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Building a High Fidelity Sound System Build (Attempt)

mmdb

Drag Racing Champion
Location
California
You gotta be the first dude to ever attempt a w6 in that cubby. For sure by brace it up. Face to the back somehow. Even if you have to drill a hole and seal it with a rubber o ring. Half inch glass is strong but the w6 is formidable.
Woo hoo! It’ll probably rattle the hell out of all my panels. I just need it to go low and loud to get the sound curve I want (I think they call it a house curve).

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a decent way of pointing it backwards and getting the design I wanted. If I did, My hatch would be cut in half. For now, I’m willing to give up some output for functionality.

so for backing plate is pretty buff at bout half inch of numerous ounces of 40oz and bi axial fiberglass. Well... that’s what I’d like to think! I’m considering ways to mate mdf to fiberglass. I’m thinking I’d need to bond em with fiberglass filler and fiberglass cloth.
 

tshrey

Ready to race!
Location
Lon Gisland
I would be worried about the coupling to the cabin having it mounted in the side. I have never had success in any car I've owned having a side mounted sub.
 

tshrey

Ready to race!
Location
Lon Gisland
Just took a ton of amplifier power to get any volume. Aiming it backwards helps a ridiculous amount. I know, long soundwaves, shouldn't matter but it did in my WRX, STI and BRZ. Spent a dozen hours or so meticulously making a box to fit in an area that doesn't take up any usable storage space, fire it up and nothing. Pull the box, drop it in the trunk and the windows are rattling.
 

mmdb

Drag Racing Champion
Location
California
Ah gotcha. I was worried you say that. But yea, firing to the rear is ideal. I’ll ponder Thant for the time being. I appreciate your feedback!
 

tshrey

Ready to race!
Location
Lon Gisland
How did you run your power wire to the battery? Driver side or passenger? Everything is so tight in this car, you have to pull a bunch of stuff out to do anything, I want to lay whatever groundwork I can to minimize the audio downtime. I'm going to put my 4 channel amp under the driver seat, my DSP under the passenger and then my sub amp back with the sub. Need to run a pair of 8 gauge wires.
 

mmdb

Drag Racing Champion
Location
California
Check out this video here to run power cables through...


It wasn’t too bad. Panels are initially hard to pull, but you’ll get the hang of it when you do it a few times.

do you have a fender unit? I’m guessing you don’t, otherwise sticking an amp underneath might be a bit challenging due to room shortage.
 

tshrey

Ready to race!
Location
Lon Gisland
I have the fender, but the stock amp will come out, should be enough room for my dsp unit. That's why I want to do all the cable runs first, once I start mounting stuff I won't have any tunes until I'm done.
 

mmdb

Drag Racing Champion
Location
California
if you remove that fender unit, and double check this, but I believe you’ll also lose your ability to answer calls and maybe other features as well such as Bluetooth. Someone mentioned zen v which is another way to use an ext amp. Instead, I pulled the signal from the back of the mib unit. Looks like I’m getting full signal.
 

tshrey

Ready to race!
Location
Lon Gisland
Well crap, that throws a serious wrench in the works. I didn't go the Zen V route because of the ridiculous price. The Zen V has you disconnect the input to the stock amp and put it into the Zen, I just assumed that meant your didn't need the stock amp.

Thanks
 
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mmdb

Drag Racing Champion
Location
California
Well crap, that throws a serious wrench in the works. I didn't go the Zen V route because of the ridiculous price. The Zen V has you disconnect the input to the stock amp and put it into the Zen, I just assumed that meant your didn't need the stock amp.

Thanks
Problem is the signal from the head unit to the amp is some sort of signal (optical?) that you can’t just tap off of. The amp itself under the seat is a beast of a thing. It’s just not an amp but also a dsp with built in x overs, time alignment, eq etc. the signal isn’t flat. Which also requires you to feed all that data into a dsp that can sum the frequencies. To avoid all that you should...

take a look at this thread to see how you can pull signal rather than using the zen-v. It involves running 4 wires for left and right, and recoding using vcds. This is in lieu of using the zen-v unit. From what I’m seeing so far on the RTA is that I’m receiving the full spectrum from 20hz-20khz.

https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index.php?threads/recoding-the-radio-to-eliminate-fender-amp.341803/
 

tshrey

Ready to race!
Location
Lon Gisland
Right, I get that. I'm going to get the signals the same way you are. My 'crap' statement was when you said that if you remove the stock amp you lose bluetooth and whatnot. I want that space for my dsp.

I'll have to look into it. If you use a Zen V you pull the two MOST cables out of the stock unit; if it is doing anything like bluetooth or hands free phone that would stop working at that point. Don't really see why those features would be in that module.
 

tshrey

Ready to race!
Location
Lon Gisland
Ok, I just found the pinout for the Fender amp. It definitely doesn't do anything other than provide speaker outputs. So getting the line level signal off the back of the headunit will allow me to remove the stock amp and put my DSP there. I'll go unplug it and make sure my phone still connects and everything, but it seems like this is straightforward.
 

mmdb

Drag Racing Champion
Location
California
Built the baffle using 3/4” mdf and installed m4 blades insert nuts. Pretty solid so far. I was going to build the frontal area out of mdf, but now considering to use glass at about a 1/4” to save space and maintain a smaller profile while maintaining the targeted volume.

i spoke to JL audio tech and they assured me a 3/4” mdf baffle with fiberglass enclosure .6 cubic feet would be fine. no bracing is required since the sealed enclosure will maximize its strength with its curvature. Onward!

4B68718C-5E6E-455C-99E0-ABB414D9FF2E.jpeg
2D78C8ED-91D4-463E-9E7A-3D11CD055121.jpeg
 

Adurm

Go Kart Newbie
Location
Fl
Not to derail the post, but tshrey, someone was selling an audison bit dmi on diyma last week for like 350. I think it would work for grabbing the most signal but outputs to toslink. Mobridge might be another solution. As far as i know the bt is in the glove box unit but that outputs to the fender amp of course. The output signal from the brain isn't bad. It's just not flat nor linear across all frequencies as you increase the volume. It puts out somewhere around 9v at max.
 
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