Radius

So being on a budget I was looking for some affordable options for sound deadener. I found these: JC Whitney (Yes! JC Whitney) here: http://www.jcwhitney.com/ultra-silver-vibration-damping-floor/dash-kit/p2020613.jcwx?filterid=c2663j5 JC actually has quite a few variations. And bonus if I order before tomorrow night I have a 20% off coupon. Eastwood: http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-thermocoustic-material.html And also b-quiet.com Does anyone have any info on these products? Any good? The Ultimate stuff from b-quiet looks promising. In my current install I tried using the asphalt roof repair stuff with the aluminum backing from Lowes but it didn't seem to work all that well. Although admittedly I could have done a better job on the doors and I did not do the roof. Thanks, Michael

Ok, so I started with the Fatmat tonight. I also happened to have a roll of Peal N Seal leftover from my Focus. So I compared. Without a doubt, there are definitely similarities. For sure they are both manufactured by the same company. Same overall thickness, same foil thickness, same type of sticker/label securing the roll, even the same font. However there is also an important difference too. The Peal N Seal is most definitely an asphalt based product. You can smell it when opening the package and you can see how the oils have bled out of the product after it has sat for a long time. The roll I have sat in the same place for 2 years. The FatMat appears to be a butyl based product. Different texture - far more flexible and "rubbery" - than the Peal N Seal. It also has a different odor and less of an odor at that. Is it effective? Probably not as effective as a thicker 60 or 80mil product, but it's good enough to get rid of the "tinnyness" in the outer door skins. So, just for fun, I used my trusty Radio Shack SPL meter to do some testing. With a hair dryer running at full blast outside the door, the door with the Fatmat showed a 10db decrease over the bare door. I'm sure my test wasn't very scientific, but it's enough to at least show me that the Fatmat is doing *something.* So I guess I'll find out how well it all works after my spontaneously combustible volara and the MLV is installed. Thanks, Michael

Thanks for your reply. The only way they will work as-is would be to drill holes in my door panels which I am unwilling to do. I dislike excessively modifying my cars when doing installs. That way when it's time for the car to go bye bye it's easy to pull my gear and return it to stock. The tweeters are far too big to fit in the factory location in the mirror trim. The plan for the midranges is to mount them next to the midbass drivers in the door panel using a custom made mounting plate. I have room for both drivers behind the factory grill as long as I can get access to the bare drivers. Since I hadn't gotten a reply, I decided to forge ahead. You are correct, the tweeter if fairly easy to disassemble. The inner part of the tweeter fits inside the outer trim ring which is glued in place. The wires to the tweeter simply need to be desoldered and the tweeter is free. The midrange looks like it's assembled exactly the same way but without the swivel feature. So before I go any farther I am going to test all the drivers to make sure they all work! Thanks, Michael

Ok so I *finally* got my Bravox order. The part shipped via UPS got here quick. The USPS part... not so much. I was getting worried cause they were 4 days past due but they showed up today. Besides, I'm not in a big hurry so no worries. Now for the really important part. I see the midrange and the tweeter are pre-mounted in their respective housings with the really nice aluminum trim rings, etc. But.... how do these babies come apart? Do they come apart? They have to come apart otherwise I am screwed. The plan is to mount the tweeters in the factory locations in the mirror trim pods and the midranges next to the midbass drivers in the door. This will NOT work if I can't get the raw drivers out of the pretty aluminum housings. If this won't work I will have to return them - if I can. But I don't want to! I want to hear them! So any experience with getting these guys apart? I certainly don't want to scratch or break anything! Thanks, Michael

Marco? Anyone? Really need some insight on this. Michael

LMAO! So what else did I do wrong? I'm sure to some people it is a concern. I, personally, do not care. If my car catches on fire, trust me I *want* it to burn to the ground. That way my ins company will total it and I can move on. I always buy extra coverage my goodies too. I've known people who had minor car fires and the ins company fixed them. The cars - both of them - had fire odor for years afterwards and had weird random electrical issues after the "repairs." No thanks, just total it, pay me and I'll start over. Thanks, Michael

Well, I haven't opened the box yet but if it is as you suggest then I guess I got scammed even though I tried not to. I will still use it if for nothing else than to add mass and reduce the "tinnyness" of my doors, floor and roof. I have learned not to rely on that as my only defense against road and wind noise. I'm hoping the foam and mlv blocks most of the noise. If non of that works well, then I guess the hell with it and I'll stop using these products for any of my cars. I'll put the $ towards bigger amps and better drivers. ;P Michael

Hi Everyone.. Thanks for the constructive replies... Sorry to have caused such a **itstorm with my little post. Peel N' Seel? Waste of time and money. I tried it in my current ride, a Focus wagon. It didn't do a damn thing except make my car heavier. Seriously. If that worked, I would have never posted. However, I am on a budget, so here's what I did: 100 sq ft of Fatmat 50mil thickness: $125.00 on fleabay with free shipping 155 sq ft of 2lb Volara Closed Cell Foam in 1/8" thickness: $77 wilth free shipping 100 sq ft of 1/8" thick mass loaded vinyl: $115.00 + $50.00 shipping on fleabay - price is same direct from seller's website too. MLV is really really hard to get cheap because it costs what it costs. Plus it's heavy as hell so it's expensive to ship. I realize that a lot of the quantities I ordered are far more than I need. Especially the fatmat. But, in the end it's just cheaper that way. Plus I can use the leftovers in my GF's Scion tC which is noisy as hell. I think my ears were ringing after our 14 hour banzai run home from Salt Lake City. The plan is to do cld - foam - mlv everywhere except the roof. The roof will be cld - foam. No mlv. Plus, in my mazda wagon, including the roof and all the doors, I measured it out to be approx 141 sq ft. This leave me some extra for dual layers of foam in the doors - cld-foam-mlv on the inside of the door skins, plus foam and maybe some mlv on the backside of the door panels. I have not ordered the mlv off ebay - yet. If they combine shipping I will order 2 rolls. Then I definitely have enough to do both cars. So, assuming I order 2 rolls of the mlv and I pay $75 in shipping, my total cost for sound deadening for 2 cars will be: $507.00. About double what I wanted to spend, but then if you consider I will be able to do 2 cars with it, and do it the right way. At least I *hope* it's the right way! Thanks, Michael

Hi everyone. First time post here. Long story short, I was really into CA back in the day. Got out of it for about a decade and now I'm back into it. So, I'm thinking of purchasing a set of the Bravox CS603CF to run as front stage and a pair of the CX60CF to run in the back doors of my Mazda 6 wagon. I plan to run them passive with the midbass of the 603 set in the stock location, the tweeter in the stock a-pillar location. If possible, I plan to make some type of bridge to mount the midrange over - or possibly next to - the midbass depending on how much room I have. If none of that works then I guess I will just have to drill a hole in my door panel, but I'm hoping to avoid that. Budgets being what they are, I plan to run all 4 channels with a MB Quart Q4.150. I know that MB isn't what they once were, but this amps specs at 150w rms @4 ohms at .05% THD. Whether it will really do this or not, well, who knows for sure. Anyway, some of you may questions why the 3 way set up. Well, first the price from SSA is amazing. Second, I prefer 3 way setups because it frees the midbass to do just that. Midbass. It's not trying to do a midrange driver's job. The sub duties will be taken care of by a pair of Fosgate P3-12 drivers run from an old school autotek 333 monster. I also prefer to run the rear door drivers from the same manufacturer of the front drivers to maintain tonal balance and timbre. I find that all of the systems I've built in the old days sound smoother if I do that versus mixing and matching front and rear stage drivers. I am going to run the front stage passive as I don't have the room or budget to run them active. Hence the budget minded MB amp. Besides, it's a lot easier to upgrade an amp in the future than speakers! The source will be a Kenwood dnx9980HD head unit. So, any opinions on this setup? Thanks, Michael

Thanks for the replies on the Bravox... Anyone actually running the 603's? Thanks, Michael

So the amp is ok? What about the speakers? Anyone have info on those? I remember the days when you paid $225 for an amp with 150w rms the only way you'd get that was at 50% THD... I have noticed that the prices on CA gear have really come down and the market is just flooded with gear. Even top of the line Excelon single DIN units are only selling for $330.00. I was shocked! It really makes it hard to make a decision on gear when there are so many choices that there is no way in hell there can be any meaningful reviews on everything. Search for 4 channel amps on onlinecarstereo.com and there's like 260+ choices. Same with 6.5" component sets. I mean seriously?? Thanks, Michael