audiophyle_247

I will probably steer away from the 3ways then, as I dont have the real estate available. 5.25" 2way will have to work. & I know ///m5 knows his ish, I pm'd him asking for his advice. Its the "quietest" car inside Ive ever owned, and compared to my last it is pretty damn quiet for me. lol The Bose system is mediocre at best, and worse now that the speakers are old. The entire door frame is open, and parts of the door card actually push into the door cavity. I will have to really look around, but I dont think I can build a baffle across the door frame (even localized to only where the woofer will be) and still get the door card to attach right. I am pretty sure I will have to end up reinforcing the door card, or build panels onto the door card. I will look around for my own components, forgetting the Focals. How does the car seat fit behind me? Easily, it doesnt. lol I have my son in a rear facing car seat, and its huge. He sits on the pass side & the front seat is pretty far forward. It doesnt affect my comfort at all, but anyone over 6' wont fit comfortably in the pass seat. Once I can go with a forward facing seat it shouldnt be much of an issue anymore.

The door has no inner door skin, and the speakers mount to the door panels. The largest I can fit with minor modification (zero exterior panel mod) is a 5.25", which I have considered. I worry though, because having the larger woofer I will need to space it back farther from the grill, whereas a 4" could be mounted right up tight to the grill which I believe would color the sound less. These door panels are very solid, they ARE the sound insulation from road noise and this car is the quietest inside that I have ever owned. The rear 6.5's in the Bose is more midbass than full range, but does play kind of high. There are some vocals, but very little. With the fader forward a little & the higher frequencies eq'd out in the rear (hidden within the oem radio), the staging is actually pretty good with a solid lower end. This is what gave me the idea with the 3ways. As it is there is a decent amount of overlap between the fronts & rears, and I can kind of fix it with the eq, with an actual 3way there should be much less overlap, and when setup actively I should be able to tune that Xover point low enough that the staging is not negatively impacted. Or so I believe. I am just unsure what will happen with better speakers, because the Bose system does weird things. Even though I can get these to sound pretty decent this way, there is no guarantee better speakers will have the same result. I recently picked up a PG ti900.7 amp, and plan to eventually run everything actively. The setup above would be great since I could use the Xover right away & switch to active when I can. I have a carPC I will be installing soon enough, and am still learning what my best option would be for achieving active control. But that is another topic. Bassmaster, Is that just a board wrapped & mounted to the door panel? What about the pocket along the bottom that runs behind the board? It looks like a large chunk of the door would need to be cut out for the woofer. Interesting idea, and it does look pretty cool. I am more than capable to make custom pods or even modify the door panel to be exactly what I want, but with school & work I have absolutely zero free time right now, and what little I do have I prefer to spend with my 6mo old son. Eventually I will, but for now (& while the car sits at school for long periods of time) I want to keep things as stealth & oem looking as possible.

Too bad that ended today @ noon, those are some killer prices! Any reason on the vote for "no"? Not mine, but this is what the panels look like. There is no room on the door without a lot of custom work, and I dont have the time for any large projects.

Vehicle is a 00 Audi S4. Front doors have a 1" tweeter up top next to the door handle, and a 4" speaker down low near the base. Rear doors have a 6.5" speaker at the base, & no tweeter. I am considering the Focal 165A3 3way component setup. Found Here (Or any other recommendations around that price) This would perfectly replace the worthless Bose speakers that are near death, as they are the same exact sizes. My concern is having the 6.5" of the 3way in the rear doors, an integral part of the system opposed to being just rear fill. The car is not very big, and my front seats are generally always back all the way (I'm tall). This basically puts them down almost right below my ears, not really that far behind me. I am aware that lower freq is more omnidirectional, but am unsure what freq this begins to become noticeable, and if it would be in this location. I am not a die hard SQ junky, but pretty close for the most part. Looking for advice on if I should go this route, or feedback from anyone who has done a similar setup spread between the front & rear doors.

The backup sirens have their own connection to power & use the violet wire as a trigger only, so no a relay should not be needed.

Gotta agree with Duran. There is a huge thread on here about engine whine, it will give you all the answers on how to eliminate it without needing the isolators. Cant say I've ever heard a ground loop isolator cut midbass out, but then again I rarely use/need them.

The wires from the original siren are red & black. The siren output wire on the DEi alarm is brown & gives +12v upon triggering. The brown wire from the alarm connects to the red wire on the siren, and the sirens black wire goes straight to ground. You will want to connect the violet wire on the backup sirens to either the original red siren wire or the brown wire at the alarm brain, they are essentially the same wire.

If its actually bolted to the vehicle, it is considered a part of the vehicle. If you were to total the vehicle & the insurance bought it from you (cut you a check for the loss), they would only allow you to remove items not attached to the car. If you need a tool to remove it, they consider it a part of the vehicle. As long as there is evidence that the gear was physically attached to the vehicle, they will cover it. Seen it done many times.

What model full size pickup? (so I know what the doors look like) Generally what is needed is a very solid mounting panel, the more rigid the better. Thats why I said to google "Infinite Baffle", what is vital in that setup is also vital here. (rear sound wave isolation + very rigid baffle) Depending on space (go thinner if ya have to), I'd cut out a 3/4" mdf piece as large as you can bolt to the door frame where the speaker goes, then cut a hole in it for the speaker. That alone can make a huge difference in mid bass. If the speakers mount to the plastic door panel, you need to solidify the door panel to make it as rigid as possible. Doing the same thing with a piece of wood epoxied or fiberglassed to the backside of the door panel can do wonders too, then of course mount the woofer to the wood. Your gear should have zero issues playing well into the 60~80hz range, which would allow you to dial down the sub LPF to a much more reasonable zone (60~80hz, instead of 250hz). Do what I mention here, and I would guarantee you will notice a huge increase in sound quality. It wont just add the mid bass you are missing, but it will also richen up the entire sound spectrum of the speakers. Sound deadener is great & has its place, and should be used AFTER reinforcing the speakers mounting locations.

Insurance covers broken glass & destroyed interiors from break-ins, so why not cover damaged audio equipment too? Depending on the vehicle, but I've installed relays on trunk pops & such to cut the power from the switch unless the key was in the "on" or "acc" position. Trunk pop is a pretty convenient feature, & its a waste to get rid of it just because of theft worries. Changing it to only work while the key is on is a simple enough project, keeps it convenient to you but not to thieves.

Keep in mind hot air rises, so I'd recommend putting the inlet fan down low on the rack & the outlet fan up high. (assuming the amp rack is vertical) You can also put both fans down low to force cool air into the amp rack, and leave the top open (or have equally sized outlets) for the heated air to easily escape. Use the amp remote to trigger a relay, and run the fans off the relay.

Says who? I have a PG 4ch amp that has no built in fusing, and I had a Alpine PDX 1000.1 (mono) that had 4 25amp blade fuses on the back. RF has been doing dual speaker terminal mono blocks for years, as have many other manufacturers.

Run the siren output wire from the alarm brain to a relay with a direct power supply (fused of course), and run as many sirens as you want off the relay. Most alarm outputs can only provide enough current to run one loud siren, has nothing to do with ohms, its all about power draw. & +1 for piezos in the car. Very loud (140db or so) high frequency sound can actually cause nausea & disorientation, as well as serious ear damage, nothing a couple piezos cant do in a small car. Too many sirens on the outside will only piss off people, I'd say stick to 2 at max.

lol, dont think the link to page 2 was needed, but thanks. I'm just saying, before the OP starts adding more midbass drivers, I think revisiting the install could easily fix the problem completely. Hes got the power & the gear to have decent mid bass, there is no reason to need more drivers. I read through every page (quickly I might add) and I saw a ton of great information but nothing stressing the importance of install. Who is to say that if the OP added more midbass drivers with similar install (no offense man) the issue would not still remain?

One thing I havent seen in this thread in regard to good midbass is install quality. Just as a sub box can make or break a sub's output, install can make the same difference in midbass reproduction from full range setups. The lower the freq the more important an enclosure becomes, which is pretty evident in the OPs setup having a serious lack of midbass. Reinforcing the door, sound deadening, & sealing is mandatory for midbass. Google or search on here about an "Infinite Baffle", as that is basically what you will be turning your doors into. A lot of good info in here about setting crossovers, but I think the install really needs to be squared away before tuning the "finer details".