# 2016 Honda Civic Touring SQ build - JBL/AudioFrog/maybe others



## josby (May 8, 2011)

First, I like the build logs that are created after completion so you can see all the pics together at once, but I want to keep a running log as I work on this, so I'm going to do that, but I’ll keep an updated link in my signature to my latest update, and then change that to a link to pics of the full install once I've finished the build. So check my sig if you want to see where I’m at on this currently.










The car is a 2016 Civic Touring sedan in Aegean Blue Metallic. I picked this because it's the only trim level that has a dash cutout for a center channel speaker. Also, it'll do 0-60 in 6.6 seconds while averaging 35 MPG with 87 octane in mixed driving. And it has some awesome tech, like adaptive cruise control that can come to a full stop by itself and automated steering that'll keep you in your lane long enough to take your hands off the wheel to stir a Slurpee.

My goals are great sound quality for both front seats, stock appearance, as few irreversible mods as possible, and no loss of original functionality. 

The only gear I'm definite on right now is a JBL MS-8 DSP, since it's one of the few DSP's that does a proper center channel, plus I suck at tuning and hate it and it's the only DSP I’m aware of that (usually) does a good auto-tune. The amps may be either some JBL MS-A####'s or a JL HD900/5 I have already, or maybe Helix. Probably a few of the MS-8's amp channels, too, and maybe a Mosconi Pico if needed for space. The speakers will be AudioFrogs. Maybe a JL W7 sub.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

The factory headunit is Android-based and supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Some of the HVAC controls are integrated into it, so using a different HU would be difficult. There are two USB ports but, disappointingly, no 3.5mm AUX input for passengers, which I use a lot. The satellite radio has a neat feature where, as soon as the car starts, it begins storing the audio arriving for all 12 of your preset XM stations. Even if you’re listening to a different source! It stores up to 30 minutes, so you can jump forward or backward through songs that are in its buffer for all 12 presets. I use this on long drives a lot. You can pause, too. 

The headunit has an SPDIF digital output that carries music, and balanced line outputs that carry headunit button-press beeps and synthesized voice (navi directions and hands-free command prompts). Those go to an amp behind the passenger kickpanel that has a DSP that mixes everything together and handles volume logic according to this matrix:










It has a claimed output of 450W, and has 10 discrete outputs that drive 10 speakers:









The front tweets are in the sail panels, the front mids are low and forward in the doors, and the speakers in the rear deck are free-air as you’d expect.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Since the headunit has an SPDIF output, I considered using that to (presumably) get a flat signal, but decided not to since I believe such digital outputs are usually unaffected by the headunit’s volume controls and I didn’t want to give up the steering wheel volume slider or speed-compensated volume. Plus that would require buying a D/A converter to put ahead of the MS-8. So, I measured the factory sub and front mid and tweet outputs at volume 30 to see what I’m up against:










I measured using periodic pink noise at -60 dBFS to make sure I wasn’t clipping the inputs of my M-Audio MobilePre. The bold lines are the amp outputs for the sub, front mid, and front tweeter. The light pink line is a 12-position spatial average using a calibrated Behringer mic around the driver’s head of the total OEM system sound output with all controls centered. The 5 dB dip around 60 Hz is interesting. Looking at the signal outputs, it looks to me like the result of poor crossover choice in the factory amp. I think this explains why the bass from the OEM system seems pretty decent on some songs but weak on others.

Anyway, I plan to just tap the mid signal for the MS-8, because I read in the MS-8 thread where Andy said to use as few channels as possible to get a full signal, and that the MS-8 can flatten the signal as long as the factory highpass is at 100 Hz or less, even if the slope is fourth-order. The slopes at both ends of this look second-order to me, and just on the two octaves from 20 to 80 Hz and 5K to 20K Hz.

I also checked to see if there’s any EQ that varies depending on the headunit’s volume setting. I measured it at every volume setting from 15 to 40 (max), then shifted the curves in REW to overlay each other:









So from volume 29 to 40, there’s virtually no difference. 









At volumes 20-28, a slight bass boost starts to kick in as you decrease the volume. Not much, about 1/10th of a dB increase for each decrease in volume setting. 









Below volume 20, the differences get bigger. The bass at volume 15 is 3 dB higher than the rest of the signal than at volume 40. Not a big deal – a little bass boost at low volume is a good thing. I just need to keep it in mind when setting my gains. I.e. if I end up letting the MS-8 do its un-EQ of the factory signal at volume 40, I don’t want to set my gains such that the system output is quiet at headunit volume 5 and normal volume at 15, since there’d be extra bass boost there that’s not needed or wanted at normal volume.

I did consider that this might just a flaw in my measurement equipment as the signal level dropped, so I confirmed that I get the same curve shapes if I use -30 dbFS pink noise at lower volume settings to boost the signal level up so it’s at the same level as my max volume measurement with -60 dBFS pink noise.

Yeah, that was a lot of tedious work just to find that the headunit’s output is fine, haha, but I’m glad I did it since I know some factory headunits are a lot more wonky. I’m sharing all the info since Civics are pretty common, so others might benefit from this.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Here’s the factory 80mm center speaker. Decent depth there for putting a larger speaker. 
 








There’s an air duct under there preventing this 560GTi 5.25” speaker from being able to quite sit flat at the front edge, so there’s no hope of putting a 5.25” in the center with a factory-looking flush grill. Plus the hole is too small for it to go through and I wouldn't be willing to cut the dash anyway. 

Look at those jagged factory cuts, by the way. If I’d known a Touring dash was just the regular Civic dash with a hole hacked into it and an $18 plastic grill pressed in, I might’ve bought a lower trim level and done this myself. The Touring LED headlights are really nice, though.

















This GS42 4” coax fits with depth to spare, though, so I’m thinking a GB40 4” and GB10 1” tweeter in here. The only bad thing is the tweeter will have to be offset closer to the driver than passenger, but hopefully that won’t too make much difference. I could just put one of these coax's there, but since the center is so important in an MS-8 based system, I worry the GS series would not sound as good as the GB.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

The way the factory tweeter sits inside a removable ring in the sail panel means it should be pretty easy to replace it with a larger tweeter.









48mm inside this hole means a GB10 will easily fit, and a GB15 (51mm barrel) would probably fit with a little bit of trimming.
 








And 58mm outside diameter for that ring is just 3mm smaller than the OD of a GB15’s lip.
 








28mm depth is considerably deeper than a GB10, but a GB15 is 32mm deep. But since this sits recessed inside the sail panel ring a little and the GB15 wouldn’t be, I think it might balance out and fit.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

I’m undecided on whether to try for GB15’s in the sail panels, or do GB10’s there and GB25’s in this spot on the doors. The cardboard circle is the size of the 91mm GB25 mounting ring, and the pencil line inside it is the 86mm cutout hole size. It’s a tight fit and the door surface curves in at the bottom there, so I’d have to fabricate something to build that up. And it’s about midway between the factory mid and tweeter spot, so not as high up on the door as would be ideal, but there’s nowhere it can go higher.


That's it for now. Next step is installing the MS-8 to power the factory speakers to see how that sounds.


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## sq2k1 (Oct 31, 2015)

Subbed.... this should be interesting to see unfold.... I am thinking of getting a civic hatchback in the near future, so maybe I can gain some insight from your install. Thanks for starting this.....


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## MXCRAZY123 (Apr 11, 2010)

Subbed!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## billw (Jun 30, 2008)

Great, in-depth write up. I've been thinking about a Civic Coupe for a few months and love seeing all the info.

I'll be following this one.


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## mmiller (Mar 7, 2008)

How are you going to calibrate the MS-8 when you need to use the calibration CD?


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## optimaprime (Aug 16, 2007)

Doesn't the Audison primo series amps/dsp do an auto tune? In for build love the gear and the car!


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Thanks for the interest, guys. For those of you considering getting 10th gen Civics, I highly recommend it. I've gone through a couple of cars in the past couple of years and this is the first one in a while I've been really happy with, even now, 9 months or so after I bought it.

For calibrating the MS-8, I have a .WAV file of the calibration track on a USB stick to use in place of a CD.

I checked through the online manual for the top DSP/amp in that Audison line, but it looks like it has an automatic correction of the input side (for factory headunits that aren't flat like mine), but no auto tune of the speaker output unfortunately.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Since I don't want to cut any wires, I needed to get extra factory connectors. I sent pics to Mouser and DigiKey but neither carried the correct connectors. So I bought a dash wiring harness (part number 32117-TBA-B00) to get the one that goes into the factory amp (on right). For the other side, I looked on eBay and found an amp from a 2013 Honda Crosstour that had the connector I needed on it (on left).









There were a total of 30 wires that needed to be run between the factory amp and the MS-8 in the trunk – 12 wires carrying the signal (front mids and tweeters, center and sub) to the MS-8, and 16 wires coming back to the speakers (yes, there are 10 speakers, but the MS-8 only has 8 outputs – more on that later), plus power and ground.

The factory amp is on a 30A fuse and the MS-8 requires a 25A, so I ran 10ga wire from the amp’s power to the MS-8 on the assumption that the factory amp won’t be drawing much power now that it’s not driving speakers.

For 27 of the remaining 28 wires, I used three runs of 9-conductor speedwire. It’s only 18 gauge, but we’re only talking about 20W here. Then I ran a separate small wire for the last wire needed. Ugh that was a lot of tedious soldering and heatshrinking!









Here’s the before and after of the amp behind the passenger kickpanel. The connector that used to go into the amp now goes down and connects to this connector below it:









The wires all run through the factory channel along the passenger side, then into the trunk behind the rear shoulder belt.









The factory amp has a turn-on wire, but it’s in another of the amp’s connectors and I didn’t want to buy more wiring plugs to avoid cutting to get it. And it doesn’t turn off when you turn the headunit off anyway. It has to stay powered on in case you make a Bluetooth call. So, I checked the fuse box and found the second empty slot shown here gets +12V whenever the car is running or in accessory mode. I used this cheap add-a-circuit kit with the smallest included fuse and ran a wire from it down the passenger side into the trunk to turn the MS-8 on.









Since the MS-8 only has eight outputs and the Civic has 10 speakers, I had to run the rear speakers from just two outpts. To keep from having to give up the tweeters, I bought two rear door wiring harnesses for a Civic Sport Touring hatchback (part 32753-TGH-G00) to get the female connectors for the mids and the tweeters (for sedans, those are part of the whole trunk wiring harness which costs a lot more than these did).

I cut off the connectors I needed, soldered them to a set of Metra 72-7800 Honda male connectors, and soldered in a 10 uF capacitor on the tweeter wire to filter out frequencies below 4 KHz.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Here’s the MS-8 installed in the trunk. I could’ve put it somewhere else to not lose my spare tire, but I plan to put some amps in here with it later. Mounted next to it is a Honda flat tire inflator kit (part number 38160-TL7-A02) from an Accord hybrid (to save weight, they don’t come with a spare).









I mounted the MS-8’s display to that little glossy panel behind the shifter. I had to drill a hole, but it’s a $12 part so easily reversible  I put a piece of Roscolux #83 blue color gel in front of the LCD panel inside the display to make the color match the light blue interior lighting of the car.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

I replaced the center console with one from an LX (part number 83451-TBA-A01ZA), which is blank instead of having a USB port like my car did. I drilled a hole and installed an iSimple IS335 AUX adapter and ran that back to the MS-8’s AUX input.









The USB port that was originally down in the center console was moved inside the dash back behind the headunit. I attached the USB cable for my iPod Touch to it and routed that up behind the glovebox. I wrapped it with Tesa tape to keep it from possibly rattling, and mounted my iPod into this slightly recessed spot using industrial Velcro. I rarely take the iPod out of my car since I can sync it to iTunes via WiFi at home, so I don’t need easy access to it, and this hides it so I don’t have to worry about it getting stolen. And it’s still pretty easy to hinge the glovebox down all the way if I do need to get it.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

The MS-8 can do an automatic “un-EQ” of a factory headunit output at setup, where you play an included audio track that it recognizes. Since it knows how that audio signal SHOULD look, it can look at what it’s receiving from the factory headunit and adjust for any errors. Often just connecting the midrange outputs to the MS-8 inputs is sufficient for it. But I experimented some, measuring the RCA output of the MS-8 and found that I got the flattest signal (orange line above) using the sub, mid, and tweeter signals for inputs. Using just the mids left me with a slight drop-off at both ends of the spectrum. I also checked using the AUX input (blue line above) to make sure that registered as flat, as a test of my measuring equipment.

The orange line may not look all that flat, but that’s partly the graph is really zoomed in. It’s within +/- 1 dB from 28 Hz to 12 KHz, and +/- 0.5 dB for most of that, and I think that’s sufficient. The bass rolloff there on both lines starting at 40 Hz is due to the MS-8’s subsonic filter, which can’t be set lower than a 20 Hz -3 dB down point. The factory amp’s output varies +/- 3 dB on the midrange signal, for comparison, as shown here:


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## Mlarson67 (Jan 9, 2015)

Nice attention to detail. Well thought out. Looking forward to this build


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

josby said:


> I’m undecided on whether to try for GB15’s in the sail panels, or do GB10’s there and GB25’s in this spot on the doors. The cardboard circle is the size of the 91mm GB25 mounting ring, and the pencil line inside it is the 86mm cutout hole size. It’s a tight fit and the door surface curves in at the bottom there, so I’d have to fabricate something to build that up. And it’s about midway between the factory mid and tweeter spot, so not as high up on the door as would be ideal, but there’s nowhere it can go higher.
> 
> 
> That's it for now. Next step is installing the MS-8 to power the factory speakers to see how that sounds.


Very nice build and car! Have you considered building up the door handle trim piece so that it give you the area to mount the mid. Filling in that part in front near the dash would allow it and would not look out of place. 

I think it will still look factory since there isn't really anything else around the immediate area that mimics that contour style. It a lot of work but should be easier than the other spot below since the piece is small and independent of the rest of the panel. Plus I'm sure it'll be cheaper to replace that piece back to stock if you want to one day.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

Good work with the wiring harnesses. I also like the hideaway iPod.
Subscribed for more updates.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Nice work!


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## Lorin (May 5, 2011)

Will you be using a passive crossover for the center? I believe the MS-8 only utilizes one channel for the center, so if you do plan on using active, that may? be an issue? I used a Morel 6.5 coax as a center in my original build and it helped bring the "stage" up quite a bit (my mids were in bottom of doors like yours are). Once I went to a three way system, with larger drivers in the pillars (3.5), I found that I liked the system better sans the center. I liked the MS-8 and what it did. I do, at times; still miss it a bit, for ease and functionality. Good luck with your build


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## sq2k1 (Oct 31, 2015)

Josby your comments on the 10th gen civic are reassuring to me.... my all time favorite car I have owned was my 1996 Honda Civic EX..... too bad it was stolen and then stripped of everything on it 10 years after I purchased it, lol. The only thing I am wondering about is the ELD on it as I have never tampered with it before. 

I have owned Toyota cars since 2006 and it will be nice to go back to Honda for a change. My Camry I have now sounds like a living box of rice crispies with the snap crackle pop noise from the moon roof which is annoying to no end. So the new hatchback is on my radar at the moment.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

sub'd


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## will. (Jul 7, 2015)

sq2k1 said:


> Josby your comments on the 10th gen civic are reassuring to me.... my all time favorite car I have owned was my 1996 Honda Civic EX..... too bad it was stolen and then stripped of everything on it 10 years after I purchased it, lol. The only thing I am wondering about is the ELD on it as I have never tampered with it before.
> 
> I have owned Toyota cars since 2006 and it will be nice to go back to Honda for a change. My Camry I have now sounds like a living box of rice crispies with the snap crackle pop noise from the moon roof which is annoying to no end. So the new hatchback is on my radar at the moment.


I can definitely comment on the electrical systems on these cars. The ELD will limit voltage to about 12.2 to 12.4 volts unless the lights are turned on. The entire ELD is bypassed with the lights on and my cruising voltage is about 13.6. Unless there is some aftermarket munipulation of the eld, its a pain. The single most improvement to my sound quality was adding two deep cycle batteries and swapping the factory starter battery. The electrical systems on these cars weak and need to be upgraded.


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## sq2k1 (Oct 31, 2015)

Thanks for the input will. Gives me something to think about and research a bit more.


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## will. (Jul 7, 2015)

I wouldnt recommend altering the electrical as it will void your warranty, I would simply recommend flicking ur lights on while you drive to ensure your battery recharges. You will have 30 amps of remaining of alternator output for audio 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

t3sn4f2 said:


> Very nice build and car! Have you considered building up the door handle trim piece so that it give you the area to mount the mid. Filling in that part in front near the dash would allow it and would not look out of place.


Thanks, and thanks for the idea. I had not considered trying to blend it into that spot. Unfortunately I think I would have to recess it into there because it's very close on the driver's side (but still doable):










I'm also not sure what the sonic impact of that part of the dash that juts out would be. The other location actually some of the same problem:










I know everything in car audio is early reflections anyway, so I am not sure if something blocking part of the speaker like that is a problem or not.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Lorin said:


> Will you be using a passive crossover for the center? I believe the MS-8 only utilizes one channel for the center, so if you do plan on using active, that may? be an issue? I used a Morel 6.5 coax as a center in my original build and it helped bring the "stage" up quite a bit (my mids were in bottom of doors like yours are). Once I went to a three way system, with larger drivers in the pillars (3.5), I found that I liked the system better sans the center. I liked the MS-8 and what it did. I do, at times; still miss it a bit, for ease and functionality. Good luck with your build


Thanks! Yeah, I will actually be using some sort of active crossover after the MS-8 for the center mid + tweeter. Either an amp with some DSP capabilities or maybe a MiniDSP taking the MS-8's center as input and then feeding that to an amp. I need something that can mix in voice prompt audio from my headunit that I lost by using the MS-8, since it can't use the center as an input channel.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

sq2k1 said:


> Josby your comments on the 10th gen civic are reassuring to me.... my all time favorite car I have owned was my 1996 Honda Civic EX..... too bad it was stolen and then stripped of everything on it 10 years after I purchased it, lol. The only thing I am wondering about is the ELD on it as I have never tampered with it before.
> 
> I have owned Toyota cars since 2006 and it will be nice to go back to Honda for a change. My Camry I have now sounds like a living box of rice crispies with the snap crackle pop noise from the moon roof which is annoying to no end. So the new hatchback is on my radar at the moment.


Yeah, the Civics are great cars and this one definitely has that same spirit. I had a 2005 I really liked, even though it was very simple compared to this one.

I can confirm what user will. said - I went out driving with a voltmeter hooked up to watch the ELD to see what tripped it. When I first started off, the voltage was 14.2V and I thought "Great, there's no ELD!" But after about 10 minutes of driving, it suddenly dropped to about 12.7V. I assume it runs at full voltage a little at first to replace the charge you just used starting the car. No amount of electrical load I could add to the car would get it to go above 12.7V until I turned the headlights on, which made it jump back to 14.2V. Dropp[ed back to 12.7V as soon as I turned them off.

I'm not too worried about it since I'm not a real high volume guy and am not planning to run a ton of power. I'm thinking I'll just turn my lights on to get the extra voltage if I'm really pushing the system, and maybe set the headlight auto-on sensitivity to the highest so they come on as early in the evening as possible to hopefully replace any extra juice drained from the battery by the stereo.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

josby said:


> Thanks, and thanks for the idea. I had not considered trying to blend it into that spot. Unfortunately I think I would have to recess it into there because it's very close on the driver's side (but still doable):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ouu yeah forgot about the other side. I think they both will affect things pretty much the same. The good part about the top mounting option is that most of the reflective panel is angled away instead of perpendicular to the driver like the bottom is. That should throw a most of the energy away where it can gradually dissipate.

That being said, many people are happy with drivers mounted near reflective surfaces like that. Newer BMWs have similar layouts and they seem to work fine. If it were a coax I'd be more worried. 

It looks like the major problem for the top mount will be more of making the grill/panel integration look ascetically pleasing due the blocking. But based on the pic below, it still isn't a deal breaker IHMO.

http://onstedcarshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/bmw-3-series-2014-interior-car-insurance-2014-bmw-3-series-gran-turismo-interior-door-panel.jpg


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## lashlee (Aug 16, 2007)

Have you tried the balanced signal coming from the OEM H/U to the OEM amp? The 9th gen Accord has a full range 3.0v signal on the balanced side. All you need is an amp or processor that accepts balanced differential and a set of RCA's soldered to the OEM signal wires before the OEM amp.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

t3sn4f2 said:


> That being said, many people are happy with drivers mounted near reflective surfaces like that. Newer BMWs have similar layouts and they seem to work fine. If it were a coax I'd be more worried.
> 
> It looks like the major problem for the top mount will be more of making the grill/panel integration look ascetically pleasing due the blocking. But based on the pic below, it still isn't a deal breaker IHMO.
> 
> http://onstedcarshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/bmw-3-series-2014-interior-car-insurance-2014-bmw-3-series-gran-turismo-interior-door-panel.jpg


Good point! I forgot that I've seen BMW's with speakers in similar locations like that, and certainly many have won SQ competitions that way.

My challenge with either location, really, will be that I've never fabricated anything. Never used fiberglass, never wrapped anything with vinyl, etc. I'd never even used a router until a few weeks ago. 

I may try putting GB15's in the sail panels, get used to how they sound, then get a set of GB10's and GB25's to install temporarily. I could leave the door panels off for a few days and ride around with the GB25's in some tiny enclosures held to the door with magnets or something. See if the GB10/GB25 combo is enough of an improvement to justify doing the extra work.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

lashlee said:


> Have you tried the balanced signal coming from the OEM H/U to the OEM amp? The 9th gen Accord has a full range 3.0v signal on the balanced side. All you need is an amp or processor that accepts balanced differential and a set of RCA's soldered to the OEM signal wires before the OEM amp.


I was hoping it would, but unfortunately, this headunit outputs a SPDIF digital signal to the factory amp instead:


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## lashlee (Aug 16, 2007)

My bad, I read your initial post wrong about the balanced signal just being beeps and other non music info. Good luck with the rest of the install!

I'm sure it's a long shot, but is the SPDIF a toslink? Or can it be adapted over to a toslink?


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

lashlee said:


> I'm sure it's a long shot, but is the SPDIF a toslink? Or can it be adapted over to a toslink?












It's hard to get a good picture of, but it is a strange connector. There's a metal pin in the center, and the diagram shows two wires, one signal and one shield, so I think it's electrical, not optical. But I haven't seen anything with a connector like that.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

This is the output of the factory sub at the driver's headrest at 1/48th octave with no smoothing!

In this thread, SPLEclipse helped me determine that the dip at 60 Hz is a room mode, and the peak at 50 Hz is due to the flimsy metal rear deck that holds the sub resonating.

The MS-8 calibration does a sweep from 50 to 80 Hz and uses the peak volume it sees to set the output level of the sub relative to the rest of the speakers. The huge peak at 50 Hz is messing that up, causing the system to have no bass after the MS-8 does its autotune. 

To counter that, I had to turn the MS-8's sub level up to almost the maximum, then cut 50 Hz by 10 dB with the EQ. I also added a gradual increase from 325 Hz to 100 Hz with the EQ to get more midbass and blend the sub in better. The result is pretty good, though there's still a bad deck rattle and not enough bass volume for me. The sub is 2 ohm so it's at least getting 30W from the MS-8 instead of 20W, but still not enough.

I can press hard on the deck on either side of the sub during the REW sweep and reduce the 50 Hz peak by about 5 dB, so I think this could be fixed by strengthening the rear deck. But using the factory sub was never part of my long-term plan.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

I've had the MS-8 in for a few weeks now and am amazed at how much better the system sounds with all the same speakers! And with just 160W versus the factory's claimed 450W.

Since switching back to the factory setup is just a matter of unplugging one plug from the factory amp and plugging another one in, I have switched back and forth a few times because I keep thinking "This sounds great! Did the factory setup really sound that different?" Yes, it did.

The bass is better, the midbass is better, and there was a harshness somewhere in the upper frequencies that's gone. 

The most surprising thing is how much better the imaging is. The headunit has DTS Neural. I'm not sure what it's supposed to do, but with it enabled in the stock setup, it sounds like a centered singer is coming from somewhere above your left knee (yes, under the steering wheel and near the door). The imaging is actually better with it off (music still comes from the center speaker). With DTS off, a centered singer sounds like they're coming from the instrument panel/speedometer. 

On the other hand, with the MS-8 in place and set for Driver, the center is high and in the center of the dash. Same for sitting in the passenger seat with the MS-8 on Passenger. Setting it to Front moves the image over some. For the driver, it's right in front of me and about eye height, which I'm finding I really like. On the passenger side, it's over closer to the passenger door. Turning the center speaker level up a few clicks moves it closer to the center for the driver and closer to straight ahead for the passenger.

So, whatever Honda's doing in the DSP in their amp, they clearly didn't do it as well as they could have.

Aside from the weak bass, I'm really loving how it sounds already and am excited to hear how much better it's going to sound with better speakers!


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

The only real problem so far is the factory center output. The MS-8 manual says not to connect it. Some people on the MS-8 thread have anyway and had success, so I tried it but it doesn't work right for me.

The issue is that the factory amp sends some sounds ONLY to the center speaker. The two things are the prompts for handsfree commands and navigation guidance.

So, as it stands right now, if I'm using the nav system and have the voice guidance on, it mutes all of my speakers when it needs to tell me something, but I don't get the audio of whatever it's trying to say.

And, if I hit the hands-free command button, I don't hear it prompt me. It gives you a ~10 second help thing each time, then listens for your command after that. Since I can't hear it, I have to watch the screen to see when it says "Listening", then speak. And then when I give it a command, like "Play artist _____", I don't hear its response to that.

I'm not sure if it's important enough to me to work around or not. Running the factory amp center output to a small hidden speaker is not an option, as I've seen some do, because the center channel always plays music except when it's doing these voice things. I tested and determined the pure voice audio does go from the deck to the factory amp on analog lines, so I could run that output to a tiny amp and hidden speaker, though, or add a DSP later between the MS-8's center output and the center channel amp that could mix in the audio maybe.


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## mmiller (Mar 7, 2008)

I just wish we could throw the glitchy POS HU/interface in the trash, and replace it with a reliable high end source. Once it gets warm and I can start my install, I'm bypassing all of it, instead of trying to intergrate though all the Micky Mouse crap.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Here's tentative plan number 1. The MS-8's front high outputs are split by a MS-A1004 driving the mids and tweeters. The front low outputs go through two channels of another MS-A1004 to the midbasses. The MS-8's two center outputs pass through the other two. The full-range RCA outs from that amp run to the sub amp. The last two MS-8 outputs drive the rear fill speakers.

Advantages: 
I have the amps, so all I need to buy are the speakers
"kaigoss method" of running the sub from the mid's signal often gives better bass autotune with MS-8​
Disadvantage: 
I still lose the center navi voice​


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Same as above, but mixing the MS-8's center mid output together with the headunit's navi voice line output using a miniDSP 2x4.

Advantage:
retain navi voice​
Disadvantages:
Requires buying the miniDSP and find a place to mount it and its power isolator
One more thing to possibly break​


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Idea three is using a Helix V EIGHT DSP in place of the two JBL amps and miniDSP. 

Advantages:
Only requires space under one seat, and fits better since it's 1" shorter
Can use the DSP to correct any flaws in the MS-8 autotune​
Disadvantages:
Requires buying the Helix
75W per channel instead of 100 (doubt this will matter)​

Opinions are welcome!


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## mmiller (Mar 7, 2008)

Source>JL Fix>MS-8.


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## Coppertone (Oct 4, 2011)

I would personally pursue option three as a one and done mindset.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

mmiller said:


> Source>JL Fix>MS-8.


I had looked into the JL Fix, but the owner's manual doesn't mention connecting a center channel input, or a mono input (except for on the sub channel). I'm not sure whether the method it says to use for the mono sub (connect the OEM sub output to both channels 7 and 8 in parallel) would also work on inputs 1-6 for the center/navi audio or not. I posted the question in the thread announcing the Fix processors hoping one of the JL guysin there would know the answer, but no reply yet. I know I could call JL or e-mail, but I never really trust the answers from first-level support reps..


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Coppertone said:


> I would personally pursue option three as a one and done mindset.


The more I think about it, the more I think you're right. One piece of gear, better physical fit, and some additional tweaking options to play with if I chose to.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Though I ultimately plan to have a custom sub box, the biggest deficiency in my system currently is the factory sub, so I went for a quick temporary fix with a JBL GT-BassPro12. It's crazy how cheap and easy this stuff has gotten. $150 for the powered sub, $28 for a Rockford 10 gauge amp wiring kit, and $7 for a Metra speaker adapter was all it took. 










The ring terminal and fuse holder were already attached to the wire, so it just took bolting it to the battery terminal and pulling the wire. The kit even came with a dozen wire ties, and the same fuse rating as the sub's.









It was a little tough to get through but there was room in the grommet around the hood release cable for the 10 gauge wire.









The kit also came with crimp-on connectors, so I just screwed the power and ground wires to their terminals and crimped the sub input connector to the Metra speaker adapter and hooked that to the factory sub connector.

It's nothing incredible, but it sounds quite good for what it is. I actually have fewer rattles with this than I did using the factory 8" sub, despite having a lot more bass.


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## mmiller (Mar 7, 2008)

Have you thought about just adding the MS-8 to the factory speakers for Fun? Id be interested in hearing your impressions.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Since I'm using Audiofrog GS42 4" coaxes in the rear, I made some MDF adapter rings to fit inside the American International Honda speaker adapters. 

I actually misremembered the specs on the GS42 and thought it played a little lower than it did. 100 Hz is usually the recommended crossover point for MS8 rear speakers and I thought it was close to that, but after I got them I realized their Fs is 146 Hz. So I'm crossing them at 160, but I don't think it will make a huge difference. I was thinking I'd be better off having 4" instead of 6" since I'll be running them off the 20W MS-8.









I cut some foam tape gaskets to mate the adapters to the rear deck, and another smaller set to go between the GS42's and the MDF ring.









My only complaint with the AI speaker adapters is they don't fully fill the hole in the deck (or front doors either). You can see at the front edge of it, I had to stuff some CCF in to fill a little gap there.

I also removed the factory sub to have a hole for bass to pass in from the trunk. I think the GS42's are crossed high enough for it to not effect them.

I can't say I really hear a difference with the new rear speakers, but I wasn't really expecting to really, lol. I just feel better that they're back there haha

Since the GS42's have built-in crossovers, I didn't need the little crossovers I had made for the factory mids/tweeters in the back. So I took one of the crossovers and moved it up front to the center channel, along with one of the factory tweeters from the rear deck.

I was curious to see how much difference adding a tweeter to the 3.15" center would make. I'll be cutting up the center grill later anyway, so I hacked a hole into it to mount the extra OEM tweeter. No pic because it looks terrible, haha. It definitely did improve the sound though! It was cool to hear how centered vocals just got a little better with that.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

mmiller said:


> Have you thought about just adding the MS-8 to the factory speakers for Fun? Id be interested in hearing your impressions.


That's what I did, actually. Up until I installed the sub, it was the MS-8 powering all factory speakers. It made a huge improvement! Now I'm starting to upgrade the speakers, then I will add amps I think.

I think it sounds great now with the MS-8 and the better sub. Prior to that, I was upgrading because it didn't sound good. Now it sounds good, and it's more that I'm going to keep upgrading to see just how good it can sound. I haven't heard hardly any other systems to compare it to to know. I'm looking forward to the upcoming meets in NC and VA this Spring to get exposure to some.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

New gear


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## metanium (Feb 2, 2007)

josby said:


> New gear


Where are the GB25's? Did the plan change to 2-way fronts?


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Not the long-term plan, but I decided to do the fronts two-way at first, since I don't have enough channels on the MS-8 to run the fronts three-way without a passive crossover, and figure 20W driving both the GB25 and GB10 through one wouldn't be enough power anyway.

I think I'm going to get this stuff installed, then do sound deadening, then install the Helix amp, then install a GB25/GB10.


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## BMW Alpina (Dec 5, 2012)

Subscribed


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

I used American International HSB524 speaker rings with some foam gaskets I cut from 3M 9448A to mount the GB60's. 










The only issue was a weird notch at the bottom of the holes in the doors that the speaker rings don't quite cover, leaving a hole.. I stuffed some spare CCF I had in to fill the gap. The GB60's fit the rings perfectly so installing them was really easy. 

Nothing even close to causing clearance issues behind the speaker, and since these rings are a little shorter than the ones on the factory speakers, the speaker cone is farther into the door than the stock ones, so no worries about the extra excursion hitting the inside of the door panel, I don't think. Not that the 20W I'm running now could push them real far anyway


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

The GB15's were pretty easy too. I just took a Dremel and ground some plastic from inside the holes in the sail panels until they were just the right size for the threads on the outside of the GB15's to screw into. Nice of Honda to make these so oversized. And there's enough plastic left that the factory tweeters will snap back in for going back to stock in the future.









The perfect size! No issues with depth behind the tweeters, either.









The only issue was there's a little raised metal ridge at the top of the GB15's threads that kept them from screwing down all the way into the sail panels. But the gap is less than a millimeter and not noticeable unless you're really studying it.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

Yes, this is ugly  And that flimsy plastic is not a great mounting baffle either. It is solid plastic, though - those holes don't go all the way through, so it's not as bad as it may look, haha

I plan to try to make a new piece to go in here out of MDF and grill mesh. I haven't decided if I'll try to cut the center out of this and use the outer edge of it attached to an MDF piece, or just try to make a new ring out of MDF and cut the same general side profile shape into it then try to paint such that it looks like plastic.


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## dcfis (Sep 9, 2016)

Tweets look pro! There is a lot you can do to trim that mid and tweet Only WTH to me is that amazing 6.5 nd those crutchfield flimsy mounts. Deserves a thick and strong mount


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

It definitely sounds better than the stock speakers did, although it doesn't sound as amazing as I was hoping that it would. But, I think that having no low-pass on the GB40 center and just a capacitor on the GB10 as a 1st-order high-pass is partly to blame for that. Also, I've been able to hear audible distortion coming from the center channel a couple of times while driving, so clearly the 20W (or maybe 30? not sure if this ends up being a 2 ohm load for the amp with the mid and tweeter together like this) isn't enough, so I'm sure it will be better once I get an amp too.

I crossed the GB60's at 80 Hz to 1800 Hz, GB15's at 1800 Hz and up, and the center set at 110 Hz and up. I may try moving the center frequency higher until I get more power, especially since I am adding some boost in the EQ from 200 Hz to 80 Hz to get better blending with the subwoofer.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

dcfis said:


> Tweets look pro! There is a lot you can do to trim that mid and tweet Only WTH to me is that amazing 6.5 nd those crutchfield flimsy mounts. Deserves a thick and strong mount


lol  The plastic of them felt pretty sturdy, really, though. And with those foam gaskets, the rings are crushed down against the door metal pretty strongly too.


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

Sub'd.. Looks like fun! Interesting SPDIF output from the OEM head unit.. That's encouraging, though with it's own set of challenges.


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## Elgrosso (Jun 15, 2013)

Wow very nice!


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## mrichard89 (Sep 29, 2016)

Wow. This is a great post. Look forward to following along.


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## drsaab (Jun 9, 2017)

I have that sub in an Acura. Super cheap upgrade for factory sound.


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## SQLnovice (Jul 22, 2014)

josby said:


> I crossed the GB60's at 80 Hz to 1800 Hz, GB15's at 1800 Hz and up, and the center set at 110 Hz and up. I may try moving the center frequency higher until I get more power, especially since I am adding some boost in the EQ from 200 Hz to 80 Hz to get better blending with the subwoofer.



Very nice install with top of the line equipment. What's your opinion on the GB15 crossed at 1800? It's amazing that it plays that low.


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## I800C0LLECT (Jan 26, 2009)

I don't know why I forgot that you're in Richmond. I need to come take a listen! I'm very interested now that I have the Accord.

I think GB15 might be my new Tweeter. Love what you did!


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

SQLnovice said:


> Very nice install with top of the line equipment. What's your opinion on the GB15 crossed at 1800? It's amazing that it plays that low.


I don't have a whole lot to compare it to honestly, but it certainly seems to be handling it fine, so no complaints.


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## josby (May 8, 2011)

I800C0LLECT said:


> I don't know why I forgot that you're in Richmond. I need to come take a listen! I'm very interested now that I have the Accord.
> 
> I think GB15 might be my new Tweeter. Love what you did!


Yes, you're welcome to, and thanks. Right now I've taken the MS8 out so I could put my spare back in, and am working on an amp rack in a different spot to hold the MS8 and some MS-A's. So you might not want to right now (though the Frogs do still sound good even driven by the factory DSP/amp) but I'll definitely post updates here.

I'm definitely curious to learn if the Accord tweeter pods will accommodate a GB15's as easily as the Civic's did.


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## Babs (Jul 6, 2007)

josby said:


> Yes, you're welcome to, and thanks. Right now I've taken the MS8 out so I could put my spare back in, and am working on an amp rack in a different spot to hold the MS8 and some MS-A's. So you might not want to right now (though the Frogs do still sound good even driven by the factory DSP/amp) but I'll definitely post updates here.
> 
> I'm definitely curious to learn if the Accord tweeter pods will accommodate a GB15's as easily as the Civic's did.


If not, there's filler and type-1 PVC rings and SEM texture paint and stuff.  Where there's a will.. There's a way.


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## dcfis (Sep 9, 2016)

To me the civics and accords sail panels are the same. At least very close and have the same oem tweet in them. Here is mine with the alpine spx tweet- old pic but many are familiar with that tweet size


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## mwhals (Aug 26, 2018)

Subbed


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## mwhals (Aug 26, 2018)

I know it is a year later, but did you ever finish the install? Pictures?


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