With the arrival and installation of my XS-65's (Thanks Jerry! ) I think I am finally done upgrading my car stereo To commemorate this milestone I am posting some pictures of its progression.

Subs:

Started out with an MTX Thunder 5500 in a prefab ported box tuned to...??? Good output, but a one-note wonder for sure.



Sony amp hastily mounted on the back:



Then, IDQ10V2 in a 0.90cuft sealed box. Very accurate, sounded great, not quite loud enough. I guess I'm not the pure SQ person I thought I was.



Finally, IDmax 12V3 Infinite Baffle -Perfection!



It has an ugly grill on it now, but it keeps the armrest from hitting the speaker.



Build pics:







Sealing the underside of the rear deck:

 

False floor and false wall:

Before:



After:










Build pics:

 

Components:

Image Dynamics CTX65cs: Sounded great, strong midbass, detailed highs. I upgraded mostly out of curiosity and I wanted to see how the car would sound with a tweeter that I could cross a little lower.





Tweeter: Cut hole in stock grill and mounted the tweeter on top.



Image Dynamics - XS-65: Only had them for a day, but they sound incredible. Detail, detail, detail.





Treated the MDF spacers for water resistance and added some duct seal around the baffle.



Side-by-side comparison:





Tweeter fits perfectly in the stock location:

 

OEM Integration/processor:

Started out taking the post-amp signal with the LC6i: Didn't sound bad at all except for a slight noise floor hiss. Upgraded in order to tap the preamp signal and add a processor to run components active, time alignment, eq, and auto-tune.



Switched to Alpine PXE-H660: It's a rat's nest under the passenger seat, but it all hides away when you put the seat back.

 

Looks good man...

 

I like your setup, how everything is hidden. I can't wait to get my system done next weekend

 

Thanks. Make sure you set aside a good chunk of time because you will likely hit a few snags along the way. Trust me, I've hit all of them! Let me know if you have any questions during your install. I can usually at least tell you what not to do.

 

Nice, it looks good

 

Looks good. I was only going to upgrade the front stage for now, but that IB setup is sweet. Was going image dynamics but thinking about dynaudio front stage (thanks, IHateCars )

 

Thanks. Yea, I really can't see a downside to IB. It saves space, looks good, sounds good, gets low, plenty of output, and flexible for tuning.

If I was single I probably would have gone ahead and bought some Dyns, but I'm fairly certain my wife would kill me if I spent $900+ for a set of speakers. I guess I'm glad there aren't any places to demo them near where I live so I probably won't ever have any idea what I'm missing out on.

 

Looks good. Correct me if I'm wrong though...you're basically not in IB right now with a beauty panel. I know the sub has a vented pole piece & I'm also not sure if just that or the entire back part of sub needs to be exposed to the trunk...but the way I see it, you're running leaky sealed right now

Does your processor auto-tune & can you see the EQ after its done? I'd be very interested to see what it does to those seeing how mine are darn close (slightly lower roll-off).

 

I cut some holes in the beauty panel like Jerry did on his, albeit in an ugly caveman sort of way:



I'm not sure if I cut enough holes or if the fabric is transparent enough to allow the sub to "breathe" without changing the response, but I've listened to it with the panel on and with it off and I haven't really noticed a difference so I've just left it alone.

Yea, it has an auto-tune and I think it's supposed to give you a graph of the before and after response, but when I press the "show results" button it sends me to a broken link. From what I read on DIYMA I think it just gives you a predicted response rather than an actual measured response so I haven't really cared enough to look into it.
Regarding the XS vs. CXS I think I read the same thing as you regarding the different responses. From what I recall, the CXS naturally roll off around 1600hz and the XS around 1800 and that was because the CXS were designed more for midbass and the XS more for midrange.

I do, however have a picture of my RTA measurement after running the auto tune. I know this won't help you much for comparison purposes, but you may find it interesting anyway Maybe you can figure out why I always have a gigantic peak around 60hz even after I used the maximum cut there on my EQ.

 

Hm. Interesting. I've always heard that you need a specific Q, to separate the front from the back and seal it as good as possible, etc...but with a big piece of MDF with a few holes and non-acoustically transparent fabric no telling how much that hinders. That's interesting you don't hear any difference in the sound with it on or off though. You also made the trunk smaller with the false floor. How much smaller and how much that might raise/lower the Q...I don't know, but maybe Matt can model it.

About the RTA, it can be helpful, but what was your source? Pink noise 20-20kHz, a song, etc?? That massive peak at 60hz is odd though. Possibly resonance?? Was the car running while you took this? What are you x-over points and slopes currently with the XS's?

If you used Pink Noise or something like that that wouldn't vary from your setup to mine, I could make my RTA (on my phone) get as close to yours as possible and see what I think.

 

Yea, the RTA phone app is mostly just for fun, but I'm finding that it is useful for pinpointing glaring issues and is also a good way to learn to identify how different frequencies sound and how they affect the overall sound of your system. I am definitely learning that too much in the 60-80hz range is really obnoxious.

For the source I just ran a quick Sine wave sweep with the signal generator on the peak-hold setting. The car was running, but I tried to run it at a volume where it would be far above the engine noise.

My mid/tweeter crossover is set at 2.5khz with 12db slope and my sub/mid are crossed at 80hz with a 24db slope.

 

Now to make you sick......


Although a re-tune on the lower end to bring it more in-line. Still just as smooth, just not as hot in the MidBass/Sub Bass region.

 

10 cubes or 20 cubes, it's not going to make a huge difference, especially with a single 12. My pair of 15s model somewhat close from 10-20 and after 20, there's very, very little change out to 100 cubes. That vanity plate should have more than enough breathing room to make it "IB".

Anyway, nice work, looks great and I bet it sounds great as well. One correction though, it should be titled "System Complete for now". I bet within a year you're changing something lol. I didn't realize how nice those high end IDs look out of the door. I haven't seen the basket before. I've heard them, very nice speakers.

 

Wouldn't that top end sound pretty quiet? I don't know much when it comes to RTA curves, though I've heard flat sounds pretty bad. Wouldn't you want an RTA to essentially look like the Fletcher-Munson curve?

 

I have never heard that. Mine has plenty of top end. There are many ways to arrive at a flat RTA curve, and yes, some of those ways will sound really bad (especially if there are phasing issues).

 

Flat response does sound like ass, imo. Dry and lifeless would describe it perfectly.

You got some great equipment OP.

 

Sure, maybe totally flat does, but as you can see, mine has an almost 25dB rise from 20Khz to 20hz, so it is far from flat. An example of flat would be all frequencies playing at the same volume. Most audiophile systems have some rise.

 

I wasn't saying yours was flat, I just meant the top end. I didn't know if some of the top end should be higher than the DB @ 1kHz according to the hearing curves. I'd really like to try the listening curve that you can do on the computer to see what my curve looks like. You start with 1kHz and move both ways picking what sounds the same SPL level for each 1/3 octave. I wonder if you can then use that curve to try and get your RTA as close to that.

I've always tried to understand this stuff, but the more I play around the less happy I seem to be lol. I just need to tune with my ears and hopefully that'll make me happy

 

^^Actually after conversing with someone who I can't mention, but basically has the world best stereo, he said the upper end looked great, very similar to his in fact....the lower end needs to be boosted more in certain areas. So I will be re-tuning again today...lol!

BTW Rich, I love the progression pics. It has sure come a long way and looks great (and I sure sounds MUCH better)!

 

I think I might know who. Nice van? lol

That's pretty cool to know Jerry. Maybe I have something to shoot for now! I know I can't replicate it it and expect the same as we have different setups, but you know.

I'm not sure how accurate the Studio Six RTA app is at about 150hz and under and about 12kHz and up, but I'll have to do some digging. Now...I've got a question...what did you use to obtain that graph?? What RTA and mic? (Edit...I see you're using TrueRTA, but what mic?) Also, is that a sine sweep with max amplitude points or just white/pink noise from 20-20k?

 

I am using TruRTA and a calibration Dayton Mic. I bought one from Cross Spectrum Labs, they do a proper calibration and then I use a M-audio MobilePre (goes between the Mic and laptop). I use Pink Noise from 20-20k (white noise won't show the lower octaves).

 

Thanks guys! I'm pretty happy with the current setup and I think equipment-wise I won't be feeling the itch to change things... for a while at least

I suppose that means that I will be reading and trying to learn as much about tuning as I possibly can from here on out. I've been reading a lot about frequency response curves and in-car measurements lately on DIYMA and it's pretty interesting stuff. Complicated, but interesting.

I bought several of the Studio Six apps for my iphone and I've been playing around with them for the past couple of months. Lots of tools in there that I don't have a clue how to use. The FFT app is pretty cool.

I think the Studio Six apps are pretty powerful and accurate, but you are limited by the built-in filters of the iPhone's internal mic. If I had a bunch of money laying around I would buy the iAudioInterface and get a good mic.

 

You're right about the tuning. A bad tune has made my Dyns sound like a clock radio, worse than the stock system but a good tune is just amazing and emotional. For a while now I've wanted to put a good processor on a factory system and see what I can get out of it. Only problem is I suck at tuning.

 

At least you guys have the opportunity to go with an AutoTune lol.....try doing it with just TA and EQ. It can get a little brutal sometimes, but the freedom is nice I guess.

I got to play with my setup a little yesterday and besides the awful static in my tweeters (can't figure out why it's happening) it sounded pretty good with the tweeters directly on axis. The vocals never moved from the center and the stage seem more in line if that makes any sense. I set the EQ back to flat for the mids and tweets so there's A LOT to be done, but it's beginning to be a pain to fine a way to mount the tweeters in the pods, etc. Might just put em back in the factory location and start doing EQ like that.

Rich, there's A LOT of info over there and it can get overwhelming, that's for sure. I would suggest having a notepad and pen and take notes of anything and everything. I've started to take notes on what points in songs pull the stage down, what points sound hot, what bands on the RTA look too low or too high, how various x-over/slope points sound, etc. With you and I having basically identical setups it'll be fun to bounce idea's and settings off each other.




by the way....anyone watching the playoff's?? Thunder's doin work

 

I've got a very basic understanding of tuning and the only way my knowledge level is going to go up is by accident or from all of the experimentation. I just try new stuff every once in a while now. Some of it is based on theory that I read about and some is just blindly trying stuff. The only thing I've learned about this hobby is the more I learn the more I realize I don't know. That's what guys like Jerry are for.

 

Yours is fine.

I've seen some go for ruler flat

..why?

 

For sure. There are so many variables, especially in the car environment, that can affect the way things sound. The worst part about it is that they all seem to be interrelated so you can rarely change one thing without it affecting something else.

 

I just picked up another IDmax. Couldn't pass up the deal($172 BNIB from Sonic). I will probably keep it as a back up for now, but I'm sure I will eventually want to run both Max's IB.

Matt, you ran dual 12W6's IB right? Did they fit between the braces or will I have to install some L-brackets? Wanna send me your old baffle??

Jay, if I can fit both between the braces I may have to hit you up for your template. Yours is looking pretty good

 

Get another

3 12s ftw

 

Hmmm... I'd love to see someone else do 3 12's IB in a TL. That would be pretty sweet. I'm fairly certain my wife would divorce me if I did it myself.

Hypothetically speaking, what amp would this require and what ohm configuration would you use?

 

Nice! How'd you get it for $172? I see them for $230

Since we have the d4's, you can run 2 at 4ohms. Plenty of amps to power a few of these. Budget?

Might have to get one and go IB lol. Ugh. GF is going to laugh when she hears this

 

I did a single 12 IB, single 15 IB and dual 15s IB. There's no way to fit the dual 12s between the braces. You'll have to do the L bracket. Two IDMaxes would be awesome IB. I've seen people do 3 of them before.

My old baffle was cut to hell anyway. It was only temporary when I did the 12s, it was a frankenstein of scrap MDF that I had laying around.

 

It's kind of a long story. Sonic had an open box D2 for $129 so I ordered it even though I didn't need a D2. I called them this morning and they said the listing was a mistake and it wasn't available. Because of the mistake, they offered me a discount on another product. I asked about the D4 and they said they'd do $199. I asked them if they'd give it to me for $172 which was the coupon code deal that just expired (25% off of $229). The rep said no, but his supervisor said yes. So I get a 12D4 which is what I wanted in the first place for a great deal

I posted a link to the deal on DIYMA a couple days ago and 36 people tried to order the open box IDmax Here's the link if you're curious. There's a ton of other ID stuff on sale real cheap: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...lectronix.html

You should get one! Then you can make the baffle and send me the template I should be able to run both off my current amp at 1ohm. I was asking about the amp and configuration for running 3 12's.

Matt, I'll probably be asking you for advice when I get this project underway. How did you attach the L-brackets? Did you use screws/bolts or something else like JB Weld?

 

Looks awesome! Similar path to the one i took! Said i did not feel the need for any additional upgrades, but i left room for a processor! Ha! Real question i have is regarding doing the grille mod (cutting plastic perforations out and replacing with transparent fabric) i know others are against it since bass is increased with it loading against the door panel. But i think on a two way system my ID's sound so much clearer with the panel off. I just am hesitant to make a irreversible change to the panel, but i am so tempted i have the fabric on hand. What are your thoughts?

 

3 dual 4's?

2 ohms

Plenty of amps that do 1500+ @ 2 ohms. Won't be cheap, though.

 

Nice van in san diego maybe?

 

I'm 50-50 on that mod. I came so close to doing it but decided to hold off until the 10s went in and I'm glad I did. Not only do the door panels give me a little more bass, they give me a whole lot of bass. In my case playing from 60-320hz I don't think the mod would do much good. In your case where you're probably playing to 2khz+ it should clear up the midrange some.

Have you thought about going 3-way at some point? It would solve the midrange problem while retaining your midbass.

I don't think there was a huge difference in bass when I had the 6.5s in there in midbass with the panel on or off, that seemed to come mostly with the 10s.


Just thought I would throw it out there, here is a 3-way set that gets very good reviews and it's very cheap: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...FQQaQgodDFumMA

I know you just finished your system and you're happy with it but it's a decent alternative to cutting the door panel which isn't cheap.