New System Log with PICS
08-16-2009, 05:06 PM
#1
Instructor
Thread Starter
New System Log with PICS
About four months ago I posted a question on the forum looking for advice on a full system for my car. After countless hours of researching and numerous headaches because things did not work out as planned AND a few skirmishes with the wife about the $ I was spending, its pretty much completed…. For now anyway.
I wanted to post something to thank those that helped me, as well as gain some insight from other’s opinions on my decisions. I may have encountered some problems and found solutions that could save someone else a headache in the future.
My car is a 08 Acura TL Type S with a 6-speed manual. I found the stock ELS system to be horrible. I had to preserve the hands free link (allows me to do almost anything with voice activation), the Navi voice – which involved maintaining the center channel, keep my steering wheel controls and not include any added knobs or controls on my dash (no real reason, just because)
With these goals in mind, I ended up deciding to keep the factory amp to keep the Navi voice and maintain the center channel. I have now learned this is not necessary to maintain this feature, but thats how I did it.
The equipment I went with is as follows:
Audiocontrol Dql-8 (switched from AC LC8 for EQ)
CDT PSS –06 Comps with DRT26A’s and 550i X over (Initially went with PSS 626i slim mounts)
CDT CL 6.5 Coax
Cadence FXA 5100 – Comps and Sub
Cadence FXA 2100 – Coax
Sub- DIYMA 12”
Box – Custom Sealed @ .8FT3 from AMI Creations
Total cost of items- About $1800
I kind of messed up initially at a couple points. First, my gut feeling the entire time was to do the DQL-8 because of the EQ and digital cross over, but its expensive so I went with the LC8 first as my LOC from the factory AMP, Audio control stuff runs after the factory amp, so I was basically sending the factory X-overed signal to my aftermarket amps and that was no good. The LC8 had summing, but I was not happy and went with the DQL-8, it was nice because crutchfield let me trade it in towards the DQL. The DQL is initially daunting because there is so much to adjust. I have not used a RTA yet, and probably will not unless I can find someone with one. I am going to end up getting a DB meter and using that with one of the pink noise CD’s. For now, I have just played 5 CD’s that are complete different types of music and charted my preferred EQ settings for each genre of music, once each was charted I averaged them out and that’s what I use for everything. Its sounds good enough for now. Im still not good with frequencies, even though many of you guys gave me some great links, so I use different bands that I feel excel in different areas. This is what I used:
Bass Guitar- Rage, TooL, Alexisonfire, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Distorted Guitar- Bush, Rage, and the bass guitar bands
Clean Guitar- John Mayer, Dashboard, Dave Matthews, Santana, The kooks
Vocals-Coheed and Cambria, Mayer, Dashboard, Feist
Drums- Jawbox, Tool, Sparta, and above bands
Rap- Outkast, 2 PAC- (only two I own)
Electronic- The Postal Service – If you don’t have it, get it, they are good.
The coolest thing about this is where its mounted, I got it mounted inside the rear seat arm rest pass through on the opposite side of the amp board. See pic.
I also changed up the comps from my initial purchase. I 1st purchased the PSS 626 slim mount components from Vertex. First I must say, Mike at Vertex www.vertexaudio.com gave me the best customer service I have ever had. He took time to figure out what I needed and let me change my mind as well. It was great. So I got the slim mounts because that’s what crutchfield said I needed and I did not want to deal with having to make mods, honestly, I know its not a big deal now, but I really did not want to F up my new car.
The 626’s sounded amazing with certain music, if you like a bluesy guitar, like BB king or John Mayer, they are awesome. I fell in love with CD’s I used to hate just because how the Clean guitar sounded. Santana was awesome.
The vocals were also great, I really like the tweeter. Initially I thought the tweeters were going to make me deaf until someone informed me that the switches on the cross overs could attenuate them. They were set at the loudest setting, I moved them to the lowest- they sound great. As many have already written, they are crisp, clean and detailed- but not harsh. I have heard K2 focals and I don’t like them. My only “problem” with these occur when I have a bad recording, like compressed music or a burnt CD off compressed music, you can hear the imperfections in the recording through the tweets, kind of annoying, but at least the music industry will make more money off me now because I will be buying CD’s.
Going back to the comps, like I said, they had great attributes. Unfortunately, I like a lot of music that was probably not suited for those speakers. I like a strong distorted guitar and a prominent bass guitar, for example, TOOL, 90’s grunge, Rage, Coheed and Cambria, Red Hot Chili peppers (Flea - old stuff) and even Jimmy Eat World, they all use a lot of distorted guitar and bass guitar and the slim mounts had problems in this area. SO…. Enter the ES-06 drivers and they met my needs much better. I can cross them over much lower and I can get a driving bass guitar or distorted guitar with a live concert sound. The mounting depth was not a problem either, which is the ONLY reason I never got them in the first place. Im giving them 300W RMS each and Hping them at 80Hz.
As far as the Coax’s go, I don’t do much with them, some say there were a waste, but I know I like it better with rear fill than without it. I have them just loud enough that I cant isolate them. It works for me. Im giving them 100w RMS and HP ing them at 100Hz.
The amps work great, not much to say here, they work.. I have the gains low and I use the cross over on the DQL, but I got them from Jason at Powermax. Also outstanding service and good deals. www.powermaxelectronics.com
The sub I am using is a DIYMA 12”, it was a $100 shipped, so I could not beat the price. Im giving it 300w, I have only had it in for a short time, but I am happy with it. I need to play with the gains and controls, as well as the LP settings. Right now I have it at 75Hz. The box is a little smaller than what the manufacturer calls for, but I get plenty of loudness from it, which may be a problem with larger sealed boxes. I got the box from AMI Creations from www.caraudioforum.com , the box is quality and a good price.
Here are some pics, took with phone, so I am sorry some suck.
Tweet Pic - http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...tweeterpic.jpg
Dash pic –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...nt=Dashpic.jpg
Sub and Box –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...=subboxpic.jpg
AMP pic –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...ent=amppic.jpg
DQL – PIC
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...nt=DQL8PIC.jpg
Car PIC –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...ent=carpic.jpg
Thanks for the help, comments welcome.
I wanted to post something to thank those that helped me, as well as gain some insight from other’s opinions on my decisions. I may have encountered some problems and found solutions that could save someone else a headache in the future.
My car is a 08 Acura TL Type S with a 6-speed manual. I found the stock ELS system to be horrible. I had to preserve the hands free link (allows me to do almost anything with voice activation), the Navi voice – which involved maintaining the center channel, keep my steering wheel controls and not include any added knobs or controls on my dash (no real reason, just because)
With these goals in mind, I ended up deciding to keep the factory amp to keep the Navi voice and maintain the center channel. I have now learned this is not necessary to maintain this feature, but thats how I did it.
The equipment I went with is as follows:
Audiocontrol Dql-8 (switched from AC LC8 for EQ)
CDT PSS –06 Comps with DRT26A’s and 550i X over (Initially went with PSS 626i slim mounts)
CDT CL 6.5 Coax
Cadence FXA 5100 – Comps and Sub
Cadence FXA 2100 – Coax
Sub- DIYMA 12”
Box – Custom Sealed @ .8FT3 from AMI Creations
Total cost of items- About $1800
I kind of messed up initially at a couple points. First, my gut feeling the entire time was to do the DQL-8 because of the EQ and digital cross over, but its expensive so I went with the LC8 first as my LOC from the factory AMP, Audio control stuff runs after the factory amp, so I was basically sending the factory X-overed signal to my aftermarket amps and that was no good. The LC8 had summing, but I was not happy and went with the DQL-8, it was nice because crutchfield let me trade it in towards the DQL. The DQL is initially daunting because there is so much to adjust. I have not used a RTA yet, and probably will not unless I can find someone with one. I am going to end up getting a DB meter and using that with one of the pink noise CD’s. For now, I have just played 5 CD’s that are complete different types of music and charted my preferred EQ settings for each genre of music, once each was charted I averaged them out and that’s what I use for everything. Its sounds good enough for now. Im still not good with frequencies, even though many of you guys gave me some great links, so I use different bands that I feel excel in different areas. This is what I used:
Bass Guitar- Rage, TooL, Alexisonfire, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Distorted Guitar- Bush, Rage, and the bass guitar bands
Clean Guitar- John Mayer, Dashboard, Dave Matthews, Santana, The kooks
Vocals-Coheed and Cambria, Mayer, Dashboard, Feist
Drums- Jawbox, Tool, Sparta, and above bands
Rap- Outkast, 2 PAC- (only two I own)
Electronic- The Postal Service – If you don’t have it, get it, they are good.
The coolest thing about this is where its mounted, I got it mounted inside the rear seat arm rest pass through on the opposite side of the amp board. See pic.
I also changed up the comps from my initial purchase. I 1st purchased the PSS 626 slim mount components from Vertex. First I must say, Mike at Vertex www.vertexaudio.com gave me the best customer service I have ever had. He took time to figure out what I needed and let me change my mind as well. It was great. So I got the slim mounts because that’s what crutchfield said I needed and I did not want to deal with having to make mods, honestly, I know its not a big deal now, but I really did not want to F up my new car.
The 626’s sounded amazing with certain music, if you like a bluesy guitar, like BB king or John Mayer, they are awesome. I fell in love with CD’s I used to hate just because how the Clean guitar sounded. Santana was awesome.
The vocals were also great, I really like the tweeter. Initially I thought the tweeters were going to make me deaf until someone informed me that the switches on the cross overs could attenuate them. They were set at the loudest setting, I moved them to the lowest- they sound great. As many have already written, they are crisp, clean and detailed- but not harsh. I have heard K2 focals and I don’t like them. My only “problem” with these occur when I have a bad recording, like compressed music or a burnt CD off compressed music, you can hear the imperfections in the recording through the tweets, kind of annoying, but at least the music industry will make more money off me now because I will be buying CD’s.
Going back to the comps, like I said, they had great attributes. Unfortunately, I like a lot of music that was probably not suited for those speakers. I like a strong distorted guitar and a prominent bass guitar, for example, TOOL, 90’s grunge, Rage, Coheed and Cambria, Red Hot Chili peppers (Flea - old stuff) and even Jimmy Eat World, they all use a lot of distorted guitar and bass guitar and the slim mounts had problems in this area. SO…. Enter the ES-06 drivers and they met my needs much better. I can cross them over much lower and I can get a driving bass guitar or distorted guitar with a live concert sound. The mounting depth was not a problem either, which is the ONLY reason I never got them in the first place. Im giving them 300W RMS each and Hping them at 80Hz.
As far as the Coax’s go, I don’t do much with them, some say there were a waste, but I know I like it better with rear fill than without it. I have them just loud enough that I cant isolate them. It works for me. Im giving them 100w RMS and HP ing them at 100Hz.
The amps work great, not much to say here, they work.. I have the gains low and I use the cross over on the DQL, but I got them from Jason at Powermax. Also outstanding service and good deals. www.powermaxelectronics.com
The sub I am using is a DIYMA 12”, it was a $100 shipped, so I could not beat the price. Im giving it 300w, I have only had it in for a short time, but I am happy with it. I need to play with the gains and controls, as well as the LP settings. Right now I have it at 75Hz. The box is a little smaller than what the manufacturer calls for, but I get plenty of loudness from it, which may be a problem with larger sealed boxes. I got the box from AMI Creations from www.caraudioforum.com , the box is quality and a good price.
Here are some pics, took with phone, so I am sorry some suck.
Tweet Pic - http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...tweeterpic.jpg
Dash pic –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...nt=Dashpic.jpg
Sub and Box –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...=subboxpic.jpg
AMP pic –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...ent=amppic.jpg
DQL – PIC
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...nt=DQL8PIC.jpg
Car PIC –
http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/v...ent=carpic.jpg
Thanks for the help, comments welcome.
08-16-2009, 09:32 PM
#4
Burning Brakes
I don't see the tweeters but nice picture of your lawn mower, lol.
Seriously, What are the specs for the sub box. I had my eye on one of those DIYMA sub ever since I listened to ChicoOG's audio at Acurafest. Thinkin about get one for my son's sudio system that I putting togther. Going with JL Audio amps (250/1 and 300/4). Wondering if that's enough power for the sub.
Seriously, What are the specs for the sub box. I had my eye on one of those DIYMA sub ever since I listened to ChicoOG's audio at Acurafest. Thinkin about get one for my son's sudio system that I putting togther. Going with JL Audio amps (250/1 and 300/4). Wondering if that's enough power for the sub.
08-16-2009, 10:22 PM
#5
Instructor
Thread Starter
Yeah, I know that pic sucks... I should have pulled it out of the garage. The box is .94Ft3, the DIYMA has .15 displacement. 300 W is good for me, I mean, I guess it could be a little louder, but it hangs with everything I play. I have really only had it hooked up for a couple days and I have to tune it with the EQ and figure out where I want to LP it. The creator says it can run up to 120 (well actually he says it can go to 1k) but I have not messed with it like that. My comps get such good midbass.... I dont know.
The guy who built it did a awesome job, I made cardboard models of various sizes to try to get something that would wedge in that little spot where I have it sitting, in lieu of having a custom fiberglass one made like some of the other guys here. Only $115 shipped. The outer dimentions were as follows:
Front - 14" wide x 14" high
Side - 14.5" deep
Rear - 9" wide x 14" high
.75 mdf
The guy who built it did a awesome job, I made cardboard models of various sizes to try to get something that would wedge in that little spot where I have it sitting, in lieu of having a custom fiberglass one made like some of the other guys here. Only $115 shipped. The outer dimentions were as follows:
Front - 14" wide x 14" high
Side - 14.5" deep
Rear - 9" wide x 14" high
.75 mdf
08-17-2009, 12:40 PM
#7
Instructor
Thread Starter
None taken, it just fits there nicely and is secure. I found the sound to be better firing from the side compared to towards the rear of the trunk. I use my trunk daily so I needed to have the space. I can still fit two suitcases and a gym bag in the trunk with the current set up. Id like to have two DIYMA's, but I just dont have the room..... The compromises we have to make when we get old.
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08-17-2009, 04:59 PM
#9
Racer
...................... The compromises we have to make when we get old.
I'm 50 and I went with a box that fits the trunk better, Sound's good Too............. maybe blame it on being chained down
I'm 50 and I went with a box that fits the trunk better, Sound's good Too............. maybe blame it on being chained down
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