# Simple and efficient Mazdaspeed6 install



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Hi all,
I wanted to introduce the subject of this experiment...my 2006 Mazdaspeed6 VRM. The Ms6 is my daily driver, and originally came with the factory Bose upgrade. Needless to say, the Bose was, well, less than inspired and I wanted more.

I had some old audio equiptment laying around from a previous car, so I decided to blow the dust off, and slap 'em in there.

The equipment:
- Stock HU - it puts out a linear 2v and is integrated with the climate control, so it stays.
- Older Orion Cobalt CS 500.5 amp
- Older Boston Accoustics Rally 6.5" Components (front doors)
- New Boston Accoustics SX55 Coax (rear doors)
- New Boston Accoustics G110 Sub.

I understand that none of this stuff is high end, but its not crap either, and should serve my purposes.

The requirements:
- The Ms6 has a nice big trunk, and I wanted to keep as much real estate available as possible for hauling crap arround. 
- Be able to bring things back to stock or as close to stock as possible.

The attempted solution:
I welded up a rack to mount the box, sub, and inverter to the bottom of the rear deck. I thougth this would preserve 100% of the sq ft of the trunk, and not take away too much of the vertical. The amp is upsidedown (I know some ppl will have comments regarding that), and the sub is firing downwards (possibly not very efficient).

The problem:
It sounds like crap. 

Now, to qualify the above statement...I am a gearhead, not an audiophile. I dont know much about sounddeadening, or audio tuning. So I installed the gear, and thought that it would work well because its good gear. Not so. 

The rear deck rattles pretty badly, so I will be ordering some materials from our sponsor here to solve that issue. The speakers sound flat and like they are missing a bunch of frequencies, so I will try to tune them a bit with the help of this forum's knowledgebase. I will also remove the sub box from the rack, and mount it in a fiberglass enclosure in the corner of the trunk. I hope this makes the sub more efficient and it will sound better. 

I'd love to hear your comments/suggestions.
-a


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Here are a few more pix, including the new fg box Im going to try out.
-a


----------



## nittanylion64 (Oct 3, 2007)

I have a Speed 6 now, I had a regular 6 before it. Both had the Bose system. Where are you picking up the Bose signal? Before the amp or after it? Are you tapping off the sub amp for the bass signal or are you getting it from the main amp? I thought my bass was really lacking, I decided to switch the sub out at the Bose amp and it got a lot better. I am also using a Rockford 360.2 in the Speed6. In the 6i I just used the stock hu signal and ran it back to the amps.
Off audio topic-what mods have you done to the car?


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Im picking the signal off of the HU. I eliminated the Bose amp completely. 

As far as other mods....just some basic stuff like RPM springs, SPC ball joints, downpipe, Cobb SRI and TIP, and Cobb AP. Its a daily driver so Im keeping it mild. I have another car that is pretty wild already. 
-a


----------



## DaveRulz (Jun 22, 2006)

What part of CT you in, I'm assuming you're on 6club and 6Crew?



> The rear deck rattles pretty badly, so I will be ordering some materials from our sponsor here to solve that issue. The speakers sound flat and like they are missing a bunch of frequencies, so I will try to tune them a bit with the help of this forum's knowledgebase. I will also remove the sub box from the rack, and mount it in a fiberglass enclosure in the corner of the trunk. I hope this makes the sub more efficient and it will sound better.


If you are moving the subwoofer off of the rear deck, there is no need to order any sound deadening yet, at least wait until you move the sub, I guarantee the fact that it is mounted to the deck is the reason you are having such problems with that. The sub should sound MUCH better in the back corner. I have done a lot of experimenting and that is the location that will result in the smoothest/loudest response in our cars. As far as tuning, you don't have a lot of control with the HU, but there may be some things you can do to the speaker install to get it sounding a little better. 

I'd love to take a listen and give you my thoughts if you are close by. 

Dave


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

DaveRulz said:


> If you are moving the subwoofer off of the rear deck, there is no need to order any sound deadening yet, at least wait until you move the sub, I guarantee the fact that it is mounted to the deck is the reason you are having such problems with that. The sub should sound MUCH better in the back corner. I have done a lot of experimenting and that is the location that will result in the smoothest/loudest response in our cars. As far as tuning, you don't have a lot of control with the HU, but there may be some things you can do to the speaker install to get it sounding a little better.
> 
> I'd love to take a listen and give you my thoughts if you are close by.
> 
> Dave



Hey, thanks for your reply. I'm in Norwalk. 

I'm going to order some sounddeadening anyways to do the doors, so might as well put a little on the read deck, and on the panels behind where the new sub's location will be. As for tuning, the amp has several adjustments as well, and I really have no idea what they do, or how to set them to get the most of the speakers, especially the front components and their crossovers. 

Lastly, the sub...the G110 is a single coil 4 ohm with an optimal at 0.5 cu. ft. The new FG box is at 0.85 cu. ft. The amp is a 5-channel that does 50x4at 4ohm, and 150x1 at 4 ohm. I've received conflicting info regarding whether this amp can do the 5th channel at 2 ohm's while still running the interior speakers at 4ohms. If it can do the sub at 2ohms, I will probably switch the sub out to a Boston G3 and run that at 2 ohm. If not, Ill either stick to the Orion and the BA G1 at 4ohm, or swap out the Orion and the BA for something else. 

Anyways, in short, I have some experimenting to do, and will deff need some help from you guys.
-a


----------



## DaveRulz (Jun 22, 2006)

Norwalk is a little far for me (used to live in Stamford, too bad I'm not still down there)

If you haven't adjusted the gain and crossovers correctly, that's def the 1st place to start. For the rear deck, don't bother with CLD, just use closed cell foam to isolate the cover from the metal itself. That should take care of your rattling problem. 

150 watts and 1-10 may give you a little less than you were hoping for. The trunks of these cars are sealed off very well, and it can be difficult to get the bass to pass into the cabin. Although you should have a hole in your rear deck where the old bose sub was that should facilitate that a little better. 

I did run a 10 sealed in my car at one point, and found that it could sound quite good, but ran out of steam with the windows down. And I was running it off of about 4x the power you have on tap. I think you're better suited by looking for more cone area than more power honestly. The difference between 150 and 300 watts is going to be negligible. The bigger box should work to your advantage since you are looking for efficiency vs power handling. 

There aren't any great pictures of the input side of that amp, but from what I can tell, you have crossovers and inputs for all the channels.

Step one, set the front and rear speakers to have a high pass crossover point somewhere around 80hz, set the subwoofer to have a low pass crossover point somewhere around 80hz. Turn the gain knobs all the way down, then set you HU's volume to around 30. Slowly turn up the front gains until it is either too loud, or starts to distort, repeat for the rears, repeat for the sub. Go back and perform F/R/S balancing by adjusting the gains down of any speaker that is too loud. 

See how it sounds after that.


----------



## chuyler1 (Apr 10, 2006)

I've got a few comments/suggestions for ya.

First off, there should be no problem running a mono channel at 2ohms on any amp. You can run the 5th channel of that amp at 2ohms and the rest of the channels at 4ohms without trouble. It should bump your power to ~300w.

I'm not a proponent of more-is-better when it comes to amplifier power but even i know that 150w isn't enough to overcome road noise. I run 300w free-air but before that i was running 500w sealed.

As you know, I've got my sub mounted free air under the rear deck. I covered both the top and bottom of the deck with a layer of raammat and ensolite. I also covered the back side of the rear deck cover with ensolite. It was a chore to get it all back together again but it silenced most of the rattles. If i crank the music up, I still get rattles, but I only listen that loud with the windows open and, frankly, the sound of the wind overcomes any rattle noise. You may want to experiment with a free-air solution before you spend the time and resources building a fiberglass box.

Without any sound deadening in the front doors, 80hz or higher is a must for the crossover point. Depending on the volume you typically listen at, you may want to go higher. There are lots of people on this board that boast about 40-50Hz crossover points but from my experiences, getting that amount of bass out of a 6.5" woofer at highway speeds with the windows open is a pipe dream. Even if you do manage a flat rta, the speakers are too stressed to produce the bass with authority. Let the subwoofer handle it and your music will be more energetic.


----------



## DaveRulz (Jun 22, 2006)

chuyler1 said:


> .
> You may want to experiment with a free-air solution before you spend the time and resources building a fiberglass box.


The FG box he showed looked like the Wicked CAS box on ebay, I thought he was planning on buying it not building it



chuyler1 said:


> .Without any sound deadening in the front doors, 80hz or higher is a must for the crossover point. Depending on the volume you typically listen at, you may want to go higher. There are lots of people on this board that boast about 40-50Hz crossover points but from my experiences, getting that amount of bass out of a 6.5" woofer at highway speeds with the windows open is a pipe dream. Even if you do manage a flat rta, the speakers are too stressed to produce the bass with authority. Let the subwoofer handle it and your music will be more energetic.


For what it's worth, I have minimal sound deadening in my doors (single layer of CLD on the outside skin); my RS180's are crossed at 63Hp and I don't have any problems with volume or distortion from them, although I don't listen to them quite as loud as some others might I suppose and I have them lowpassed at 315hz to blend with the RS100s. I have them pulled back in the 9887 because they were rattling the crap out of my door panels. I find that the lower crossover point makes a big difference in the effect that I cannot localize my subwoofer as easily. However keep in mind, I am running full active (as is chuyler1) and I have steep 24db/octave slopes and parametric EQ to help me tame problems in the 9887


----------



## jimp (Jul 12, 2009)

are you getting your signals from the front or rear speakers. have read on other mazda forums that the bose system really really screws up the signal on the rears at higher volumes, (bose science) so try getting the signal from the front speaker source and see if it improves.


----------



## DaveRulz (Jun 22, 2006)

Wrong, that is the non-bose HU that does that. The Bose is pretty much flat front and rear before the amp.


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Thanks DaveRulz and Chuyler for your replies. I'm going to tinker with the setup this weekend. The Wicked CAS box arrives on Monday, and I got a really good deal on it used, so it was worth buying it just to see if it would work better. 

So, one more question (possibly the dumbest so far).
The Orion CS-500.5 has a few dials on it that I've never seen before. For each main channel there is a Hi-Pass/Low-Pass/Full switch, a Gain dial (min - max), a High Pass dial (30 - 1k), a Low-Pass dial (30-250), and an XBC dial (0db-12db). The sub channel has the switch, gain, low-pass, and XBC as well. 

I understand the switch, gain, and high pass (this is the only frequency dial I've seen before on other amps), but I dont understand the Low-pass dial as it seems almost superfluous, and I have no clue what XBC does. 

Im attaching a pic I found online, its not that good, but you get the idea.
Any insights?

Thanks again.
-alex


----------



## jimp (Jul 12, 2009)

I stand corrected, lol


----------



## DaveRulz (Jun 22, 2006)

jimp said:


> I stand corrected, lol


haha, I wasn't trying to be a dick. The outputs of the non-bose HU were tested by Manville Smith from JL Audio when the cleansweep came out. He found that the fronts were acceptable, but the rears were nasty. Another old school member on 6 club tested the bose outputs with an RTA and found them to be flat.


----------



## DaveRulz (Jun 22, 2006)

sunshinefc3s said:


> Thanks DaveRulz and Chuyler for your replies. I'm going to tinker with the setup this weekend. The Wicked CAS box arrives on Monday, and I got a really good deal on it used, so it was worth buying it just to see if it would work better.
> 
> So, one more question (possibly the dumbest so far).
> The Orion CS-500.5 has a few dials on it that I've never seen before. For each main channel there is a Hi-Pass/Low-Pass/Full switch, a Gain dial (min - max), a High Pass dial (30 - 1k), a Low-Pass dial (30-250), and an XBC dial (0db-12db). The sub channel has the switch, gain, low-pass, and XBC as well.
> ...


Unfortunately that picture is too small to see the actual controls, I had the same problem yesterday when I tried to find a picture of them. That being said:

There's nothing too crazy going on here, when the switch is set to high pass, you use the high pass dial to set the high pass frequency, when the switch is set to low pass you use the low pass dial to set the low pass frequency. You are only using one or the other, so you only have to worry about setting the one that the switch is set to. Notice that they have a different range. As far as XBC goes, it's just a bass boost. Leave it at 0.


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Big update time...Since that last update, I've actually gone through two new installations in my MS6. 

The first: I wanted to keep as much usable trunk space as I could, so I stayed with the metal amp rack mounted up under the parcel shelf. The new gear that went in there was a pair of Soundstream Rubicon amps (4.500 and 1.700). For the time being, I stayed with the Boston G1 10" sub, mounted in the fiberglass box.

Here are a few pix...


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

I wasn't a big fan of this install, and was not loving the new Rubicons...so, pulled them out and decided to do a false floor (ala' Bing style). I had two old Phoenix Gold Ti amps in my stash, might as well put some powa to them. 

Now, the current install:

Phoenix gold Ti500.4 and Ti600.2, Alpine H660 processor, Boston G3 10" sub.

Here are some pix of the mock-up process. The amps sit on a hinged panel that reveals the spare tire and jack.


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

A few more pix... Ignore the wiring mess, I have some more techflex on order.

Enjoy.


----------



## DaveRulz (Jun 22, 2006)

Looks good, how does it sound?


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

DaveRulz said:


> Looks good, how does it sound?


Thanks, Dave. Sounds pretty darn good. But will sound better once I get the PG Elite tweeters into these new pods...

New pods, made using stock sail pod as a base, and t-shirt/CA glue method. Aimed up and just in-front of the rear view mirror. Once I got the shape, I slathered the pods in Rage, and started sanding.

-a


----------



## chuyler1 (Apr 10, 2006)

Looks great! Always loved those PG amps. That was a sign of a quality install back in the day and you've done them justice with your false floor! Keep it up!


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Time to make some changes again. Lets start with pulling out all the 4awg, and replacing it with some 0/1awg. Knukonceptz fuse holder near the battery, through a firewall grommet (zip ties will be replaced with a welded plate when I get my MIG out of storage).


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Picked up some HDPE, and cut some baffles.


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Test fitting the 6.5's. I don't think they are going anywhere


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Baffles bolted into place from the back, then the PHDs bolt on from the front.
Looking sexy...


----------



## Lycancatt (Apr 11, 2010)

curious, what didn't you like about the soundstream amps?


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Lycancatt said:


> curious, what didn't you like about the soundstream amps?


I'm sure this was install related (mounted under the shelf, albeit upright), but they went into thermal on me too often. They have a rep of running hot. Sure are pretty to look at tho. Plus, when they were working well, I just had a gut feeling I wasn't getting rated power out of them. Who knows, could just be bad kool-aide.
-a


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Well, I'm back at it again. I liked the false floor install, but that was designed with a lifestyle in minds that did not involve infants/toddlers and all the crap that comes along with them. So, false floor has gots to go. Next version...vertical rack up against the rear seats. 

I pretty much copied Chuyler1's rack idea, located here: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...887-chris-mazdaspeed6-stereo-install-log.html

But before we get to that, lets cover the front stage. KAXBLTWT and TM65's:


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Amp rack.


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

At the moment, the rack is home to a Arc KS900.6, which is driving the front stage active and the rear fill. The Arc xdi1000.1 is on sub duty. I made the xdi mound removable, in case I ever switch out to a more powerful 5-channel. If that happens, the 4-channels will run the fronts active, and the Ms-8's internal amp will pick up rear fill duty.


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Here it is, all mounted and wired up. Ignore the RCA mess. I had to replace one bad run, and the blue one is there temporarily while the replacement arrives.

As far as sound, best I've had so far. The XBLs up front, active, and stepping up to a 12" from a 10" is just a phenomenal combo from my perspective.


----------



## teldzc1 (Oct 9, 2009)

Nice job! How do you like the front stage?


----------



## hot9dog (Mar 23, 2013)

looks really nice!! heck yeah!


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

teldzc1 said:


> Nice job! How do you like the front stage?


Very happy with it. While I consider myself an average joe with this stuff, I would say that this combo delivers what I have always been lacking - impact. I have owned (and still do, to be repurposed in the other cars) some descent quality equipment. That equipment has performed very well, but this combo can do all that, but do it with authority. I'm no spring chicken, but I have been able to listen longer at higher volumes, because of the clarity and laid back nature of the tweet. Detailed, loud, but non-fatiguing.


----------



## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

sunshinefc3s said:


> Here it is, all mounted and wired up. Ignore the RCA mess. I had to replace one bad run, and the blue one is there temporarily while the replacement arrives.
> 
> As far as sound, best I've had so far. The XBLs up front, active, and stepping up to a 12" from a 10" is just a phenomenal combo from my perspective.


Heck yeah! That rack will get it done nicely. Good job.


----------



## sunshinefc3s (Jun 23, 2010)

Ok, one more change....but I think I'm going to leave it alone for a while from this point forward ;-)


----------



## chuyler1 (Apr 10, 2006)

Nice work on the amp rack! Love the 2-tone!


----------



## mwmkravchenko (Oct 6, 2009)

:thumbsup:


----------

