# Mercedes 280TE -94 (W124) SQ on a budget...



## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Ok, I bought another car today. Decided that I was not to make a project of this one as well... well at least for 30min. Can't stand driving around with a 20-year old stock system so I decided I'm gonna upgrade it anyway. I will try making it as cheap as possible. I've set a budget of $1000 so no uber fancy stuff.

What I bought so far (got it very cheap as it was a sale-out):

HU: Alpine CDE-175R
Amp(s): 1x Alpine PMX-F640 (4ch)
...and 20ft of 0ga power cable.

I have a subwoofer amp (the ones you build into the enclosure) and lots of 12" subs laying around. Guess I use them - it's free 

I probably need a 2nd amp and speakers for the front system. The only stock location is a 110mm (4-4,5") slot in the dash. Making new pillars or sails for an extra speaker is no big deal really. I normally only use 3-way fronts, looks like I need to make a passive between midrange-tweeters here though. Might add a MiniDSP 2x4 and use it for the front system, the HU got 9 band PEQ that can be used to EQ the sub. Main issue is no midbass up front... nothing in doors or in kicks stock. Have to build that from scratch and with the amount of projects I'm currently is involved in - that might take time lol. So I will probably let the sub handle some midbass in the meantime and focus on the rest as it is much quicker to finish. 

Any suggestion of nice speakers for a front 3-way. Midrange driver can't be larger than 115mm in diameter, which limits the choice to 3" or 4" drivers basically. The tweeter also need to be small, no large flange drivers. The doors can fit an 8" driver with some modifications, but that's on low priority right now. I've looked at Peerless NE-series also at SB Acoustics and some Scan units but idk. Hard to make up my mind as usual.

Pictures are coming... ^


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Bought a set of Gladen SQX 130. They fit perfectly in the stock location without modification. I'll use the passives as they seem quite good and as I will be placing the mid/tweeter close to eachother. Tweeters are nice and small and will fit perfectly in those small A-pillars.

http://www.gladen.com/GladenCompoCoaxPDFs/SpecificationsSQX130.pdf



Found a little test in a Car&Hifi magazine. It received good reception in the "sound department". Not sure if it means much but Gladen is a pretty nice brand so I'll take my chances. It's a 2 ohm nominal system, so I will probably get perhaps 80-90W out of the Alpine amp considering most of them are underrated. I will still have 2ch left on the amp so perhaps I can use those for the midbass units and skip the 2nd amp.



Here's some random pics of how it looks right now:





Kicks looks pretty big, haven't checked behind them yet. Possible location for mids...? If not, it will have to be doors. 



An old JVC unit. It says "4x25w" on the cover, so yeah... old.



197hp / 270nm - 2,8litre 6-cyl engine.



Found a large rust hole after poking around behind the panels in the trunk.









Welded it and applied new body coating. Fixed 



Here's a nice space below the floor in the trunk...



Removed the old NMT unit (it stands for "Nordic Mobile Telephony" - an old telephone system that predates the GSM net). 



I'll be placing the amp there instead... I'll be poking around in the trunk some more tomorrow and see what I find. I gotta say the damn trunk is huge, it's probably more than 60-70liters of volume in the spare-wheel space if you were to build a sub enclosure there.


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## Martin (Dec 24, 2007)

Love that car! What a nice dashboard

For the midbass, consider the room under the seats for small sealed enclosures. You could use drivers like peerless sls, which are designed for little space and they will definitely play high enough for a crossover to the gladen sqx. 

I tried that once in my car and it made MASSIVE midbass.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Thanks for the tip! I'll check that out.

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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

Love these! Tons of space. 

But I wish you would finish your other two project cars before starting this one!


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Oh I will. The Golf is on its way back and I have already begun working on the doors in my Passat lol. Multitasking ftw 

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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Measurements and a review on the Gladen set is coming up this week btw.

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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Unless you're bought the car specifically to install the Gladden, (in which case you chose poorly), I'd try opening up as much space under the dash grills (including cutting dash internally) and see if you can fit a 4" cone run down to 100 hz and a tweet. 2 10's in the phone cavity, sealed, running to 100. With timing and eq you can keep bass upfront. Merc has good build so resonance should be less of an issue.

You gotta do dsp and start a 'Tuning My W124'. We'll tune it together. Will make you hear Chapman as a guy and girl.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

sqnut said:


> Unless you're bought the car specifically to install the Gladden, (in which case you chose poorly), I'd try opening up as much space under the dash grills (including cutting dash internally) and see if you can fit a 4" cone run down to 100 hz and a tweet. 2 10's in the phone cavity, sealed, running to 100. With timing and eq you can keep bass upfront. Merc has good build so resonance should be less of an issue.
> 
> You gotta do dsp and start a 'Tuning My W124'. We'll tune it together. Will make you hear Chapman as a guy and girl.


Haha... right. Fun that you found your way here xD

I actually had the same thought in mind... in the space below the floor I can actually fit a 25lit enclosure with a swallow sub. We might think alike after all ^.^

A single 10" would do nice I think. I already begun wiring and crap so I need to fit the amp there as well. This project will not be as lengthy as my other (unfinished) projects lol. Basically need the car as transport for all my scuba gear now during the winter, so nothing flashy


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

I just did some of the wiring today.

Mess... 



Making that hole wasn't that easy... pretty thick metal in a quite inaccessible area to work in. 







Even behind that panel the wiring was a big mess, someone had borrowed power from the radio DIN connector and it looked like crap, lots of cables without any insulation. Will make a new connector tomorrow. 



Many raw drivers won't fit there because of the mounting depth and too big flange.









15cm depth. With some room for the back venting and excursion upwards the driver can't be more than let's say 10-11cm deep.


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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

Did you check the space behind the kickpanels yet?


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

bbfoto said:


> Did you check the space behind the kickpanels yet?


Yes I did make a quick check on the left side, there seem to be some space there but the parking break pedal is like 1" from the kick panel. I gotta take a closer look tomorrow and see if it's possible to make something out of it...


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Hanatsu said:


> Basically need the car as transport for all my scuba gear now during the winter, so nothing flashy


Scuba diving..................in the winters?  

I think the lack of sunshine messes with the Nordic minds. It doesn't think normally. How long can you stay underwater at those cold temperatures, even with a full body suit?


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## LBaudio (Jan 9, 2009)

sqnut said:


> Scuba diving..................in the winters?


he live so far up nord that it doesnt matter if there is a winter or summer time...it is freakin cold in the watter


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

sqnut said:


> Scuba diving..................in the winters?
> 
> I think the lack of sunshine messes with the Nordic minds. It doesn't think normally. How long can you stay underwater at those cold temperatures, even with a full body suit?


Haha, we have approximately 20-22deg (C) during the summers, now in October we have around 13-14degrees in the water, which is quite warm actually. During the winter it's usually between 3-5degrees in the sea. I have a drysuit during the winter so, I can probably dive for at least 30-40min without freezing if we're not too deep 

Here's a picture of last year's "New Year's Eve Dive" 










Not even any ice... it was kinda disappointing xD


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Looking for mids... Found a new candidate for midbass duty; 

FW168 - Fountek 6 1/2 inch midwoofer alu basket - Europe Audio

It's really cheap and it performs fairly well according to Zaph's measurements.

Zaph|Audio

Only problem is the 8ohm nom impedance, won't get any real power out of that small Alpine amp, dunno if it's enough for moderate levels. The Xmax won't be a problem with a ~70-80Hz HPF though.

Dayton RS180 is a great driver, the damn flange is a problem though... wish they would slim it down. Then we got Peerless HDS with their odd shapes, tend to be pretty good drivers - also quite cheap. Hm =/


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Hanatsu said:


> Looking for mids... Found a new candidate for midbass duty;
> 
> FW168 - Fountek 6 1/2 inch midwoofer alu basket - Europe Audio
> 
> ...


No love for the Silver Flute? If you can fab ported enclosures about 12 L ported, you'd get an Fs around 50 hz. The driver is a beast at the low end and pretty flat all the way to 3khz. IME in a 2 way the driver needs some work in the 800-1khz range. Eq will help making the driver soliod at the low end and dynamic. Incredible value for money.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Can't get hold of it ;(

If you find a european supplier... lemme know!

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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Madisound? Even with the duties and freight, still a bargain if the pair lands you around $ 150 ish.


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Hanatsu said:


> Here's a picture of last year's "New Year's Eve Dive"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


:bowdown: Looks like fun though


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

The import costs are INSANE from the US. From Parts-express a driver that costs $100 ends up with a pricetag of;

$120 freight
$25 import tax
$12 custom fee

So thst $100 driver suddenly costs $257 lol.

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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Well, wiring is almost done. Ran out of speaker cable so I'll have to wait for my little order to arrive. Used a 2ga (35mm²) power cable, should be enough. It's actually a great car to run wires in, there's large plastic "canals" below the floor mats, you can easily fit 0ga cables there without any hassle... Made new cables for the headunit, power/grounding directly from the battery with an extra ground cable to the amp's grounding point in the trunk to avoid any possible ground issues. Easy to pull the 2ga power cable into the cabin behind the glovebox. 



HU ground (blue)





New HU cabling







Found out that you could raise the hood even more, almost hit the roof lol





I'll probably get my gear at the end of the week, I'll continue then.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Received my speakers today.























Ran a quick impedance test on them. 







There's some small bumps in the impedance plot. 550, 1050 and 5000Hz. 5kHz is probably a breakup node. We can expect irregularities in the frequency response and/or rise in non-linear distortion at these points. We know for sure after I've tested them on the baffle. Resonance frequency on the tweeters a tad high, HPF is probably limited to a 4kHz/12-24dB, the passives use an even higher crossover so we'll see how it works out. The woofer got 2ohms nominal impedance and the tweeter 4ohms. Consistency is good.

Build quality is overall high. With the exception of misplaced inductors, the passives are impressive at this price point. There are many settings available. Gladen spec 504 different settings per filter. No manual in the box which is strange considering all the crossover settings. Seems like you can change slope between 6/12dB and there are several attenuation options. High quality MKP caps and air winded inductors. 

They do fit... but it's very tight. Had to pull out the dremel and cut open a cm or two at the speaker terminals. I still need to fasten the speakers somehow, the area around the hole isn't plain either. The tweeters are small and can basically be placed wherever I want without any hassle.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Ah, I found a manual on their website:

http://www.gladen.com/GladenManuals/VARIO%20Manual.pdf


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

I'm interested to follow along and see how far you take this compared to what you initially had planned.  That Gladen set looks pretty nice.


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## satx60 (Oct 14, 2014)

Hanatsu said:


> Looking for mids... Found a new candidate for midbass duty;
> 
> FW168 - Fountek 6 1/2 inch midwoofer alu basket - Europe Audio
> 
> ...


I've used both the RS180 and Peerless 830875. For midrange, especially crossing at 2K or above, I much prefer the Peerless. For bass/midbass the aluminum cone of the Dayton may remain pistonic longer, but they both produce lots of quality bass in 15L ported. I think the Peerless will only have an F3 of around 80Hz in a sealed enclosure. 

If you're talking about the under seat option somebody mentioned earlier then you could look at the SWS-8X that the BMW guys use. Seems pricey for a stamped basket, but the huge xmax and side mounted suspension is intriguing. I'm not sure of their availability over there since they appear to be a California company.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Thinking more 60-200Hz or so. RS180 is a great midbass driver, used it as well before. Never tried the Peerless though. -f3 of 80Hz is enough, cabin gain will take care of the rest. Haven't ordered anything yet but I'm thinking of the Peerless... quite cheap in Sweden.


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## rdlhifi (Sep 8, 2013)

Hanatsu said:


> Received my speakers today.
> Ran a *quick* impedance test on them.
> 
> 
> ...


Hanatsu: I wish everyone would do such a complete "quick" :laugh: Test of the Equipment used in their Installs like You do! We would learn a lot besides reading Install threads!
Thank You
Dan


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Peerless and the Gladden should do well together. A 10" sealed box in the footwell and all you need is the dsp. It's gotta sound good.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

sqnut said:


> Peerless and the Gladden should do well together. A 10" sealed box in the footwell and all you need is the dsp. It's gotta sound good.


Indeed 

I have 5 MiniDSPs at the moment, might as well buy one more lol.

Today I got the cold of the century, so I will be doing nothing for a few days. 40deg fever...


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## satx60 (Oct 14, 2014)

I pulled up a quick sim of the 830875 Nomex driver; I already had the Unibox file from a two way I designed a while back. Not sure if this is the Peerless you're talking about. F3 is actually 88Hz in 8L with a Q of .69, but with the minidsps and gain, as you say it really shouldn't matter. 104 db with 35 watts before reaching xmax. Any larger or smaller hurts the F3 and larger of course reduces power handling.


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Hanatsu said:


> Today I got the cold of the century, so I will be doing nothing for a few days. 40deg fever...


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

rton20s said:


> I'm interested to follow along and see how far you take this compared to what you initially had planned.  That Gladen set looks pretty nice.


Hehe... assuming I'm not sticking with the plan? Well, that's not uncommon with me 

Testing of the drivers coming up tomorrow, I made the test baffles today.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

rdlhifi said:


> Hanatsu: I wish everyone would do such a complete "quick" :laugh: Test of the Equipment used in their Installs like You do! We would learn a lot besides reading Install threads!
> Thank You
> Dan


Np! I wish people would do that as well, there would be lot easier for others to buy speakers based on objective data and know what they can expect.

Full testing coming up tomorrow, since this is a component set, I will do some additional testing. See what the passives can do as well.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

satx60 said:


> I pulled up a quick sim of the 830875 Nomex driver; I already had the Unibox file from a two way I designed a while back. Not sure if this is the Peerless you're talking about. F3 is actually 88Hz in 8L with a Q of .69, but with the minidsps and gain, as you say it really shouldn't matter. 104 db with 35 watts before reaching xmax. Any larger or smaller hurts the F3 and larger of course reduces power handling.


104dB... with two drivers that equal 110dB if they are phase aligned. That will certainly be enough. Where did Fsc end up? (Too lazy to check myself lol).


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

sqnut said:


> <Get well soon>


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## satx60 (Oct 14, 2014)

Hanatsu said:


> 104dB... with two drivers that equal 110dB if they are phase aligned. That will certainly be enough. Where did Fsc end up? (Too lazy to check myself lol).


fc? 88Hz too. I think Unibox gives results in half space, so 110dB should be more or less right with two drivers. Taking a look again, max excursion isn't reached until 45Hz so if you're crossing at 60Hz then you can probably play as loud as you want up to thermal.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

satx60 said:


> fc? 88Hz too. I think Unibox gives results in half space, so 110dB should be more or less right with two drivers. Taking a look again, max excursion isn't reached until 45Hz so if you're crossing at 60Hz then you can probably play as loud as you want up to thermal.


Sounds great! I'll take a look at them later.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Testing is compete. I did quite an immense amount of testing of this set. I had various issues with the equipment, both my amp failed (my fault, apparently my 8ohm stable amp didn't like a 2ohm load lol... totally forgot about that) and the damn preamp stopped working. The preamp simply stopped working... dunno what's wrong. I have to return it for service. Sooo... I had to use a 4ch car amplifier powered by a 12v DC transformer and my old preamp (which isn't so clean compared to the new I used). It has a noise floor of -90dB so it should be enough for these tests.

Anyway here is the results:

*Gladen SQX130 Component Set*

*Woofer*

This is 5,25" woofer with a back vented magnet, uses some kind of lightweight poly cone. It does have a nasty break-up as predicted by the impedance plot ^^



Frequency response - Farfield 0-60degrees. Breakup at 5kHz is present in all axis. A RLC would be required to tame this, which the passive filter unfortunately don't feature. Highest usable lowpass would be 3,5kHz/24dB to attenuate the break-up node sufficiently.



*Power Response*

This is averaged FR readings from multiple points in different axis to get a more complete picture over the complete power response (the sum of all radiated sound in all directions).



*CSD & Burst Decay*









Apart from the obvious 5kHz there seem to be some minor energy storage around 1-1,1kHz (which also can be seen in the impedance plot).


*Non-linear distortion - Nearfield FR + HD 90dB/1m equivalent*



*Non-linear distortion - Nearfield THD + HD2-HD5 90dB/1m equivalent*





Here we have some issues in the lower midrange. 3rd order HD jumps to 4% around 450Hz which propagates as distortion overtones in the 1200-1400Hz region. Not very good and it's clearly audible. Pretty clean in the lower midbass region, usable to 80Hz or so if you keep volume at moderate levels. Decent results above 700Hz. 

I did additional IMD tests to confirm results.











IMD (4:1ratio) stays around 2-4% in the entire lower midrange region. This isn't fantastic results from a driver this size, not that bad either. Pretty average results in the non-linear department overall.



*TWEETER*

The tweeter is a small driver with a quite high resonance frequency. I didn't expect fantastic results from this one but wow, this one performs good.



The impedance plot is clean indeed.

*FR 0-60degrees - Semi-farfield*





This is a linear driver, no breakup nodes, very behaved. Great!



Confirmed by the CSD. Nothing here to complain about, very clean.

*Power Response*



Almost completely flat between 2k-11k. Great ^^

*Non-linear distortion - FR+HD2-3 - 90dB/1m*





...and yeah. Very good results, top performing driver! Non-existent tall order HD products. From the spectrum analysis, it can be seen that the driver has no spectrum noise at all, IMD is very low above 2kHz (below 0,5%).


*Full system measurement - On-axis FR (farfield)*

This was the best result I could get after messing with the passive filter settings.



Here's different settings I tried;



The passive filter doesn't take care of that break-up node with any settings. That obviously isn't good, a proper RLC is required to take care of that. Otherwise, the filter offers many settings and it gives you some tuning options if you don't use an active system. 

Overall, this component set performs good. On the downside, it's the non-linear distortion in the lower midrange that colors the sound a bit and the break-up node the passive doesn't take care of. The good things about this set is that the build-quality is high, the tweeter is very good, the crossovers offer some tuning options and is better than the average passives you normally get at this price point. Power handling is quite good and raw midbass output is quite good without losing composure.

If I were to break it up I'd give the components the following rating:

_Mid-b: 6/10
Tweeter: 9/10
Passive: 6.5/10
Build quality: 8.5/10
Value: 8/10

Overall: 7.5/10_


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Little update;



Damn tight behind the driver...



Had to mod grills...



I put some SilentCoat CLD and some 1" isolator CCF behind the speaker. 



Connections. Forgot to take a picture but I put a second shrink tube over all "open" connections afterwards.









You can see the driver through the grills now.



Grounding in the trunk... one cable goes to the battery/HU ground to avoid different ground potentials. 





Cable "tunnels" below the floor... quite neat.







Clean carpet now...




Here's a video of the right side speaker playing, used an external amplifier in my garage and was playing the song through my computer. Used a good mic but Youtube compresses the crap out of any audio unfortunately. Gotta love my totally uncool 'hello' at the end. Brainfart lol.


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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

Nice updates. Thanks for the testing and graphs on the Gladen set. Sorry about your amp & preamp, though! You seem to have bad luck with those. 

Good to know that at least that tweeter is a great performer. Nice surprise.  Will they replace your Vifa XT25's?  It's just too bad that the mid isn't better. It "looks" nice, but those are some huge breakups in all the wrong places. :/

Cool to at least have some tunes playing in the car, and it's a bonus when the wiring is made fairly easy, too. My least favorite thing to do after CLD/deadening is the wiring, haha. Good times!

Looking good so far. Liking your progress on the B5 as well.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

bbfoto said:


> Nice updates. Thanks for the testing and graphs on the Gladen set. Sorry about your amp & preamp, though! You seem to have bad luck with those.
> 
> Good to know that at least that tweeter is a great performer. Nice surprise.  Will they replace your Vifa XT25's?  It's just too bad that the mid isn't better. It "looks" nice, but those are some huge breakups in all the wrong places. :/
> 
> ...


I'm the same... dampening and wiring is so boring sometimes, having a friend present always helps 

The Vifa XT25 is still the better driver imo, works better in the car because of the dispersion pattern. I got a new amp today, a beefy NAD amp which supposedly will manage low impedance loads better. The preamp is completely dead, not recommending that one (Scarlett 2i2). Only issues with it, software related until now. My gear is arriving tomorrow, unclear if the equipment will be in pieces or not. UPS is delivering the parcel ^.^

I'll post a little review on the Alpine CDE-175R and the PMX-F640 amp before installing them. Gonna install the left side tomorrow and hopefully the system might be ready to roll later this week. 

Not sure if I mentioned it but I bought a subwoofer as well. A Rockford Fosgate R2SD2-10. Got it for $100 so I guess I can't be too disappointed with it. Maybe I run some tests on it as well, it's complicated because I need to be outside for subwoofer measurements. The room takes over and colors the measurements otherwise.


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

When can we start tuning?


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

sqnut said:


> When can we start tuning?


Heh... well, pretty soon. The system is up and running now


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Got my stuff today.



















I made the cabling a little bit more manageable without cutting it down too much.





Put some wool behind the drivers.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Was gonna measure the HU in RIAA but the internal soundcard in my computer sucks too much... couldn't get it to work. Focusrite refused to give me a new unit since the I bought it in September 2013 and apparently it only had 1 year warranty. That's $150 down the bin =/


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

The CDE-175R looks similar to the CDE-HD149BT we have over here. Do you know the differences between the units?


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

SiriusXM and Pandora doesn't exist here. Assuming those are DAB?

Other features seem very similar, we don't got the 149BT in Europe, seems like it's a US model only.

http://www.alpine-europe.com/fileadmin/images/MainNavigation/Products/Charts/2014/productpic_2014_Head_Unit_Lineup_15_HUs_EN.jpg


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## rton20s (Feb 14, 2011)

Thanks for the comparison chart. That answered my question pretty well.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Btw, the Alpine rating of that amp is underrated. I measured 17,9volt unclipped with 2 channels driven into 4ohms resistive load. 17,9*2/4=80,1W.

With 2 ohms I got 15,3volts before clipping. 15,3*2/2=117W.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Little update again. Made the subwoofer enclosure, had to make it smaller than planned due to some issues. 15.5lit with the displacement volume of the sub included. Ended up with a Qtc of 1.04 and a Fsc of 64Hz, Qts was high to begin with - 0.65 in free space. Haven't tested it yet so I'm unsure how low it will play, kinda happy if it extends down to 35-40Hz at least. Using the passives on ch1/ch2 so I'm gonna bridge ch3/4 to the sub. It will give it about 160-170W, think it's enough for moderate listening levels.













I'll connect everything tomorrow and test run the system.

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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Forgot to take pics of it but the box is internally braced.

Here's a pic how it look right now...



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## Lunchbox89 (Sep 4, 2014)

That's a clean install. Good job


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Lunchbox89 said:


> That's a clean install. Good job


Thanks


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Small update, Everything is connected and running. My first impressions is that the subwoofer is really great. It surprised the crap out of me, it measured ruler flat from 20-70Hz in the car and plays it with quite impressive authority. The amp delivers more than I expected as well, it gets pretty loud I must say. 

I haven't tuned much yet, just lowered 1kHz by 7dB basically. Center image is pretty decent, the image gets a bit unstable with some material but it's not that bad. Too bad the Alpine doesn't feature L/R EQ.

Here's a new vid, enjoy Youtube's compression again. Bass/midbass sounds pretty ok in the vid, the rest not so much... I think both the compression algorithm in the smartphone and Youtube contributes to that. Might try my DSLR instead and see if it yields better results. 

I'm gonna clean the wiring up and mod the cover over the sub in the week, then some tuning after that.


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## strong*I*bumpin (Oct 3, 2005)

Great job,had my iphone thumping ?


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

Hanatsu said:


> Small update, Everything is connected and running. My first impressions is that the subwoofer is really great. It surprised the crap out of me, it measured ruler flat from 20-70Hz in the car and plays it with quite impressive authority. The amp delivers more than I expected as well, it gets pretty loud I must say.


Now you have proof that sealed>ported . Nice clean build. Why don't you throw some dsp in the mix?


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Lol. I might borrow the MiniDSP from my other build and buy another for that car later. A real DSP would very likely improve staging quite a bit... 

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## Rs roms (Jul 12, 2012)

Hanatsu said:


> Little update again. Made the subwoofer enclosure, had to make it smaller than planned due to some issues. 15.5lit with the displacement volume of the sub included. Ended up with a Qtc of 1.04 and a Fsc of 64Hz, Qts was high to begin with - 0.65 in free space. Haven't tested it yet so I'm unsure how low it will play, kinda happy if it extends down to 35-40Hz at least. Using the passives on ch1/ch2 so I'm gonna bridge ch3/4 to the sub. It will give it about 160-170W, think it's enough for moderate listening levels.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 Very well done. Qtc is high but whats the F3 point. 20 to 70hz ruler flat? Cabin gain kicked in Yo ! 

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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

-f3 anechoic around 60-65Hz IIRC, I got the measurements on the garage computer. I'll post them later this week


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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

sqnut said:


> Now you have proof that sealed>ported . Nice clean build. Why don't you throw some dsp in the mix?


OMG :blush:


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

I found a MiniDSP 2x8 with a UMIK-1 mic for $120 on an internet auction here in Sweden. I placed a bid on it...


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

I won the unit so I'll be using that in my Golf instead and take the currently installed 2x4 to this build. 

I will probably build new passive crossovers and lower the xover point from 5,5kHz (BW2?) to 3,5kHz LR2 instead. I will also implement a RLC to tame the breakup node of the mid. I'll start working on it tomorrow.

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## sqnut (Dec 24, 2009)

The 2x4 has independent eq for each channel? Bandpass on each channel? If so why passive, toss in an amp from your stockpile.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

It got 6-band full parametric on each channel + shelf + "global" input eq on all channels.

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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Cleaned up the wiring some. Don't mind the blue ground wire, it's only temporarily there. I can probably fit the MiniDSP on the side of the enclosure. I have to wait for the "MiniDC isolator" to arrive as it was too integrated in my Golf, never bothered to remove it. 





Full system, spatial average. Almost no EQ (I did have that -7dB 1kHz Q5 band active).



L/R Independent response. 10dB deviation around 1000-1400Hz, 5dB deviation between 2-3kHz. Not too bad for an initial setup. At least these measurements confirms the wandering imaging I heard. I manged to get everything above 6kHz really good by changing the settings in the passive filters. The highs are really good as they are, the problems lie in the midrange... as usual. 



Excess group delay, displays destructive interference as peaks. The rising low end are due to misalignment in the sub. Most likely 360deg "out of phase", compared to the mids.



RoomEQ full system FR prediction with the MiniDSP's EQ active. 



Impedance plot of the subwoofer. T/S parameters are for the enclosure, so Fs=Fsc and Qts=Qtc.

You can see that the impedance peak shifts upwards when placed in the enclosure. The blue and yellow plots are stuffed (blue) vs no stuffing (yellow) in the enclosure. As shown, stuffing will lower both Qtc & Fsc slightly. Efficiency is also lowered slightly in the process.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

...and I take my former statement back. The sub is not ruler flat between 20-70Hz. I had lowered the IR window resolution for some reason. Corrected in these measurements, still pretty flat.

Btw - I've talked with our forum member "Raimonds" of APL solutions, he has a pretty cool (special) DSP unit that I will demo later on. Perhaps in this car, it looks pretty interesting.


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## Rs roms (Jul 12, 2012)

Hanatsu said:


> ...and I take my former statement back. The sub is not ruler flat between 20-70Hz. I had lowered the IR window resolution for some reason. Corrected in these measurements, still pretty flat.
> 
> *Btw - I've talked with our forum member "Raimonds" of APL solutions, he has a pretty cool (special) DSP unit that I will demo later on. Perhaps in this car, it looks pretty interesting*.


Would love to know more about it and obviously your insight on that dsp after you demo it.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Still waiting on the MiniDSP, will probably arrive early next week.

Finished up the trunk in the meantime.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Ok. Got my MiniDSP, I've not installed it "properly" yet... need to make new RCA's - not longer than 30cm or so. I'll post some pics when that's done. It is connected and I have run the initial setup. 

If you're a bit creative you can use both the input EQ and the individual EQ-band together to form an effective 12b-PEQ on each channel. I'm sure most MiniDSP users do that already but for you who don't own the unit the official spec might be a bit misleading. 





The autoEQ integration with RoomEQ is pretty neat. 





I notched the breakup node of the mids with some EQ and it worked quite well. 

The system stage well, both center focus and depth is excellent. I placed the sub/mid at 105Hz LR6 (36dB/oct) both ways. Bass is upfront and midbass is quite good considering the limitations of the system. I still have some fine-tuning to do, but everything sounds good enough for me as it sits right now 

I somehow managed to delete the measurements from my USB stick... I'll post them when I'm at the garage next time.


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## Hanatsu (Nov 9, 2010)

Rs roms said:


> Would love to know more about it and obviously your insight on that dsp after you demo it.


I posted this in another thread...



Hanatsu said:


> Time for a little review of the APL1. I don't own the actual unit but I have tried out the software. I want to start to thank Raimonds for the support and the demo he supplied me.
> 
> The APL software can be considered a form of auto tune. It collects a large amount of samples (I did 250 per side) while sweeping the microphone around the entire listening space and then calculates the acoustic power response. It's a different method than the usual spatial averaging around the "head space". You do one sweep for the left side and one for the right side and then simply import the *.fir file created into either the DSP-unit or the VST-plugin (I used the VST together with foobar2000 on my laptop). I was a bit skeptical at first since the response looked very different from the one I previously measured using the "standard" method.
> 
> ...


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## Rs roms (Jul 12, 2012)

Hanatsu said:


> I posted this in another thread...


Which thread was it?

EDIT: Got it thanks


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