abirvalg

this is not and instructional post, but rather and inspirational

special thanks to: Trunk Monkey, Brew0306, JayVee, Six Shifter
and IHC, even though he chose to ignore my posts and blow off my PMs
all of the info on the forums was priceless!
and to hushmat for sticking to EVERYTHING oil, dirt and what not!

little intro:
I have an 09 Ody that i've put through the same earlier this year and i was so impressed with the results and jealous about it not being my daily drive that i've decided to give my 05' TL some long overdue love. I'm the original owner and she's been hand washed, Zaino'ed and Amsoil'ed since day 1. Her and i have been together for a hefty 135K miles. Earlier this year i got her new AT (thanks to $11 ATF filter that plugged and sent the clutches down the drain), so i figured after putting in the ATF cooler she should be good to go for another 135K.

If anyone hasn't taken their car apart yet, a word of advice - do it while the car is not more than 3 years old and do it in summer ... plastic dries and plastic breaks

RUST
This deserves a special mention. When i bought the TL i planned on keeping her for a LONG time, so i had sprayed every hole crack and opening. It helped! 8 years later she's clean everywhere except inside the doors. I had sprayed the doors through the holes at the bottom and that's not enough. Some spots around the reinforcement bars' mounts show slight signs of rust. So if you're doign this on a newer car and want it to last, get a case of WURTH wax for the job.

MS-8 tips
I used before amp connector through ipod harness to LOW level inputs on MS-8. I went to high level inputs first and the volume was VERY low even at 40 on the HU and 0 on the MS-8. Plus with high level MS-8 said my signal is too low. Once i made a rig out of molex male and some cut-up RCAs and plugged that monstrosity into low level everything came to life instantly. My volume levels are almost exactly that of the stock setup (plenty loud) and there is 0 .... i mean ZERO noise or hiss of any kind. NAV talks over all speakers instead of center and HFL has some echo for the other party, but not too bad and fairly usable.

Fitting
Tweeters needed some work to be done on the stock grills. Center is pretty evident from the pics, i went with 4.5" so that all the sound escapes the dash. After all, nobody likes listening to music when it's playing next door, so the more open the speakers are, the better Fronts needed some cutting of the stock baffles as well as the door harnesses for the new speaker wires. And last but not least the Kicker sub (10c84) fits well, but the mounting holes needed some work as the stock ones are too far out, i used bolts and wing nuts with new through holes to mount it. The rubber piece on the magnet had to go and the magnet drops flush right into the hole in the rear deck. I had cut a 2"x2" square in the trunk lining for the sub to vent as it has a little breathing hole in the center of the magnet.

Conclusions (so far)
Deadened TL sounds weird If in Odyssey the deadening instantly complemented the soft ride and gave it a "cloudy" feel, the TL made me think i have plugs in my ears The shakes and jolts of the suspension and the engine are still there, but the is NO sound. The music part is not as "night and day" as it was in the Ody, i'm still in the process of messing with MS-8, and it's "fuller" and better defined sound than stock, but the factory wasn't THAT bad. Of course i haven't tried listening to the factory AFTER the deadening, and from my Ody experience that's what kills factory systems designed to resonate with the rest of the car, so i just went for it rather than taking everything apart twice.



now onto the fun stuff!

rossv1

Great work!

paperboy42190

iTrader: (7)

Nice pics! 56k warning!

abirvalg

thanks guys!

an update on MS-8 tweaking
originally i did it wrong because i had skipped the input setup, which defaults the unit to 2 channel input
my lineup was 1-FL,2-C,3-FR, 4-RL, 5-RR, 8-Sub
upon playing the DVD-A demo track 22 i discovered that only 1 and 2 were present, which explains the loud and clear NAV as it works through Center
and also explains the so-so sound in general ...
i reset everything, ran the input setup and calibration again and ... HOLLY C R A P!!! the music sounds AMAZING! and even louder than before
i had to back off the MS-8 volume to -5 to get rid of some trace white noise

however ...
the center out of the test track is now missing, and also the NAV voice at maximum level with everything else OFF is barely there

i'd certainly take music over NAV

but i wonder why that happened, could it be that HU plays center very low during stereo playback (like ms-8's pink noise disk) and the input calibration ends up ignoring it

it's also strange how HFL volume hasn't changed a bit but the NAV did

terdonal

While this is not something I would undertake I still find it very interesting. Great showing so many pics there are some interesting things to consider just the same. Nice work.

guitarplayer16

iTrader: (8)

abirvalg

Andy's answer to my Center channel dilemma:

MS-8 won't pass the 5.1 signal through. That was one use case that was so rare (in factm your car is one of the only ones like that) that we decided not to address it directly. However, there are some work-arounds.

If you always play music that comes from a 2-channel source (CDs, music from your iPod or the radio), then I suggest getting a little 3" speaker from Radio Shack or somewhere and mounting it in the underdash panel and connecting it to the center output of the factory system. It won't mess with the imaging or anything else, but will still give you the nav prompts. Alternately, if you only care about the sound in the driver's seat, then just leave the center hooked up to the factory system and set up MS-8 as if there's no center.

The reason you don't hear the nav prompts is because when MS-8 "sees" a mono signal during input setup, it low-passes it at 200 Hz and adds it to both left and right (this kind f channel is most often a subwoofer). If we had done that with full range channels (just added them to left and right), it would have made the stereo signal basically mono. This is the job of a "Downmixer" and it's an incredibly difficulty and processing intensive thing to do if you don't have access to the unadulterated 6 digital streams on the disc. Think about the two options I've suggested. The first one works great and allows you to keep the center speaker in the actual audio system.

On the bright side, MS-8 is a very capable amp and makes everything very loud. I only needed to add the N2 for the sub. So i guess adding another little speaker even if i have to pick up one of Navone's tiny amps is not a big deal if i want to hear the NAV.

MEKO

iTrader: (1)

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

Wow, nice work!

Gregerst

iTrader: (1)

Nice. Looks like you put a lot a work and time into it.

abirvalg

it took about 7 days, at a rather slow pace
the worst part was the mess it made out of my garage

Thanks everyone for the compliments!

I hope this helps someone looking to do anything similar.
There is scattered and contradicting info around here as far as the use of MS-8. This should hopefully clear some things up.

mamamilk008

I thought I was looking at my own pictures when I look at your pictures LOL! I have been wanting to post my pictures but got lazy. I'm so happy to see that I'm not the ONLY crazy TL owner out there! I did pretty much exactly the same as what you did so I know how great the result is !!!

My girl friend thought I'm crazy when I took apart the whole cabin to sound proof the car. I even sound proofed the roof. Now I don't really hear much sound from the rain drops when it rains...

The only thing is I didn't add the 1/4 mat like you did. Did you have to remove the stock white sound proof material underneath the stock carpet in order to be able to fit the 1/4" mat in? My car is VERY quiet now but I always wonder if the 1/4" mat will make a huge difference...

As for the center channel, I simply left the stock amp and the stock center channel the way it is. Volume on all 4 speakers would lower like normal when the nav voice kicks in. Did you find the aftermarket center channel help to improve the staging big time? Just wondering as I found turning the stock center channel on does not do much to my staging... oh well, vocals sound slightly slightly fuller if I only turn on 2 to 3 (-2 or -3?) notches but gets messy once I try to set it to 0.

Anyway, impressive that you had it all done in 7 days! I spent 3 weeks, 10 hours/day to work on mines. Nice work man!!

niebur3

Looks great!

qurious9ss

Nice! Those pics are great for people wanting to upgrade speakers/amp and wiring. Like the saying goes, a picture tells a thousand words. I say sticky it.

abirvalg

I'm paranoid when it comes to headliners, the fall, they peel and god knows what. Gravity works against the mounting clips. It takes a special pair of nuts to work on them

The stock white stuff looked to me like a thermal barrier more than anything else. I peeled off about half of it to compensate for the added height, it has a layered structure so you don't have to leave it or kill it all. Now the 1/4 inch itself is a different story. According to basics, mass loaded stuff(asphalt, butyl, MLV and such) stops the vibration in the metal panels and prevents the generation of sound, it's not very effective at stopping the outside sounds from going in. That's the job for closed cell neoprene foam, which has an added benefit of preventing squeaks and rattles. The only thing that stops the sound even better is MVL de-coupled from the base surface by neoprene foam. Some companies sell composite layered materials. I bought the foam backed MLV from supersoundproofingco. When installed face down it creates a "double floor". Unfortunately as effective as it is, the floor is the only place it can be used.

There is always such a thing as "good enough" with sound deadening. Part of it is budget, the other part is no matter what you do you wont get to 0db when the car is driving. So if you like the result, the is no reason to split hairs. In my book "good enough" is when you don't have to raise your voice talking to passengers while driving around town.

Had i known the outcome i would have left the stock amp alone and placed the monoblock some place else. The center speaker itself is nice, but ... i was used to hearing the virtual center on my Ody and loved it. The real center creates a more "solid" image, you don't get that strange feeling that the stage moves when you turn your head. But strangely i kinda miss that
So again, if you're not dissatisfied with the result, i'd leave it alone. Doing it my way, i now have to put center through Navone's amp and add a speaker and a switch if i want to hear my NAV.

THANKS! I'm going to guess you didn't have a 4 year old checking on you constantly and asking you to go play Kinect Starwars and HotWheels with him. Kinda makes you move along a bit quicker


LOL that's why i named it 55K words

Come on now! There's been post more worthy of sticky than this.
What would be nice is to have a sticky with links to post like this (builds with pictures). It wouild give people a better idead of what they may be up against.

PS
One more tanks to IHC for the tip on reversing Sub polarity during the tuning! I have no idea why, but it really works!

xxx_busa

was there a grommet on the wire coming in the fire wall, If not, take the fuse out and do it now or. you'll have a fire and it'll go up quick !

abirvalg

yeah this in not the finished look
i cut the bottom of the stock plastic grommet and put it back into the hole around the cable and then sealed the whole thing with rtv silicone from both sides

i meant to take more pics, just haven't gotten to it yet

thanks for pointing what could have been a deadly mistake!

mamamilk008

I was quite paranoid too when I worked on the roof. Took me a day to take things apart to get to the roof. And a day to apply the sound proof material as I had to cut the sound proof material in to small pieces to accommodate the ridges, knock on the roof panel > apply small piece > repeat.


Very smart move! removed some of the white stuff underneath the carpet to install the 1/4 mat. I agree with you. I sometimes think that my ears are plugged after sound proofing the TL. I think the effect is even greater in yours with 1/4 mat on the floor. I can "FEEL" the road noise more on my feet and I assume I wouldn't "FEEL" as much if I had the 1/4 mat installed. Oh well, road noise can easily be masked by the music now anyway hehe

Thank you for making me feel better with the "good enough" concept

I see. At least you have a work around solution!

FYI, I initially had the stage "shifting" issue when I turned my head even with the Center Channel turned up louder, WHEN I used the "Butterworth" filter on the processor. Playing w/ the phasing & db settings on the passive x-over "+/- tweeter/mid-range db" switches helped slightly but still bothered me... After doing some research, learned that the Linkwitz Riley filter can help to address some "off axis" speakers placement staging issues. Switched from Butterworth to Linkwitz on the processor. (article: http://www.rane.com/note160.html) I also set the rear speakers to "invert phase" to allow a more solid front stage. Now the stage does not shift as much even if I turn off the Center channel completely.

At the end of the day, it is nice that we have AZ to exchange information to learn from each other.

You are correct. No kids here. May be it is the reason why I could spend too much time working on the system. Re-doing a few things here & there when I didn't like how I did it.....

cheers!

teeeejaay

Nice thread. I fatmat rattle trap XXX my whole trunk. sounds 100x better. That must have been a week long project?

teeeejaay

Fatmat vs the RAAM what would you suggest? (For floor)
Looking for lightest way, so was thinking put some RAAM on my floors of the car at least to help with the road noise.

I hate cars

I use Second Skin products. Just remember damper is not a noise blocker. I used their Damplifier to damp vibrations. On the floor with the interior stripped to the metal I covered about 25% of it in damper and 100% in Luxury Liner Pro which is a vinyl and foam layer that blocks noise. Damper used as a sound blocker will not work well at all, it's only for vibrations.

teeeejaay

So would you suggest Luxury Liner Pro is good for the floor? Since it blocks noise, or doesnt work as well as like fatmat or dynamat?

05_NBP_TL

iTrader: (1)

Noise blocking vs vibration dampening ar two different topics.

Luxery liner pro or CCF/MLV from sound deadner showdown for noise blocking. I lined my whole floor with the CCF/MLV and had great results. definately recommend this even if just for the comfort (not audio related).

teeeejaay

Thank you I will be defiantly looking into this.

cnwahlheim

How difficult was it to change out the tweeters on the dash? Did it require that the dash be removed?

Gregerst

iTrader: (1)

I responded to your same question in another post.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...3&goto=newpost

cnwahlheim

Thanks!

Actrite04

iTrader: (2)

How does the kicker sound in the stock location. I have had a system in mine before, but just a square L7 ported. Box took up way to much trunk space. May replace with what you have there.

abirvalg

just a quick update

i've since went active on the fronts, realized that passive crossovers can pick up noise from just about everything if not properly placed and mounted

dropped the much dreaded headliner (just because the itch to do things didn't go away as i had hoped) put a bunch of hushmat and RAAM closed cell up there, now i can't hear the rain

used a box of damplifier PRO and a box and a half of hushmat all around the trunk and rear deck

popped the front fender well covers and deadened the quarter panels and cabin side of wheel wells

used a lot of boom mat hood insulator on the firewall (that probably did the most to cut down the engine noise)

the biggest source of noise now is wind noise, with the only way to fix it is to drive slower

60mph on a nice road i clock about 58db noise
average crap "seams and cracks" brings it to 63 and up depending on what the wheels hit

the most disappointing thing about my car is the suspension now
it's not stiff enough to justify how noisy it gets, just a perfectly bad combination of sloppy handling and harsh ride all at the same time
i wish BMW made our cars, but then i guess it won't BE an Acura

BTW if anyone dares to repeat the components verbatim PM me for MS-8 tuning setting

abirvalg

i like it
i can't tell you if the SQ is there as far a s the sub notes, because i can only compare it with the tuck-away self-powered sub i have in my van
but to me it sounds very much like a sub should
IMHO the cabin is too small for any monster bass

the volume is more than enough for me
part of it is MA n2 is nuts when it comes to power delivery
my volume on the sub is at about 1/16 of the n2's cabability for normal 85-95db listening

if i go any higher the sub overpowers the speakers and stands out
a bit more and my sunroof starts moving up and down

but i've done stuff to the rear deck that i think helps a bit
i've used damplifier pro to form a cavity between the two layers of rear deck sheet metal that isolates the rear speakers form the sub and creates a makeshift vented enclosure

it vents down into the trunk but not sideways, and i've also cut holes in the trunk liner under the rear deck holes to help it vent
so, i guess it could be called an IB

if you choose to go with the same sub, keep in mind you'll have to drill
the mounting holes are just a bit closer to center than on the stock sub
to get in that tight space i had to buy one of them cool variable angle cordless drills

then i mounted the kicker with hex bolts from above and butterfly nuts form below working through rear speaker holes

Actrite04

iTrader: (2)

Appreciate the info. What is the actual model # for that particular sub? Is it free air or just a regular sub?? I just dont want to give up my trunk like i did in my 04 TL. Had great bass but no trunk and alot of extra weight....lol. Thanks for all the info!

Joey tl

Im installing in JBL MS8,In your experience Abirvalg I should hook up my center speaker using the MS8 to power it or don't even bother hooking up the center

Joey tl

I'm having my other speakers and sub power by JL amps

abirvalg

10c84
it's in my original post
and it is listed as free air compatible

@Joey
the Center is tricky question, if you're doing 4" like i did you should be fine with MS-8 powering it, if it's bigger you probably would want to match it to the fronts as far as power goes. As far as not running it at all ... well it sounds good both ways, but the imaging is more stable with it ON

and frankly if you're going with external amp then there're other more flexible solutions as far as processors, Alpine, RF, Arc etc. all of them support native 5.1, and some capable of auto-tuning

the're 3 reasons why i picked ms-8
1 - i has built in amp, which i find loud enough to not use any other one besides the mono for the sub, spares me the need to mount and wire an amp
2 - it "self tunes", useful for someone without equipment and skills to tune by hand
3 - my entire DVD-A collection consists of the factory demo disk, on which only 2 tracks are something i can listen to without gagging and 1 of those 2 tracks is the actual channel demo

the downside is my factory 5.1 is out of the window, as ms-8 can't process it or down mix it, it only takes a stereo (+sub) and creates an ambiance resembling that of a surround system, but once you install ms-8 you won't be able to play any DVD-A's as most of the channels will be missing and the ones present will have a signal level different from CDs and thus clipping and distortion

abirvalg

Joey, forgot to mention, if you have the factory NAV and use center location for aftermarket audio, you may have relocate the center if you want to hear NAV voice
it works through center chanel only

i ended up hooking stock center to Alpine KTP 445 tucked under the dash, mounting stock center speaker upside down on top of dash underside cover on the driver side and installing Accord fog light switch in the empty stock location to turn the KTP's remote on and off when i need the NAV voice

HFL works fine through fronts and ms-8, there is abit of an echo for those who talk to you, but it's managable

also keep in mind that at least the NAV head unit never poers down the remote wire
so if you want to be able to turn your gear off you need a breaker switch on that remote

and another handy thing in any install is a polarity switch for the sub if you amp doesn't have a phase switch on it, ms-8 tunes better with polarity switched for the period of tuning

rhdstinky

i like how far you went with all the noise deadner and vibration deadner. i really wish i could have had the time to go that far. i dd my tl and i cant take it apart that far. so far i have put about 60sqft of fatmat in. i couldnt justify paying so much for hushmat. the fatmat isnt as nice but it get the job done. i actually did 2 layers of it in most places.
feel free to check my audio build out if you like.
its in my signature.

abirvalg

oh yeah! i've seen that thread
nice job!

i wish i had found a graceful way to use aftermarket HU in TL
in my Odyssey i used fatmat (the gray butyl one) and also ended up installing Sony DVD HU
just can't get anything but noisy crap out of the stock HU
TL's is better by far, but i wish i was able to put in a DVD full of MP3s in it

the thing i didn't like about fatmat is how little adhesion it seemed to have, i had to use a hair drier and a roller to make it stay put on clean surfaces

so even with the Ody i ended up using hushmat on the outer shells, where it would be a problem if anything pealed without me knowing, and the inner panel got fatmat, so i can keep an eye on it

ej6sliver

Amazing

HQTL6SPD

Did you tap wires from the oem leads and go straight to the amp? IOW, no sound processor before the amp?

abirvalg

factory HU to MS-8 low level RCAs