Hey Street, here are my pics as promised. Pics of left kick panels and waveguide:

 

another pic of left kick panel/waveguide

 

right kick panel/waveguide

 

2 pics of subs (rear deck)

 

sub grill removed

 

Sony headunit. Note: glass sensor and LED mounted near emergency hazard button

 

trunk covered for stock look

 

carpet removed

 

another pic of carpet removed

 

EQ/X-Over

 

another pic of EQ/X-Over

 

fuse block & volt meter (volt meter by Brax)

 

amps (pic 1 of 3)

 

amps (pic 2 of 3)

 

amps (pic 3 of 3)

 

spare tire (underneath signal processing rack)

 

wiring underneath the signal processing rack

 

LED install on door pillar (another one located on the exact location on the other door pillar). When armed and blinking, looks like an airplane's blinking lights

 

Damn thats a nice setup you got there. But why is it in a Mercedes I thought this was a TL forum

 

Yeah, I know! But Street wanted some pics of any stereo system in any car, so I volunteered. Oh, BTW, sorry for some of the fuzzy pics. Not too good with the auto focus digi cam.:o

 

Damn Pat, that's one hella of a system in got in that benzo...how much did u spend total? over 10K?

 

Absolutely! One of those amps put me back almost Cdn $2,000 a piece (including taxes - that's about US $1,300 per amp). My system was designed for IASCA competition, so sound quality had to be superb. You have to listen to it to appreciate it. Lots of things I want to do to upgrade the system (like noise gate, better HU, DSP, redo the trunk), but new baby last year killed those plans. Oh well, I guess the baby was a blessing in disguise. Who knows how much more I would of spent on my stereo if it wasn't for the baby! Priorities in life changes.

 

What kind of benz is dat?

 

1990 300E 2.6

 

VERY nice! You wanna know what I like BEST about the system? Whoever wired it did an EXCELLENT job, nice and neat there (pic of the floor above the spare tire).

 

Thanks Street! The shop that did my car is called Audiolines Mobile Sound, located in Burnaby, BC. It took them two months to do the install. I have other pictures, but they are in regular Kodak pictures. As you know, when you compete you need a "picture book" to show off the internal wiring, fabrication, and all. If I can find those pics (I don't know where I put them) and if I can get my hands on a scanner, I'll post them for you to see. BTW, the Merc is a daily driver, so it hauls groceries, kiddie stroller and all. It has seen its fair share of bumps and cuts unfortunately. But I'm enjoying my system every day! For your info, my system took the Washington State Championship back in August 1999 (1st place Novice). If IASCA has the link to past SQ scores up (it was down the last time I checked), you can see me place. The guy I beat was Brian Haley (?) and he went on the IASCA finals and placed in the top 20 (according to memory). So I'm pretty sure I would have placed in the top 20 too (assuming he didn't do anything else to his system). Not trying to brag or anything, but my system does sound good! Imaging and sound stage is good (with guides and kick panels, how can you go wrong?). The only gripe would be that the vocals sound as if it's coming from the dashboard and not from the front of the hood. I'm gonna have to do more tweaking for that. Hey Street, have you built competition cars? Can you post some pics?
Thanks! And sorry all for the long post. Had to do some venting.

 

hey patrick!

i like the work on the car... got a question for ya... with the way you set your subs at the rear deck, does it sound good that way as oppose to enclosing it?

i was thinking of redoing my sub and that was option that i had at the back of my mind,,, i thought maybe that i'll need the volume of the enclosure to give the bass. what subs do you have? i got a 12" jl-audio w1. let me know what you think, thanks!

 

ArchAcuraTL:
My subs are JL 12", but they are free air. Therefore I don't need an enclosure. My trunk sorta acts like an enclosure. Yeah, they sound good. Retaining trunk space is important to me, so that's why I went with free air. If you don't care about losing trunk space, then enclosure would be the way to go. You have choices of sealed, band-pass. I recommend sealed but that's a personal preference. If you only got 1 12" sub, you won't lose too much trunk space. It's going into your TL right? If you don't mind losing your spare tire, the spare tire location would be an excellent location for your sub and you still retain your trunk space. Keep in mind that my 2 free air subs will not pound like your sealed 12". My system is more for sound quality, and not for SPL. Good luck on your system.

 

hey patrick.....is ur kick panel speakers for mid bass or for highs??
and how much did it cost to do that..?? thanks..

 

Kick panel speakers for midbass/midrange. Waveguides for the highs. The kicks cost Cdn $1,000 (labour for custom fiberglass fabrication, vinyl work, etc.). Waveguide labour another Cdn $1,000. Unfortunately, that's a fairly standard price for doing this type of install at a reputable stereo shop up here in BC (unless you are on good terms with the manager of the shop, you might be able to shave a few bills). It's just an aweful amount of labour involved in installing them. That's two grand in labour already, and doesn't include labour on the rear deck or the trunk! Yikes, I've spent too much money!

 

Forgot to mention the specs of my system, so here goes:

Sony CDX-930 head unit
Sony 6 disc CD changer (in glove box)
2 Focal XPRT6KX Kevlar midbass speakers
2 JL Audio 12" free air subwoofers
2 USD A7.0 competition waveguides
Phoenix Gold EQ232 1/3 octave equalizer
Phoenix Gold AX406a crossover
Phoenix Gold TBAT2
XBC balanced cable
Phoenix Gold fuse block
Phoenix Gold LPL
Phoenix Gold pwr/ground cables, interconnects, etc.
1 Audison VR206 amplifier
2 Audison VR209 amplifier
Brax volt meter
1 EFX Schoche 1 Farad capacitor
Yellow top Optima battery
and lots of misc stuff I've forgotten to mention

 

Sorry i dont know how much CDN money works... i was thinking about doing the same thing in my TL..

 

Take Cdn $ and divide by 1.54 (approximately) to get US $

 

hey patrick was your car in car audio and electronics, or sound and security? it jsut loks real familar, may be not a feature but pics from a show?

 

NIce set up,

Dayam you can never do that for a tl, I mean the USD horns. I tried and tried and went to like 5 shops and there is no way you could put those horns on a tl. You would have no leg room hehe(driving hazard but if somebody did please tell). Kick panels was a pain trying to figure out too, so I gave that up too. But the horns make a big difference in sq keep competing and get your points

Mr.T

 

It's possible someone took pics of my car at a show, but since my subscription to CA&E died 2 years ago, I can't verify. I hope it is!

 

I do recall reading in Car Audio & Electronics where this one guy had his horns installed into his front seats. It's a wierd setup; the horns face out (towards the window), and was mounted under the seats. Totally stealth, which is real cool. Whether or not it sounds good from that location is a different story - I don't know. Now, if legroom is a problem because the horns are in the way, you could consider this new option I just mentioned. However, it would mean you would have to do lots of custom fabrication/modification to your TL front seats. You've gone to 5 different shops, and they can't do it? I find that very surprising. You need to go to a shop that has experience doing wave guides. Maybe USD won't fit, have you tried the smaller Image Dynamics waveguides? If you still can't find a shop that can do it, and you really want it done, let me know. I know of a shop here in Vancouver that can do it for you. All they do is high end custom systems, with quite a large number of them being for IASCA competition if you can believe it.

As for kick panels, it shouldn't be that difficult to do. Yes, the dumb parking brake is there, but if you look at my pics, I do too. Custom fabrication is the key here, and you got to go with an installer with experience in building custom fabs. So it is possible to build custom kickpanels with the parking brake there. Don't give up! You might be the first TL with kick@ss SQ and imaging! Unless I beat you there!

 

Patrick,

Holy moly! U gotta bring dat benz to our next TL meet and show us!! Impressive!

 

Sam, but it wouldn't be a TL meet anymore!