Hey all,
Just got back from St. Maarten and installed my McIntosh MC440M amp and Clarion DRZ9255 HU.
These are driving Focal Utopia 6.5" front components and Boston 6.5" Rally Comps in the rear with a Cadence amp and 10" sub.

I first heard "Clarion" and laughed in the guys face until he showed me the specs on this deck.
It has a copper chassis for isolating ground loop interference and the real clincher.
A separate module housing 2 Burr-Brown 24 bit DAC's!

I am running the McIntoshs 100x2 to the Focals and 50x2 bridged to the rears at 4ohms.
I put in Dire Straits SACD and was blown away by the silky smooth vocals and mid range tones. The depth of the sound stage I thought was not possible in such a limited environment.
The bass was tight, punchy and not overweighted or colored.
The highs were very smooth, but audible, and in phase the best I could tell (without a sound meter)
I'm having some issues with the rear channel on the Mc, and have a call out to tech support at Mc on it.(possible shipping damage) I'll post results later.

The Cadence amp and sub hit hard enough to keep up with the conservatively rated Mc, but gets boomy with certain tracks, so sub output level adjustments are annoying, but necessary at times from the HU.

Overall, I am really happy with the sound and have never had a cleaner, more accurate system in my car.

Will get some pics when amp rack is done, for now its a bit too much like angel hair pasta to show off.
Scott

 

that sounds really great! did you sound deaden your car?

 

I did the doors and rear speaker ports with Dynamat when I installed the Focals, but the rest of the car needs to be done badly!

I'm thinking about the kit that comes pre cut. Looks like Dynamat with foil backing.
I'll have to find the link again, but I"ll be taking out the whole interior and glassing the stock rear speaker cubes for better sound repro.

If you have a better suggestion, please throw it at me, I've never done a whole interior before.
Thanks
Scott

 

Sweet set up bro Some day I will move up to the Mc amps in my car at some point .. for now I am quite pleased with the Genesis I am running. Still kinda baffled that you are running rear speakers being the obvious autophile (heh) that you are .. and that deck is probably one of the top 3-4 ever produced for sound quality ... have to move in to the $2500 Denon to compete IMO.

Sound deadening I did a coating of Elemental designs Edead V3 for the doors (inside and door skins) and a nice layer on the entire front tub of the car. I then put Cowboy's kit throughout the interior of the car (nice stuff) and used Dynamat extreme in the rear sub area, a bit in the wheel wells and on the door skins around the speaker mounts. Quite a noticeable improvement IMO and the midbass in the front is quite impressive.


Fej

 

oh..it wasnt a suggestion just wondering because you said your midbass was so strong. just wondering what you did. i have to deaden mine so i'm not in any place to suggest how or what to do

 

Yeah, I hear ya. I've been tossing around whether to dump the rears or not. I have them set at much less power than I'm pushing to the front.
It's about an 80/20 split.
The rear fill is subtle enough to reproduce a 4 channel stereo sound that still yields all primary imaging to the fronts. It helps balance out the sub from the rear and stealths its location which is a beyotch to do in such a limited environment.
The jury is still out on this one though....

I'll look into the Edead stuff as well. I'd rather have all the dampening I can get, especially with the noise she's making with long tubes and a head and cam package.
Scott

 

Although I am running just a stock exhaust (for now hehe) I noticed a lot less tire noise and overall exhaust noise after the deadening was in place. Wtih a combination of the edead liquid and Cowboys kit I would have to guesstimate a 4 to 5db decrease in interior noise .. and of course the doors close more solid and thus far I am rattle free



Fej

 

where do you get cowboys kit again?

 

exoticvette.com .. something like that. Do a search for the user name crazy cowboy on the boards here should find something I would but the connection here is pathetic

Fej

 

Kind of like your picture hosting Wow, that was cold on my part :o

simpleman,
Sounds like you got some great equipment there. I would agree with Fej on the rear speakers. Crossover you subs no higher than 80 Hz and you should have no problems with imaging. I would think the Focals would have no problems with going down to 80 Hz (or 60Hz ) so you would have no frequency gap.
95% of SQ cars in IASAC or USAC use no rear speakers (except in 5.1 systems)
Still, it sounds like you know what you are doing and your ears are the only ones that matter. I'm looking forward to your pics

 

Damn thats low .. I have a gallery of pics here now

And the connection is only pathetic at work ... it is about 33.3k I have tested it .... soooo slooooowwww.

Fej

 

That is one impressive setup! That Clarion unit ain't no joke, I was this close to replacing my P1R with it when unforseen circumstances caused me to quit my job at the audio store.

One day!!!

 

Thankya Sir!
The only snag I'm finding on the quest for awesome sound is I start to nit pick too much.
This system is clean enough to expose production flaws in the recording media and you start expecting every disc to sound like a Mobile Fidelity gold master

The cool part is hearing the music you're used to in a very different light. Now that all the music is not colored like it was with the old set up, you can take any instrument and follow it through the entire song.
Its like listening to a whole new collection.
Scott

 

Ahhh now I know your Focal secret!!!! Not really, I did the same with mine and include the 5kx subs in the mix it was quite nice.

Simpleman: glad to hear everything is working out good for you. That head unit is no joke as stated earlier. Each manufacturer has their premier piece. I would believe that is it for Clarion sound q wise.