days I'll clean it up.....

As for tweets, they're very directional. Next time you're in the car, put your hand in front of the tweeter so the sound can bounce off your hand towards your face and you should be able to hear the difference.

Like Socket said, tweets beam their sound. it comes out very focused compared to, say a sub. It's also easier for high frequencies to reflect off hard surfaces and be absorbed into soft surfaces. This adds to their directional nature.

as far as aiming goes, people do it to reduce reflections and allow the sound from each tweet to reach you ears at the same time w/o loss from reflections. Yes, time alignment on your deck does this too, but TA is a bandaid for improper install. It's supposed to be used at the end, when you've exhausted all other practical avenues. BTW, 'improper install' may not be the fault of the installer. Remember, you're installing high end audio in about the worst possible environment when playing with car audio. improper install may be the result of the vehicle, to some degree.

to get the best aiming you'll need a friend.
Sit in the car as you would when driving normally, doors closed, windows up. Have a friend look through the window and find your ear hole. have him mark the window with masking tape 3" down and 6" forward from your ear hole on each window.
Now aim your drivers at the tape on the opposite side of the car. Listen and adjust each driver's position to fine tune the stage and image. After this you can use T/A to perfect the sound.

This process works best for kick panels or door pods since the drivers are actually together. You'll probably run into some difficulties since there is such a big space between your mid and tweet, but they can be dealt with by spending some time tuning.

You'll probably have to adjust the phase of one or more of your drivers too. You don't want the peak of one wave crossing the trough of another as this causes destructive interference. If this comes up (it normally does) you may have to wire one or both drivers on one side out of phase with the other side. In my previous install in my Grand Prix I had a 3way component set. I had the tweet on the drivers side wired backwards and the midbass on the passenger side wired backwards. Trial and error is really the best way to find out what is wired which way.


okay...I think that essay covered most everything. Well...aside from hide your wires! :)

oh, and if you run into heat issues, look into installing 12v computer fans in the cover. You may not have to ditch it.

Again, if you are happy that is all that counts, mentioned that more than once actually. Perhaps the difference between what you are happy with and what would come out of a shop are two different things, so be it. For me, if I had left a customers trunk with a install like that, perhaps you would have been alright with it but the 99% of paying customers would not. What happens if one day you have something in your trunk and it hooks a wire when you take it out? I as a professional need to consider that very likely situation as in the last 20 years I have seen it I don't know how many times from people who like yourself, have done their own work. Am I crapping on your install because your system does not work, no. Take some pride in the work that you do is what this comes down to. It does not take that much more effort to hide the wires properly, to protect them and to protect your investment. My last customer in this situation, bought himself new rca cables after his baby stroller hooked them when he took it out. Then he had damaged the inputs of the amp when the screw that held the 4 plastic mounts to the case and the entire input section of the amp came off the board. Things happen, it would be a shame for it to happen to you in a entirely preventative circumstance. You want to take it as crapping on your install, go ahead, you want to take it as constructive criticism, that would bode far better.