Oh dear, more works arrived - DynAudio 3way install

[cpitts]

It's not in the amp. The outputs on the amp are purely: FR+, FR-, FL+, FL-, etc. There must be another small box somewhere I didn't see. Unless they've just grabbed the opposite speaker +ve terminal and mixed it, like used to be done in REEEEEALY old 'surround' type systems to create mid to high freq 'talking' channels. There's certainly some tricks at play here and they're all 'on the cheap' type ones, which isn't really great.

Just put in a decent XO McIntosh!!!

[Sentinel]

Nice progress mate!

Your car is going to weigh a tonne with that sound dead mat and equip for the audio! No wonder you want a tune - that'll bring it back to stock performance! Kidding mate!

Great work, as always Craig and great in depth info for us audio plebs.

Cheers

[Ric]

I only have a volt meter, which isn't really gonna help with AC flow. ...

If you're still looking into this over the weekend, I can bring over any test equipment you like

[cpitts]

I only have a volt meter, which isn't really gonna help with AC flow. ...

If you're still looking into this over the weekend, I can bring over any test equipment you like

Thx for the offer Ric but reality is that I've managed to tap off the mid/bass cable and get full range audio. So for others, that's an easy solution. The other connector is purely for my inquisative mind (don't need more than 1 clean signal).
Ultimately, there's a fat red/silver cable in there already that goes direct to the amp that will be getting used for a true clean signal.

I'm happy to leave it as being a bad point to connect for a clean signal, and move on. No point wasting time, there's a lot more to do that will waste time.

[cpitts]

Well, bumpity bump. I've got the tweet, mid and X-O into the passenger door in final locations (yay!). I've put the pics in the first post in this thread (keep them all together). Shows one shot with the door skin off and one with the door skin on.

On a sad note, I've pretty much accepted that the 8" cones aren't gonna fit into the front doors.

SO

I'll be fitting my bass units (6.5") from my set of Alpine DDDrive splits to the front doors and will use one of the 8's to replace the factory sub (and also use the X-O from my DDDrive to trim out any high frequency from it). Although saying that, DynAudio do a 6.5" unit that will slot perfectly into the Libby front door, so if the happy times faries come along, who knows, they may just land on my doorstep and drop very neatly into the door mounts I'll be making for the Alpines.

Goal for this week is to finish the passenger door and repeat process for the drivers door, hopefully, running through a lot faster as there's templates to work from now.

[Sentinel]

Craig - with every setback, there is always an opportunity. "Sounds" like (pun intended), you're found it!

[cpitts]

I've updated my website with lots of pics and pages for this install.

Jump here to have a more in depth read:

http://www.corptech.no-ip.org/doodads/htdocs/cars/MY07Lib_stereo_frontdoors.asp (follow the link at the bottom of this page for the install page with all its pics.

I'll keep this thread going too but there's lots more pics on my WWW and a lot of yabber that's kind of pointless on here.

Did the Alpine woofer today and had my first listen to a full door, sounds good. Lots of nice detail there and very evenly delivered frequencies. Can't wait to get the drivers door done now. See what tomorrow brings.

[cpitts]

As promised, a shot of the (fairly) final fit of the drivers into the front passenger door.



And from the other side, you can see the little extras required to get the Mid to hold nice and firmly in place. Had to do v2 (or is that v100) today after some drive testing showed too much movement of the driver.



Sounds good so far.

[Sentinel]

Well done mate! Do you use the car during the week?? If so, what the hell do you do with the interior??

[cpitts]

Yep, this is the daily driver (for me).

On the weekend, I typically drive it with whatever trim removed that I'm working on (doors, rear seats missing, etc) and it gets put back together on Sunday nights so it's as usable as is needed on a daily basis. It's quite funny to go out for a drive in the Libby when it's gutted out. Esp if you've got the fam in the car and all door skins off and going through drive-through at Maccas with Dynamat and bare door trims/speakers, no parcel shelf. Priceless moment as they hand you food or receipts and see you driving a shell with full leather seats but not much else.

Did you know that the door can become pretty much usable with 3 screws and 1 (or 2) cords plugged back in? That'll give you door handle use, lock/unlock, wing mirror & window control and a firm door handle to open/close the door. Whether there's some speakers missing or a bit more road noise due to all sorts of crazyness is another thing.

[Sentinel]

Yep, this is the daily driver (for me).

On the weekend, I typically drive it with whatever trim removed that I'm working on (doors, rear seats missing, etc) and it gets put back together on Sunday nights so it's as usable as is needed on a daily basis.

Did you know that the door can become pretty much usable with 3 screws and 1 (or 2) cords plugged back in? That'll give you door handle use, lock/unlock, wing mirror & window control and a firm door handle to open/close the door. Whether there's some speakers missing or a bit more road noise due to all sorts of crazyness is another thing.

That'd be funny as - cruising to local to get some stuff, get pulled by the coppers.. "Please explain sir..." "Well officer, it's like this... I really didn't like my stereo..." "Oh really, and what else are we intending to hide in the trims? Travel much interstate do we...?" Haha!!

BTW - gotta talk to you about suspension - I'll take it to PM though.

Cheers

[cpitts]

Start a thread, not sure I've seen a good suspension thread on here. Soooooooo much maths in it, hope you're ready for geometry 101.

Oh, and you may want to re-read the above post, I did an edit just as you responded.

[smythie]

Start a thread, not sure I've seen a good suspension thread on here. Soooooooo much maths in it, hope you're ready for geometry 101.

I doubt anyone in here has sufficient knowledge to get into the very grey area of geometry specifics, how they affect your car and what is best for what conditions (happy to be proven wrong though). Not to mention the complete waste of time that sort of discussion would be for the majority of people.

Sentinel, have a look through the Suspension forum at what is already in there. There is some reasonably insightful information in the various threads there for the laypersons amongst us

[cpitts]

Agree on the mega detail stuff, but there's a lot of basics that could go a long way to helping people understand how to get the most from their standard car.

Whether 0.5' Toe in at the front is more ideal for daily driving v's 0' Toe on the front, well, that'll probably be beyond all our testing data and driving skills.

[cpitts]

WELL,

I now have the 2 front doors done and the improvement is VERY good.

The hiss seems to be much less obvious, even given the MUCH higher quality tweeters installed.

As predicted the hiss is in part due to the crappy CAP's used to trim frequencies. HOWEVER, the improvement from simply replacing the standard speakers with a very decent set will result in some very good sound.

NOW: Given that I've now done a range of stereo mods to the factory 14 speaker MacIntosh setup, how would I grade the mods for effectiveness and improvement?

Mod -------> Result/Value
Deadening front & rear doors - excellent improvement. Flattens frequency response from top to bottom. Significant bass and mid range improvement. Lowers road noise as well, but not a huge amount.

Deadening parcel shelf - Very good improvement. Further bass improvement for the sub this time. Also VERY good road noise improvement over stock.

Speakers (rear) - Honestly, don't bother unless you're going to upgrade the head unit and amp to a much higher power rating, in which case you'll have most likely already done the speakers. Anything less than a ~$400-500 spend here won't nett you a great improvement. The McIntosh speakers are quite reasonable considering.

Speakers (front doors) - Again, unless you're gonna spend ~750+ on a good set of 2 way speakers of a LOT more on a good set of 3 ways, then the factory speakers will be more than satisfactory for the vast majority of listeners. Yes, the depth isn't there, nor the midrange purity, nor the top end, nor the clarity in the bottom end BUT the frequency delivery is smooth and even from top to bottom, once doors & shelf are deadened there's PLENTY of bass for most people, from the factory, you could do a LOT worse (which Subaru historically have) this stereo is far from a standard Subaru stereo.

My picks at this stage:
1. Deaden the doors (double deaden the front doors, incl deflex pads)
2. Deaden the parcel shelf (complete single layer)

Total cost will be ~$300 and for the novice ~24man hours (complete disassembly, fit, reassembly).

I cannot stress enough how impressed I was just this mod on it's own.

The Dyn's take it to another level all together, but that's a VERY different goal to just very good basic music service at a super budget cost.