[Profile] ubermike

[ubermike]

Install time!

The stock audio system in these cars just doesn't cut it for me. I needed my bass back in the music. The previous owners had installed some cheap Sony xplods in the rear deck, which they had wired out of phase. lol. The speakers provide a little more quality then what I imagine stock would be, but the low bass distortion is bad when the vol is over 30.

The solution? transplant my system from the CB7.

I have an Alpine MRP-M1000 amp and an Infinity Reference 12" in a 1cf sealed box which I began installing today. I'm keeping the head unit stock and using a LOC off of the rear speakers to run the sub. I also installed some 200Hz high-pass bass blockers on all of the speakers to remove distortion at high volume and leave the lows to the sub. They seem to work great and allow me to turn the volume up to about 34 before hearing distortion. This will be solved in the future when I can afford my speaker amp and eq setup, but for now I think some rigging will do!


Here is how I mounted the LOC and ran the wires to the rear speakers. Not super pretty, but will do for the time being. White and grey go to the speakers and purple goes to the amp.


Bass Blockers to save the rear speakers.



Also installed LED bulbs in the license plate light and door lights.






I'm 98% certain the old cabin air filter was at one time as white as the new filter... Looks like it was never replaced. Yuck!





Sub install will be finished tomorrow.

I'm likely going to post more pics and document most of my future mods in this thread, kind like keeping a log. lol. If I should be doing this elsewhere, please let me know.  

[CrackerTeg]

In your profile is the perfect place to have your log. I'd like to see what you come up with.

[timot_one]

Definitely a good idea to keep this all in your profile thread.  200 Hz seems kind of high for front speakers though.  Wouldn't it make more sense to get 100 Hz bass blockers for the front and keep the 200 Hz ones in the rear?  You'd be asking the sub to do a lot more than it's meant to if you have it crossed over at 200 Hz with a low pass filter.

[Accord Euro-R]

Welcome!  Always nice to see another member from OH, and especially Columbus.  Where about are you located in the city?  I am always looking for more CM's to roll with.

[ubermike]

Welp, finished the sub install. It took me a bit longer then expected, but works great! I ran 4 GA knuknoceptz wire from the engine bay connected to 0 Ga "ebay" wire through the interior. Hooked to the cap then the amp. Sounds fairly good and didn't cost me a dime! Now looks is a different story... I'll get the plywood covered in carpet as soon as I can.

Definitely a good idea to keep this all in your profile thread.  200 Hz seems kind of high for front speakers though.  Wouldn't it make more sense to get 100 Hz bass blockers for the front and keep the 200 Hz ones in the rear?  You'd be asking the sub to do a lot more than it's meant to if you have it crossed over at 200 Hz with a low pass filter.

Yeah I agree they might be too much as I ran my xover at 125 hz in the other car., I haven't even taken the panels off to see what speakers are in the doors. My guess is stock, not horrible sounding though. I keep my max vol near 30 and have turned down the bass on the headunit and increased the gain on the woofer to keep some bass out of the speakers. I'll be transplanting my infinity 6.5s into the doors here soon and installing the bass blockers. I don't plan on keeping the bass blockers in forever, just until I get a speaker amp and an active crossover. Could be some time on that one, but I have mostly everything planned out.  

Welcome!  Always nice to see another member from OH, and especially Columbus.  Where about are you located in the city?  I am always looking for more CM's to roll with.

Hell yeah! I'm on the west side, south of Hilliard.

[HEcreated487]

Nice update.  I have an Infinity Reference 12" as well.  Nerdy Mikes with the same sub?  Weird.     I might have to adjust my xover bass setting to filter at 125hz.  Right now it's at 80Hz, which may be pushing the speakers a little.  Keep the updates coming.

[timot_one]

80 Hz is a good crossover point for the front speakers actually. You'll have more midbass up front, which will fool your brain to localizing the bass in front of you instead of behind you. The higher you have your subwoofer crossover set, the easier it will be to localize where the bass is coming from.

What eq were you considering Mike? I've found that most eq's are a waste of money unless you get a sweepable fully parametric eq. Even then, you won't be able to tune it properly if you don't have a RTSA like an AudioControl SA-3051.

[Mike]

80 Hz is a good crossover point for the front speakers actually. You'll have more midbass up front, which will fool your brain to localizing the bass in front of you instead of behind you. The higher you have your subwoofer crossover set, the easier it will be to localize where the bass is coming from.

What eq were you considering Mike? I've found that most eq's are a waste of money unless you get a sweepable fully parametric eq. Even then, you won't be able to tune it properly if you don't have a RTSA like an AudioControl SA-3051.

I need a translator...

[Nit3h4wk C0uP3]

Lol  ^^^^ Mike you mean I'm not alone? I wasn't going to say anything....lol. I love watching all your uberM!!!!

[ubermike]

Door speaks are in.





Much more definition in the audio over the stock speakers. System still needs muchos work though. I have a really weird resonance causing bass in the 30-40 Hz range to be rather boomy and annoying. It wasn't like that in the CB so I imagine its has to do with how the bass is hitting the trunk and resonating through the car. It's likely something which could be eliminated with sound deadening and a good tuning.

I didn't put bass blockers on the front as the infinity's seem to be able to handle the signal a little better and not distort as bad as the stocks with bass.

 

80 Hz is a good crossover point for the front speakers actually. You'll have more midbass up front, which will fool your brain to localizing the bass in front of you instead of behind you. The higher you have your subwoofer crossover set, the easier it will be to localize where the bass is coming from.

What eq were you considering Mike? I've found that most eq's are a waste of money unless you get a sweepable fully parametric eq. Even then, you won't be able to tune it properly if you don't have a RTSA like an AudioControl SA-3051.

Wellllll, I was just going to pick up a cheap 7 band Clarion. (don't laugh, I don't have much funds to put into stuff) It also acts as a pre-amp will allow me to hook an Aux "directly" to the amps, bypassing the stock H/U completely. About that spectrum analyzer... maybe if I owned a shop or had the money for perfection. 

[timot_one]

Just want to make sure you're not wasting your money man.  Graphic eq's are a waste of money.  You would be better off with a good line level converter.  I've always been a fan of the AudioControl stuff.  They make a lot of great equipment.  I did an install with an OEM h/u once, and he used an AudioControl LC6i with a McIntosh MCC404M and Focal K2 Power speakers.  The results were pretty good, even though he didn't take all of my advice on the install.

[ubermike]

Haven't posted in a while...  

I put this aux converter and USB DAC in a few months ago. Lets me plug a single USB cable into my S3 and will charge the phone while outputting purely digital audio. This setup gets rid of any and all electrical/alternator noise which is a problem I had using the headphone jack. Helps improve audio quality as well since the audio is processed on the DAC box instead of the phone. The headphone wire on the aux converter broke after about a month of use, so I soldered some RCAs to the converter box.






I also found a wrecked 4dr at picknpull and was able to jank a few parts! I took out the overhead console and wired it to work with the doors and have the ambient light. I took the upper dash piece too and will be modding an old smartphone into it for a dash cam






Been thinking a lot about what I want to do to the car and this is what I have come up with:
Sound deaden rear deck and trunk
Speaker amp
Tablet dash install (would like to form into a broken stock headunit)
Leather front seats


$$$$

Really, I'd just like to find a wrecked 5spd EXL coupe for cheap and be able to take parts from it... We'll see.