Ok, so I have a '99 TL and absolutely love all music. Because of this, I want to put a decent stereo in, and have done some research here and other places. Now I just want to get an idea of how all othis will go together.

Here are my goals for the system:
1. Do it all myself, I am a mechanical engineering student and am quite handy. This will be a matter of pride.

2. Change the look and functionality of the car as little as possible. i.e. No boxes; no visible cutting; no new HU; clean wiring; and the like.

3. Improve quality of car's sound with stereo off. This means a good bit of dampening material.

4. Sound good without being loud. There is SQ, and there is SPL. If we think of SQ being conservative politicians, and SPL being Liberals, I want something in the Mussolini area.

5. Good imaging, I consider rear speakers to be fill, and of no concern really, I just don't want them to detract from the front.

6. Again, not loud.

7. And finally, to stay within a reasonable budget.

Components
Front Speakers:
Focal 165 k2

Rear Spekears:
Focal 165 CA

Sub:
IDMAX 10D4 in stock location

Amp:
Zapco Ref 360
(runs front channels and sub, rear run off HU)

Dampening:
Cascade, everywhere.

Reasoning

I love JM Labs, this is the French company that makes the Focals and a little speaker called the Grande Utopia, which is perhaps the best Hi-fi speaker ever. I figure that the quality of the car speakers will be as good as their larger brethren, but I may be wrong. If any of you might have heard both, your opionions will be greatly appreciated.

I know the benifits of good amplification, but like I said, don't want a lot. I think that if I only drive the front speakers off the amp, and let the rear be filled by the HU, I will be quite happy. The only place I would be worried about power, is in the bass, but again, SQ is the only thing I am worried about.

The sub must be a free-air, I cannot afford the trunk space and will not compromise on SQ. The best I could find out about was the IDMAX, but I couldn't find out a lot about its intentions. Is this a SQ/SPL sub? All the information made it seem like a combination of the two, but kept bragging about monstrous SPL. Any other brand suggestions would be helpful.

The dampening must not stink, and must be good. So Cascade it is. All agreed? Yes.

So let me know where I can improve this, and perhaps where I am missing a key element. Thank you.

Ed

 

Ed,
Sounds like you have everything all set for a good system. I've done the "not all speakers amplified" routine and it ends up sounding pretty good. You'll obviously need to match the amp's gain control on the fronts so that you don't completely over-power the rears. An added benefit is that playing the music at a low level with plenty of amplification is that you will have very little distortion on the fronts - seems that's what you're looking for.

You didn't mention cables. Make sure you get good quality cables. There are a ton out there. One place you'll pick up a lot of extra noise is in the patch cables running to the outboard amp. You'll want to get RCA leads with braided outer conductors. These will reduce the amount of EMF that can get at the protected center core. Bad cables can often transmit noise from your alternator to your amp, causing clicking through the speakers.

Oh, I don't know what kind of output your 99 head unit has, but unless there're RCA-type amp outputs, you're going to need an adapter of some sort to provide a line-level input to your amp. Maybe someone else has some ideas/experience on this.

The Zapco looks pretty sweet. I'd go with a 4 or even 2 gauge (2's probably overkill) power and ground cable. Get a good brand with nice thick insulation. You don't want it to chafe and you want plenty of cross section to let the power flow freely to your amp. If you can't find a converter to provide line-level input to the amp, you may have to go with another amp that can accept speaker level input. Again, there are a ton of them out there. You'd need to run your front speaker wires back to the amp and then the amplified speaker wires back up front to the speakers.

Since you're getting good cables, don't go cheap on the connectors either. Gold plated doesn't cost all that much extra and will ensure you of a clean transfer of power and signal.

That's about all I can see. Looks like you did your homework. Good luck.
Fred

 

personally i think that you are severly under powering not only the front speakers but all the speakers in your setup.. i think that you will be much better performance if you put more power into those focals up front and the id max... another thing.. where do you plan on mounthing the idmax... on the rear deck right.. if so you really need to think about how you are going to support that beast... the idmax is a monster i want to say it is somewhere in teh neighborhood of 30+ lbs.. and i think that you would get much better spl if you put it in a sealed box... a good installer could build you a box that takes up so little room that you would bearly miss it... but i do agree with you on the cascade it is the best dampening material i have ever messed with and does not leave a scent at all... just my $.02