Building a High Fidelity Sound System Build (Attempt)

[nefario90]

this was a great read, thank you guys.

@tshrey what bracket did you use to mount those Dayton speakers to the door? I also didn’t know you could use HT components in cars, but it makes sense now

 

[tshrey]

The brackets are just 3/4" plywood that has been primed and painted for water resistance.

HT is home theater? I mean, a speaker is a speaker, you just match up the Thiele-Small parameters with the enclosure. A car door can be treated as basically an infinite-baffle setup as far as calculating the driver suspension.

 

[GNBRETT]

Pretty awesome system ur putting together. That is a LOT of freakn work ur doing very impressive skills u have. Im building one as well but using Audison Thesis 3-ways with Audison Due amps with Helix DSP and director. Have a Gladen Pro 10 sub going in back custom made to fit in the corner hidden like urs. Has really small foot space like 0.7.

Bro that Sub is not what I would be using for an SQ build. Get the new 10 inch Focal or the Gladen Aerospace. Has a tiny foot print and sounds incredible. The W6 is good but its not SQ at all imo. Kick panels ive found dont do much in these cars if u have a good DSP. Buddy has a competition system in his GTI and competes all over New England and has no kick panels at all.

If u dont code ur radio U will need the Zen so u can get a digital source coming from ur head unit. I see u got the Zen kool.

Im having custom pods made for the 3-ways up front. Gonna be interesting cause the Thesis mid range is pretty big lol.

 

[mmdb]

Pretty awesome system ur putting together. That is a LOT of freakn work ur doing very impressive skills u have. Im building one as well but using Audison Thesis 3-ways with Audison Due amps with Helix DSP and director. Have a Gladen Pro 10 sub going in back custom made to fit in the corner hidden like urs. Has really small foot space like 0.7.

Bro that Sub is not what I would be using for an SQ build. Get the new 10 inch Focal or the Gladen Aerospace. Has a tiny foot print and sounds incredible. The W6 is good but its not SQ at all imo. Kick panels ive found dont do much in these cars if u have a good DSP. Buddy has a competition system in his GTI and competes all over New England and has no kick panels at all.

If u dont code ur radio U will need the Zen so u can get a digital source coming from ur head unit. I see u got the Zen kool.

Im having custom pods made for the 3-ways up front. Gonna be interesting cause the Thesis mid range is pretty big lol.

Thank you sir (speaking for tshrey as well). The 3 way you have there is a very nice setup. Very high end! I'm assuming you'll be putting those speakers in the a-pillar with the woofer in the door? don't forget to post up your photos when you do!

I would definitely disagree with you on the sub. It sounds pretty darn good for being considered an SPL speaker (if that's what you're assuming). The bass is really tight and the output is a lot more than I was expecting. I play all kinds of music (dance, hip out, opera, etc). Side note, I switched from using Apple Music (sometimes streams at garbage quality) to Tidal. Back to the sub, the bass is tight and accurate, but also puts out a lot more volume than I would need. If I had any regret, is that I should've gone to a 12" for a tad lower end. But again, very happy with the 10" W6.

 

[El_bigote_AJ]

Side note, I switched from using Apple Music (sometimes streams at garbage quality) to Tidal.

I had the same experience, before the mini DSP iTunes sounded fine but once I got the dsp tuned up to my liking everything was sounding so bad till I got tidal... the master stuff sounds soo good.

 

[mmdb]

I had the same experience, before the mini DSP iTunes sounded fine but once I got the dsp tuned up to my liking everything was sounding so bad till I got tidal... the master stuff sounds soo good.

Before I would think there was something wrong with my tune. So I tweaked and tweaked... I wouldn't have usually ruled out the actual music until I RTA'd. Have you streamed "audiophile" tracks on youtube? I'm really wow'd by the music quality there.

 

[GNBRETT]

Thank you sir (speaking for tshrey as well). The 3 way you have there is a very nice setup. Very high end! I'm assuming you'll be putting those speakers in the a-pillar with the woofer in the door? don't forget to post up your photos when you do!

I would definitely disagree with you on the sub. It sounds pretty darn good for being considered an SPL speaker (if that's what you're assuming). The bass is really tight and the output is a lot more than I was expecting. I play all kinds of music (dance, hip out, opera, etc). Side note, I switched from using Apple Music (sometimes streams at garbage quality) to Tidal. Back to the sub, the bass is tight and accurate, but also puts out a lot more volume than I would need. If I had any regret, is that I should've gone to a 12" for a tad lower end. But again, very happy with the 10" W6.

Yea they will be going on the pillar. I had the W6 in my Golf R before and it definitely sounded great no doubt. Didnt complain about anything but put an Orion in there and it really wasn't any better. Im gonna try the new Focal 10 MW as I just ordered that vs. using my Gladen pro 10. The Focal requires much less cubic air space so we will see how it performs.

I just think for an SQ build u would be better off with something else. It was loud for sure it just didnt hit tight enough for my taste but I guess thats all personal preference.

 

[tshrey]

Never heard a final update on this. Did you RTA the setup and then tune it? I grabbed a cheap Dayton Audio iMM6 microphone for $20 on amazon, but it comes with a calibration file so it should be reasonably accurate. Was able to dial in my system very well. Might be the best sounding system I've ever made considering how little money I have in it.

Ghetto RTA setup:

Wound up going with a shallow mount Dayton 10" sub in a .7 cuft enclosure. Perfect fit below the factory floor, enough room on the sides for the emergency kit and the first aid kit that comes with the car and is completely invisible.

 

[mmdb]

Your rta curve looks very nice what’re your x overs set at? Are you running a tweeter? Very nicely done. If folks put a wideband up top on the dash or integrated into the a-pillar the sound quality jumps 10x.

My tuning has been sort of an on going effort. I just got busy with my work that I haven't made much time to tune. I'll post up readings once I get around to spending a bit more time. I was actually getting too much low end, overpowering sub-bass. I dialed it down a bit. The female vocals sound amazing. I'm looking to add a touch of low end for the male vocals. Like yourself, I'm super happy with my setup and I really enjoy playing my old tracks. Though the drawback would be listening to a favorite song only to find out it was a terrible recording. I'd recommend anyone looking for great sound to put a wideband up on the dash.

 

[tshrey]

No tweeters. Dash widebands are set to 800 Hz with a 12 dB slope, doors go up to 1.7 kHz and roll off with the same. I do have to boost 5-12k in the eq to get the high end where it is. I can't hear 16k so so I didn't worry about that.

Recording fidelity is a real problem when you work on a system for a long time like this. Some of my favorite songs are just shit recordings. If you want a couple test tracks for male vocals the Crash Test Dummies album from the 90s is actually amazing, along with the Prince album with the symbol.

 

[mmdb]

Going to sell my car so all my stuff (pods, kicks, sub box) will be up for donation (just pay for shipping). PM me if you're interested!

 

[toothofwar]

Is the sub box still available?

 

[mmdb]

Is the sub box still available?

yeap still got everything. PM me if you want it.

 

[carmenjeff]

Going to sell my car so all my stuff (pods, kicks, sub box) will be up for donation (just pay for shipping). PM me if you're interested!

Are the pods still available?

 

[carmenjeff]

Here's my amp rack