# Ford F150 SQ Install, HAT, Arc, Alpine and others



## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

Car audio has been a big part of my life since I turned 16 and got my first car, a 1979 mandarin orange VW Rabbit. The Rabbit evolved with me, various installs paint jobs and competitions. Over the years my systems got smaller, less intrusive and less costly as other parts of my life took over. Now fast forward to 2009/10, _*removed to be forum friendly*_. Perhaps I’m getting old, but SPL is no longer the focus of my musical endeavors. I prefer to throw Patricia Barbers Modern Cool in the cd player instead of Techmaster PEB Bass Computer. This new system will be a bit of a learning or at least re-learning experience for me, as I build my first all out SQ system in ~13 years. Things have changed, technology has changed, the brands and products I use to rely on have changed. There are new brands, and some exciting new technology from both new and old brands. Hybrid Audio Technology (HAT) has an exciting new speaker line that I will be trying along with a much more advanced EQ/Cross over/Time alignment processor than the analog pieces I have used in the past. 

This system will evolve slightly over time as I don’t have the money or resources to put together my dream system right away. I won’t purchase a component that I can imagine replacing for any reason in the future, but I will start with some of my left overs from past systems and installs. This will allow me to evaluate the synergy of components as well as the strengths and weaknesses of different pieces both new and old. The front stage of the F-150 will be based on the HAT L4 which is supposedly a wonderful sounding wide range 4.6? driver. This will be run from ~200Hz to ~10kHz and cover the most important frequency range. This will be augmented on the top end with a vintage (~1997) MB Quart 1? tweeter running ~10kHz and above. The midbass will be covered by the other half of the vintage MB Quart set in the form of an 8? Midbass covering a good portion of the sub ~200Hz range. The low end cutoff will depend on their performance in what will likely be a very small enclosure in the floor of the truck around the kick panel area. If the MB Quart speakers fall below my expectations either from age or lack of synergy with the HAT L4 then they will be phased out over time in favour of an L8 and some form of the L1 tweeter. The initial subwoofer planned for this system is also a leftover from one of my mild SPL systems in the form of two first version Kicker S10L7s. You may be thinking that this subwoofer doesn’t match the SQ orientation of the build so far, and you are correct. The L7s will be used to evaluate the “amount” of bass that I feel I need or want for this system. Once I have an idea of the output level I would expect from this system I will choose and integrate a new subwoofer system. Right now I am leaning towards the new Fi Q or BL series woofer(s), but of course that is simply an idea at the moment.









The initial source will be a modified Alpine CDA-9813, it’s a simple cd player from around 2003 that I have modified with the addition of a Toslink (optical) output that will feed into an Alpine PXA-H700 EQ/Crossover/Time alignment processor. Both Alpine pieces will be modified including power supplies, op-amps, capacitors and clocks to hopefully bring them both to a higher level. The CDA-9813 may be replaced in the future if it doesn’t meet my expectations in CD audio performance. The PXA will feed an RW Audio LD10.12M-Bal, _*removed to be forum friendly*_ Then feed the clean high voltage signals into the respective amplifiers. This piece will most likely have both single ended and balanced outputs what would integrate nicely with todays higher end amplifiers.

The Amplifier system will be based on high quality but not exotic pieces, the first version of the system will use Arc Audio KS300.4s along with active crossovers in the PXA to power the front stage speakers individually. Allowing complete control over level/time alignment/EQ on a driver by driver basis. The Arc amplifiers will be modified to remove the existing eq/crossover sections simplifying the signal path and only include a single upgraded op-amp per channel. The gain control may be removed depending on the quality of the existing parts. For testing the subwoofer system will be driven by a pair of vintage MTX 6500Ds which are reasonable quality 500watt class D subwoofer amplifiers. These will be replaced along with the subwoofer system once I have a better idea of the SPL requirements of this system. The Arc KS300.4s will be retained if the modifications increase the performance to levels I am looking for, I would hate to spend too much time and energy modifying a piece that will eventually get replaced. The Arc SE line looks like a very capable product and would be the first place I look for replacements, however products from McIntosh, Audison etc. would also be considered depending on the cost/size/shape/power output of their respective models.

A vehicle is one of the worst places to install a high end stereo, and because of these shortcomings, the install will take a lot more work than a simple home setup. This will also make the results that much more satisfying. The Ford F-150 is not a quiet vehicle, and doesn’t initially present itself as a good place to listen to music. These are only challenges that will hopefully be overcome and make the truck much nicer to drive in general by making the cabin much quieter. Extra lengths will be taken in areas that I find important, an above average importance will be put on shielding all stereo wiring, both from producing or absorbing noise. This means that all power and speaker wires will be shielded, this goes far beyond the common practice of using shielded signal cables. Shielded power and speaker cables is something that I don’t believe I’ve seen before in an automotive enviroment. This is something that I will have to test extensively before settling on a certain configuration. In theory most of the metal in the truck is magnetic, and all power and signals, whether at the pre-amp level of speaker level will effect and be affected by the magnetic properties of this metal cage. The shield wire of a power or speaker cable will be non-magnetic and ideally have a constant electrical affect on the signals instead of a variable unpredictable noise creating or absorbing property which is much more at the mercy of the enviroment. Taking some tips from the home stereo world where people are very critical of the location, orientation and proximity of all cables to one another, to the extent of using supports to keep speaker cables from touching the floor. The methods of zip tying unshielded power and speaker cables to the most convenient point will be carefully looked at with the goal of providing a truer and purer representation of the original signal.

All forms of signal and power distribution will be looked at carefully, even commercially available distribution blocks are made of brass or other non optimal material and then plated for cosmetic appeal and to limit corrosion. For this reason, and “because I can” all power and ground blocks, fuse blocks, connectors, including battery terminals will be milled from solid copper. These will then be protected in some manner against corrosion. Custom RCA’s will be assembled using copper RCA connectors, and carefully selected cables. The use of the truck body for grounding will be tested, and if it is less than perfect a dedicated grounding system will be installed. If that is the case, the entire stereo including head unit, antenna, and all power and ground systems will be safely isolated from the truck body.

Although this might sound expensive and over complicated, none of the steps listed above will cost much more than the simpler but less optimal commercial or traditional method of car stereo install. They may however cost much more time, which may or may not be associated with money depending on your perspective.

Below is a list of the equipment I already have that will be going into the install:

Alpine CDA-9813 modified with optical output
Alpine PXA-H700 (to be modified)
Arc Audio KS300.4 (to be modified)
MTX Thunder6500D (2)
MB Quart 1? tweeters (2)
Hybrid Audio L4 midrage (2)
MB Quart 8? midbass (2)
Kicker S10L7(2)

Items that I require, if you have suggestions on quality wire or sound deadening material I'm looking for suggestions:

Arc Audio KS300.4 
Sound deadening material, including vibration dampener, closed cell foam, and mass loaded vinyl.
1/0 awg OFC power wire
copper 1/0 ring terminals

Well that's the start, the build may start with photo's of the equipment modifications then turn in to the build.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

Subscribing.

Aren't you the RW Audio that made line drivers for the Termpro/dB Drag guys?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

Notloudenuf said:


> Subscribing.
> 
> Aren't you the RW Audio that made line drivers for the Termpro/dB Drag guys?


Yes I am. I've been away from car audio for awhile but it's great to be back.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

interesting that you modded this deck for optical out. 

care to explain what/how you did this?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

bikinpunk said:


> interesting that you modded this deck for optical out.
> 
> care to explain what/how you did this?


Here is the simplified write up that I created for the process, if you have questions let me know.

Adding Optical output to an Alpine CDA-9813
There are very few cd players on the market with optical (Toslink) outputs, and even fewer single din Alpine AI-Net players with optical outputs.
The inspiration for this modification came from TurboEGT.com where a different Alpine deck is modified, I recommend reading that tutorial as well unless you are specifically looking for information about an Alpine CDA-9813.

I’m not going to get into the basic steps of opening the cd player or removing the transport, if you are not comfortable doing those steps by yourself this modification probably isn’t for you. 

A Toslink transmitter is a very simple device with typically 3 connections, Data In, V+, Gnd. All photo’s and references apply to Digikey.com part #425-2701-ND as used in this modification. Three connections need to be located on the board/cd transport to connect this device, +5V dc, Ground, and DOUT. Alpine was kind enough to label the DOUT pin/trace on the cd transport and this was followed to the main board so that all connections are made on the main PCB instead of the CD transport.










I used 28awg wire for all connections, but any small awg wire you have on hand should be suitable. Larger wire may be difficult to solder to the very small pins/pads on this PCB, be very careful not to make solder bridges to adjacent pins or pads. Leave all of the wires long enough to safely route to the back of the cd player where you will be mounting the Toslink transmitter, a little extra length doesn’t hurt and wires can be trimmed to length later. 

Once the three wires are soldered to the respective pins and routed to the Toslink transmitter, use a non conductive adhesive to secure and provide strain relief to the wires. I used hot glue that I tested to be non conductive and applied it over the solder joints and along the wires every few inches. Keep these wires away from the cd transport as well as the motorized tilt mechanism of the faceplate.










To reduce clutter behind the deck I removed the front/rear/subwoofer RCA pre-outs from the cd player by unplugging the connections from the main board as shown above circled in black. All speaker output wires were heatshrinked and zip tied out of the way to keep them safe and compact.

If I were to do this modification again I would probably mount the Toslink transmitter where the RCA pre-outs exit the chassis to retain the cooling fan. This could be done by enlarging the vertical slot that the RCA bundle slides into then adding a hole below the slot for the mounting screw of the transmitter. Remove the cooling fan at your own risk!!!
Below you can see the Toslink transmitter mounted where the cooling fan was removed. You can also see the vertical slot that could be widened to allow the Transmitter to be mounted there while retaining the cooling fan.










The total cost of the modification was $1.18US because I already had the wire/hot glue/heatshrink on hand, and was placing an order with Digikey for other items. The ~45deg angle that the transmitter is mounted does not affect performance and as you can see below when an optical cable is connected everything connects and looks just fine.










Now that everything is complete it’s time to test it, I used the optical output and fed it into an EMU 0404 USBs optical input. It worked first try on the bench and was left running for 48 hours mostly covered to simulate the limited airflow inside a vehicles dash. The unit gets warm but not hot, and should work just fine for years.


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## adc604 (Apr 1, 2009)

Nice mod on the 9813 :thumbsup:

I usually take the RCAs out too, makes it nice and clean on the backside of the deck 

You going to pull all of the speaker output wires out of that harness too? 


Subscribed


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## Problemhouston (Apr 2, 2009)

I am focused on this thread as I have a 2006 F150 that I am building right now.


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## newtitan (Mar 7, 2005)

WOW nice optical mod, think you could do this for any deck? say a kenwood???

I send it to you, pay you for labor, parts etc....


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

newtitan said:


> WOW nice optical mod, think you could do this for any deck? say a kenwood???
> 
> I send it to you, pay you for labor, parts etc....


Unfortunately I have enough on my plate already. And the cost of shipping to/from Canada and the customs hassle doesn't make it an attractive venture. It's really not a new process though, and there are probably a variety of audio repair places that could perform the modification.


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## Thrill_House (Nov 20, 2008)

Hey man just wanted to say I think the work your doing here is amazing! I at one time had 9813 and am currently running a DVA-9861ri + H701 combo and I must say I still miss that 9813, the display, the sound and the motorized face were all amesome strong points of that unit! With that said I have a question for you, actually its a 2 part: One is do you plan on upgrading the components in your H701 and two would you be willing to do that to my H701 if I was willing to pay to to do it. I notice you are located in Canada, which province are you in?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

Hi Thrill House, thanks for the comments. I agree the 9813 is a nice deck to use, I'm hoping that I can make it work properly with the H700 and use the optical input etc. As for modifying the H700/701 yes I will be replacing the op-amps, many capacitors, and most likely the clock (even if it's just a better clock crystal, and not a full clock replacement).

As for doing this modification for someone else, yes I would be willing to once I get mine finished and get all the details sorted out. The same goes for adding optical output to a CDA-9813 (and most likely other alpines) As for a price for either mod, I have no idea yet, and it doesn't belong in this thread. 

And I'm in Calgary so it wouldn't be too difficult or expensive to ship things back and forth.

I hope to start modifying the Arc 300.4 very soon, followed by the H700. Stay tuned


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

Subscribing to your build! (oh and futher thanks from the HAT forum for the Toslink mod) 
Looking forward to the truck!

BTW, not trying to compare but give you an idea of what can be achieved.
Matt R's truck.
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diyma-build-logs/29688-matt-rs-chevrolet-truck-7.html


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

Robin W. said:


> Items that I require, if you have suggestions on quality wire or sound deadening material I'm looking for suggestions:
> 
> Arc Audio KS300.4
> Sound deadening material, including vibration dampener, closed cell foam, and mass loaded vinyl.
> ...


- For sound deadning, this forum has a direct connection to Second SKin and all reports have been very positive. They have a link & read up on what you may need from them.
- For MLV, i used an MLV that roofing companies use to line the trussing on housing before putting on the actual roofing product. Being is Aus means I don't know were to get in Cont US, but im sure a quick google will reveal something.
- KnuConcepts has for now offered great cabling at a great price & delivers. I ordered from the US to here and it was still cheaper than buying locally. Hope that works out for you too.
- CABAC ring terminals are what I use, available from any decent electrical wholesaler. A decent cable crimper ($40) from fle-bay will ensure a decent crimp onto the cable too. CABAC Electrical Online Catalogue

Hope that helps... a little anyway


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

+1 on Knu wire. I work for a place that has Kicker and JL wire, and I still bought Knu (it was very flexible, good strand count and available in the colors I wanted)

Regarding the optical out mod...since you aren't using the factory amplifier in the radio, and you removed the RCA's off the back, you can really only play CD's now, right?

Jay


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

Thanks for the link and all the recommendations syd, I'll have to measure up the truck and see what I need. Second Skin seems to get good feedback, I'll have to look at their lineup. And everywhere I look Knu seems to be one of the top choices, I'll have to see if there is a Canada friendly dealer.

Any Canadians found a good place to purchase Knu wire? All I really need to get started is a whole bunch of 1/0.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

Hi Jay, that's a good question. But since the PXA-H700 is an Ai-net processor the analog signal is actually transfered via the Ai-net cable which will give me analog signal for the radio. The tricky part will be getting the H700 to switch over to optical for CD instead of using the analog signal from the Ai-net cable. 

I'm thinking of using an Onkyo ND-S1 Ipod dock that will harvest a true digital signal from an ipod which I could then send over optical to the H700, but it would require me to do source select and volume/bass etc from the controller of the H700 so I might just make that the control center of my system. Doing this would solve the problem with the cd player as well since the H700 would then allow me to do manual source select, it's just not quite as simple a solution because I would have to manually switch to FM on the cd player and switch to analog 1/2/3 on the H700 etc.




JayinMI said:


> +1 on Knu wire. I work for a place that has Kicker and JL wire, and I still bought Knu (it was very flexible, good strand count and available in the colors I wanted)
> 
> Regarding the optical out mod...since you aren't using the factory amplifier in the radio, and you removed the RCA's off the back, you can really only play CD's now, right?
> 
> Jay


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## CA4944 (May 2, 2009)

Nice work on the Toslink! I ordered my Knu RCAs directly from their web site, and shipping to me in Ontario wasn't much more than it would have been to the States. It was extremely quick, too, and the cables _feel_ great. I still haven't sent anything through them, mind you...

Since you're in Canada, it may be worth comparing B-Quiet's Ultimate to Second Skin's Damplifier, etc. It may not have the premium cred. that SS products do, but it's very flexible, installs beautifully and ships from Saskatchewan (they're Canadian).


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

CA4944 said:


> Nice work on the Toslink! I ordered my Knu RCAs directly from their web site, and shipping to me in Ontario wasn't much more than it would have been to the States. It was extremely quick, too, and the cables _feel_ great. I still haven't sent anything through them, mind you...
> 
> Since you're in Canada, it may be worth comparing B-Quiet's Ultimate to Second Skin's Damplifier, etc. It may not have the premium cred. that SS products do, but it's very flexible, installs beautifully and ships from Saskatchewan (they're Canadian).


It seems fairly unanimous that Knu is the way to go, I did a quick mock order on the website to check out shipping and it is actually very resonable to Canada another plus for Knu! As for the B-quiet they are actually in Lethbridge AB (only a couple hours away) so I might give them a try.

The Alpine CDA-9813 and PXA-H700 are now playing together nicely, the 9813 has the same control it normally would except for signal processing, EQ/Crossover/TA must be done on the H700 controller. And the optical output I added to the 9813 works with the H700 during CD playback. If you add an optical output to an Ai-net Alpine simply plug the optical cable into Digital 3 on the H700 instead of Digital 1 and that's all there is to it.

I've started to modify the H700, I will post pictures once there is actually something to see, it's fairly nice to work on and the changes may take less time than I first though which is a good thing!!

After some initial evaluations with a headphone amp and a good pair of headphones out of Front1 full range, the H700 works well but really doesn't sound very good. The comparison was done between a home audio Denon DVD-5900 running rca output to the headphone amp, vs the Denon running optical out to the H700 then Front1 full range rca out to the headphone amp. So the comparison really comes down to the Denons built in dac vs the H700, and even though the DVD-5900 is regarded is "good" in stock form it implies the H700 is just average. I hope to bring the H700 up to a similar or higher level so that I can't honestly tell them apart or favour the H700.

I bought a used Arc KS300.2 (Which is in transit thanks trevordj) Instead of vertically bi-amping the front stage like I wanted to with a KS 300.4 per side. The existing KS 300.4 will run the mids and tweeters, one driver per channel, and the KS 300.2 will run the midbasses in stereo. Perhaps later on I will look for another 300.2 and 300.4 and go back to the original plan and use the 300.2's to power the subwoofers.


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## trevordj (Feb 22, 2009)

Robin W. said:


> It seems fairly unanimous that Knu is the way to go, I did a quick mock order on the website to check out shipping and it is actually very resonable to Canada another plus for Knu! As for the B-quiet they are actually in Lethbridge AB (only a couple hours away) so I might give them a try.
> 
> The Alpine CDA-9813 and PXA-H700 are now playing together nicely, the 9813 has the same control it normally would except for signal processing, EQ/Crossover/TA must be done on the H700 controller. And the optical output I added to the 9813 works with the H700 during CD playback. If you add an optical output to an Ai-net Alpine simply plug the optical cable into Digital 3 on the H700 instead of Digital 1 and that's all there is to it.
> 
> ...


Cheers! I can't wait to see the progress.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

One of hardest tasks in putting together any system is choosing the components. Some of the first pieces were easy, the Hybrid Audio L4's, the Arc KS 300.4, along with all of the pieces I had stored in a closet. However some of the little things, like the power and speaker wire, and sound control material were more difficult because I have been out of the loop as to what brands are the best in both performance and value. I'm calling it sound control material because unlike the days gone by there is more to it than applying a "Dynamat" like product to every square inch of bare metal that you can find and calling it a day. These days there are 3 main materials that go into a complete job. The first is a "Dynamat" like product which is applied to metal panels to reduce vibration and resonance. For this project I have decided on B-Quiet Ultimate, for two simple reasons, 1) I've used their previous product, "brown bread" in the past with good results. 2) They are local in the global scheme of things and I will have the product within a day or two with no customs/duty to worry about. The second is an open or closed cell foam that simply acts as a spacer to decouple the final layer from the "Dynamat" product that has been layed down. There are many sources of this foam, most of the companies selling sound deadening material also sell this foam, either as a seperate product or something already bonded to the MLV which makes the third and final layer. MLV or mass loaded vinyl is simply a heavy sound barrier, often 1lb/sq ft that is placed below the vehicle carpet, in the doors etc. Although B-Quiet makes a product called V-comp which is an MLV + foam all in one, I chose to look for something a little different and possibly more cost effective as I would like the MLV barrier to cover every hidden surface of the trucks cab. There is a product made by Sound Isolation Company based in the USA called SOUNDPROOF BARRIER (MLV) which is intended for home/business sound proofing. However the product is virtually the same and will perform the same function. The other reason I chose this product is because they have a local office (The Edmonton office of Shoemaker Drywall Supplies, deals with Sound Isolation Company products and has been very friendly and helpful) 

(This post won't have any pictures taken by me but I will show some generic product shots.)

Below is the B-Quiet Ultimate, I ordered 100sq ft plus I have 20sq ft of Brown Bread left over. 










Below is the MLV, I ordered 100 sq ft but will probably only need about 70 sq ft for the truck.










The Speaker and power wire were also a tough choice, the local places seem to have a much higher than average markup on the "wire & accessories" type of product with generic 1/0 awg wire costing more than $5 per foot, sometimes MUCH more than $5 per foot for the well known brands. After almost everyone in the forums recommended KnuKonceptz wiring I decided to give them a try. From the initial plans I wanted to have seperate power wire runs from the battery for the subwoofer amps and front stage amps I decided that the Knu oversized 1/0 awg CCA (Copper Clad Aluminum) would still be more than capable because I will have two seperate power runs. If you are buying a generic wiring kit, or knowingly considering CCA wire instead of OFC which is pure copper wire please be aware that the total current capacity of CCA is lower than OFC, the Knu 1/0 awg CCA is rated at 250A maximum where some of the smaller (real 1/0 awg) OFC wire is capable of 300A. Please don't assume that because it's all called 1/0 awg that it has the same current carrying capability as any other 1/0 awg wire.

Below is the Knu oversized 1/0 awg CCA, I ordered 40' which will allow me to run dedicated grounds as well.
The "big 3" will be upgraded with some OFC 1/0 awg that came out of a previous install.










I also ordered speaker wire from Knu out of sheer convenience, I was going to use Belden speaker cable however the Knu should do the job.
I ordered 100' of 12 awg which should be more than enough for the six runs to the front stage and 2 or 4 runs to the subwoofers.









I should also receive the second Arc amp for my system very soon, I wasn't able to find another used 300.4 so picked up an Arc KS 300.2 which will be used to power the MB Quart 8" in the floor. The existing 300.4 will power the mids and tweeters for both channels. The initial plan was to vertically bi-amp the front stage, meaning one KS 300.4 would power the entire left side and a second 300.4 would power the right side. In the future I may look for another 300.4 and 300.2 and go back to the plan of a 300.4 per side and move the 300.2's to the woofers and ditch the class D's completely. Have I confused you yet with all the 300.this and 300.that? (Why am I looking for some used equipment?? Because the minute I get it I'm going to void the warranty by modifying it internally, so it can be safer to buy a used piece that is known to be working from a reputable seller instead of buying a new one that could have a defect) The modifications to the 300.2 will begin as soon as I finish those same modifications to the 300.4, I have a feeling that both amps will have a similar crossover/preamp section.

Below is the Arc KS 300.2 (This image was borrowed from trevordj, thanks for the amp! Good luck finding your 300.4)










As I'm getting over this horrible cold AND flu that I've had one after another this past couple weeks, I will be starting the actual install. Depending on how soon the sound deadening material arrives I will begin with either the deadening of the entire truck, or starting the A pillar modifications to hold the Hybrid L4 and MB Quart tweeter. I'm also in the process of designing new end plates for the Arc amps that will allow me to stack the pair as a single unit, new battery terminals with built in fuses and distribution, as well as power/ground distribution blocks that will be attached directly to the amplifier power terminals.

Below is a quick and dirty rendering of the idea behind the distribution blocks for power/ground that directly attach to the amplifiers. There will be one block for power and one for ground, which will connect directly to the amplifiers when they are stacked. The large 1/0 awg bulge will be hidden below the false floor and connect directly to the 1/0 awg run coming from the battery for both power and ground. This will be made from either aluminum or copper or one copper and one aluminum to clearly show power and ground, the theme will be carried over with matching speaker wire connections.










The theme of the install will be doing all of the usual things but in different ways. Nothing flashy, nothing crazy, just a simple and solid install with a few custom parts.


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## trevordj (Feb 22, 2009)

Love it! I can't wait to see the amplifier mods. The suspense is killing me here.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

subscribed


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## lanzarrule (Oct 15, 2009)

Let the install start.........


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

Progress has been very slow, but I'm almost over my cold and feel much better. But ironically as I get better the weather gets worse. It's been snowing on and off the whole weekend. My son loved it even if I didn't.









Almost all of the parts have arrived, unfortunatially most of them sit in a pile in my basement. The H700 and Arc amps are on my workbench as I work on the modifications. 









I'm just waiting for the MLV, grill cloth, vinyl and some of the raw aluminum and copper that I will use to make some of the brackets, connectors, mounting plates etc. 

I might turn my focus to the center console subwoofer enclosure which will house a pair of L7 10's initially in a 2 cuft sealed box. I have found that enclosures that have the woofers on opposite sides tend to sound better because much of the vibration is cancelled out. One woofer will face forward with sound directed out the sides below the dash. The 2nd woofer will face backwards into the rear seat area.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

The weather in Calgary is consistantly unpredictable, it could be snowing in the morning and 80deg F in the afternoon. The past week has been rainy and snowy, definatially not the best weather for stripping the truck and sound deadening. In the mean time I've decided to do one of the last projects first. The subwoofer enclosure will house a pair of Kicker L7 10's in a sealed box based on Kickers "SQ" alignment of 1cuft per sub. The box will actually be 1.7cuft internal, with 0.5 - 0.75 lbs/sqft of Acousta-Stuf Polyfill which in the end should perform very similar to the recommended 2cuft enclosure. All of the box parts will be cut on the CNC machine, and all joints interlock to give greater surface area for glueing as well as easy alignment of the panels. The bracing in the box is part of the design and should result in a very solid, resonance free enclosure.

Below are a couple rendered images of how the box will go together. The cut files for the CNC machine will be made from this drawing.










The largest unsupported span will be roughly 4.75" x 14" and may get a layer of B-Quiet Ultimate on the inside depending on how solid the box feels.










The box is shown standing on end, however the panel that has been removed is actually the top of the box, the subwoofers will face the front/rear of the cab respectively. There will be a extra 3/4" MDF baffle between the woofer and the box as shown so that I can just cut a new baffle to switch to a round woofer without having to build a new box providing the air space is correct. This box will be the core of the custom center console, and other than a couple of grill cloth covered openings there will be no way to tell that there is a subwoofer enclosure in the truck.


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## mSaLL150 (Aug 14, 2008)

Nice box design! Maybe I missed it somewhere, but what year is your F150?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

It's a 2001 F150 extended cab.
The box will replace the stock center console, and a custom console will be built around the box.


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## trevordj (Feb 22, 2009)

That box is pretty bad ass. Note to self: get a CNC machine.


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## Thrill_House (Nov 20, 2008)

Looks like its coming along nicely


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

I finally managed to get the subwoofer enclosure started, there are a few more steps involved verses cutting a few pieces of MDF and glueing them together but the results are more than worth it.

Below is the cnc milling machine that I built to make prototype parts and virtually anything else that fits withing the cutting area of the machine. It has a table size of 24"x48" and a cutting area of 16"x30" and will cut, drill or engrave wood/plastic/aluminum etc.










The first step is to attach a sacrificial piece of MDF to the table and mill the entire surface flat but leaving raised edges on the left and bottom acting as x,y axis guides so the 0,0 point never changes and new panels can be clamped down and new programs run without any further setup required.










Below is the first raw piece of MDF clamped to the table ready for the first program, soon it will be a finished Left or Right side panel.










Machining is finished, once the jig is set up panels only need to be rough cut to size before going on the machine.










There are tabs created to hold the main panel within the frame so it doesn't come loose and get damaged by the cutter. These simply need to be trimmed off and lightly sanded to leave a perfect panel.










The final panel ready for assembly, there is a slight interference fit designed into the slots so assembly only requires glue and clamps and the panels interlock perfectly. I actually had to create a touch up program to fix the first panel since I didn't measure the MDF and assumed it would be 0.75" when it was actually 0.785 so I had to mill the slots to about 0.78 instead of 0.745 as originally planned, live and learn.










This is my first speaker enclosure using the cnc machine and it won't be the last. It takes a little more effort but results like this would be virtually impossible to duplicate using any other tools.


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## trevordj (Feb 22, 2009)

Wow! I can't wait to see the final product.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

wicked CNC!


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## gcsuper (Feb 20, 2008)

Great stuff, subscribed


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## Bolding220 (Jan 18, 2008)

Wow that is going to be really nice.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

Did you buy the CNC or build it? A hot rod site I'm on had a link to a "How-to" on how to build such a thing for yourself. I just can't find the link.

Jay


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

JayinMI said:


> Did you buy the CNC or build it? A hot rod site I'm on had a link to a "How-to" on how to build such a thing for yourself. I just can't find the link.
> 
> Jay


I built the machine a few years ago. There is a huge wealth of information at CNCzone.com-Machinist Community Forums - Welcome Page everything from ideas on materials and designs to people who can help you solve problems and tweak accuracy.

The cnc machine is a great tool and I wouldn't give it up for anything. Even though I built the machine using normal tools, drill press/table saw and miter saw and lots of care, the machine is capable of accuracy well beyond what I could hope to ever do by hand.

It can mill small flat areas (8"x8") that are "flat" to within 0.0005" which is roughly 1/7 the the thickness of a piece of normal paper. My machine is a little top heavy so momentum can impact x,y tolerance so to a certain extent the feed rate is inversly proportional to the accuracy. Without any extra care or setup I typically see results within 0.005" to 0.01" or 1/200 to 1/100 of an inch. Extreme (obsesive compulsive level) care and slow feed rates can give results within 0.001 or 1/1000 of an inch. Smaller and more rigid machines can approach 10 times that accuracy even in diy machines. It just depends if you really need it or not. 

Just like a diy stereo install, a diy cnc machine comes it at a fraction of the cost of a commercial machine with good results because you can design the machine around your needs or wants (size/speed/accuracy).

You can even use it for more bizzare tasks like "drawing with light in a long exposure photo". (the lines are a little jagged, but this was done at the machines top speed and momentum comes into play)










I would recommend building one to anyone with some mechanical/electrical/software skill (you don't need to be an expert in any of these, but a certain level of comfort helps).


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## trevordj (Feb 22, 2009)

Robin W. said:


> I built the machine a few years ago. There is a huge wealth of information at CNCzone.com-Machinist Community Forums - Welcome Page everything from ideas on materials and designs to people who can help you solve problems and tweak accuracy.
> 
> The cnc machine is a great tool and I wouldn't give it up for anything. Even though I built the machine using normal tools, drill press/table saw and miter saw and lots of care, the machine is capable of accuracy well beyond what I could hope to ever do by hand.
> 
> ...


If you don't mind me asking, how much money did you put into yours?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

All said and done, I have about $2500 in it. But that includes about $800 or so worth of software as well. I did get some of the aluminum extrusion for free, so that would add to the cost depending on the design.

This was done in stages one axis at a time. It runs on an old windows XP PC with stepper motors and acme lead screws. If I were to do it again I would do it differently, but it was a great learning experience!! 

I will be making custom kitchen cabinet doors when the box is done.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

I was able to get the rest of the parts cut on the CNC machine while I was sound deadening the truck. If you've ever worked with MDF you know that anytime you make a cut you end up with an unimaginable amount of sawdust. With the CNC machine it's even more, I usually can't be in the garage while it's cutting unless I wear a mask, and even then the mask doesn't make it pleasant. The previous shots showed a nice clean work area, and clean parts. This is what it really looks like after cutting a panel.










Typically I vacuum up as much as I can then brush the rest off. Aluminum is much nicer to cut because it can only throw chips a couple of feet, but with MDF I have to dust and sweep the entire garage. A vacuum system on the CNC machine is in the works but I just haven't finished it yet.










Above you can see all the parts, I still need to give them a good cleaning since there is still mdf dust in the grooves the panels don't fit together 100%

Below is one of the internal braces still attached to some of the cutout pieces, all of the parts simply pop out and the little tabs that hold them get trimmed off.



















Above is the rendered image, below is the actual box, the brace slots need to be cleaned out before they fit properly. It's just dry fit together and should fit nice and tight when it is glued and clamped.










Next time I will measure the material first, things didn't work out 100% using material thickness of 0.75" for the cad design when the actual material is 0.785" however it still fits together very well and is very solid.


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## trevordj (Feb 22, 2009)

Suh-weet!


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## gcsuper (Feb 20, 2008)

great work..


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

woah! impressive. Something the precision of a CNC can achieve soooo much easier than a mand and a hand tool.


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## wiseman454 (Nov 30, 2009)

wOW... Damn... I need napkin..


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

sydmonster said:


> woah! impressive. Something the precision of a CNC can achieve soooo much easier than a mand and a hand tool.


You pretty much nailed it there, between panels I simply clean off the sawdust, line up a new piece of MDF clamp it down and press start, and go back to working on something else. There is quite a bit of design time though, depending on how complex the enclosure is. It would be really efficient to make a small run of the same enclosure. But as a prototyping tool it's pretty tough to beat.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

As I eluded to in the sub box post, I've been working on deadening the floor and rear wall of the truck. I ran into a few issues while removing the seats, the truck is almost 10 years old and had seen it's share of weather. All of the seat bolts were rusty, not to mention I couldn't find the correct size Torx bit, it probably needs a T57 which isn't a normal size and the best I could find is a T55. With lots of WD40 and a pipe on the end of the ratchet they finally came out.



















You can see the very thorough factory deadening job..... I think this truck may have gone through the deadening station right before lunch or something, the front driver side deadening panel didn't appear "pushed" into the grooves like the others, so I started to pull and sure enough it came off in a few pieces. It seems like it was put in place but never properly rolled on, or whatever method they would use.










I haven't gone all the way up to the fire wall yet as I have more prep work to do in the floor.



















A layer of closed cell foam (ccf) was placed under all of the factory wiring to keep it quiet.










And a full layer of ccf, spray glued down in certain places to keep it where I want it.










And the first shot after cutting a hole in the floor, seems like all the Ford guys or doing it so I had to.










This basically gives enough clearance for the magnet of the MB Quart 8", the baffle will be kept as low profile as possible to keep the angle of the floor and the leg room close to stock. Like the F250's that I've seen with a small "compartment" in the kick panel floor the F150 has one although it seems to be smaller than the photo's I've seen in other builds.


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## mSaLL150 (Aug 14, 2008)

Nice! I'm gonna look into the midbass in the front floor idea. Although the 04-08 F150 has that damn fuse box in the passenger kick panel which could get in the way. I need to see how much room is back there to see if I could even fit a 7-8" driver.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

mSaLL150 said:


> Nice! I'm gonna look into the midbass in the front floor idea. Although the 04-08 F150 has that damn fuse box in the passenger kick panel which could get in the way. I need to see how much room is back there to see if I could even fit a 7-8" driver.


Just pull the kick panel trim, and pull back the carpet, the "compartment" is simply an access hole for the front body to frame mounting bolts. There should be a fairly large rubber plug in the hole and if you take it out, you should be able to get an idea of what your dealing with. Good luck.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

The truck sat in a state of limbo for about a week, but it is now mostly deadened and more importantly driveable again.

The MLV that I purchased through Shoemaker Drywall Supplies in Edmonton worked very very well. The service was great and the people were helpful, if you are in the central Alberta area I would recommend them as a great source of MLV SDS Edmonton Information

The other key product required for working with MLV is vinyl cement, after quite a bit of searching and a few phone calls I managed to track down some HH-66 locally at Canvas Mart CanvasMart - Tarps & Covers again very friendly and helpful people. The price seems to be higher than other places, but the convenience of finding it locally and not having to deal with shipping made it worthwhile, and probably ends up costing a similar amount.










The MLV layed down quite nicely actually and was actually easier to work with than the foam. 










The HH-66 is amazing stuff, very easy to work with. Just like contact cement you apply it and let it dry before joining the two pieces. I found the best method for the size joints I was putting together was to apply HH-66 to one surface and leave it for 2-3 mins, then apply the HH-66 to the second surface and put them together right away. This gave a couple seconds of wiggle room to align the pieces before they joined for good.










As you can see the MLV ends in about the same place as the B-quiet and foam, this will allow me to continue working on the floor enclosures without having to gut the interior again. The seats all went in easier than I expected even with the extra layers, so I may add an extra foam/MLV layer on top of the existing B-quiet/foam/MLV treatment in certain places.










After a short test drive, in the current state (carpet and seats back in also) the difference is quite substantial. The back of the truck seemed to disappear, the road and tire noise has been virtually eliminated. The main source of noise now is the engine, along with a little wind noise. However once the floor is done and properly deadened as far up the firewall as I can get things should change. I may also look at doing the under side of the hood.

Deadening the Doors:

Before starting on the floor of the truck I actually started on the driver's side doors. The smaller rear door came first, followed by half of the driver's door.










Pretty standard deadening here, the only real difference being I am sealing up all the speaker openings as there will be no speakers in any of the doors.



















The stock insulation was removed, a small piece of grey grill cloth was placed over the stock speaker opening and the whole area was covered in B-Quiet.










The door panel then received a layer of foam and MLV. The door clips hold everything in place at the moment.










The grey grill cloth behind the opening blends very nicely. I like it better than the factory look which is a black fabric attached to the front of the stock speakers.










The upper trim panel received a few pieces of B-Quiet, but I haven't added MLV or foam yet, but this is an easy to remove panel and can be done at any time.

There is still quite a bit of deadening to be done, however the results already look promising, or should I say "sound" promising.


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## TREETOP (Feb 11, 2009)

The enclosure bracing is a thing of beauty, it'd be a shame not to make the top panel out of plexi. You could leave a cover panel in place most of the time and remove it to show the guts.


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## ARCuhTEK (Dec 22, 2008)

Subscribed! LOVER LOVE LOVE the CNC!


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

TREETOP said:


> The enclosure bracing is a thing of beauty, it'd be a shame not to make the top panel out of plexi. You could leave a cover panel in place most of the time and remove it to show the guts.


That's a good idea, I do have some thick plexi around, but I'm not sure how well it would work with the final design. The box will be completely contained within the console with foam to decouple it from the arm rest, cup holders etc. I'll give it another look and see what the final dimensions of the console will be. I haven't assembled the sub box though, so I could still modify it.


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## jaydub (Feb 22, 2010)

Wow, that CNC work really is incredible. I'd love if even my baffles looked that good.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

A few people have been waiting for this section, and the final modification really is easier than I expected. When I started looking into modifying the Arc KS300.x amplifiers I looked at replacing the op-amps and coupling capacitors, however without a schematic I decided to simply bypass the entire preamp section. This means that very few changes are required and returning the amp to stock isn't a huge task.

This leaves the amp with no gain control, no crossovers, and no first gain stage. So another means of level matching, voltage gain and signal processing is required, any quality high voltage processor should do the trick. This also leaves the first stage DC coupled, so it's a good idea to make sure the processor before the amp has either an output coupling capacitor, or confirm there is NO dc voltage on the output under any operating conditions.

And finally before I get to the details, please do not perform these modifications if you are not comfortable with opening an amp and desoldering/soldering. I can not be held responsible for any damage to your amplifier, yourself and anyone or anything around you.

I'll start with the Arc KS300.2 but the modification is virtually the same for the KS300.4.

Step one:

Carefully desolder U10, two wires need to be soldered to the now empty pads. Pin 1 is now left input, and Pin 7 is right input, the remaining pins are left unconnected. (The pin out is the standard dual op-amp)










Step two:

Remove the input coupling capacitors C3 and C28 from the board by cutting the pins as close as possible to the capacitors, leaving short pins protruding from the board. This will make it slightly easier to attach the wires to in the next step.










Step Three:

Solder a small awg wire (I used 24awg) from + terminal of C3 to pin 1 of U10, then solder a 2nd wire from the + terminal of C28 to pin 7 of U10.










That's it, that's all. It's not rocket science, it's simply taking the signal from the input connector and connecting it to the output of the preamp/crossover section.

These are the parts that were removed, the capacitors might be difficult to reinstall, however the SO8 chip is easier to install than it was to remove. I would recommend using Elna Silmic II capacitors in place of the stock input capacitors simply because the leads could be left at about 10mm-15mm and soldered to the pads from the top of the board.










Arc KS300.4

Step One:

Carefully desolder U9 and U10, the same pins will be used for this amp as the 300.2. U9 contains the front inputs and U10 is for the rear.










Step Two:

Remove the four capacitors in the corner of the board by the RCA inputs. Sorry I forgot to record the C#'s before putting the amp back together.










Step Three:

Solder small awg wire (24awg as in the previous example) from the + pins of all of the capacitors, these will connect to U9 and U10 in the following order.

From left to right U10 pin 1, U10 pin 7, U9 pin 1, U9 pin 7 connect to the capacitor pins also from left to right respectively.










As a final step I would recommend securing the wires in some manner, either hot glue, zip ties etc.

I left out the opening of the amplifier on purpose because if you are not comfortable doing that step on your own this modification probably isn't for you. I will also mention this, I will not modify your amp for a fee if you ship it to me (this takes away any value associated with this modification), I will however do it if you are local and can bring the amp in person in exchange for a coffee or a beer and chat about your system build or upgrade.

As for listening impressions, I really haven't listened long enough to form any kind of opinion yet. I also don't have the right setup on my test bench to properly evaluate the changes.


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## zblee (May 18, 2010)

WOW, very in depth install and Profesional, cant wait to see it done... I want all your toys and the optical out on my HU!!!

wish i knew what i was doing in that category...

nice, good job, keep it up


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

*develish* nice work on those amps! clean signal? you bet.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

sydmonster said:


> *develish* nice work on those amps! clean signal? you bet.


The actual mod is deceptively simple, after taking apart the 300.4 (about 30 screws and what seems like 500 spring clips, about 30sih in reality) I decided the mod needs to happen from the top so the board doesn't need to be removed. Total time for the mod once I knew what I was doing was about 5mins for the 300.2 and 6-7mins for the 300.4, that includes removing/replacing the amplifier top panel.

I wish I had the schematic to work from though, then it would be much easier to choose the best location to insert the signal. On the other hand being able to power up the amp with the top cover removed made it easy to work on, I couldn't find my signal generator however like everything else there's an iphone app for that 

One side note on the modification, the DC offset on the speaker outputs actually went down by quite a bit by removing the preamp stage! Which leads me to believe the op-amp circuits might simply be cookie cutter or text book and not optimized. Based on how similar many of these Nikola Engineering amps are I'm sure there is a lot of cut and paste between projects, with minimal "Engineering" going into each new product. It might take something like the Arc SE's before Mr. Zeff actually looks at each resistor and cap that goes on the board, even then it's hard to say.

It is a decent amp though, fairly simple design with good protection. There is nothing special about the parts, very generic! I'm not sure if the caps are really made by Arc but I'm guessing they are simply rebranded versions of a cheap/generic cap.

I think this level of amp would make most people happy, I would say it's easily on par if not better than a stock PXA-H700/1. I'd like to get my hands on the Clarion "version" of this amp just to see how close they are, the price definatially leans towards the Clarion if the guts are comparable.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

It wouldn't the first or last "comon shared board" amp we've seen here or in places like ROE etc.
Either way, I really like what your doing on this build.

Going to mod your drivers too? custom shorting rings? custom wound coils? matched pairs? etc.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

sydmonster said:


> It wouldn't the first or last "comon shared board" amp we've seen here or in places like ROE etc.
> Either way, I really like what your doing on this build.
> 
> Going to mod your drivers too? custom shorting rings? custom wound coils? matched pairs? etc.


Unfortunately the drivers are outside my field of expertise, I'm just a hardware designer. The truck will continue to be my toy, and as much as I'd like to think I will build it once and be done forever I have my doubts.
I'm sure it will end up as my testing platform and gradually evolve over time, none of the parts going into the initial build are spectacular by any means but it's all good stuff. I've been out of car audio for awhile so it was natural to go back to some of the old school stuff I was more familiar with.

I would like to learn more about the physical properties of drivers, I've known Mark Brooks of H-Audio for about 10 years, we've had random communication about electronics, speakers etc over the years and he's got to be one of the most passionate people I know when it comes to car audio. I'll probably be doing some testing and comparisons between the L4, and some new drivers he is coming out with. To me one of the more important properties of a speaker has become tonal accuracy, in headphone terms I have some Sennheiser HD650's which are great headphones, clear, dynamic, great bass, but in comparison to some OLD AKG K240 Studio headphones, the HD650's just sound all wrong. Mainly acoustic instruments and vocals simply aren't realistic, where with the AKG's things sound right, they have less bass and a different type of sound stage among other small problems. (All hugely inferior to the HD650's) however when you compare something with frequency problems, lack of bass, limited soundstage to something that doesn't have any of those problems but doesn't reproduce music with the correct tone. The one with all the problems, but reproduces a piano that sounds like a piano wins for me. 

The truck will have some RW Audio headphone amplifiers built in for the rear seat passengers, so during tuning I will have a built in point of reference with my favourite headphones.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Robin W. said:


> This leaves the amp with no gain control, no crossovers, and no first gain stage. So another means of level matching, voltage gain and signal processing is required, any quality high voltage processor should do the trick.


If all voltage (gain) control is gone after this mod, what state does this leave the amp in? A permanently ‘full tilt’ state, or a permanent low voltage state? I’m just wondering how the ratio of voltage in compares to voltage out. 

Maybe I’m thinking too hard.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

bikinpunk said:


> If all voltage (gain) control is gone after this mod, what state does this leave the amp in? A permanently ‘full tilt’ state, or a permanent low voltage state? I’m just wondering how the ratio of voltage in compares to voltage out.
> 
> Maybe I’m thinking too hard.


It leaves the amp at a point just below where minimum gain use to be.
So it use to take 4v to drive to full power as per the specs, I haven't measured it yet but I would guess 5-8v for full power now.

This is simply based on requiring a bit more signal now to reach the same volume when the amp was set to min gain before the mod.

When I start to get things installed and start setup I'll measure voltages and clipping etc.


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## Melodic Acoustic (Oct 10, 2005)

Wow Robin, great mods on the amps. You know how I like the straight gain/no gain design.


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## CA4944 (May 2, 2009)

Robin W. said:


> The truck will have some RW Audio headphone amplifiers built in for the rear seat passengers, so during tuning I will have a built in point of reference with my favourite headphones.


That is inspired. Also, I hear you about AKGs. (My favourite pair of new headphones is a mid-tier pair of Grados but they do absolutely nothing to block ambient noise).

How did you find the B-Quiet to work with, by the way?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

CA4944 said:


> That is inspired. Also, I hear you about AKGs. (My favourite pair of new headphones is a mid-tier pair of Grados but they do absolutely nothing to block ambient noise).
> 
> How did you find the B-Quiet to work with, by the way?


B-Quiet Ultimate was great to work with, it's ultra sticky so there is virtually no way it will ever come off (that could be a good or bad thing) 

I would buy it again, and probably will when I get to the G35 install.

As for headphones I still have a pair of Alessandro MS1's (made by Grado) I will probably never part with them. I had the limited edition Grado HF-2's for awhile but they just weren't for me, great sounding but not for my taste.
I do like some of the other grado's though, the 225's and with the right amp the 325's are nice too. Do you use a headphone amp?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

H-Audio - AKA - Here-I-Come said:


> Wow Robin, great mods on the amps. You know how I like the straight gain/no gain design.


Hey Mark,

Glad you could stop by.
You know I just can't leave anything alone, after I open it I want to modify it 

I just grabbed a trio of old Coustic DR amps, and after confirming they worked I pulled them apart to look inside. I will probably leave them stock though..... for now.


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## CA4944 (May 2, 2009)

Robin W. said:


> I do like some of the other grado's though, the 225's and with the right amp the 325's are nice too. Do you use a headphone amp?


I normally find that I have the Grados plugged into my laptop at work (where they and I am, right now in a concert of MP3 procrastination). I've played around with a couple of Chu Moy-type amps, but haven't really tried headphone amps seriously. Maybe I should...


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

CA4944 said:


> I normally find that I have the Grados plugged into my laptop at work (where they and I am, right now in a concert of MP3 procrastination). I've played around with a couple of Chu Moy-type amps, but haven't really tried headphone amps seriously. Maybe I should...


I guess the best analogy for a headphone amplifier would be running speakers off the head unit, or installing a dedicated amp. The head unit will usually make them go loud enough, at a resonable level of sound quality, the dedicated amp usually improves upon what is already there volume/clarity/detail/dynamics. The same goes for a headphone amp vs ipod/laptop/cd player etc.

Some people say you don't need them, some people can't live without them. I would recommend trying a good one and making your own decision.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

Nice work here!! lots of good info.

+1 headphones.
My reference set up is humble but honest
- quality reference discs like BBE, Chesky, Stockfish records, sheffield etc
- Home hi-fi, simple integrated HK amp, ENERGY speakers, Yamaha reference player... set up is the key
- the new 448 Sen cans... bought deliberately for their natural bass & clear colour less reproduction, like a pair of Alesis S1's on my head, but cheaper!
( used to have a pair of 555's and a AKG SM240's, but alas both gone)


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

There hasn’t been a lot of work done lately, partially because of the weather and partially because the truck started acting up. Any Ford owners that have the 5.4L V8 and have a few years or many thousands of miles on it may have already encountered the COP’s (Coil On Plug) setup Ford uses. Long story short, the coil packs on cylinder 1 and 4 were toast, which left the truck running on 6 cylinders with the other two miss firing randomly. I replaced all 8 for good measure, and the truck runs again!










Sound deadening update:
I was able to work on a few other stereo related projects as well. The sound deadening of the truck is almost complete, I finished off the two remaining doors, no pictures of this because it was the same as the drivers side. I did however decide that I would tackle the ceiling as well.



















Unfortunately I didn’t get photo’s of the foam or MLV layers, however the foam was simply attached to the ceiling with spray adhesive and the MLV is held in place by the same things that hold the head liner in place (dome light/clothing hooks/sun visors/other assorted clips etc.) if anyone was wondering, it isn’t very fun putting a ~17lb sheet of MLV on the ceiling. With the remaining doors, and ceiling completed the truck is much quieter now. The majority of noise now comes from the firewall (engine and front wheel noise) and the glass. The one downfall of getting all of the doors done is, now there are no remaining factory speakers so no music of any kind until I get the pillars or floor enclosures done.

Subwoofer enclosure update:
I was also able to start glueing the subwoofer enclosure together, although it’s a very simple task, I didn’t want to use any fasteners, so it is assembled with glue and clamps (lots of clamps)










Got Clamps?


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## Afronaut (Apr 27, 2010)

That is a great looking box...subscribed.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)




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## JBurt09 (Mar 18, 2010)

Incredible box design, and I'm very impressed with your craftmanship and thoroughness in your work.Good luck with the rest of the build.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

_This post strays a little from the F150 install as I look at replacing the factory 10" woofers in the door of my '07 Infiniti G35 Sedan. When I actually get to the G35 build it will get it's own thread, but for now here's the start._

I recently got the oportunity to try some new shallow mount 10" woofers, given that the 2007 and newer G35/G37 sedan with the "SOW" sound system come with factory 10" woofers in the doors it's the perfect oportunity to improve on what Infiniti has given us (which isn't much honestly I've gotten better mid-bass out of 6 1/2's) .

A little bit of measuring later it looks like things will work nicely after I build a spacer/mounting surface for the new woofer.

The factory woofer is quite unique, it's a single 1 ohm coil (yes ONE ohm)
Very shallow speaker with the main frame of the basket in front of the cone, or where you would normally find the cone anyways. The back is somewhat open with the cone and spider clearly visable. I'm not sure what kind of power it gets from the factory amp, but it can't be much.

Front view:










Back view:










Size reference:










The doors will need a good sound deadening, as well as some "guiding" of the front wave of the woofer, a good portion of the door skin is in the way of the woofer and translates into resonance and a good deal of arm rest vibration. (there is of course no factory attempt to deaden this part of the panel to avoid these problems)

As soon as the woofers arrive, (in transit with FedEx as this is written) I will CNC cut a mounting ring/spacer for the new woofer, and play with the total thickness of that spacer as required. Inital testing will be done with the factory amp (new woofer is dual 4 ohm so it will be tested at 2 ohms in place of the factory 1 ohm speaker) I don't expect much from this, I have a feeling that the factory woofers only received 30-50 watts at their very low 1 ohm impedance. Then I will decide if I want to use one of the Arc KS300.x amplifiers in the car or one of the Coustic DR amplifiers. I have a feeling that the Coustic DR's will end up in the truck and the Arc's in the car.

Drivers door:










Woofer opening:










Factory midrange (mounted to the door skin, with all the vibration from the woofer it's a poor mouting location/method):










All in all, it's better than your average factory system, but it's still crap. The car will maintain a 100% stock appearance so factory locations will be adapted to work with the drivers that I choose, so saying that I will be forced to use drivers that can work in the stock locations.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

Robin, looking at this picture 








Could you not make that whole black (plastic?) piece out of something more rigid and solid. 
Say a 18mm piece of MDF, mount the winder motor on, run cables behind it and reinforce i with FG'd dowels on the glass side of the panel?

just a thought....



Loving this build thread, i really like how well everything is thought out.

Also what shallow mount 10's have you got your hands on? anything we can know about


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

sydmonster said:


> Robin, looking at this picture
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The big black part is steel, the only plastic piece is the "ring" that the speaker mounts to, I pulled it off as well and it's a funky shape, not something that could be done easily without fiberglass or much more CNC work then I had planned for.
The window motor actually mounts to the steel part, I will sound deaden both sides of that steel panel, and everything else I can reach.

The point of this part of the install is being easy, IE something that any G35/37 owner could do by either buying CNC cut baffles or cutting their own with a jigsaw and downloadable template. Then bolting in the baffles/woofers and adding a real amp but using all the factory wiring (except power). 

As for the 10's it's honestly nothing that hasn't been mentioned on here before, but something that might not have gotten a fair evaluation yet (especially in a door). I'm doing it for the company, and did not pay for the woofers, in exchange I have to provide a documented design/how to etc. I think it's a fair trade for my time, skills, CNC baffle design (if anything it's a good deal on their part). I have to get the exact terms of the deal to make sure I can mention the product, show the install, and share the results. But providing these woofers outperform the stock woofers the results should be favorable, I will be honest though, and probably throw the box from the truck in the car and give a comparison of replacing the door woofers vs supplimenting them with a more traditional sub box/amp. I may even make up some baffles to use with the truck box to evaluate the differences between the door and a real box.

If in the end I'm not happy with the 10's in this application I will give them a shot in a more traditional subwoofer enclosure for either car or home. There is a well documented G35(or37) install on here that replaced the 10's with 6 1/2's for a more traditional front stage. Who knows, a 6 1/2 or 8 might be better than the 10. I am a fan of 10's in the doors though, and had RF 10's in the doors of a Rabbit many many years ago, mounted flush, no big pods or ugly stuff.


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## TJ Mobile Audio (May 6, 2009)

Great work so far, subscribed.


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## Rob J (Jul 18, 2010)

Any updates? This is an awesome thread. Gives me some ideas for my 2005 Supercrew F150.

Looking forward in seeing this install done.


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## kritiostodd (Feb 1, 2009)

Robin W. said:


> Any Ford owners that have the 5.4L V8 and have a few years or many thousands of miles on it may have already encountered the COP’s (Coil On Plug) setup Ford uses. Long story short, the coil packs on cylinder 1 and 4 were toast, which left the truck running on 6 cylinders with the other two miss firing randomly. I replaced all 8 for good measure, and the truck runs again!


As a fellow 5.4L V8 owner, I can sympathize with this!  

Mine's an '02 extended cab. I'll be tearing into it sometime in the next few months, so your photos are helpful. I don't suppose you have any detailed steps on the interior disassembly? Particularly, I'm wondering about the rear seat removal, and the amount of space available between the rear seatback and the rear wall. I'm thinking of mounting amps and crossovers back there, similar to what others have done with the '04+ models. I haven't been able to find other build threads for this generation of F150 with an extended cab.

Also, what would you recommend for tweeter placement? I'm not skilled enough to tackle kickpods, but am thinking of either the A-pillars or in the triangular area in the upper front corners of the doors. I haven't decided whether I'll give the Infinity Reference set (see sig :blush an audition, or skip them entirely and sell them to fund something better.


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

kritiostodd said:


> As a fellow 5.4L V8 owner, I can sympathize with this!
> 
> Mine's an '02 extended cab. I'll be tearing into it sometime in the next few months, so your photos are helpful. I don't suppose you have any detailed steps on the interior disassembly? Particularly, I'm wondering about the rear seat removal, and the amount of space available between the rear seatback and the rear wall. I'm thinking of mounting amps and crossovers back there, similar to what others have done with the '04+ models. I haven't been able to find other build threads for this generation of F150 with an extended cab.
> 
> Also, what would you recommend for tweeter placement? I'm not skilled enough to tackle kickpods, but am thinking of either the A-pillars or in the triangular area in the upper front corners of the doors. I haven't decided whether I'll give the Infinity Reference set (see sig :blush an audition, or skip them entirely and sell them to fund something better.


The interior comes apart pretty easy, just start with the door sill trim and work your way around, kick panel, A pillar etc, same around the back. The seat back is only held in by clips, one on the left/right towards the bottom and three along the top if I remember correctly. Simply push the seat back down and towards the tailgate then pull up to release the clip. Do the same with the other side and it should simply lift off. The bottom part of the seat is held in by half a dozen nuts on studs attached to the floor, they are pretty easy to find and remove. Before you start make sure you have the right Torx bits to remove the front seats as well as seat belts. I think it's T45 and T47. If you have a center console I think you need an 18mm deep socket, that's the one socket my set didn't come with, I had 17 and 19mm deep but they skipped 18mm, I was stuck with wrenches and a normal 18mm. Use plenty of WD40 or similar on the seat bolts, they go all the way through and stick out the bottom of the truck, mine were pretty rusty.

As for tweeters, I will be doing A pillars, I'm not sure if the top of the door would be a good place since it's pretty far back it might be hard to get a decent image since you would be so close to one tweeter and far from the other.

As for room behind the seat for amps etc, I'm not sure if it would work, from the photos during sound deadening you can tell it's not flat and there is a lip/shelf/ridge whatever you want to call it running from side to side that messes up the best place to mount things. I can say for sure that after sound deadening I could not fit an amp back there. Maybe a signal processor, but there is a good chance it would be fairly tight up against the seat. The only thing I might put back there is distribution blocks, depending on if I have room to put them between the amps.

Good luck with your build, if you have any other questions let me know I would be happy to try and help.

Rob J, unfortunatially no updates, things have been pretty busy this summer and I haven't gotten as much time to work on it as I thought. I am planning to this weekend though!!


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

I was able to squeeze in a few more hours on the truck install. I finished up the box, stuffed it with ~1lb of acousti-stuff packed very loosely. I'll give it a listen and add more/less as required. In it's current state it should act like a box just slightly under 1cuft per woofer. I also got all of the heat shrink required for dressing and labeling all of the cables.

Every wire I put in the truck will be labeled at each end, as well as one or more places in the center of the cable for longer cables. Most cables will also be covered in techflex for protection.










Deans connectors will be used for all speaker level wiring to make removal and servicing of all drivers simple and efficient. They provide a very solid low impedance connection with more than enough current handling for my application.



















Every wire has a printed label for easy identification and trouble shooting should the need arise, as well as simplify the final install because there will be no question as to what any wire in the truck is for.










The sub box turned out incredibly solid and "dead" and with one woofer pointed in each direction most of the energy from cone movement is cancelled out between the two woofers and the box itself should radiate very little energy that isn't supposed to be there.










There will be a layer of foam around the outside of the box, then the center console will be built around this foam layer using isolated mounts so that the arm rest of the center console will not vibrate from these woofers. Ideally the listeners should not be able to tell that the center console IS the sub box.


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## trevordj (Feb 22, 2009)

Awesome! That is all.


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## prophet_ca (Feb 29, 2008)

Anything else happen with this? What part of Canada you from?


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

I'm over in the West, Calgary AB. Not too much progress lately, got the sub box done and tested, sounds pretty good for L7's. I haven't figured out how I'm going to do the pillars, so that's kind of where it's in limbo. Plus I've been working on another project at the moment Electric Porsche conversion which is sucking most of my time and money. Depending on the progress the truck might just get a simple system and the L4's/amps/processor might end up in the Porsche instead.


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## brocken (Apr 26, 2010)

Awesome!

I like the clean wiring. I need to get my lazy butt in gear and order some of the techflex and more heatshrink tubing. It looks so much nicer cleaned up like that.


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## dapert (Feb 22, 2006)

Have the 9813 myself but don't have the stones to try to rip it apart like you can.


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## colek42 (Jan 24, 2011)

Nice! I now need to order some Dean's Plugs and techflex for my install. Where did you source the deans plugs from? What model are they?


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## chayanne1978 (Jan 26, 2009)

good job, waiting for the Advancement.


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## colek42 (Jan 24, 2011)

brocken said:


> Awesome!
> 
> I like the clean wiring. I need to get my lazy butt in gear and order some of the techflex and more heatshrink tubing. It looks so much nicer cleaned up like that.


Amazon has a pretty nice heat shrink kit for really cheap. I use it mostly for marine, but I am definitly going to use it for my upcoming car audio install.


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## Mixerdriver (Nov 8, 2010)

Very nice!

Subscribed.


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## E300 (Apr 23, 2009)

Subscribed also.


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## colek42 (Jan 24, 2011)

those Deas Plugs are expensive. about $5 for a set! I did get some anyways. They will be great to unplug my components and plug in my 6x9 boxes (for external use) when I go camping.


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## Lstruck (Sep 14, 2010)

Cole, you can find Deans plugs locally at any hobby shop that handles RC car stuff. They are the most widely used battery connector for electric RC cars. They are WAY more than adequate for car audio(I've pushed well over 70amps thru them, with no issues, granted it was only for 10-20seconds)


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

I think I got mine at Servos and Stuff...they're about half normal price.
I couldn't find them when I looked recently, tho.

Jay


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## colek42 (Jan 24, 2011)

JayinMI said:


> I think I got mine at Servos and Stuff...they're about half normal price.
> I couldn't find them when I looked recently, tho.
> 
> Jay



They look nice, but hard to think they cost that much to make, just some ABS and copper. They must be making a few dimes off of them....still my inner engineer is think of a bunch of applications for them.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

this build still goin on? some seriously cool work


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## Robin W. (Feb 18, 2010)

req said:


> this build still goin on? some seriously cool work


The build is on hold, the truck is awesome to drive due to the sound deadening though, I would recommend this type of sound deadening to any/everyone!!

The parts may end up in my electric car instead.
Electric Porsche conversion

Once I'm done the electric conversion I'll start on the stereo.


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

well good to see your still doing something, I too always wondered where this build whent!


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## Halverso_99 (Jun 27, 2010)

Any recent updates?


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

I came across some "fake" Deans connectors recently when searching for something else. They were black instead of red, and I want to say they were on Alibaba or something.

If I come across them again, I'll pop back in and let you all know.
They were significantly cheaper, IIRC.

Jay


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

Actually, I found these for a GREAT price.

Hobby City Deans style connectors - RC Groups

Jay


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## tate007 (May 9, 2011)

PM sent.


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## bnae38 (Oct 3, 2015)

Robin W. said:


> A few people have been waiting for this section, and the final modification really is easier than I expected. When I started looking into modifying the Arc KS300.x amplifiers I looked at replacing the op-amps and coupling capacitors, however without a schematic I decided to simply bypass the entire preamp section. This means that very few changes are required and returning the amp to stock isn't a huge task.
> 
> This leaves the amp with no gain control, no crossovers, and no first gain stage. So another means of level matching, voltage gain and signal processing is required, any quality high voltage processor should do the trick. This also leaves the first stage DC coupled, so it's a good idea to make sure the processor before the amp has either an output coupling capacitor, or confirm there is NO dc voltage on the output under any operating conditions.
> 
> ...


Old thread i know, but I've looked at the mods a couple times.

Fyi, the last opamp inverts the audio on channel 2 (also ch4 on 300.4), phase will be 180 off for those channels with the mod.

Plan on playing more with my Ks amps once i get an analyzer


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