Bigpete123

Try to get something in the same material as your headliner color-matched to your interior for the sunroof. If I was able to find color-matched vinyl for my 18 year old car, I'm sure you'll be able to find somebody who sells replacement material for yours. You don't want that panel to attract attention. I can understand doing accents on seats or on the doors, but not the center of your ceiling. If your headliner isn't vinyl, don't do vinyl.

nicest box you've posted yet! That thing ain't going anywhere with all of the bracing you've done. The compound angles appear to fit perfectly.

Looks awesome man. The screws don't look bad at all. What are you going to cover those spots on the sides with? you should make some panels out of fiberglass or something. And how do you plan to attach the piping? Will you pull out the panels and staple the piping along the edges?

Man, that looks like a big pain in the arse! Good work though! I'm still fixated on the curves you put into your design though. It sure seems like a lot of extra work to put all of those curves into it only to have them hidden inside the enclosure and on the back side. Not to on your parade! At least you will know it's there!

Forgive my ignorance (I've only done sealed and IB setups), but what is the purpose of adding those curves to the inner part of your ports? I can understand adding the curves in the visible spots, but the internal ones seem like a lot of extra work for no benefit. Good idea putting the tweets with the speakers in the doors. I have a 3 way setup up front- tweets and 4" in the dash, 6" in the door. I don't really hear the midbass nearly as much as the highs. It also messes with the stage a bit. And maybe I'm not a purist, but I've tried disconnecting my rear speakers and running on the fronts only. I agree totally with you- you don't feel like you're "in" the music nearly as much without some rear fill... if that makes sense... I have my rears turned way down, basically to the point where my ears can't pick them up directly (people sitting in the front would probably not realize there are speakers in the back without looking). But I definitely notice the difference when they aren't connected.

Good for you man. It takes a level head and discipline to get that far along, realize you took things in the wrong direction, and start over. To make the wall integrate into the trim this time around, and while you have the box out, maybe you should make fiberglass molds of the sides of the car and the roof. That way you can cut perfect trim pieces around the edges of the box.

holy poop that sub is huge!

I can definitely appreciate the amount of work you've put into this. You most likely will be the victim of early hearing loss though!! Might I suggest that you really sweat the details... cutting custom pieces like that takes forever and is extremely frustrating, but the quality of that work makes or breaks the project. I've come across situations when doing work like this when Ive used the same words as you have- "It's good enough for me"... aka justification for cutting a corner. And if you're like me, if you get lazy on something and it turns out crappy, you won't be able to stop staring at it! Maybe you're not as anal as I am though. And as far as the car's value goes, you have definitely devalued your car significantly. But like you said, that's not a concern until you sell it (and you never plan to sell it, so it's not an issue). If you eventually change your mind and get sick of the car, all you can hope for is that somebody hits you and your insurance company gives you blue book! How does your car handle with all of this extra weight? how much weight do you estimate this will add to your car?

The connection problem was easily resolved- my RCA cables for the front channels were not holding very well to the plugs on the amp. They were slipping off for whatever reason. Needle nose pliers solved that no prob. Tinkered with the tweeter channel a bit by increasing the gains ever so slightly. It brightened/cleaned things up a little; i think was being a little to cautious with them. It helped, but I still hear this muffled/tube sound coming from my 4" speakers in the dash. I tried disconnecting the tweeter channel and disconnecting the midbass drivers in the door. It's definitely coming from the dash speakers, and the tone quality doesn't change at all when I disconnect everything else. The thing is that my ears only really detect this issue when the music first starts up. As the music becomes more dynamic (more instruments, tones, frequencies), it becomes more difficult to detect. This is actually one complaint that I have about Focal speakers to begin with. I got talked into buying them over some MB Quarts, even though I thought the Quarts sounded more pure, clean, warm, etc. I even remember telling the guy at the store that I didn't think the Focals sounded as clean. I got a better price on the Focals and already had the rear Focals so I bought them mostly for matching them to the rears and for the price. So i think that was a mistake. Maybe someday when I get sick of this I'll swap them out for some MB Quart 3 ways. But my question is this: is there anything I can do to mitigate this tone issue at all? Is it a problem that my dash speakers do not have any kind of baffling behind them? Would i benefit from adding some kind of compartment filled with Polyfill or fiberglass insulation? I have heard speakers that are hooked up to a stereo without any kind of enclosure around them, and they sound aweful. I wonder how much of what I'm hearing is the result of a similar principal? Said differently, i know it's important to isolate the "front waves" from the "back waves" because I labored greatly to do that in my infinite baffle subwoofer installation. How much does that same principal apply to midrange drivers? You can see in my pics on previous pages that my front speakers are sealed pretty well to the dash. The question is whether I should do a better job of containing the soundwaves coming off the back of the speaker cone. Thoughts? Thanks for your help.

Hey everybody. Some of you might have read some of my previous threads, but I thought I'd start an official one that documents my progress. First off, here are the details of the installation: Car: 1990 Mercedes 300ce HU: Nakamichi CD-400 Amps: JL Audio 500/5 and JL audio e2150 (rear fill) Sub: Infinity Kappa Perfect 10vq (to be installed via infinite baffle) Front Speakers: Focal Polyglass 3-way components Rear Speakers: Focal Polyglass 4" 2-way components EQ: Audio Control EQS 6-channel Sound Deadening: 2 layers of Damplifier pro, and Second Skin's Overkill (foam pad on top of damplifier) Other: Rockford Fosgate Omnifi (MP3 harddrive-mostly for friends). Highlights of installation plan: -Custom fiberglass enclosures in front doors for 6" mid-bass where the map pockets are -Custom Fiberglass enclosures for rear speakers (stock holes are sealed for infinite baffle sub installation) -AUX inputs/bass knob in ashtray -Front 3-way components bi-amped off of 500/5 -Infinite Baffle sub (sealing the trunk has been a challenge) -All cabling running under seats down factory channels -Amps and EQ mounted in enclosed, ventilated box in trunk Currently, I'm 90% done with sound deadening, I've run the cables, and I've mostly sealed the trunk off with caulk, damplifier, and expanding foam. I will have to make custom sealed enclosures around the headrest mechanisms, the trunk hinges, and the holes where my wiring goes through. Most of the tedious/boring work is done. But I still have a ton of work to do. Estimated completion date: End of August (before I get married, hopefully!) Here are some pics. Not much to look at since this is just be boring part of the project.

That's a good question. I haven't spent any time testing such scenarios yet, but my crossovers are in my glove box... so that would be pretty easy to do. I'll give that a try tonight.

Okay, got the "new" 500/5 from Ebay. It sounds great, the problem from before is clearly gone. There are two new problems though. 1) When I turn hard to the left in my car, the right speaker gets staticy and breaks up. I haven't had time to investigate, but I hope to the lord almighty it's just a bad connection somewhere. It seems to affect both the tweeter and the midrange speaker (meaning it's not a crossover connection since my tweeter is connected directly to the amp and doesn't run through the crossover), so hopefully it's a connection at the amp or something and not the amp itself... and hopefully it's not my head unit because that sucker was not cheap and is really tough to find in the US. 2) I'm not completely satisfied with the tone quality of the mids in the front dash. They almost sound like they're in a tube... and slightly muffled. I will double check all connections to make sure I haven't reversed the polarity on any of my connections, but I'm pretty sure that's not the problem. I'm thinking it might be because the speakers are hanging in the dash without any baffling or any kind of enclosure behind them... If that's the case it will be pretty difficult to get them out of the dash and redone based on the way they are installed. There are all kinds of electronics and A/C ducts back there so making an enclosure is out of the question. Do you guys have any suggestions on making the dash speakers sound better? I still haven't installed the 6 channel EQ, but the issue here isn't a frequency issue... it's a TONE issue... Thanks! Peter

Ignoring the rear speakers, I would need 4 amps to drive the tweeters, mids, mid-bass drivers, and the sub: Tweeter amp: 15 watts rms per channel at 8 ohms Mid range: 50 watts rms per channel at 4 ohms Mid bass: 75 watts rms per channel at 4 ohms Sub: 250 watts rms mono at 4 ohms But I don't really see any options out there that I'll be happy with. I'd have to buy a bunch of active crossovers, re-wire some stuff, re-do the trunk setup, and buy 4 amps. And would I REALLY hear the difference? The amps would have to be fairly high quality to meet the quality of the 500/5, so I'd end up breaking the bank. probably not worth the work and money.

lol, not sure I get it. Ha btw, everytime I come on this forum when I'm at work and you have a post in a thread I'm viewing, I have my left hand on "ALT TAB" at all times! lol I don't want anyone to think I'm looking at porn at work

Yes indeed, it's the Nakamichi CD-400. It looks like Audiocontrol makes an active crossover that will take a single front channel signal and split it three ways. The trick will be swapping out "jumpers" inside the unit to move up the frequency ranges (since I don't want to use a sub on the crossover setup). But the more I think about it, the more I think this is WAY over the top. It would require some re-wiring and a lot of extra money since I would be replacing my 500/5 with 4 separate amps. I don't think the extra expense would be worth the improvement in SQ. So I'm just gonna buy another 500/5 and get this show on the road.

Audiocontrol (whose products i'm quite fond of) makes a product called the DQX, but it's designed so that one of the outputs is always a subwoofer. So I'd do the tweet and mid on one channel, midbass on another, and the sub on the third channel. I guess that would work, but I'd rather have each driver on its own amp. So I guess that actually means I need 4 amps. Maybe this is complete overkill.

Wow, I can't believe it has been 10 months since my last post. That's depressing, because I still haven't gotten around to sending my amp in to get fixed. That means that I have been without my car stereo for almost 2 years now! ha ha I really can't believe that. I was like 10 steps from the finish line, sick of working on this project, only to find out the amp was bad. That took the wind out of my sails. Since then, we've probably only put like 5,000 miles on my car since we don't drive to work. So completing this install hasn't seemed urgent. But now I'm at the point where I'd like to finish this install. And i'm at a crossroads. My amp is bad, I've already spent $150 getting it "fixed" by JL Audio (and they never actually fixed it). I don't feel like waiting another 2 months and spending another $150, only running the risk that they'll make the same mistake. So I'm considering 2 options. 1) Buying the amp brand new from a reputable buyer on eBay. I can get it for $475 or so, shipped. The advantage here is that everything is wired up already for this amp so there wouldn't be any major trouble installing it. 2) Using this as an opportunity to improve my system further. As some may remember, I have Focal 3-ways up front. The 500/5 is set up to be used in "tri amp" mode where I use the rear channel to drive the front tweeters, the front channel to drive the mid and midbass drivers, and the sub channel to run the sub (obviously). What about if i were to bag the idea of a 500/5 and do a TRUE tri-amp setup where I buy 3 small amps for the front stage to drive each speaker? i would get 3 active crossovers. The problem of course would be that I would need to figure out a way split the front channels' RCA signal 3 ways. The 500/5 automatically split the signal between the mids and tweeter using 1 input. How would you guys recommend going about this? Without degrading the signal too much? Would I need to boost the signal from my HU to handle that? Any gear you would recommend for the crossovers and for splitting the signal? I have a hard time finding an amp that would be suitable for the tweeters; all of them are WAY too powerful... Does anybody make a high fidelity low wattage 2 channel amp for something like this? Thanks! Peter

I guess I didn't really think about that option... I assumed that it would be cheaper to just get the thing repaired... If I buy it online from an unauthorized dealer, we're talking about $600... Quite a bit more from an authorized source... JL Audio only charges a $160 (I think) flat rate for their repairs... Maybe I'll just bite the bullet and send it in, and see if I can get them to do it for free... Maybe first I should take it to that shop and see if they can hook it up just for testing to make sure that I'm not crazy.

Hello everyone, I haven't posted here in a while, but I've been keeping myself current on the threads in the build logs section for sure. Some of you might remember my build log, and might also remember that once I got to the point where I could finally fire the thing up, I was having lots of trouble with noise. I tested and tested, and it turns out that it is my JL Audio 500/5 that's to blame (I installed another amp in its place and the problem was totally fixed). It's a high pitched beeping sound that changes evenly in frequency (up and down). Sometimes it actually sounds like a pack of dolphins from the nature shows... very bizarre. It makes this noise in all channels, and does it regardless of whether or not the car is running (which I assume rules out alternator interference). I plugged my ipod into the inputs of one of the channels to see if it could be the HU... noise is still there. Even when I turn the HU off, the noise is there... when I disconnect the RCA leads from the amp... you guessed it... noise is still there. I sent the 500/5 into JL Audio probably about a year ago for the same problems. That's what encouraged me to tear my car apart and redo my installation. My new install took almost a full year... I only had limited time to work on it... Needless to say, it sucked the life out of me. So I never tested the amp until somewhat recently. This is the same exact problem. The previous repair was under warranty. My warranty is now long expired. So finally, to my question: Would you guys ever take your gear to an independent shop for repair? Check this one out in my area, for example: http://precision-audio-video.com/?gclid=CN...CFSEfYQodilG-Hg They have a ginormous list of brands they repair, and my concern is that they might be too "jack of all trades". I'm not electrical engineer, but the 500/5 has some pretty complex circuitry in it (I can only assume due to its high level of adjustability), much of which I assume is proprietary... But I don't want to wait 2-3 months for JL audio to "fix it", only to have them screw me again... Thanks! Peter

I will second M5's advice on using a homemade fence as a guide for your router. It seems that you probably have a table saw, so making the fences with some scrap is easy. Although of course a router will leave the corners rounded (since the bit is round), and a jig saw will give you crisp square corners. It depends on your preference. If your port is glued in as well as screwed, I recommend temporarily removing the screws on the outside of the box that hold the port on and hitting that with your roundover bit as well. Then countersink your screws and cover them with some wood filler or bondo. You seem to love the roundover bit and I think it will be good for aesthetics.

If you're looking for SPL, it's definitely not the way to go. According to Infinity (I have the Infinity Kappa Perfect 10VQ sub), the subwoofer's wattage drops roughly in half when you compare IB to a sealed enclosure. Not sure how it would compare to a ported enclosure. But the tricky thing about it is that the subwoofer becomes much more sensitive to the power it receives; it's more efficient because it has almost no back-pressure to fight against. For the very short period when I got to listen to music in my car (before I realized my amp needs to be sent in for repairs ), I actually found the sound to be much more punchy than I expected. It was actually louder than expected too- I had to turn the gain down for it to suit my listening preference. I haven't actually heard any IB setups other than my own. But I'm sure woofer selection is extremely important. Apparently the Q needs to be low on it, etc etc. I just bought a sub that is made for IB from the manufacturer, so that took all of the research out of the equation for me. But I bet making sure the woofers are designed for IB is vital for SQ. Equally as vital is your diligance in sealing the trunk from the cabin. Don't skimp on that. I had some people tell me IB is a horrible idea because the sub "sounds like it's flapping all over the place". Mine sounds nothing like that at all. I'm willing to bet the people who told me that were either using the wrong sub or didn't take the time to prepare the trunk as they should've. Regarding whether you could fit all 3 of thos subs in your rear deck, you could always get creative. You don't have to flush-mount your subs to the deck. You could build a baffle that allows the subs to be angled, or you could build a chamber that vents into the cabin via the rear deck. Obviously this is more work, but it could look pretty slick. For example, look at the "small deck installation" section on this page: http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/boxes1.asp#2 Anyway, sorry for the long post. Maybe you already knew all of this, but hopefully it was helpful.

That sucks man, sorry to hear about that.

man, I'm really enjoying all of these build logs all of a sudden. Keep up the good work. PS- take care of your ear drums! You only get one pair!!

wow, very impressive. Looks great. Goodbye trunk space!

sweet, that looks like it fits your car nicely. Same deal with my car- the orange lights and the simple face plate make it look like it rolled out of the factory that way.