# 2004 Honda Civic Sedan - Budget Build



## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Alright I got a 2004 Civic Sedan Si, known as an EX in the US I do believe. I'm a college student so funding is REALLY low and the progress is slow. I actually wanted to run an active setup for quite sometime and last weekend I started installing a miniDSP. I got it up and running last night so i'm officially 2-way active and started the STEEP learning curve of the tuning process. To be honest after a year of reading on this site, I thought I could tune an active system but Holy hell I don't got a clue what I'm listening too. I went from a 3 band PEQ with a HPF and LPF on a deck to a laptop tuning software for miniDSP overnight so I'm kinda lost...

This is a budget install with equipment I've gathered over a couple of years for gifts and minor amounts of money on my part.

*Head Unit:* 
Pioneer AVH-4000DVD (Actually the first car audio piece I've ever owned, Roughly 6 years old?)

*Processing:* 
MiniDSP w/ 2-way GEQ plugin

*4ch Amp:* 
Pioneer GM-D9500F

*Mono Amp:* 
Alpine MRP-M500 (Second Oldest lol)

*Subwoofer:* 
ID10D4.V3 (I actually got out of the classifieds this summer! Nicest sounding woofer I've ever owned) 

*Speakers:* 
Infinity 6020CS, Temporarily as I've been waiting for the H-Audio blowout sale, New xSoul2 combo on the way!

So here is my system as it sits now. I have nothing but tuning to do as everything is kinda on a stand still until I get those xSoul2's. Next on my list is Sound deadening, New sub box, Maybe a false floor install and Hopefully Christmas time I'll have funds to get my hands on one of those new 5 channel Zuki amps!

Anyway I apologize for poor pictures, My good Canon got destroyed on my parents vacation in Maui. 

Here's the car...


















First a few pics of the old install, about a year ago. 
Amp's in the spare tire well.









And my first ever attempt at fiberglass... Made a quick set of kickpanels. Never really came out as planned.









And here progress from last weekend:

Rockford Fosgate 4 gauge on the right side. 
2 sets of RF RCA's and a remote wire on the left 
2 runs of 14 gauge speaker wire was ran up either side. All zip tied and secured every 5 inches. (forgot pic of the left side, sorry)









Next I did a temporary tweeter in the A-Pillars. 









Wires terminated the best I could.









and finished left side, the infinity tweeters are on a flush mount swivel pod so I have not done any aiming yet.









Here's the miniDSP installed with a rearranged amp rack. Still Remains in the spare tire well for now.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Here is my front stage as it sits so far. When the xSoul2 combo arrives the fiberglass fun starts! X2's in the Pillars, and new lower profile kickpanels!
Yes my car is a mess. It's a daily driver and it's been raining for what seems like months now.









And my new favorite, the ID10. Its currently in an old .7ft^3 box built back when I had a 10" Type-R.









And a pic of my new ground control's. Car is lowered about 2.5"


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## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

Congrats on getting it done! 

Very nice results for your first time FG. Great job on the wiring too. I think if you were to cover that amp board with carpet or vinyl it would look x1000 better!
Nothing wrong with pictures, better than most of the stuff that gets posted often.

How does the car sound to you?


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Mless5 said:


> Congrats on getting it done!
> 
> Very nice results for your first time FG. Great job on the wiring too. I think if you were to cover that amp board with carpet or vinyl it would look x1000 better!
> Nothing wrong with pictures, better than most of the stuff that gets posted often.
> ...


Thanks! That amp board was a rough cut out a while ago, so its still kinda temporary. The goal is to do a false floor install, gonna start work on that quite soon actually. 

The car sounds a lot better then it did with passive x-overs. I'm still learning and I'm having problems determining if what I hear is correct or not, namely Level matching seams to be kicking my ass. 

I'm currently battling some real bad background hiss and piss poor mid-bass output. So through some quick tests the noise is not from the miniDSP and or the headunit. 

I think those speakers are my issue, I got a set of loner coaxials to try out.


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## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

I found that it helps a lot to listen and than step out, do something and re-visit when working with levels.

You either have your gains set too high or your grounding needs to be better. That is if you are 100% sure that your problem is your amplifier.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Mless5 said:


> I found that it helps a lot to listen and than step out, do something and re-visit when working with levels.
> 
> You either have your gains set too high or your grounding needs to be better. That is if you are 100% sure that your problem is your amplifier.


Well my gains are almost at minimum even though the miniDSP has 0.9v outputs so I don't "THINK" that is the issue so I'm going to try moving my grounds before swapping out speakers. 

Something I learned about car audio is i'm not 100% of anything...


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## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

Your speakers produce the hiss as a result of something happening in line before them.
If you unplug your RCAs from the amp, is the hiss still there?


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Mless5 said:


> Your speakers produce the hiss as a result of something happening in line before them.
> If you unplug your RCAs from the amp, is the hiss still there?


Yes, I have a set of RCA's that twisted together I tried that also. Noise don't change, It's constant. With car off it does not change pitch or get louder with volume. I also turned gains down all the way. Noise reduced but definitely not gone.


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## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

And if you bypass MiniDsp and plug your RCAs in directly into your amp? Make sure your volume is all the way down!!!


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Gone to try it. Will report back. Thanks for the Help by the way!


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Mless5 said:


> And if you bypass MiniDsp and plug your RCAs in directly into your amp? Make sure your volume is all the way down!!!


Soo smart me left the RCA's not tied down to I can easily move them around +1 for me.

Soo directly off the headunit into the miniDSP. HU Volume and gains ALL THE WAY DOWN.... No difference, same constant noise.

Looking around the garage, I have a Ski-Doo battery on the floor plugged in to a battery tender. Can I unhook the leads from my distro block and use this other battery to isolate just that amp from the rest of the system? IE: check for grounding issues?


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## MTopper (Nov 4, 2009)

you can and it will completely isolate the amp. in doing so, you will bypass the charging system and car battery. if it doesn't go away, check the radio ground. i've had two pioneers have issues with the oem ground. I regrounded them to a metal bracket behind my dash and all whine went away.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

MTopper said:


> you can and it will completely isolate the amp. in doing so, you will bypass the charging system and car battery. if it doesn't go away, check the radio ground. i've had two pioneers have issues with the oem ground. I regrounded them to a metal bracket behind my dash and all whine went away.


I actually had issues with the ground on the head-unit before, I have extended the ground to the chassis down into the center column where the gear shifter is. 

Its not the Head unit because I tried it with muted RCA's, same noise


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Small Update:

Just received my xSoul2 set. These things look sick. I hope they sound as good as they look and feel! Oh and packaging was crazy, I've never seen so much bubble wrap in a box this small before. Excellent stuff Mark! There going down in the basement tonight on a old Kenwood home receiver to break them in. After a couple days of pink noise on the X2's I'm going to start working on aiming them in my A-Pillars, should be fun. 

I also picked up an enclosure for the miniDSP and miniDC Isolator. I'm still waiting on chassis mount RCA connectors to arrive to finish that part of the project off. I'll post some pics of that later on.

I bought some MDF tonight with hopes of tomorrow being able to start laying out for new kick panels and as for my noise issues it was traced back to those half assed infinity tweeters, hopefully everything will be nice and noise free with those X2's

Anyway few more Pics...


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## Firewall (Sep 29, 2009)

Nice car and nice project

Sent from my MotoA953 using Tapatalk


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

I got another little bit of progress done tonight. Trying to do a install while keeping up on foolish amounts of school work is difficult but its nice to take a break and work on something.

Anyway I decided to start my A-Pillars....
Baffles are cut from 1/4" MDF, outside diameter is 3-1/2". I couldn't get a local source for anything like a low heat plastic so I made do. 









This is a quick jig I made for a laser alignment. I wanted to get the pillars as symmetrical as possible so there somewhat visually pleasing. Oh in making these I stuck a half inch drill bit in the palm of my hand, see if you can spot the little bit of blood on the panels lol









and a few pictures with the pillars in place. 



























I then attempted pulling a cloth to make a mold. I actually have no idea what I'm doing but I managed to get the wrinkles out of them. So we'll see how they look when I get them glassed.


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## trojan fan (Nov 4, 2007)

Are you a big Nascar fan?


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

trojan fan said:


> Are you a big Nascar fan?


Ahh not really, My father kinda is. Everytime someone goes on vacation and sees a race they pick up a flag. They all tend to end up on the wall of the garage.

I'm more a WRC fan my self...


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Hey, 

Got a small update. Last couple of months have been really crazy and I couldn't find the time to get in the garage as much as I wanted to. 
But the last couple of weeks I've have been slow and managed to get a few things done that I've been putting off. Anyway on to the pictures!



First up, some build pics of the A-Pillars. 










On the bottom here, the pillar actually sits down in dash and I didn't realize it until I had everything glassed up. So I cut it with a hack saw and I'm going to pour a resin/bond mix to fill in the hole and add some strength... More sanding ahead.






















































At this point I still do not have the hole on the bottom filled as you can tell by the really weird wavy line haha









So as for the pillars; this is my first time ever doing a set. Overall I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I didn't expect much with my lack of skills but a good can of easy sanding body filler makes it up lol. 
I got one pretty close to done, Still Got to finish up filling in holes and fix some high spots that stand out. I'll repeat with the other side then I was thinking wrapping them in grey grill cloth with a black speaker grill... Thoughts?


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

While waiting for body filler to dry and few minutes here and there I managed to throw together a 0.81ft^3 box for my ID10. I can't wait to hear what sound like, Its currently in a 0.65ft^3 box. 



















I'm in the process of filling in the screw holes with body filler and sanding. Then its going to get coated in some spray on truck bed liner. 


And the last little project is a enclosure for the miniDSP... This idea is pretty much taken from TMM over on the miniDSP support forum so Props/respect to that guy. He also done a much nicer and cleaner job then I did haha. 























































This will be going in the car this week but its probably going to be short lived because as of right now I have every intention of getting that new DEH-80PRS when it come out!


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## scooter99 (Dec 21, 2008)

stockley.rod said:


> Here's the miniDSP installed with a rearranged amp rack. Still Remains in the spare tire well for now.


What's the piece next to the DSP, on the left in the picture? Has power running to it and then to the dsp.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

scooter99 said:


> What's the piece next to the DSP, on the left in the picture? Has power running to it and then to the dsp.


The first unit is a miniDC, 12v power isolator for the miniDSP with 3sec turn on and off delay. Next this with the orange wires is just fuse holder. 

The miniDC is excellent, $12 for a noise free install? Sold.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Well got around to working on car last week. The goal was to get my doors fixed up right. This is the first time I've ever really done work with doors other then put a speaker in it, So It was meant to be functional not fancy. 

Plan was to get my doors treated with a dampener, sealed up with some flashing, All the little random ass holes sealed and New baffles cut and speakers mounted... 









Stuff from SDS showed up: 45 CLD tiles, 2 rolls of Rope and some fleece tape.









So I started pulling apart my doors again. Here the Souls are in with a temp baffle and untreated door.









Drivers door with CLD tiles applied with a rough 25% coverage, Probably more is some places.









Passenger door was treated in a similar method.









Next I cut out the aluminium flashing to seal up the access holes and made a gasket with Don's butyl rope. Its kinda hard to see the gasket in this pic. 


















Access holes sealed up, Screwed down with self tappers.

I don't have many photos of this stuff but I then cut some new baffles out with the router. They are treated with bed liner to resist water. Hopefully when my next school semester starts I can get down on the CNC machine and cut out some fancy Aluminium ones that seem to be all the rage these days.









New baffle, Left. Old temporary jig sawed ones on the right lol. New ones are a little cleaner looking.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Andd a random pic of the mess I made. 









Overall completed front stage for now...

So that concludes the photos I took, I did do some other stuff that I would have liked to get pics of but I was a little rushed at the end and didn't really have time. 
1. I did cut out and install a layer of closed cell foam to sandwich between the doors.
2. I got the baffles mounted with 2 runs of butyl rope between the door and the baffle. They're mounted with #4 bolts and Nyloc nuts. I then put another run of butyl rope between the speaker and baffle to create a good seal. Speakers are secured to baffle with 4 screws.​
Few comments of the results, This is the single biggest improvement I have ever made to my stereo. The overall output has increased, The Midrange appears better/clearer, midbass has improved. I am absolutely tickled. The xSoul2's do sound really good now even with almost no EQ.

I got a good bit of work done, about half way through UPS dropped of some stuff from KnuKoncepts; More wire, battery terminals and few other odds and ends. This week coming I hope to get that stuff installed and do the "dirty big 3". I also need to rewire and find a better way to terminate the connections to the Mid's, So when I take the door panels off to do that I'll snap a few more "completed" pics.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Finally coughed up the bucks for a deese RTA. I got it from a forum member here in the classifieds. 




















And what appears to be the start of a horrible money spending trend for me...
Audionutz discs, These really are amazing. Great work Steve thanks!


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## Thrill_House (Nov 20, 2008)

Love the car, love the gear and love the build! I will have to get some pics up of the install in my 02' civic sometime soon, I dont see to many builds on these generation civics on here.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

stockley.rod said:


> Finally coughed up the bucks for a deese RTA. I got it from a forum member here in the classifieds.


Is that calculus homework I see?


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Thrill_House said:


> Love the car, love the gear and love the build! I will have to get some pics up of the install in my 02' civic sometime soon, I dont see to many builds on these generation civics on here.


Thanks, Yeah these car's seem to attach a rice rocket crowd. Not to many people with a nice "SQ" system in them. 



Notloudenuf said:


> Is that calculus homework I see?


Yeah, Integration - Parallel Axis Theorem I do believe. Exam next week


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

stockley.rod said:


> Yeah, Integration - Parallel Axis Theorem I do believe. Exam next week


Good luck on your exam. 
I'm really digging your build. Excellent job on the wiring. I like the miniDSP install. Their software is super easy to use and link to from your PC. Kudos to them for that. 
I'd really like to hear that XSoul2 setup but I don't see how I ever would. Do you have any plans to add a grill over the A-pillar speakers?


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Notloudenuf said:


> Good luck on your exam.
> I'm really digging your build. Excellent job on the wiring. I like the miniDSP install. Their software is super easy to use and link to from your PC. Kudos to them for that.
> I'd really like to hear that XSoul2 setup but I don't see how I ever would. Do you have any plans to add a grill over the A-pillar speakers?


Thanks, The miniDSP is cool. It has its quirks but overall nice unit for $100.

As for the A-Pillars, They are still in an unfinished state. They are just painted with primer right now and need a bit more standing. I will eventually cover them with a grey grill cloth and I was thinking about making a grill with some black cloth, just to give it some contrast. 

I'm having some major issues with system not working properly. I think it's that 4-channel amp. I'm going to post a thread in the general discussion section to see if I can get some help with it.


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## slowsedan01 (May 4, 2008)

Did you track down your noise problems? What were they caused by? I am getting ready to install my miniDSP/Isolator in my car but I'm not using a fancy aluminium case like yours. Was the lack of a case causing the noise even w/ the isolator?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

How are the ground controls holding up? My Si is getting some serious miles on it on nasty roads and you can tell that someday I'm going to have to go through the suspension.


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

slowsedan01 said:


> Did you track down your noise problems? What were they caused by? I am getting ready to install my miniDSP/Isolator in my car but I'm not using a fancy aluminium case like yours. Was the lack of a case causing the noise even w/ the isolator?


No not at all. I had mine mounted to a sheet of MDF forever before I got around to putting it in a case. 

Case is just so it's cleaner and easier to remove if/when I want to work on it. 

The noise issue is my amp. I'm pretty sure it's cooked.


Sent from my iPhone


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

chad said:


> How are the ground controls holding up? My Si is getting some serious miles on it on nasty roads and you can tell that someday I'm going to have to go through the suspension.


Yeah, mine was getting bad last year. When I took the rear struts off there was almost no fluid left in them. So I ended up going with just some cheap KYB GR2 struts and a set of ground controls. I love the GC's but they need a strut with a bit more damping to control the stiffer spring, on bad bumps I can feel a little bounce sometimes. 

Other then that, drove all last summer and a full winter on the GC's I would deff recommend with a nice set of koni or kyb adjustable struts. Reminds me I need to clean all the salt off them lol


Sent from my iPhone


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Little update, My pioneer amp died on me. It took me a little while to find a suitable replacement/upgrade but I manged to get an Arc KS300.4 out of the classifieds here for a good price. 









In the process of installing the amp I ran a second run of 4 gauge to use as a ground. I also added some cheap KnuKoncepts battery terminals to replace the old marine ones that corroded up pretty bad over the last winter. That RF fuse holder is also corroded up, I can't get the fuse out if it so I got a replacement one on the way. They use salt on the roads here in the winter so every bolt head and exposed piece of metal corrodes up really quick, be glad you don't have to drive in it. 









It's not near as neat looking as I would like it so I picked up some black split loom and zipties to cover all the wires. Hopefully it make everything look cleaner under the hood.









And finally got everything hooked up. I've been thinking about moving the amps to under my seats, or making a new amp rack in the next week or two so wire management wasn't really top priority at this time.









Well the Arc amp is much cleaner. Almost damn near all noise floor is gone now and it sounds really nice. I'm having major frequency response issues with my mids in the doors and some nasty refection from the tweeter off the gauge cluster dash/hump. I got some measurements to post up later on.


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## matty2013 (Jul 10, 2012)

Looks amazing! Nice clean setup


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

^ Thanks Matty,


So last week I got some time to break out the RTA and take some measurements. I started off looking at room modes in REW.









At this point I had no EQ set, some really basic level matching by ear and crossovers set at 80-3khz for the mids and 3khz and up for the tweeters. All with a 24db/oct slope. 

After a few times of trying different things I got some reasonable repeatability with a 1M log sweep from 20hz to 500hz taking about 21.8 seconds. At first I was expecting a different outcome but after taking a few minutes to really look at the graph I came to the assumption that the points that take a long time to decay are where my issues lay (the last blue line is the 160ms mark). So to me, I think I can see some issues around 87hz, 150hz and maybe another one at about 170-175. The one at 175ish really intrigued me, down to about 100ms or so it's a small null but after that it’s a large peak. Over 200hz I really don't know what's going on but I got some pretty hefty holes to try and fix later on, right now I'm focused on under 200hz. I also found some bad resonance from my left door panel that I need to correct. 

Erin “bikinpunk” helped me out over on MSS, He pointed out the double bumps at 40 and 50 and few other things. So thanks to him for that. 


Yesterday I got another hour or so out in the garage. Still no EQ, Just been playing with crossovers...
So I wanted to see what was going on in the near field first. I made up a small stand and took a few measurements directly on axis about 10" away from the left mid door speaker, door closed. 
I forgot to save graph for the right mid but both sides are pretty similar.










Crossovers: HP at 80hz and a LP at 2.0Khz. The top measurement line is a 0db slope (fullrange) and continues downward with a 6db, 12db, 18db and a 24db. I wanted to see if different slopes smoothed anything out, guess not.

There is a pretty hefty bump around 110-120hz followed by a quick dip around 150-160hz. I'm not sure what that's about, door panel? I took another measurement with a 50hz HP crossover and there is another major dip around 80-90hz. So I decided to crossover at 80 with a 24db slope.










Green = LEFT, Purple = RIGHT. Average of about 5-6 measurements from around my head as I was sitting in the car. 

I can`t remember exactly what my crossovers are, 2khz and 2.5khz between the mids and tweets with a 24db slope maybe?

This is what I finished off with, Still no EQ set yet. Over 1khz shouldn't be much work to get down around +/- 2db but there is pretty big dip at 250hz and 500hz for both L/R, Not sure why. Some Honda interior voodoo I'd imagine. Overall not a bad start I guess but the car is still very left side bias.

Hopefully tonight I can get out and starting trying to fix those room modes.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

stockley.rod said:


> Crossovers: HP at 80hz and a LP at 2.0Khz. The top measurement line is a 0db slope (fullrange) and continues downward with a 6db, 12db, 18db and a 24db. I wanted to see if different slopes smoothed anything out, guess not.
> 
> I can`t remember exactly what my crossovers are, 2khz and 2.5khz between the mids and tweets with a 24db slope maybe?


The X2s are widebanders right? Why don't you have them crossed over at....say....~600hz and up? Run your midbass as a midbass (80-600) instead of a midbass/midrange (80-2.5K) and let the wide band take over. Seems to be a waste of a good speaker to have it start playing so high. 

Others correct me if I'm wrong here but this should enhance stage width and depth. (I know it has in the cars I've heard running wide band drivers)


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Notloudenuf said:


> The X2s are widebanders right? Why don't you have them crossed over at....say....~600hz and up? Run your midbass as a midbass (80-600) instead of a midbass/midrange (80-2.5K) and let the wide band take over. Seems to be a waste of a good speaker to have it start playing so high.
> 
> Others correct me if I'm wrong here but this should enhance stage width and depth. (I know it has in the cars I've heard running wide band drivers)


My understanding is that they are a wideband tweeter. The spec sheet for them recommends a HP of at least 800hz. I ran them down to 1khz yesterday for a bit and they where pretty harsh sounding. I didn't like it at all.

I did tried them at 1.5khz for a little while. It was better but I took a few measurements and it showed a pretty ragged response that would need a lot of EQ below 3k. 

My RTA shows that they also start to drop off pretty quick below 1250hz.


Sent from my iPhone


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

stockley.rod said:


> My understanding is that they are a wideband tweeter. The spec sheet for them recommends a HP of at least 800hz. I ran them down to 1khz yesterday for a bit and they where pretty harsh sounding. I didn't like it at all.
> 
> I did tried them at 1.5khz for a little while. It was better but I took a few measurements and it showed a pretty ragged response that would need a lot of EQ below 3k.
> 
> ...


Oh...  Well :worried: damn :blush:


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Notloudenuf said:


> Oh...  Well :worried: damn :blush:


No worries, I've been ran those X2's down to 1.5khz for 2 or 3 days. Some guitar sounds are just unbearable at higher volumes, to the point where I turned it down and changed the song lol. Back up to 2khz now, seams a bit better. I like it a lot more. 

I went out at it the other day with all intentions of trying to fix some of the holes in the response but I got side tracked with my subwoofer....










All measurements have a 100hz LP with a 18db slope crossover on the subwoofer supplied by the pioneer HU. The initial response is with just the subwoofer playing, all windows up yadda yadda. Then I took a Measurement of the entire system (full range) which is is sub and all of the front stage playing. Notice the dips at 250 and 500hz, some room cancellations I got to try and fix later on 

So when I seen the roll off on the subwoofer I started moving it all around the trunk and re-measuring. I actually moved the sub box everywhere and tried it firing left, right, front, back and even upwards. Firing towards the front in the middle of the trunk gave the smoothest response so kept it there for now, and saved that measurement for this graph.

I then folded the seat down (purple), more output But still rolls off at about 65hz and I really don't know why. I then laid the mic about 1.5ft away from the sub with the trunk lid open for a half-assed near field measurement (aqua-ish color). Cabin gain is quite obvious hence the huge peak but plays out to the crossover freq which rules out any hardware issues or other filters running that I could have missed. 

I have been complaining about weak bass response for a while now so I guess this explains it. 

Only had a half hour or so to play with it. This weekend I'll try moving it around a bit more and playing with the reflection issues.


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## greywarden (Jan 6, 2011)

Go over to the Parts-Express Techtalk forum and locate Charlie Laub, he's an active wizard, and has developed a spread sheet specifically for the MiniDSP


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

greywarden said:


> Go over to the Parts-Express Techtalk forum and locate Charlie Laub, he's an active wizard, and has developed a spread sheet specifically for the MiniDSP


I looked him up, He's in to some pretty crazy stuff. I haven't really had time to read it all yet as there is a lot of really cool information that he has posted. 
Thank you for the tip!


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Started working on some EQ. In about an hours time I got a lot the major peaks out relatively easy. Under 1khz is still pretty rough but over 1khz didn't need much work at all. I love the control of a PEQ but it takes me a fair amount of time playing with the Q and level to get it to work so after each adjustment I had to remeasured to make sure I'm not taking everything out around the peak i'm working on. I'm pretty knew to the DSP stuff but damn, I can really see 31 band Para-Graphic EQ like on the 6to8 being pretty awesome to have...

When I closed the laptop yesterday this what I left off with, Crossovers are 80 to 2.5khz for the mid and 2.5k on the tweeter. I got the mid and tweet to blend pretty nicely with 24db/oct slopes but everything still needs a bit more fine EQ. 2 and 3db down here and there, then readjust the levels again and I should be ok. 









This is the total system response, All 4 speakers and subwoofer playing. Over 200hz is roughly +/- 5db right now so I'm pretty happy about that. When I took this measurement and looked at it. I thought that this should sound pretty weak/thin but it don't at all. I took the sub down another 4db after and I think is best my car has ever sounded, so far. 










*Things I still really need to work on:*
1. Sub to Mid transition is pretty rough... The sub starts to drop off over 50hz and I don't know why.
2. I have a pretty bad hole at 80hz that is killing my sub/mid and I still need to work on those holes at 250 and 500hz.
3. I'm getting a refection off the gauge cluster from my left tweeter. I tried a beach towel on the dash and putting a dash mat there would definitely help but I think I'm going to move/re-aim them first.
4. Time Alignment ... I don't know what I'm doing, at all. Everything is right side bias when I start adjusting the T/A, no matter what. I can get a pretty nice focus but its way out right in front of the passenger seat.
5. Door rattles/buzz


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## lithium (Oct 29, 2008)

nice build, couple ideas 

1. try moving the subwoofer around the trunk and play with phase. and see (2)
2. raise the xover point (or remove it) of the subwoofer and see if the dip is caused by car acoustics.

could be phase issue with midbass if they are out of phase relative to the sub, apply TA

3. 
4. basically, frequencies over ~1000 hz are localized via interaural level difference. i assume the minidsp has individual channel gain. just because the mic is telling you your freq response is flat doesn't mean thats what your ear's are hearing. 

for frequencies below ~1000 hz, you localized based on phase delay. so if the left speaker is closer it will sound like the music is coming from the left more so then the right. 

Sound localization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

Don't be stingy with the update pics


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

Notloudenuf said:


> Don't be stingy with the update pics


Haha been busy, I'll update tonight with my weekend progress.


Sent from my Motorola StarTAC


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## Sulley (Dec 8, 2008)

So, I’ve been pretty busy last few weeks with finishing school and starting full time work. I think last going off I had planned to move my X2's out to the sail panels, that was put on hold for some time but last Friday night I got some rings cut and decided how I'm going to mount them. Last night I got some time and got some more work done. This will be a slow process as I’m trying to finish these as nice as possible. 

Here’s what I have done so far…

Ring's were cut with hole saws:worried:









Took the rotatory tool to the sail panels, I tried to cut as much out as possible with out loosing the stiffness of the panel. I want to get the X2 as far back as possible. 


















Next I went out to the car and done some preliminary mock up. I got a good idea of how I want them aimed so I cut out a few standoff out of 1/4" hard board then glued them to back. That should get me started. I'm going to be doing a fair bit of testing and measuring with different aiming.


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## falkirk (Sep 29, 2012)

Sad to see the Pio amp die. Was wanting to now the sound signature of it as am contemplating hooking either DLS R6A or Morel Tempo 6' to it. Don't want anything to take away the warm sound of those components.


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