altoncustomtech

to the forum!

Little update. The Mach5 MLI's are absolutely unreal for 6.5" drivers. I'm about 100% sure I'm right about the harmonic distortion in the Bravox's making them seem louder. After installing the MLI on the passenger side and getting them broke in they absolutely decimate the reproduction quality of the Bravox's without any noticeable difference in output besides the fact they definitely have stronger output on the lower frequencies than the Bravox mids did. When playing Alice in Chains - Would for example, the bass guitar can not just be heard but felt throughout it's range, even in the upper registers. At full tilt you can just about feel everything which has impressed many more than just me, lol. I have a buddy who's a big heavy metal nut that's always asking to hear one song or another to hear the difference in it. I've played The Zack Brown Band's Chicken Fried for a couple of different people and it scared them when they felt the string plucks of the guitar at the very beginning of the song, let alone the rest of it. I also installed the FR88EX's I bought from Hondakilla98 into the little Logitech enclosures on the dash to see what kind of difference I could hear between them and the FE85's. Now, don't get me wrong, the FE85's were absolutely amazing for their modest $13 price tag but the FR88's aren't coming out of the Jimmy until the fiberglass work to permanently mount the full rangers is complete. Even then they're only coming out to be replaced with the next model up, the FR89's. Today I also got the opportunity to drop the Soundstream Harmony in the Jimmy to start using it for processing instead of the capabilities of the CZ702. I don't know how there's not more of units something like this more widely available than there is. Sure, the laptop is a little gangly and cumbersome to have in your lap the entire time you're making adjustments but damn is it ever worth it. I had only a couple of little problem areas that I couldn't quite adjust enough on the Clarion due to the restraints of the built-in DSP but they're about gone now. The biggest issue I had was with the crossover for the midbass only being adjustable down to 630hz. I had to use the LP crossover on the 125.2 to get it the rest of the way down to the 250hz region to blend properly with the FR's. I still had some issues with some frequencies being a little "bloomy" near the crossover points on the top and bottom. I couldn't get the crossover points and EQ to find a happy medium with it. Thanks to the independent EQ's and the infinitely variable crossover frequencies the Harmony everything I've played on it so far is so much smoother than before. It's really hard to tell where the beginnings and ends of everything lies now. It's all blending better, sounding so much smoother, and that's only after a couple of hours of tuning. I can't wait to spend more and more time with it dialing in every little thing until it's about perfect! Overall this thing is sounding more and more ideal the more I work on it. It's no SPL show stopper by any means but the way it sounds and FEELS when I'm listening to it is beginning to truly meet my expectations. It doesn't do bad on output by any means, but when you hear and feel EVERYTHING and not just the sub bass at the output levels this thing is doing right now it's a whole different kinda loud. Here's a few pics of the Mach 5 in the passenger door and the Harmony installed. I gotta say, I don't really care for the look of the grilles that came with the Mach5's on my doors but I gotta have them protected and the grilles to the Bravox's wouldn't fit so I'm stuck with this for now. I was able to tuck the Harmony in behind the glove box. It's a tight fit and takes a little push to get the glove box to close but at this point I don't really have any place else it can go very easily.

Chrome is my primary browser. Though I've tried it in IE and Firefox and had the same issue.

Is it giving you an error message, that you can't post an image with such an extension? If so, I run into the same damned problem with every picture in photobucket for me as well. What I found is that inbetween the two IMG codes, at the end of the address string is this "~original" right after the .jpg in the line. For some reason it's there and for some reason this forum won't accept the IMG code link with it in there. See if that's what's stopping you or not.

Okay, so it's been a little while since I posted up any updates on this. It's taken me awhile to come up with a good way to design a way in which to mount the midranges in the sail panel of the truck. I think I've finally gotten it figured out and began to work on the base plates that will hold the baffle to the location where the sail panel goes on the door. The base plates are made from 1/8" thick steel plate and they'll mount to the door itself by the two nuts/studs that hold the mirror on the door. Then the wood baffles will bolt to the base plate with three 1/4" bolts and house the midrange. If all goes well it should look about like factory except a little larger and with a speaker in it, lol. It should also be sturdy enough to last a long time. Also, in the future when the CS603CF's are retired the factory sail panel can simply be reinstalled and no one will ever be the wiser. Well, except maybe you guys since you'll see it in it's modified state. Onto a couple of pics. I snapped them real quick while cutting the base plates out. This one is of the template I made. I used some flat air duct material to cutout and fashion a template. It's easy to cut and manipulate but stronger than paper or cardboard and holds it's shape when you need it to. The two small pieces are the parts that will attach it to the door at the side mirror studs/nuts. This one is the first of the actual base plates that got cut out and cleaned up. Hopefully I can get them finished up tomorrow so I can start on the baffles this weekend.

Congratulations man! There's a BIG difference in the design of the two systems. I think it definitely speaks to the yet untapped potential of yours in a big way!

to the forum Dylan! I think the X would have served you just fine but you can't go wrong with the Z either.

Then those people are idiots. No such thing as underpowering.The way you've asked the question would tend to have me recommend the Z for you. Either will be fine however. I ordered the X12 already, supposed to be here Monday. Unless it's absolutely dire that I get Zv4 I'm guessing the X12 will do what I want it to at 2k rms. Also there will probably be some box rise so chances are it won't be seeing the full 2k. Maybe around 1700 considering the 2000d was clamped at 2400w @ 12.5v. You're reading WAY too much into the numbers. If you were trying to fit to some specific limitations for a competition class you might have to worry this much, but for daily it's just not necessary. The 2k may be a bit much so just watch it with the gain setting and volume knob. Listen/smell for stress from the sub and you should be just fine.

Happy Birthday!

I would imagine he's asking for/about leftover & unused deadener that's sitting in someone's closet or garage collecting dust and hoping they'll let it go cheap since it's not being used.

Nice!

Yay fun...

It's all about the Pentium's baby....

First of all you need to be sure an read up on Don's site. There's TONS of good information there for the how and why of sound deadening. Second Skin does make a fine product, there's no question there, but honestly Don's products are truly fantastic AND it's not that much of a hassle to order them. Each time I've ordered stuff from him he had replied with a quote within 24hrs (two out of the three orders it was only a couple of hours) and after I sent the payment he had them shipped out within a day or two. For the best results I would highly recommend using all the products (CLD, CCF & MLV) and you won't have to worry about sealing anything.

Well, I got a chance to install one of the MLI-65's in the drivers side door. I had to open up the mounting hole in the baffle a tad to get the basket on the MLI to mount up properly. After that I jumped in and sat in the middle of the back seat for some A-B comparison listening. I gotta say I have mixed feelings and I also have to say that for all the praise I've seen on the MLI's for their midbass capabilities I gotta hand it to the Bravox mids cuz they're right up there with the MLI's. I didn't change any settings so they're both running bandpassed at 63hz to 300hz at 12dB slopes and I tried to position myself so there was as little variance as possible between listening to one and then the other. The first thing I noticed is that the overall output is very comparable. I also have to note that I don't think the 125.2 is enough power to feed the MLI's. With the Bravox's on songs with a strong bass drum beat I can turn it up enough to make them run out of throw. They don't bottom out the coil on the back plate but you can hear the suspension hit it's limit. At the same volume level that causes that with the Bravox mids the MLI seemed to just be cruising without a care in the world. It was moving like crazy but was completely quiet and distortion free while doing so. Speaking of distortion, the MLI seems to have a great ability at being extremely low in distortion at the frequencies and levels I was playing it at. I can get the Bravox to stress a little at high volume levels but the MLI just kinda laughs at me. The one thing I'm noticing is that the Bravox seems to have a little more output above 100hz than the MLI while the MLI definitely has more output below 100hz. Now, this is a guess and what I'm noticing by just listening, no measurement equipment to verify it so understand it's just my gut feeling here. It almost seems as though the louder upper bass frequencies of the Bravox are a phenomenon of some harmonic distortion at high output levels at those frequencies. When turned down a little the Bravox does smooth out some but still has more "presence" in the upper bass. At this point I'm just a little torn by my findings on which I prefer. I do believe I'm going to go ahead and do the modification to the passenger door and make a permanent installation of the MLI's for awhile and get some real listening time on them while getting them broke in and see if I feel like I'm have any detriments I can't live with compared to the Bravox. If they happen to not work out I'm sure I can easily sell the slightly used MLI's on the forum.

That looks familiar... and real good! The second gen S10 doors have to be the easiest I've ever built baffles for so far and so easy to remove the factory grills on too. The entire thing looks great man!

Happy Birthday!

In there for anyone else who's bored enough to join... lol

If it were something simple I'd be glad to. However, considering the circumstances it's probably not going to be something simple, lol.

I would put my money on the Torres calculator being correct for the exact reasons ssh had mentioned. I've done the math by hand over and over and over again awhile back while working on my own calculator. The Torres calc does a fantastic job of maintaining accurate numbers while doing all this math. It's quite accurate and while I've had some hand calculations be off by a few hundredths it's easily attributable to either rounding going on in the math or possibly the conversion of measurements to/from imperial and metric that makes that tiny little difference. Either way being off that little tiny bit would not be noticeable and I do believe the carstereo.com calculator does indeed have some accuracy issues.

Purdy.

Thanks guys! With everything I've read about them over the years I'm looking forward to playing with them and seeing how they do. The Bravox mids have surprised me at just how well they do. It doesn't seem very common to me to find a mid from many component sets that can be felt in your chest. I figure that if the Bravox mids are doing that good a real and actual woofer should be an improvement. Plus, if the size specifications I found in an old thread on the forum here are accurate I shouldn't even have to modify the baffles on the doors. So that's a plus too. I went to install the Peerless HDS's I bought from hondakilla98 but I'm going to have to make a couple of 1/4" thick rings to adapt them to the baffles. When the MLI-65's get here I will try them out first (cuz it's easier) and probably even try dropping in the Fountek FR88's as well to see what kind of improvement they make over the FE85's. As always I'll report back my thoughts and findings. Bravox speakers have or at one point did have design input from Vance Dickason. That's awesome, never knew that. While that may or may be a part of why the mid does perform so favorably in the bass/midbass department it seems like Bravox does or did do a lot more than the car audio speakers and for no more expensive than the set ran I would be surprised if they bothered to get his input on them. They had much better lines to put his expertise into, specially considering the issues it had with response on the high end. It sucked as a mid but is doing great as a dedicated midbass.