Frankdorn

iTrader: (7)

I'm looking for the best staging/imaging in a 2GS I can without going crazy on reflection/refraction theory, etc. Just looking to get a good angle and avoid excessive cancellation.

Equipment: Headunit is an Eclipse AVN5435. 6-1/2" MB Quart components, front and rear. Amp for these is TBD, but is probably an a/d/s PQ10. Sub is a 10" Infiniti Kappa Perfect in the stock (IB) location, amp'd with a 250Wx1 MTX amp. Thinking about maybe grabbing a bulk pack of Dynamat Xtreme off e-bay if I can scrape together a few bucks.Do I need to upgrade my battery/alternator/ground wiring at all?

Thanks!

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

Hi Frankdorn,

Best imaging/staging, by consensus of from the people that have done it, including car competitors, is with kick pods aimed up at you. That said, it is a ton of work, and interferes with foot room, is easily kicked, more prone to get wet and dirt in winter, etc. Legs can even get in the way here. I did not choose to do this, if that gives you any idea. I suggest using stock locations.

Tweets are good in the sail panel location. If my guess is right you have titanium dome tweeters in the MBQuarts. These do tend to be bright. However, -5 may be too much attenuation - you may want to set them to -3 and adjust from the EQ in your headunit. But you must be the judge here.

Mids are decent in the stock location, believe it or not. Yeah, not completely optimum, but car acoustics being the weird thing they are, due to reflections off the opposite side, and also the spread of the mid driver, it works out OK. I have 5 1/4" Dynaudios firing straight sideways in the stock location, and they sound great. Yes, you can improve your imaging with kick pods, but....

For rear fill, I have a few philosophies. The sound here is not critical. I get more concerned about what it sounds like for people that are sitting in the rear seats, believe it or not. Mount the mids directly in the stock location. IF you have angled cups that came with your tweets, angle them up and BACK. That will sound good to the rear listener, and when there are no rear seat passengers, will reflect off the rear window anyway. Your goal is not to point the sound frontwards - unless you want a dance club type sound for house or hip-hop, otherwise can kill imaging.

Sub WOULD be better in box in trunk, either sealed or ported. You don't want to just sit it on the trunk floor - mount the box so that the woofer fires as directly through the stock hole as possible. Follow the recommended box volume specs for your woofer.

YES - I highly recommend that you 1) install an Optima Yellow Top or Odyssey battery. Your stock alternator will be just fine. DO NOT use the stock wiring for any amps. Run at least 8 gauge, fused or with circuit breaker, directly from the battery for your amp(s), both power AND ground. Do not use body ground for anything with high current like your amp(s), and I even run a line from the battery for the headunit and any other signal processing components, to prevent ground loops and noise, etc. Do not install a stiffening capacitor - I have a whole writeup on why if you search for it.

Good luck!
Jerry

tneig002

Engin put forth some good information.

IMO it's not worth it to try and fabricate the perfect mounting location in the door, you'll just end up bashing your head in. I had a hard enough time getting my Focal midbasses not to vibrate that cheap plastic mesh grill in my 2GS, let alone worry about aiming them just so. You can probably get away with a minimal amount of upward tilt, but honestly you have VERY little room to play with. Just Dynamat the hell out of the doors and hope for the best.


For the tweeters, keep them at -3 if you're going to put them in the A-pillar factory location. When I was running a passive setup, I had mine set at -2 and I wished I could have gone just a little softer with them to lighten up the 4-5-khz range.

I wish I could submit valuable info for the rears, but I abandoned mine almost completely, lol. I had another set of Focals back there but I generally always have my processor faded completely toward the front anyway, so they became useless. My set of factory speakers are back in but receive no power from my amp at the moment, and I have no plans to use them in the future. My concern for rear passengers is close to nil; I'm much more worried that they're going to weigh down my rear suspension than whether or not they'll enjoy my audio system.

For a subwoofer, avoid the factory speaker and location and just get what sounds best to you. You can have an aftermarket sub firing through the stock hole like engin said, although I can't imagine it will add anything significant to the music. My rear deck is sealed with Dynamat (it's an addiction) and my sub is crossed over at roughly 65hz, so it's almost exclusively a "feel" speaker. I've run 10's, 12's, vented, sealed - it doesn't really matter as long as you like it. For what it's worth, I currently use an Alpine Type-R 12" in a vented box and it sounds great, so the options are limitless.

Percy

I've had extensive experience with MB Quart speakers - ditched all of them. You can have them padded at -12 db (on the McIntosh parametric) for the level of the tweets and they still sounded way too harsh and bright. This was due to the ringing effects of the titanium domes. All hard domes do this and I have yet to find any exception within the auto or home audio realms.

The midbass for the MBQ is adequate, if a bit "light" sounding. MBQ went more for detail rather than depth or accuracy of voices or piano notes. Their dispersion is ok, not great.

Widest soundstage speaker and most accurate tweeter - Dynaudio. Give them a listen. You can get much better results with less effort.

Rear speakers - just have them firing at the glass and have their levels turned so that you can barely hear them. Remember it's for rear fill, not rear soundstage.

Frankdorn

iTrader: (7)

Thanks, guys!

Front speakers: Engin_ear, you make good points about keeping kicks in good, clean shape -- maybe I'll save that project for later...sounds interesting, though. Like tneig002 said, I'll try to tip em in the door a bit, but I don't think there's much room. Percy -- I knew you'd say that. I know these are bright, but I love bright, clear highs and these were brand new $100 shipped, so, hard to pass up!

Rear speakers: will tilt the tweets up and back -- makes sense. Was going to upgrade these to MBQ's from the Polk db's, but probably not worth it to me if I barely hear them.

The amp I'm getting (a/d/s 40x4) I hope is sufficient for decent sound...? Better than just the HU I suppose. Would it be better to bridge it to 80x2 and leave the rear speakers un-amped, or would everything be off balance then?

Going to do more research on active vs. passive -- not sure what the difference is and which would be better. Also on crossover points -- I think I understand the concept, but there's so many buttons & settings, I don't know where to start to properly "tune" my system.

Sub is going into a sealed box, pointing up through the hole. Does the box need to be anchored down or can it just sit on the floor?

Charging: I gotta find a fair amount of 8 guage wire for power and ground. What about speaker wire -- should I run new, bigger wire for the components? Just got a new 1000+ CCA battery that I'll leave for now, but will upgrade in the future to the Optima. Do I need to upgrade my grounding wires? To what gauge?

Noise: I'd like to know more about this -- anything I should try to avoid? You're saying run a fused power wire from the battery to the HU? I may need a small distribution block at the battery then? Run positives and grounds down the middle of the car and RCAs along the side, right?

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

1) Sub box does not technically need to be bolted down, but you MUST at least use multiple thick bungee cords anchored to something solid to prevent it from moving around. You DON'T want that thing to be a loose projectile during quick stops, or, heaven forbid, an accident.

2) Are ya kidding me?? An a/d/s/ PQ10 is one outstanding amp. I know, because I owned one for 18 years in my daily driver (1988 Supra). It is absolutely bulletproof, and very high sound quality, distortion is very low on this amp, even at ear splitting volume. I never had ONE MINUTE of a problem with mine in 18 years, even with constant on-off cycles from getting in and out of car many times per day. It was made in the heyday of the a/d/s/ company, before the Chinese crap they're spitting out now since they were bought by Directed Electronics.
Use this amp in 4 channel mode - do not bridge it, and use it for the rears. The 40 watt rating is conservative and you'll have plenty of power for the fronts, BELIEVE ME!!

3) Do not run new wiring for the speaker components, it is not completely necessary. You need to run dedicated power AND ground lines for each amplifier in use. Yes you will need distribution block(s).

4) Sorry I cant spend the time right now to educate you further on noise, crossovers, etc. I strongly suggest reading some of the tutorials and how-to's that are listed in the sticky threads at the top of this audio forum. There are many good ones.

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

Also, do not use Dynamat Extreme. Check the 'sound deadening' sticky post at the top of this forum. There are equivalent materials/manufacturers for much cheaper.

sakataj

iTrader: (182)

interested to hear why you say not to use dynamat extreme? was this just a price issue or something else?

Frankdorn

iTrader: (7)

I've been reading up, too -- Dynamat Extreme is good stuff, but not necessarily the best and pretty darn overpriced from the opinions I've read. But most of that's subjective anyway, everyone has their own opinion based on different install techniques in completely different cars/trucks/SUVs.

Good to know on the amp! Thanks. Going to pick up up right now...

For the sub box -- a perfect square cube so I can set with the woofer facing straight up though the center of the rear deck? I do like the stealth appearance idea. Or a trapezoid /___\ so it fits against the rear seats and kinda fires up/backward? Sub frequencies aren't directional from what I've read, so is this just personal preference?

Is there a trapezoid design made with the hole cut in the top?

Percy

Cascade audio engineering made some good stuff for sound dampening. Also check out Deflex pads for controlling the backwave of the speaker. Excellent material.

Big Mack

iTrader: (1)

You'd be amazed at what even a small amount of tilt can do for staging. Small slivers of ABS can be used to gain about 10°, which is huge. Kick panels are definitely the best option, but there just isn't a ton of room in these cars for them (driver's side). Passenger side isn't horrible, but the driver's side is extremely tough, especially due to leg clearance.

I concur. I haven't used rears in years when doing aftermarket equipment. The car is filled with the sound from the fronts, and I rarely have passengers in the rear seats.

You definitely need to research it, but active means prior to the amplification and passive means that it comes after it. Active is usually many times more flexible than passive since a passive is usually just a few coils and caps set to specified frequencies. In your MBQ crossovers, the attenuation adds a resistor in line, but the frequency doesn't change, for example.

For tuning, it's an art that takes time to learn. Reading is helpful, but listening with someone who knows how to do it helps a lot. I've taught a few people, and it's always cool to help someone really learn how to critically listen.

The rest has pretty much been covered.

Big Mack

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

Dynamat Extreme is good stuff, but too pricey. Second Skin is virtually the same and nowhere near the price. There are many others as well.

engin_ear

iTrader: (1)

Square is OK, rectangular is better. I'm not seeing your trapezoidal idea. Sub frequencies are not directional as far as PERCEPTION TO THE LISTENER ONLY!! Otherwise, how your woofer radiates does matter. You need to get as much air moving thru the stock hole as possible, and not vibrate the rest of your trunk in the process. This is done by direct aiming the woofer driver at the stock hole. Some even use a "chimney", but I don't really think it's very necessary. If you want clean bass, mount the woofer right under the stock hole, and make sure it does not hit the underside of the rear deck during max excursion. If you want to rock your whole car and the neighborhood, get a big *** amp and 3 woofers (and some hot chicks and Nuvo ) and aim them rearward in the trunk and vibrate the whole car. I recommend finding some car audio shows or installers in your area to get an idea of the difference, if you want to spend the time.

Frankdorn

iTrader: (7)

I think I may be able to make a wedge-style speaker ring from ABS plastic, (and a spacer for the grill in the door), which would keep my stealth look and tilt the mids maybe 20º. Gonna work on this.

Ordered this sub box, gonna point up at the stock hole. How much polyfill do I add to the box -- fill it up?

I picked up 50sqft of FatMat -- I'm sure its not "the best", but its gotta be decent being butyl-based and 80mil. Only $85 shipped for the roll is decent.

I also have two extra MBQuart tweeters laying around -- not sure the model #, but they're 6 ohms apiece. Are these worth adding anywhere or will they just mess up the imaging?

Thanks again, guys!!