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Usually don't venture into this area of the 3G board but I've been really wanting an upgrade to the stock system.
Just some background for reference - I'm a self professed audiophile, albeit a fairly sensible (read: budget conscious one). I run a Benchmark DAC1 and Hifiman HE-400s as my main DAC/amp and cans, but have had AKQ Q701s, ATH M50s, Audeze LCD-2s as far as cans go and several active monitors and amps when I was doing audio production, including Adams and my beloved Miller and Kreisels. Oh and my trusty Shure SE215s.
I'm not looking at pouring thousands of dollars into this build, but I WOULD like to get the most bang for my buck.
Criteria thus far:
- 2 way front stage
- 10 inch sub in a stealth box (albeit I would be willing to go with a 12 in a regular sub box provided it doesn't steal ALL my trunk space)
- Everything MUST be running off of a 5 channel amp. I don't need ridiculous DB levels, but clean power and plenty of it is what I'm looking for.
- The stock head unit is going. Don't really give a shit about steering wheel controls that much, but I want a unit that isn't terribly gaudy. I will likely be doing a Nexus install at some point in the future so its looking like this will be a fairly basic 2 DIN unit. My digital to analogue conversion will be handled by a USB dac, so I really just need it for phone Bluetooth and aux input.
So without further adieu, here's what I've come up with:
Head unit: ALPINE CDE-W265BT, chosen mostly because its easy to install, it doesn't look like a neon mess, and is easy to dial in. Cost is probably about 200$. Willing to explore something a little cheaper, but again, I kind of really like it after seeing it in store and fiddling with it a bit.
Amp: ALPINE PDR-V75 (75w x 4 @ 4 Ohms, 250w @ 4 Ohms for Sub) or Soundstream TN5.950D (85w x 4 @ 4Ohms & 270w @ 4 Ohms for Sub)
Both of these amps can be had for under 210$ US, and I think provide PLENTY of power for my purposes.
Components: Lots of potential choices here, here's what I've looked at so far
- Morel Tempo 6 or Ultras (if I can swing the cash)
- Focal 165A1s
- JL C5-650 (more expensive than the former but can be found pretty easily on fleabay)
- Image Dynamics CTX65CS (significantly lower in cost, would love to hear some feedback on these)
- Dynaudios *(I doubt I will pony the cash for them but one can wish )
I'm currently leaning towards Focals. I've loved every Focal monitor I've listened to in the professional audio/recording world, so I'm inclined to go with a known factor.
I have no idea if I will want to run something for rear fill yet. If I do, it will likely just be the matching woofers from whatever Component system I go with, or in the case of the JLs, I know some recommend the C3-650 woofers to cut the cost down a little.
Sub: JL AUDIO 10W3V3-2 - Can be had for 100$, seems to be highly praised by just about everyone at this price point. I don't need crazy bass, I want definition, and JL seems to be very good in this respect.
Interconnects/Cabling: Again, going with a known quality - Mogami or Canare, depending on what I get a better price on. Both are excellent in the Pro Audio world, and I've really enjoyed them in the car set-ups I've heard.
Would love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions. And yes I'm aware that sound treatment is going to be just as important as the component pieces of the system. I will be budgeting about as much towards treatment as I will towards the electronics.
Ended up shopping around, everything ordered - Here's whats coming in (and it totally different from what I initially thought about going with):
Amplification: Massive Audio P950.5 picked up for 180$ shipped to me. May also run my friend's vintage a/d/s 8 channel P840 - Has bandpass x-vers and individual eq on each channel which is wild, also each channel is individually bridgeable up to 4 channels at 120W @ 4Ohms
Components: Focal Polyglass 6V1 2 - way (may upgrade tweeters in near future)
Head Unit: Pioneer DEH 80PRS - Decided I wanted to run active front stage
Sub: JL Audio H.O. wedge with a 12W3V3
Also picked up pretty much everything needed from the wiring aspect of the install, just need to pick up deadening now. Planning on Dynamat + CCF for now, may add mass loaded vinyl in the future. Biggest concern is cutting all the vibrations / resonance going on in the doors and rear deck - Whenever I play any kind of rap track with 808s or metal with lots of kick drum, the upper part of my door card rattles like a s.o.b.
EDIT: Oh and I may get a 12W6 if I decide I don't have enough resolution from the 12W3, but seeing as I'm not a basshead, and more big on front stage clarity, my realistic next upgrade will probably be either Seas Lotus front stage or Focal K2s.
80PRS will be more than enough to start with - plenty of people run it 3 way active and never buy a DSP of any kind. Its fully capable running a 3 way active system out of the box, considering a very solid independent L/R eq and fairly robust time alignment settings (oh and most importantly, High, Low and Sub channels + individual bandpass x-vers). If I feel the need for more down the line (if I choose to go 4 way active) I'll likely run a Mosconi 6to8 or Helix DSP.
you should look into ''Hybrid Audio Technologies'' great speaker
Too expensive for me
That and I'm a big fan of Dynaudio and Focal and at this point probably wouldn't even look outside of those two brands for an upgrade. I get there's lots of other great brands when it comes to audio, but I'm a bit of a brand whore when it comes to speakers.
that pioneer head unit will do everything you need and more
i would personally run 3 way components in the front and run them active
Eventually. If I decide to go 3 way, I'm going to probably save up for a Helix DSP or Mosconi 6to8 to run the front active.
Everything has come in, but unfortunately the Wedge order got cancelled on me - I did pick up a 12W3V3-4 though, and was planning on trying it out in infinite baffle but after some consideration, I decided I'd build a box for it first and see how it does sealed first.
Other than that, I Dynamated the rear deck and have the day off tomorrow so I'm hoping to finish all the sound treatment and get at least some of the wiring done. Amp is probably going to be located under the driver's seat (if it fits).
Working six days a week is not very conducive to me getting this done. I finished my passenger door last night at some ungodly hour after having to trim my (rather large) speaker baffles down for the door-card to fit over them. Still managed to retain most of their mass though, so at least that's a plus.
Here's a pic of the Focal TN45 tweets sunk into the stock tweeter mounting plates. I think it actually looks really good! I was planning on filling the stock tweeter grilles, sanding and painting but I'm going to leave it as is.
Hopefully going to finish running all the speaker wire today (still need to also run the remote wire) and get my back seat and trunk assembled. Then I'll have a day off Tuesday to tackle the driver door, getting my Nexus 7 set up and getting the system actually running. I still have no idea where / how I'm going to mount the amp in the trunk but that's the least of my problems lol
EDIT: Oh and I have to hand it to dynamat. They make one hell of a product. After deadening both layers of the door (inside and outside with Dynamat extreme, and outside layer with dynaliner) and deadening the door card as well, the noise reduction is immediately noticeable - And this is while I still have my rear seats out and the car is obnoxiously loud. Any and all door card rattles are gone as well, which is what I was really aiming for.
Looks great! I just did the same thing for my image dynamics tweeters too hahah. People say it looks stock which is what I was going for
Dynamat makes a huge difference even in a stock setup! I did it for mine and loved it so much I did it in my wife's civic which is just stock and helped a lot. One recommendation is to put non hardening clay around the door speaker mount to seal off rear waves from front and also add more weight around the speaker mount
I gotta put up my audio thread but definitely interested to see how this one turns out!
Looks great! I just did the same thing for my image dynamics tweeters too hahah. People say it looks stock which is what I was going for
Dynamat makes a huge difference even in a stock setup! I did it for mine and loved it so much I did it in my wife's civic which is just stock and helped a lot. One recommendation is to put non hardening clay around the door speaker mount to seal off rear waves from front and also add more weight around the speaker mount
I gotta put up my audio thread but definitely interested to see how this one turns out!
Yeah I'm just getting things together right now, I still need to pick up clay for the speaker mounts. What I did was use butyl to seal it. I may just use additional Dynamat as I already did UNDER the mount, but over the mount. Mostly my concern right now is to actually get things playing so I can have music in the car again (not having it is driving me nuts lol).
Yeah I'm just getting things together right now, I still need to pick up clay for the speaker mounts. What I did was use butyl to seal it. I may just use additional Dynamat as I already did UNDER the mount, but over the mount. Mostly my concern right now is to actually get things playing so I can have music in the car again (not having it is driving me nuts lol).
haha man it took me literally a year to finally get my sound all dialed in how i like it. and i have a budget build haha. i took my time and had to troubleshoot a bunch of stuff, plus i switched up my components twice, rewired some things with better wiring and solder, etc, and up until last week i only had left side sound for the past 6 weeks!
Oh damn, it took me about a year to build my TL, many hours spend in the garage, from sound deadening to pillars work, amps, wires, geezz.. the fucking list keeps going... but results are endless. !
Next week I'm meeting up with a good friend of mine that is a huge fan of Hybrid Audio and is going to tune my full system, he wont few camps and got 1 place many times... so we will see what it turns out too can't wait.!
haha man it took me literally a year to finally get my sound all dialed in how i like it. and i have a budget build haha. i took my time and had to troubleshoot a bunch of stuff, plus i switched up my components twice, rewired some things with better wiring and solder, etc, and up until last week i only had left side sound for the past 6 weeks!
but worth it in the end!
So far this has been a full week laboring in the garage during any time off I have from work. Just finished deadening the driver door today - I ran into a snag last night when I was trying to get my new speaker wires through the driver side door molex connector. Accidentally drilled out the power wire (of all things lol), had to do a bunch of cutting and soldering to get it all to come together and run a separate wire for door power.
Got it all together and the driver side window doesn't work - Almost panicked, then realized I could have easily shorted it (I did accidentally had the power wire I was soldering arc) so checked the fuse - yep, its blown. Whew, disaster averted (at 5 am no less )
Driving with no driver door-card feels weird as hell.
before you do the driver side, maybe you wanna look at mine and learn something new
Oh I did it already lol, hence all the cursing. The passenger side door was easy, driver side is where I had the problems.
Finished running all the speaker wire, put in the tweets, ran everything to the trunk and put everything back together. Decided I'm going to mount the amp in the spare tire well because being as low as I am and having the RL big brake kit, the spare is pretty much useless to me. So the trunk build will commence probably tomorrow after I get home from 14 hours of work lol
Ordered the last few pieces necessary for my Nexus 7 install (charger, OTG y cable, etc), so I'm pretty excited to make some progress on that. First thing however will be getting the new head unit and steering wheel control wired and trunk finished.
Still plugging away at it - Unfortunately I greatly overestimated my ability to relocate the HVAC display by itself - ended up cracking the LCD, got seriously frustrated and then wasn't careful and actually cracked my Nexus 7 screen while securing it into the radio bezel. You live and learn I guess. 200$ later I have a new HVAC unit and a new Nexus 7
Now, usually I would be the kind of person that would take what I learned here and try and do everything again, but something is telling me that I should just leave things be for once, since I was perfectly happy without the Nexus 7 in the dash.
Decided to compromise and relocate the Nexus up to where the clock display is on a mount (also since my cellphone was already mounted there and I cut a small hole in the vent/clock piece where it meets the dash so that I could snake a USB and aux cable through their. It will be something similar to what the Mercedes CLA has.
Now I know its not as sleek as having the Nexus in the dash but to be perfectly honest, I have no desire to do the cutting and fab work that it would take to relocate the HVAC display, nor do I think the final result would look that great, having browsed probably 20+ threads of Nexus installs. I want the Nexus pretty much purely for navigation and Torque, and I think I got distracted from what this whole build was supposed to be about - the sound quality, seeing as I was initially never going to have a Nexus installed anyway.
Now all of that being said, I did get USB Rom with Timur's Kernel installed on the Nexus along with all of the necessities, tested it and deep sleep and OTG host+charging mode works great, as does Poweramp playback and library info from a USB stick, so I may end up buying a DAC (Schiit Modi 2 maybe?) to use with the Nexus as my primary music playback device instead of the Pioneer DEH as I intended.
Precisely that. I have my phone mounted in that spot usually and find it a lot easier to look at than the HVAC display location on the TL, so the Nexus 7 will be going there.
Oh also forgot to update, but I just really had a shitty strain of luck - the Focal Polyglass component set I picked up has been a complete bust - One of the tweeters died (coil separated) and one of the mids is having suspension issue. Not exactly happy there. On the bright side I picked up a set of NVX XSP65 mids (basically rebranded SB Acoustics) and JL Audio ZR100CT tweeters (which are fantastic, WAAAAAY better than the Focals) which will serve for now.
My eventual plan is either a set of Dynaudio Esotar 650s or Morel Elates 6.5s in the door, and if I decide to go 3 way front stage, the mids to match them. Have also considered JL's ZR series 6.5 woofers for the doors as a stop gap before I blow 900$ on Elates or Esotars. I've read IHC's account of the 650s and I really like the idea of a 6.5 that SLAMS, but also has the clarity to back it up, so that's probably my eventual goal.
NVX XSP65 mids installed, had to widen the mounting rings I made for the Focals, but other than it was fairly pain-free. Also thankfully confirmed that the issue was with Polyglass mids.
Impressions: Lots of mid-bass content, albeit I don't know if it hits quite as hard as the Focals. Slightly veiled in the mids, but they carry up to 4k (where I have them crossed over) quite nicely.
Also, I picked up an Ipod Classic to use as my main source for the DEH80PRS, and the functionality with the deck is awesome. Easily browse and play all the music on the ipod and I can control it right from the Pioneer. Also helps that it allows me to play ALAC on the deck, since it doesn't like FLAC or ALAC on an SD card. All in all, considering I got the Ipod for the same price as a 128 gb SD card, not bad, not bad at all.
NVX XSP65 mids installed, had to widen the mounting rings I made for the Focals, but other than it was fairly pain-free. Also thankfully confirmed that the issue was with Polyglass mids.
Impressions: Lots of mid-bass content, albeit I don't know if it hits quite as hard as the Focals. Slightly veiled in the mids, but they carry up to 4k (where I have them crossed over) quite nicely.
Also, I picked up an Ipod Classic to use as my main source for the DEH80PRS, and the functionality with the deck is awesome. Easily browse and play all the music on the ipod and I can control it right from the Pioneer. Also helps that it allows me to play ALAC on the deck, since it doesn't like FLAC or ALAC on an SD card. All in all, considering I got the Ipod for the same price as a 128 gb SD card, not bad, not bad at all.
How are you liking the xsp midbasses now? I have been eyeing those for some time.
How are you liking the xsp midbasses now? I have been eyeing those for some time.
Now that I've had a little time to get accustomed to them and tune them to my liking, I like them quite a bit. They get plenty loud (more than I'd ever need I think), and the midbass bloat I thought they had was more my poor choice of boosting 125 hz (only mildly but still). After redoing my EQ a little, I'm a lot more happy with their mid-range clarity (which since I listen to a ton of guitar-centric music, is possibly most important to me).
Beyond that, I think they will still need a little more break-in time and tuning, but considering I got them for 150$ shipped to my door from a fellow on the DIYMobileAudio forum practically brand new (they looked like they hadn't even been mounted before) I'm very happy.
12-31-2015, 09:14 PM
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can't wait.!
