Install 2007

Tim B.

So did you finally get the front finished up.

MacLeod

Yeah. The whole front stage is complete. Tweets and mids are mounted. Doors are extremely Dynamatted and my HU is in.

All the wires have been ran except for the remote for the H700 but that will be easy. And I still have to find a ground in the trunk somewhere. Its pouring down rain today so Ill have to wait til tomorrow to finish it up.

Tim B.

So you did not go three way in the honda right. So what you do with the SR5250s.

MacLeod

Holding them in reserve for now. I may yet go 3 way just not yet. Not ready to give up my leg room.

MacLeod

DONE!

Started last Friday and just now walked in the door. I am exhausted.

Ive still got to touch up a few appearance items and hide a wire or two. All the wires are just lying behind the amp board so Ill have to tidy them up but other than that, Im done!

Coolest part was after I hooked up the power wire to the battery and turned the key, everything worked! Suprised the hell out of me.

I dabbled with the tuning a little and got it sounding decent but its not anywhere near as good as my truck was, but Im starting from scratch again.

Gawd Im glad thats over!!!

exalted512

I wish all i had to do was tune my truck...
-Cody

MacLeod

Pulled out my 6.5's today and swapped them for the 5250's.

Ever since I put the 6.5's in there I just couldnt get them to sound right. I knew something was wrong as everything sounded "artificial" but I couldnt fix it.

I thought maybe because I used such a deep spacer that it wasnt letting the speaker vent to the side like its supposed to but today I got to looking at it and the speaker was also being blocked by the door panel itself! So the speaker was essentially being sealed off. It couldnt vent to the sides and only had about an inch behind before it ran into the door panel!

So I tried the 5.25's in there and they were a much better fit with much better clearnace and breathing room. The difference was immediately noticeable. My midbass came back and male vocals sounded more realistic.

Ive got my first shows coming up this next weekend with a double header in Nashville on the 31st and 1st so Im going to drive around with them this week and see what I can do with them but Im pretty sure Ill be going to bat with them instead of the 6.5's.

Just goes to show - just because you can stuff a speaker in a tight space doesnt mean you should!

MacLeod

Really stoked now and feel the need to share.

My system continued to sound like hammered **** even with the better midbass from the 5.25's. Over the last 2 months I have not been able to figure it out and have been frustrated to the point of giving up car audio in favor of knitting. Then it hit me. I was bitching to a buddy at the gym about it today and said "it sounds like Im listening to it inside a plastic garbage can."

Well on the drive home, I got to looking at the door panels. These things have all kinds of swoops and bubbles in them and there are all kinds of pockets inside it. Plus, the mid is right up against the door panel with a good 4" of free air space before the grill.

So on a hunch, off came the door panel and in went a bunch of foam and pollyfill to fill in all the gaps and crevasses. Boom! A whole new system!!

It made all the difference in the world and sounds like it should now. Apparantly I really was listening to it inside a plastic can! The speakers were playing into the big cavities inside the door panel and thats what I was listening to!!

Also, because my doors are completley acoustically dead now, the stand up bass on Spanish Harlem is very tight and dry and sounds even better than it did in my truck!!!

I still have some kinks to work out with the EQ'ing and I have a couple imaging snags but I should be able to get those ironed out as the season progresses. The important thing is everything is now at the level it should be and ready to be built on.

I am sooooooo relieved! I was seriously stressing out over this! No matter what I did or how I tuned, it constantly sounded like ****! Now its back to almost the level my truck was when I let her go.

Jack from Indo

Very interesting post. So, I take it to mean that you filled the smaller, odd sized nooks and crannies, but not the main hollow space in the door, right? Or is the whole inside of your door filled with polyfill?

MacLeod

All the nooks and crannys inside my door panel (the door skin, not the metal part of the door) is filled with pollyfill and foam.

Ive still got a tiny bit of "echo" simply because the speaker is 4" inside the door skin but the only way to fix that is with a 4" spacer and then Im back to my original problem of choking off the speaker.

Im going to leave it like this til the 2 shows this weekend and see how it goes. If I get **** raped by the judges, Ill look into figuring something out.

Thom

Kicks will fix that problem.

black magic

I was afraid I'd face a problem similar to yours, Mac. I'm getting some kicks and i'm gonna try to fit the 6 1/2" in there because they'd be kinda tight in the door. If I do this, I'm gonna throw the 5.25" in the door and i bought the mmc690's to fit in the back for some better mid-bass and rear fill ...just for the fools who arnt fortunate enough to ride shotgun . if the 6.5" dont fit in the kicks, i'll have to custom mount them in the doors and throw the 5.25's in the kick panels. All this is just talk, though. I've purchased everything and its piled up in the basement. I really dont have the time with exams coming up and final projects being submitted. However, I'll get crackin on this install the day right after my last exam!

MacLeod

Thom wrote:

Kicks will fix that problem.

Along with that pesky problem of having legroom.

[Deleted User]

No legroom lost. Actually gained some room.

black magic

Wow, that looks really good. Nice job. I'd love to have some fiberglass that looks like that but that, but its too much work for me.

ps. What car is that? looks like a civic.

exalted512

youre talking about aaron here josh, c'mon.
-Cody

Thom

MacLeod wrote:

Along with that pesky problem of having legroom.

You shouldn't lose any. Is there a fuse box in the kicks? In my Protege I had to move that, which was a pain, but other than that it was easy. Just because you've seen so many people online show how to build gigantic kicks that leave you as much room as an old Corvette, doesn't mean you have to build them that way.:D

MacLeod

Actually I was looking at the Qforms kicks.

They dont replace the fuse box but replace the dead pedal which is right where my foot goes.

I have nothing in my passenger side kick but the drivers side not only has a fuse box but a hood releas latch. Cody is a dick, but he's also right. Im not good enough to relocate both of those and fab something up that still looks good. Im a pretty good installer as long as there are factory holes to drop speakers in. When it comes to fabricating, I suck. Need I remind you of my homemade kicks in my Dodge?

The door spots may not be that bad. Theyre not that much closer than the kicks would be and my pathlength difference is about 10.5". A teammate of mine, Kirk Proffit, competes in a '05 Acura TL using the exact same speaker locations as my Accord and he was undefeated last year, won World Champion 2 years in a row and came within half a point of beating Garry Biggs at SBN last weekend!

Not saying Ill never do it, I may try something one day or come up with the cash to get it done but I for now I think its best to stick with the OEM spots.

exalted512

MacLeod wrote:

Cody is a dick, but he's also right.

hate it when that happens:p
-Cody

bknauss

Josh wrote:

No legroom lost. Actually gained some room.

And why did you get rid of that car? I've got a half torn apart Mazda3 if you want another project car.

[Deleted User]

I've got a fix for that car:












AND

MacLeod

The 2 shows in Nashville went ok. I won 1st place in both shows but my scores werent that great.

77.5 and 75.5. Those are better than average but if I am going to be competitive with the big dawgs I have to be in the 80's. If any of the big dawgs showed up for these shows I wouldve got spanked like a little ****.

This system is giving me fits!! Im having all kinds of trouble with it. I cannot get it dialed in to save my life.

I got a chance to work with an RTA today for an hour or so and it showed my many interesting things, namely how drastically different the response was from left to right. Right side is ok but left side is all messed up. Huge bump in the 300-500 Hz range.

Something about this car just doesnt take well to SQ.

black magic

Nice job! I'm sure you'll get the scores you want once you fix ur tiny echo problem.

MacLeod

Actually got the echo taken care of by cutting the 250-500 Hz range on the left side. According to the RTA, 315 was between 6 and 9 db more on the left than the right!

Crappy thing is when I weed it out, it makes the vocals sound better but it also shifts the image to the right too far.

I need a beer.

MacLeod

Had a couple shows this weekend.

One was in Atlanta hosted by Scott Buwalda. I finally got to meet him and talk to him a bit and get some pointers for tuning. That was very cool!

Matt Roberts also showed up in his work van. Yeah, the van he uses for work, he took and cut out the dash and set some speakers in there and this thing sounds awesome!! Oh my God this thing sounded great!! It was just funny to hear something that good sitting in a beat up old work van! This dude has talent for days.

I won my class at both shows so Im 4 for 4 so far this season but my scores are not where I want them at all. Im in the low 70's which is good for a stock class but not good enough to be competitive with the best.

Thankfully, because the SR5250's RULE my tonality is pretty good. My 2 problems now are imaging and dynamics. The imaging is just because Im not experienced enough yet. I can hear things that are wrong but I just dont know how to "move" them.

The dynamics is easy to fix. I need a LOT MORE power. Im running 50 watts per driver and 300 on my sub. This was ok in a rookie class and in the cab of a truck but it aint gonna cut it now. I need 100-150 per driver and near 1000 watts for the sub.

I listened to Kirk Proffits Acura this weekend which uses the same stock speaker locations as I do but he's got 4 Zapco Reference amplifiers running about 500 watts per driver!!!! It sounded sooooo good. You could actually feel the midrange impact of the snare drums and feel the pluck of bass guitar strings. Yet nothing was overwhelming.

I WANT THAT!!

1996blackmax

Congrats Mac! Maybe not the scores you are aiming for, but 4 out of 4 sounds darn nice.


I totally understand what you are saying about power, nice clean power. I actually really liked the way my Germaniums sounded when I had all the power from my 4150xxk running to them. Each side was getting a tad under 200 watts RMS (100 watts per driver). I may bi-amp them a little later....thinking about getting a pretty small amp for the rear speakers for when I have passengers in the car. As far as tuning of the speakers (really the tweeter), the x-overs are excellent in this respect. I just want to give them more juice like I did before. I am pretty happy with my sub setup, just had to lower the gains some as the sub I am using right now wont take the 1100 watts from my amp. Once you give your system more power, things will really come alive .

MacLeod

Wont last for long. The big dawgs will start coming out later in the season more. Plus the reigning, 2 time world champion in my class (the guy with the Acura) is doing more judging this year instead of competing as much in the local shows so I get a reprive for a while!

I just ordered a dashmat from Dashmat.com. That will make a difference.

I threw some towels up on the dash today and it really focused up the stage a lot. But since Im in a stock class I cant modify my interior to affect SQ but a dashmat is made to protect from the sun and so long as its a legitimate dashmat from an aftermarket company and not a "homemade" one, its legal.

I didnt want one because I thought they looked fugly but a dude at the show today had a suede one and it looked pretty cool so since the suedes were only $10 more I figured it was worth it.

I wish to God I had a credit card! Id be at Tweeter right now snagging some Polk amps while theyre on clearance! LOL

exalted512

Thats what I liked on my old MM6s. A good clean 225 to each side. I didnt have the ability to bi-amp, but the imaging and staging was there

I'll be able to work on the truck a tad this week and wont be able to touch it again until after the 12th of may. After that, its non-stop until it gets done.

Right now, I have the RCAs and remote ran from the radio to the bottom of the dash where the processor will be...now that might not sound like a lot, but its all loomed, ziptied together every 6", and between the 6" spaced zipties is a cable clamp screwed into something...that is not an easy thing to do behind the dash...Amp rack is done, wired, and actuators working. I have to install a few fans, but its done. Project for this week is to get the processor housing finished and the dash back on the truck:D

After school is out, the next thing I'll be working on is the battery rack and run the power wire from the toolbox to the cab...then the rest should go fairly quickly....im so excited
-Cody

MacLeod

I made it onto Buwalda's website! Ive officially "made it."

http://www.hybrid-audio.com/news5.htm

black magic

Nice job, Mac. Be thankful you don't have a credit card. They only call for trouble. The cool (and worst) part about it is that you can spend more than you make! lol. I got one mainly so I can order products online faster, but now its pretty much used for everything. I've been able to make all of my payments, though.