SDB_FTW

Hey y'all, I recently finished my sound system install and thought I would share my observations with the audio crowd. I initially posted this in the C6 GenDisc section, but I thought that those that pay more attention to the audio section might find it interesting. Sorry moderators, I should've posted it here to begin with.

I just bought my '08 C6MT coupe in January, and I'm just loving it! As with every car I've ever owned, the first mod was the sound system. I've always been an audio enthusiast, and stock stereos make Dave a saaaaaaad Panda. After a fair bit of research, thanks to the gaping speaker hole in our doors, I decided I had room to go with an active 4-way setup.

Quick break down of equipment:
DRIVERS
Tweeters: SB Acoustics Ring Radiators SB29RDCN
Midranges: Dayton 2" domes RS52AN
Woofers: Dayton Audio 7" RS180
Subwoofers: Image Dynamics 8" ID8V.3

ELECTRONICS
Head Unit: Pioneer AVH-P3300BT
Speaker Amplifier: JL Audio XD600/6
Subwoofer Amplifier: JL Audio XD600/1
22 Band equalizer: JBL GTE422
4-way active crossover network: JBL GTX47

INSTALLATION EQUIPMENT
SubThump partition subwoofer box
Metra double din dash kit
PAC interface unit to retain OnStar
Dynamat Superlite
Stinger electronics for all wiring/distribution


I didn't bother to take pictures of the head unit install. It's easy, been done a million times, and is a matter of following directions provided by Metra and PAC.

After the Head unit was installed, I tackled the doors. First step, cut adapters. I cut the lower piece out of 3/4 MDF and the tweeter mount out of 1/2" MDF.




Next, mount the speaker drivers to the adapters. This is where I had to get creative. The hole is big, but it was still a challenge to mount both a 7" driver and a 2" dome with a 4" flange. I measured exhaustively to make sure everything would fit. I had to cut some of the dome flange using my dremel in order to make it fit.









Time to start the wiring. I didn't take nearly as many pictures of the wiring as I should have, but it wasn't terribly complicated. I took the 3GA power wire through a slit in the stock firewall grommet and ran it along the passenger side of the tunnel. I always make sure to not run power along side any signal wiring. Speaker wires were simply guided through the door's "accordion" grommet, then along the floorboards to the rear.


Now to build the electronics rack and run all the interior wiring. I used 4 strips of scrap wood to space the rack to allow for neat wiring underneath the rack. After mocking up the installation and drilling holes to run the wiring, I carpeted the rack with some dark grey fabric that I picked up from Hobby Lobby.






Here's the finished amp rack, wired up, with the subwoofer box and subs installed as well. The corvette lettering on the sub box is a great subtle touch, and is offered as an add-on option from SubThump. I'm working on a cover with adequate air circulation to fit over the top of the electronics to conceal them neatly, but for now, they remain exposed.





Once everything was finalized, I did an initial calibration using the AudioTools iPhone app as my RTA/mic. Using the 22 band EQ, I leveled everything out as much as I could. I gave the speakers about two weeks break-in time, then re-calibrated.

For those that care about the sound quality of the drivers, I gave them a quick synopsis and grade.
Head Unit: C
The head unit does many things well and provides many features, but I'll admit that pioneer seemed to sacrifice some SQ in order to pack as many features as possible into the sub-$400 price point.

JL Amps: A
JL makes a great product. Maybe not as good as their old school stuff, but still very respectable (and I got a great deal on them that I couldn't pass up). They are also tiny, which is great for the limited space of a Vette.

JBL Processing equipment: A
These units can be picked up for about $140 for the pair, and work great together. No noise added, and calibration is a cinch.

SB Acoustics Tweeters: A+
These tweeters are some of the best I've worked with for the price. Smooth, detailed, and never harsh. Great driver.

Dayton Audio dome midranges: B
These are great for the vocal range, and are easy to blend. They do tend to sound a little "thick", and could be a bit more detailed. Their sensitivity is also quite high, so I had to back them off quite a bit, not necessarily a bad thing.

Dayton Audio 7" Woofer: B
Great detail from these woofers, but lack a bit of the "thump" that I like to have in the 100Hz-500Hz range.

Image Dynamics 8" subs: C
These subs have great SQ, but can honestly barely keep up with the rest of the system. I may be replacing these this summer.

EDIT #1: I like the head unit less and less the more I use it. SLOW read times on USB and SD, no support for lossless audio formats, no bluetooth audio streaming, and the list goes on. I admit that I didn't do enough research before I bought this unit. It was on sale at Best Buy, and I had almost $100 in reward zone points, so I pulled the trigger prematurely. I'll most likely be tackling a carputer project this summer. For this reason, I won't be investing any money into time alignment of my current setup, since a carputer will take care of that for me, not to mention that it'll replace the JBL processors. I'll probably keep those around though because they're fun little units and they're really hard to find these days.

EDIT #2: My initial grade of the ID subs was a bit harsh. Since they have had time to break in, they sound much better, and also don't sound like they are working so hard to keep up. I'd give them a solid "B"

EDIT #3: When I initially bought my car I didn't even know that C6's had a center channel speaker because mine didn't have one. I still haven't removed the grill to see if the previous owner removed it, or if it's just blown. I mention this because I'm considering putting a center speaker in with an L-pad in order to raise the sound stage. If I have one criticism of my initial results, it's that the stage is a bit low, and lacking center presence. I haven't decided how I want to go about addressing this yet, and any and all advice is very welcome. I've also looked at CDT's upstage kits, the UP2100i and UP5100i. If I use one of those kits, I'll also play around swapping the tweeter and midrange driver positions so that the distance from the tweets to my ear from both doors isn't so drastic. If I end up wanting my tweeters even LOWER, I can always simply rotate the lower speaker adapter as well.

Should be a fun summer!

Orange06

Nice work

SDB_FTW

Thanks!

lionelc5

I like the choices you made on your equipment. I recently did an active set up but only 3-way. 1", 6X9 and 10"sub.

One thing you might think about if you dont like your deck is maybe a Pioneer Stage 4 DEX-P99RS. It is what I used and I am very impressed. It is a single din, and may not be what you want aesthetically, but it can controll your 4-way set up and you could remove your eq and crossovers.Just somenthing to look into.

Definatly give you props for the 3-way set-up in the dores and a nice looking install. I have 2-10" subs in the Vetnutts corner boxes, but after seeing how you placed the 8" subs I might steel your idea (if you dont mind) and go with some 8s myself.

LionelC

SDB_FTW

Great suggestion on the DEXP99RS. That's a great deck, I remember reading the specs on it. I wish I had one of those laying around. Problem with that beast is that it's over $1000! Can't justify that much cash. I have priced out a complete carputer project at about $600, which will also control everything and allow me to ditch the JBLs, and for a computer engineer like me, it's just more fun . Hopefully at that point, I can find someone to buy my current unit. It's a great unit, depending on what you're looking for, it's just not for me.

If you have bass that is really overpowering and can be happy with less, then you might be satisfied with the box/subs that I'm using. I'll definitely warn though, my bass is NOT overpowering, and won't wake the neighbors. I'm using subs that require low power (150w-300w rms), and won't move a ton of air, because they're designed more for SQ than SPL. You could always put 8" subs in the box that really POUND (soundsplinter, re audio, etc), but then you have to worry about the fact that my box is constructed out of 1/2" MDF. If you want to run more than about 300w per sub, I wouldn't use my box, just my $.02.

Thanks for the information and compliments.

kctay

Wow, very nice, I wish I had your mad skillz man. Very sanitary.

SDB_FTW

"Sanitary" that's funny. Thanks for the compliment!

kctay

'sanitary' is a term used often in the custom auto industry denoting 'clean', 'meticulous', great attention to detail. I'm happy it amused you.

SDB_FTW

Yeah I got it, I just always liked that one. Thanks again.

wademac

That is one helluva set up....very nice!

Would love to get my nerve up and try something similar one day....bet your sound is awesome....

SDB_FTW

Thanks! It was a lot of fun. As for the sound? I'm definitely a fan, but you could say I'm biased...

v8rx7com

I know a lot of people disconnect the center channel because they claim it interferes with stereo separation, but I kept my center channel and I’m glad I did.

What I did on my setup to minimize stereo separation interference was to created a mono center channel "band-pass" with high and low filters. The highpass is at 400 Hz and the lowpass is at 2,000 Hz.

I did this so my center channel is only playing roughly the human voice frequency range. It has “helped” (In my setup) to raise the sound stage and “helped” to center the vocals without destroying stereo separation.

I use “helped” in quotes, because it’s not perfect but is an improvement.

To give you an idea, in my setup without the center channel the vocals (while sitting in the driver seat) appeared to be coming from about my left knee.

With the center channel (while sitting in the driver seat) the vocals appear to be about instrument cluster level (this is with the balance set at 0).

I also considered using an “L-pad” but since I have my center on its own amplified channel, I just used the gain to set the level and haven’t regretted not adding an “L-pad”.

Also, I’m using the stock Bose center with about 200 watts going to it at the band-pass frequency range mentioned above, and so far it’s handling the power.

I originally was going to replace the stock Bose 3.5 (and still might), but I’m having a hard time finding a true 3.5 midrange that is an improvement over the stock Bose.

I found out the hard way, a lot of speakers that claimed to be a 3.5 inch are in fact a 3 inch (smaller than the stock size) and most car 3.5 speakers are "2 ways" which I don’t want because I’m not playing mine above 2,000 Hz

I purchased a Vifa/Peerless speaker online that claimed to be a 3.5 but it was in reality a 3 inch ..... so I decided to keep the Bose until I find something else.

I hope some of this is helpful to you

SDB_FTW

That definitely helps, thanks. Since I run a dedicated midrange, I've thought about bridging off of their signal to sum and create a mono signal to the center channel, which would be running the same freq range as my mids, which right now is 800><4k. In this configuration, since my mids are 8ohm, the center channel will need to be 16ohm so that it gets the same amount of power as my door mids. Since the center channel wouldn't have its own dedicated amp channel, that's why I mentioned the l-pad.

As per your advice, I'll pay particular attention to the actual speaker diameter to make sure it's the right size before i buy it, if that's the route I end up going.

I've also considered this: http://www.cdtaudio.com/series/upsta...s/up-2100i.htm

Thanks for the info!

v8rx7com

I use to have access to a RTA back in the days when they were a high dollar and somewhat bulky piece of equipment.

I have found myself lately wishing that I still had access to a RTA to tweak my current system …… not realizing I carry one around with me every day!!!

I just wanted to thank you for making me aware there was a RTA app for the iphone.

SDB_FTW

Glad I could help! The cool part of the AudioTools app is, if you end up wanting/needing a more accurate RTA, you can buy their iphone/ipad extension with external mic.

http://www.studiosixdigital.com/iaudiointerface2/

Nosferatu333

how do the Jl xd amps sound?? Im looking to by a xd500/3 Thanks

SDB_FTW

JL makes a solid product. If you have to pay MSRP, then there are other options out there, but if you can get a good deal on one, go for it, you won't be disappointed.