# 02 Optima Carputer install



## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

A lot has changed since my last install as many of you know. I ditched the W505, H701, PDX amps, subs, midrange, and tweeters. Only thing that is unchanged are the SLS 8's. 

Here is the link to my previous install: 
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diyma-build-logs/51548-02-kia-optima-3-way-install.html

Reasons I wanted to change were many:

1. I wanted to change the subs to something bigger lighter, and that require less power. The AE 15's were appealing to me but because the lead time on them was 8 weeks + I decided to go with a single Fi IB18. 

2. I wanted to change amps mainly just to try something different and of course the floor noise that is so prevalent with them. 

3. I wanted to change processor because that stupid zipper noise was beyond annoying. 

4. I have always wanted to go to a car PC but never felt it to be practical until the netbooks started coming out. I have had a Dell mini 10 for a few months prior for school, my XPS M1530 was just too much to lug around. 

5. I wasnt unhappy with the peerless midrange/tweeters, just wanted to try something different and go with some smaller drivers. 

Reasons 2 & 3 were why I switched to zapco amps and processing, there were other options of course but zapco was just more appealing to me. 

I wasnt too happy with the butts of the IDMAX's sticking out in the trunk like they were so I did the opposite with the IB18 and covered it with black carpet to keep it hidden. 

Because of the sheer size of the Zapco amps compared to the PDX's I had to rethink my setup and I refused to get rid of my spare tire so the easiest option that came to mind was putting them down into the tire well with the tire above them for easy access and then a raised false floor. Installed a couple of these for cooling, one intake one outtake. At 133CFM's they shouldnt have trouble cooling even in the worst conditions! 

Here is the baffle and sub fitted in
















It fits in there just about perfect, cant get much closer to the seats, lol

























Just a couple comparison picks of my old subs and new:


















This new setup with the Car PC has taken over the majority of the summer and there have been countless hours that were required for research before even purchasing anything, probably more than I have ever done for any car audio equipment! 

The main PC, nothing special here, as I mentioned it’s a Dell Mini 10:
Intel Atom 1.6Ghz process
1GB DDR2 RAM
400GB SATA HDD (I decided against a SSD just because of the ridiculous prices on them still)
HD screen
6-cell battery (for longer standby time, timed it at 6-7 days on standby)
External USB DAC HRT Streamer+
DVD+/-RW slot load drive
7-port Powered USB HUB
2nd 7-port USB hub (non-powered for devices that require very low to no power)
GlobalSat BU-353 USB GPS Receiver (using iGuidance with Road Runner)
Airclick RF remote

LG 10.4" LCD with 4-wire resistive Touchscreen with HDFury since the netbook only outputs via HDMI. 

And to power everything the easiest and cheapest option I seen was using the Carnetix 1900 with the CNX-P5V so that I can get regulated 19V for the netbook, 12V for the LCD screen, and 5V for the USB hub. And of course as a startup/shutdown controller for the netbook. 

For volume control I read of few things on mp3car forums that you dont want to mess with digital volume control and if possible to adjust that in the analog realm so the JL Audio CL-RLC line drivers were exactly what I needed, I wanted to get two of them, one for full volume control and then one just for sub level control. They work perfectly, the only issue I have with them is their max input voltage is 4.0V and their max output is 7.5V. So for me to daisy chain the two I was limited on the full volume knob to only a little past halfway or it would shutdown the sub level control line driver, not a huge deal but still a inconvenience nonetheless. I just had to readjust my gains appropriately. 

Here are a few pictures of the modded dash:








The road runner interface with FX skin:








The netbook hidden away in the glovebox with a couple low rpm fans:









Lastly, midrange and tweets I had the opportunity to audition several. The mids I had were only the HAT L4's and Scan 12m's. I preferred the scans so they are going in the car, right now no enclosures and still havent decided on location. Tweeters I had were obviously the peerless HDS's plus HAT L1 Pro's, scan Illuminators, and morel Piccolo's. They were all excellent sounding tweeters, I ended up going with the illuminators almost by a flip of a coin really. Since I dont have any enclosures for either the 12m's or illuminators I am not going to post pictures until they are done which may be a week or two til I can get to it. 

Here are the amps and what they are pushing. 

Zapco DC 500.1 - Fi IB18 (500 x 1 @ 2 ohms)
Zapco DC 1000.4 - bridged to SLS 8's (500 x 2 @ 4 ohms)
Zapco DC 650.6 - First four channels bridged to Scan 12m's and last two on Illuminators (180 x 2 @ 4 ohms + 100 x 2 @ 4 ohms)

I owe a great deal to the information found on mp3car forums, head-fi forums, and in cvjoint's carputer thread


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## j-man (Jan 5, 2009)

Nice write up Drake 

I envy your ability to carry out this plan on your own! Especially the patience to do the research and selection of gear, not to mention, all the time you went with no system in your ride. Kudo's my friend! I hate I wasn't able to hang around long enough to hear it  We shall take care of that soon though. Maybe by then you will have the mids and tweets actually mounted 

Nice job

Jman


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

The plan looks good Drake! I would love to see what you did with the amplifiers while keeping the spare!


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## 98kugt (Jul 27, 2007)

Love the CarPC screen. I really thought hard about doing one, but just couldn't really decide on what I wanted it to do.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

slade1274 said:


> The plan looks good Drake! I would love to see what you did with the amplifiers while keeping the spare!


Yeah, I meant to shoot some pics of that, but its a bit messy still, I gotta rerun some wires cause I didnt calculate accurate enough how long runs I would need so wires are just kinda sitting down there, but I will get a pic or two and short explaination of how and why I decided the way I did it. 

I couldnt keep the fullsize tire that I had in there, so I had to go back to the stock spare tire just because its Much smaller.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

j-man said:


> Nice write up Drake
> 
> I envy your ability to carry out this plan on your own! Especially the patience to do the research and selection of gear, not to mention, all the time you went with no system in your ride. Kudo's my friend! I hate I wasn't able to hang around long enough to hear it  We shall take care of that soon though. Maybe by then you will have the mids and tweets actually mounted
> 
> ...


Thanks John, There was A LOT I left out, lol. This whole process was going on about 2-3 months and there were many more obstacles than I could have imagined, especially with the Carputer. I was without sound for a good 2 months. I dont know how many times I had to rework my plans, lol. Being unemployed really helped and hindered at the same time getting this done. It gave me the time necessary to do the research, but forced me to go as cheap as possible, I didnt spend that much more than what I sold all the old equipment for and that was difficult to stretch! haha. 

Yeah, hopefully I will have enclosures done by the time we can meet up again and also do some proper tuning. For the meet this past weekend I really didnt have that much time to tune beforehand, just did a quick RTA and settled a few peaks, some minor level matching and of course T/A but I dont have it sounded exactly like I want just yet, I am still going to be tweaking with it until I find the right spots for the mids/tweets.


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## minibox (Mar 25, 2009)

wow, that's some serious work. Now I'm really sorry I didn't get to see and hear it in person. This needs to happen at some point in my car. Looking forward to more pics. Great work.


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Well, I did get to hear it in person, and WOW! Great sound!

The computer was very cool - all of your music - just a touch away. It was very easy to control with the touch screen, and Drake had a handy Logitech gizmo that he can use as a remote control for scrolling, etc. 

The main volume knob and sub knob was very effective for controlling the volumes - nice analog touch to contrast everything else that is digital (of course the choice to use these were for the reasons Drake inumerated).

The front stage was extremely solid - the highs / mids were very well balanced and had a pleasing sound - no listening fatigue - I certainly could sit in this car for hours. The Peerless 8's were amazing - especially when playing the movie soundtrack material - I think we witnessed X Max.

I think I liked the IB 18" Fi sub the best. I was very impressed with the impact this sub delivered. This was made even better with the sub volume knob that you could 'dial' in just the right amount of impact to balance with the 8's in the front. I have only experienced one other IB sub set up (Peter Lufrano's BMW), and the qualities of this type of set up was certainly reinforced after hearing Drake's. I think I even said that I was envious when Drake and I were listening. 

The research and product comparison work that you completed delivered a very impressive system indeed. I really want a couple hours of listening to go through a number of tracks that I have. This system's sound and the aesthetics of the build is going to be even more impressive once the drivers are placed, enclosed, etc. Great job Drake!


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## Chaos (Oct 27, 2005)

The IB 18" is sweet. Very nice choice of equipment, I'll bet it sounds excellent.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bertholomey said:


> Well, I did get to hear it in person, and WOW! Great sound!
> 
> The computer was very cool - all of your music - just a touch away. It was very easy to control with the touch screen, and Drake had a handy Logitech gizmo that he can use as a remote control for scrolling, etc.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the feedback man! Yeah, IB is great, I had sealed and ported boxes for two other subs in my car before and my IB setups have been the best, this single 18 was just the output I wanted with quality. I was actually wanting more from the 2 12" IDMAX's I had in there before believe it or not and it Really made my lights dim to a point it was embarrassing while driving at night, lol. 

I am still not completely happy with how my setup sounds, the midbass and subs I am fine with but I still gotta get my mids and highs mounted in the right spot. I just tested them out in the dash and man it really changes the sound, a much more "in your face" sound for obvious reasons and unfortunately I can tell the seperation between the midbass and midrange, which I could potentially tune out. Going to do some more critical listening and will check how it is with both mids and tweets in the kicks, will drop the height down but may be better overall.


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

What's your cross point and slope between the two drivers?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

slade1274 said:


> What's your cross point and slope between the two drivers?


Not sure which drivers you are talking about but here is the setup right now, likely to change a bit with more tuning:

Subs - 60/24db 
midbass - 60/24db to 300/12db BW
midrange - 300/12db to 3k/24db BW
tweets - 3k/24db to 20k


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

Interesting. What were your points in your previous install? 3k seems low to me for a 3 way.... From what I've read topping at 250 with the SLS picking up at 300 has worked well in other installs at 12 db slope. I'm interested in what you come up with as I have the SLS sitting in wait


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

slade1274 said:


> Interesting. What were your points in your previous install? 3k seems low to me for a 3 way.... From what I've read topping at 250 with the SLS picking up at 300 has worked well in other installs at 12 db slope. I'm interested in what you come up with as I have the SLS sitting in wait


haha, Heck before I was at 2k because I loooved the way the Peerless HDS's played down to. I will probably play with a higher crossover point when I get enclosures figured out and done, its more a matter of how I am going to have them aimed that will determine xover point, I am looking to go mostly on axis right now so I will have a lot of flexibility if thats the case.


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## norcalsfinest (Aug 30, 2008)

idk if i missed it, but what are you using for a front end on the carputer?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

norcalsfinest said:


> idk if i missed it, but what are you using for a front end on the carputer?


The picture I have in the OP shows ride runner with the FX 4.0 skin. I tried Centrafuse and that, but I really dont like either to be honest. 

Just using windows as my Front end will probably be what I go with, just need to increase the size of fonts/scrolling bar/etc... to get it the way I like. Who knows, I may end up settling for some front end software, but a lot of them are pretty buggy even centrafuse, look forward to some reviews on 3.0 though.


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## SouthSyde (Dec 25, 2006)

great work man..


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## charcoal grey (Feb 24, 2008)

Great choice of sub! I have several of those in an IB for my HT room. Right now budget won't allow me to try one out for the car. I am envious.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

charcoal grey said:


> Great choice of sub! I have several of those in an IB for my HT room. Right now budget won't allow me to try one out for the car. I am envious.


Yeah that was the interested thing with the IB subs, when I was researching them I only saw installs of them in HT, I couldnt find any vehicle installs, maybe I just didnt search enough, but it bugged the crap out of me, lol. Obviously, I decided to try them out since there were only great things said for those that have used them in HT.


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## norcalsfinest (Aug 30, 2008)

The Drake said:


> The picture I have in the OP shows ride runner with the FX 4.0 skin. I tried Centrafuse and that, but I really dont like either to be honest.
> 
> Just using windows as my Front end will probably be what I go with, just need to increase the size of fonts/scrolling bar/etc... to get it the way I like. Who knows, I may end up settling for some front end software, but a lot of them are pretty buggy even centrafuse, look forward to some reviews on 3.0 though.


have you tried using Foobar? For media player/ time alignment/ crossovers?


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## GEE (Jul 6, 2008)

The Drake said:


> Not sure which drivers you are talking about but here is the setup right now, likely to change a bit with more tuning:
> 
> Subs - 60/24db
> midbass - 60/24db to 300/12db BW
> ...


Did you try smoother slopes ? Slopes @18db instead of 24dB and separate more the frequency for better transitions in car.

Try also NOT to bridge the amps, there will be less distortion.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

GEE said:


> Did you try smoother slopes ? Slopes @18db instead of 24dB and separate more the frequency for better transitions in car.


Yeah, thats called tuning, I am quite familiar with it  Still have a lot more tuning ahead of me. 



GEE said:


> Try also NOT to bridge the amps, there will be less distortion.


Of course, but the difference is so minimal that you would be very hard pressed to even hear it. At least I never could tell and the more power I have going to my SLS's the better they sound to me.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

norcalsfinest said:


> have you tried using Foobar? For media player/ time alignment/ crossovers?


Foobar is even smaller and cant customize buttons to be big enough for touchscreen use. Dont need any T/A or Xover software, its all with zapco. 



Well, I got some work done friday/saturday, the mids/tweets are definitely going in the pillars now. Left side is pretty much done glassing, just need to sand, body filler, and sand some more and continue to repeat until I can get it somewhat decent. Not sure how I am going to finish them yet, havent really thought much about it, haha.


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## Melodic Acoustic (Oct 10, 2005)

Is the LG 10.4 touch screen a 12v unit or do you have an inverter in the car. Loving the carpc. Have one going in myself, but nothing as nice as yours. Mine will be there just for nav, net access and to program the BitOne.1 and maybe a movie or 2, O ya, to burn/copy CD's at shows they every one has.


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## bassfromspace (Jun 28, 2016)

I may have missed this, but is your baffle secured to the car and how's it doing with the baffle you have? Most people use a minimum of 2 (3/4") baffles screwed together.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bassfromspace said:


> I may have missed this, but is your baffle secured to the car and how's it doing with the baffle you have? Most people use a minimum of 2 (3/4") baffles screwed together.


Its screwed in to the rear deck at the top and then L-brackets anywhere I could put them and yeah its two 3/4" of Birch. I would have Much rather done a 1/4 to 1/3" steel baffle but just dont have the knowhow or equipment to weld. And it gets pretty expensive to get it done so that wasnt an option.

Baffle seems to be holding up well, havent noticed any issues yet, I am sure even with it as secure as I made it, it still flexes.


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## bassfromspace (Jun 28, 2016)

The Drake said:


> Its screwed in to the rear deck at the top and then L-brackets anywhere I could put them and yeah its two 3/4" of Birch. I would have Much rather done a 1/4 to 1/3" steel baffle but just dont have the knowhow or equipment to weld. And it gets pretty expensive to get it done so that wasnt an option.
> 
> Baffle seems to be holding up well, havent noticed any issues yet, I am sure even with it as secure as I made it, it still flexes.


Excellent!

That screen looks killer.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Got the passenger side pretty much done. Here is one picture: 










Will get a picture of the drivers side and the entire dash soon. They are facing as close to on-axis as I could get them.


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## [email protected] (Jun 12, 2008)

Is your sub baffle sealed around the edges?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

BeatsDownLow said:


> Is your sub baffle sealed around the edges?


yes, for the edges used great stuff foam sealant. Checked for leaks with flashlight at night and applied foam appropriately wherever I missed


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

What is your impression of the sound with the drivers on the dash - on axis vs the way it was with the tweet on the dash and the mid on the floor? 

I really like how you did the driver lay out on the dash.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bertholomey said:


> What is your impression of the sound with the drivers on the dash - on axis vs the way it was with the tweet on the dash and the mid on the floor?
> 
> I really like how you did the driver lay out on the dash.


Not sure yet, havent yet had the chance to hook them up, lol. But from testing before with just using towels it was a more direct sound compared to having the mids down in the kicks, even with the underside of my dash stuffed with sound deadener materials you could just hear some of the sound was coming up through the underside of the dash.

And I feel like I lost some depth to my soundstage with the mids up on the dash and closer to me, but I cant say anything for sure til I can get everything set and tuned. Height most definitely increased! I will update some more later.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Some more updates here, got some work on the door. 

Picture of the bottom panel stock:









Cut up and put on for glassing.









The molding here:









And thats about as far as I have gotten today, I wont be able to do the passenger door til I get another 8" grill from parts-express, Only ordered one to see if I could use them or not. Next one should be here by wed, so hopefully I can get the other one done this week sometime. 



And here are some more pictures of the pillar job, they still arent hooked up yet cause I gotta rerun some speaker wire, but they will be soon.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

When I rerun some speaker wire I got a couple shots of the amps with the spare. 

Its not very pretty but its all being covered up by the false floor so what does it matter?


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## MaXaZoR (Apr 1, 2007)

Wow, really looking forward to reading the results on how you like the scans in the dash, I plan on doing the same thing with 12m's and Dynaudio MD 130's.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

MaXaZoR said:


> Wow, really looking forward to reading the results on how you like the scans in the dash, I plan on doing the same thing with 12m's and Dynaudio MD 130's.


Well, so far the results are very pleasing to the ear, still much more tuning ahead of me, but its sounding excellent so far, I am really loving the height of the stage. Currently playing with crossover settings, slopes, stuffing the enclosures, etc.


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## IBcivic (Jan 6, 2009)

very nice job on the pillars,man... lookin forward to see the rest of it come together.


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## j-man (Jan 5, 2009)

Indeed! Apillars look great Drake! Just think what you could do with all the room on my dash 

You gonna be around Monday? I will be headed back to Greensboro around mid-day and may give ya a call to check it out?? 

Jman


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

j-man said:


> Indeed! Apillars look great Drake! Just think what you could do with all the room on my dash
> 
> You gonna be around Monday? I will be headed back to Greensboro around mid-day and may give ya a call to check it out??
> 
> Jman


Haha, yeah I know you could really get some nice depth with your dash! althrough there would be reflections from hell, lol. 

But yeah I will be around on Monday, give me a call and let me know when you can stop by.


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## IBcivic (Jan 6, 2009)

MaXaZoR said:


> Wow, really looking forward to reading the results on how you like the scans in the dash, I plan on doing the same thing with 12m's and Dynaudio MD 130's.


  can't wait too see that happen, josh, your set-ups have always inspired me in my thinking process. 

sorry ...don't want to jack the thread.
waiting for more pics


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Alright got some more progress here and picture updates. A bunch of imperfections here and there, but I dont really care, I am not competing or anything.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Also, as you can see I glassed the holes in the door up at the top but I still have no idea what I am going to do for a finish on them since I would really rather not re-vinyl the entire door.... Guess I could just slap an emblem or something over it, maybe a favorite sports team or whatever. Anyone have any ideas?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Alright well here are some more updated pictures of the doors "finished". I just sprayed some Dupli-Color High Performance Vinyl & Fabric Coating Charcoal color as the medium grey was just way too light. Its not a match obviously, but I think it blends in pretty well. 


































Now, just gotta work on the console in the middle and figure out what to do with the environmental controls and USB HUB so that I can still have access to the top two USB ports.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

I am digging this install. I might actually be able to hear it too!


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## minibox (Mar 25, 2009)

Looking good!! I love it when a plan comes together!










I need to bounce some ideas off of you at our next meet for a carputer in the X3.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Thanks guys, I am just glad to be finished for now with the doors. I had the bottom panel off for at least 8-9 months, lol. Blame it on laziness and procrastination on my part, haha. 

But wow, I am Really loving the mids and tweets in their current location. This most definitely is my best sounding system by far! 

The only thing I may want to change in the future would be to try out the HAT L8's since I have heard so many good things about them.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

what did you use to cover the pods in the doors?


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

I really dig those pillar pods. Never been a fan of installs that have drivers on the dash, but the work looks good regardless.


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## minibox (Mar 25, 2009)

Drake,
Did you do anything to stiffen your doors?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

minibox said:


> Drake,
> Did you do anything to stiffen your doors?


Oh yeah, much. Had some damp and damp pro on the outside inner door skin and inside inner skin and then covered it over with Overkill Pro. Most recently I grabbed some of those SS SPL tiles and put some on the inside outer skin, and a layer on the outside inner skin just to help with some resonance issues I was having. It helped more than I thought it would too. 

Here is the link to my first install pictures when I did the deadening: Kia Optima Project

On another note, I found a decent price on some L8's so I grabbed them since I am now employed  They come in Monday so I am going to compare them with the SLS 8's and the loser will probably be in the classifieds. I had a quick thought about additional midbass in the rear doors so I put the SLS 8's non-bridged on the DC1000.4 but they sucked on that kind of power so I decided against doing that for right now. I may install some speakers for the rear doors when I can do surround via the carputer for movies.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bikinpunk said:


> I really dig those pillar pods. Never been a fan of installs that have drivers on the dash, but the work looks good regardless.


yeah, I tried just about every position and angle for the speakers and this way just ended up being what was most pleasing to my ear. As you can tell from my install I am not a perfectionist, lol. Just as long as it looks decent then its fine with me.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

what did you use to cover the pods in the doors?


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## fish (Jun 30, 2007)

Very nice install. Would you mind expanding on your description of how the Fi IB18 sounds compared to your past sealed & ported designs? I've never heard an IB setup, but that Fi 18 is VERY appealing. Did you lose much output & impact going this route?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> what did you use to cover the pods in the doors?


I dont have pods in the doors, the midbasses are installed IB. If you are referring to the panel over the doors then for that I just used some textured spray paint, same as the pillars. I didnt use the charcoal color vinyl paint cause I wasnt sure about how it would stick to the plastic.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

kfish323 said:


> Very nice install. Would you mind expanding on your description of how the Fi IB18 sounds compared to your past sealed & ported designs? I've never heard an IB setup, but that Fi 18 is VERY appealing. Did you lose much output & impact going this route?


Thanks, I had a IB setup before using 2 12" IDMAX's. I prefer IB much more than ported or sealed. I did lose output going from 1 IDMAX ported to 2 of them IB, but it sounded sooo much better. The main reasons I switched to the Fi IB18 are in the OP.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

I was able to grab some Hybrid Audio L8's so I am excited to try them out! 

Just a few comparison pictures to the SLS 8's:


























Initial impressions are very good of the L8's. There is a better 'snap' in the midbass with the L8's compared to the SLS's. Not to say that the SLS 8's werent snappy. Still have some break-in time for the L8's but I am 90% sure they are staying in. 

I ended up just putting the SLS 8's in the rear doors just to try out dual midbasses. Havent had a chance to listen/tune as I just threw them in there today.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Here are a couple pictures of the rear doors, they were just mocked up to see if I even like them so obviously it looks like crap, lol. I have no idea how the angling got so bad on the drivers side rear door, but oh well, no biggie.


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

Love the commitment Drake! Hacking a couple huge holes in the rear door cards "just to see" if you like the dual MB. Well played! Can't wait to check out the sounds in a few weeks.


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## cvjoint (Mar 10, 2006)

Wow, you got quite the install here. So many things I can relate to going for a carputer, the zipper noise on the H701 being just one of them. I'm particularly loving the 10 in the dash, that is very manly. Due to the complexity of the setup already I went with a 7 but a 10 is definitely something I'd like to go for.

Keep it up! And do tell more on the L8 vs. the SLS8. My best bet is on the SLS8, the reason why it's not punchy is because its low end extension is guaranteed to be better. The only times I've ever gotten punchy midbasses is when they peaked a bit at 90hz by designed and rolled off fast. Flat is not punchy...


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

slade1274 said:


> Love the commitment Drake! Hacking a couple huge holes in the rear door cards "just to see" if you like the dual MB. Well played! Can't wait to check out the sounds in a few weeks.


It actually wasnt such a big deal cutting up the doors, they were already cut up from having a set of components in there for rear surround with the H701 before I had a 3-way. So either way they would require work to get them presentable.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

cvjoint said:


> Wow, you got quite the install here. So many things I can relate to going for a carputer, the zipper noise on the H701 being just one of them. I'm particularly loving the 10 in the dash, that is very manly. Due to the complexity of the setup already I went with a 7 but a 10 is definitely something I'd like to go for.
> 
> Keep it up! And do tell more on the L8 vs. the SLS8. My best bet is on the SLS8, the reason why it's not punchy is because its low end extension is guaranteed to be better. The only times I've ever gotten punchy midbasses is when they peaked a bit at 90hz by designed and rolled off fast. Flat is not punchy...


I am already attempting to find a "reasonable" 10 inch replacement screen, a sunlight viewable one. From all the Industrial suppliers I have contacted they are all Very expensive, almost to the point of not being worth it. Mostly in the 7-1100 dollar range and thats NOT including a touchscreen believe it or not. The search continues though. 

I havent had much time to tune or do an RTA since I threw everything in there, but I will certainly check that out in comparing the L8's and SLS 8's. Your probably right and yes the SLS8's will hit harder deeper with the same power. Unfortunately I am unable to have the same power to all midbass speakers, its either 150W @ 4 ohms to each OR 500W @ 4 ohms to one pair and 100W @ 4 ohms to another. I have been having this one issue in the midbass region thats a little displeasing to the ears and the solution has evaded me, grrrr! Might have to get some of the experts at the meet on the 24th to help me out with it.


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## pnn23 (Jun 7, 2008)

That 10" touchscreen is ginormous....very nice A pillar work.


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## minibox (Mar 25, 2009)

I can't wait to hear this on the 24th


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

minibox said:


> I can't wait to hear this on the 24th


Not as much as I cant wait to hear the X3 and M5!!!


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## fish (Jun 30, 2007)

Drake, any updates on how your dual midbass setup is working out? This is the first time I've seen someone do this... which has me thinking maybe I'll give it a try.


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## jadon087 (May 26, 2007)

How's has the the carpc treated you thus far? Any overheating problems?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

fish said:


> Drake, any updates on how your dual midbass setup is working out? This is the first time I've seen someone do this... which has me thinking maybe I'll give it a try.


its working out well so far, I have to watch how much power I send to all the midbass drivers or it will just overwhelm the midrange/tweeters, but its been fun to mess with. I definitely like the dual setup better, I will try it for a few months like this, then just turn off the rear midbass for a couple weeks and make a final decision.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

jadon087 said:


> How's has the the carpc treated you thus far? Any overheating problems?


Been perfect, no issues to date other than the touchscreen components. Anything 40 degrees F or below the touchscreen will act very funny until it heats back up and start making random presses. Chalk it up to cheap components, I did buy this very cheap from China afterall so not unexpected, but as far as heat in the summer months it wasnt a problem. The processor on the netbook can handle 90 degrees Celsius and I monitored it on the hottest days here and it never got close. 

The thing I am more concerned with is low temperatures and the hard drive. Its not a SSD so it isnt rated for very cold temperatures as there is a very small amount of liquid in standard drives for lubrication... But luckily it doesnt get too cold here in NC so I think I am pretty safe with it, if I lived up north I would have gone with a SSD right from the start.


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## minibox (Mar 25, 2009)

My gosh this car plays some beautiful low frequencies! I thought the t-rex was gonna eat me!


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

minibox said:


> My gosh this car plays some beautiful low frequencies! I thought the t-rex was gonna eat me!


Thanks for the feedback! 32 inches of midbass and 1200W will do that, lol 

It was a pleasure hearing your X3, very nice and detailed. A little tuning and you can get rid of that little localization in the sub. Hopefully at the next meet I can hear the M5, love the work that Mark does.


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Once again, I had the pleasure of hearing this system. This time the mids and tweets were 'permanently' mounted on the dash and the 2 additional mid bass drivers were installed in the rear doors. 

The front stage was phenomenal! The detail and accuracy that the Scans provided was fantastic. Of course MJ sounded great, but what really impressed me was when we put in the new Breaking Benjamin disc and the guitars and vocals were very clear, defined, and not harsh or glarey (like they are in my car). The top end causes no fatigue after a long listening session and everything was well centered. The soundstage had height and width. 

The additional mid bass drivers in the rear doors are a fun experiment - I have never experienced that level of mid bass response - fully enveloping for sure. The difference for me was with the original set up, I could dial up the sub just to the point that it was providing that low end impact to supplement the stong mid bass sound. This time, it just seemed that the mid bass was over shadowing the sub bass sound. 

The car pc is a unique experience as well. Having a large screen to navigate with gives a feel of an Entertainment Room instead of the driver's seat of a car. I really liked the fact that you could pull up the software for the Zapco amps right on the screen and make any adjustments that are needed on the fly. 

You have certainly done a great level of research and have assembled a very powerful and capable list of equipment, you have employed unique installation techniques to tackle difficult challenges, and you have done a brilliant job tuning the system. I would love the chance to come over to Raleigh and just play through several cds to experience how your system reproduces a wide variety of genres. Thank you again for organizing the G2G and providing the opportunity to hear your system. 

Jason


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## j-man (Jan 5, 2009)

^^^^ 

X2!! 

Drake has done a phenomenal job with the carputer! The huge screen, all the control, and the sound is incredible! 

The GTG was a blast! Thank you for your time and effort that went into organizing the event. I sent Ant a pm thanking him for the door kits but still need to thank the other vendor. That was very cool of them and I look forward to installing the Damplifier Pro in my hatch! 

Thanks again Drake!!

Jman


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Wow, thanks for the kind words guys. I gotta admit, I am totally surprised from all the feedback I have gotten on the system. It was always difficult for me to gauge how my system sounded as I never heard anyone's car prior to the meet in May or gotten anyone else to listen and critique my system. Even today I dont feel my system is up to snuff, still a few things I gotta work out. Midbass is probably a bit overkill, especially considering I had it turned down for you guys at the meet, lol! 

But I really appreciate all the feedback and it was a pleasure hanging out with you guys again.


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## less (Nov 30, 2006)

I'd love to see a little more detail on how the apillar pods were modeled and formed. Very nice work! Overall it looks like a very nice installation... and one that is after my own heart.

Less


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

less said:


> I'd love to see a little more detail on how the apillar pods were modeled and formed. Very nice work! Overall it looks like a very nice installation... and one that is after my own heart.
> 
> Less


Thanks, Unfortunately I didnt take any pictures of the whole process mostly because I am still an amatuer at FG and didnt think it was worth taking pictures.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

In the process of changing a few things, one being my amps and processing. Ditching the DC amps and potentially upgrading the PC for processing. 

I want to redo my trunk anyway and probably stick the PC in there.


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

I am looking forward to seeing and hearing the changes - I'm doing the same thing with my system - I need to buzz over to Raleigh again in the near future....


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## minibox (Mar 25, 2009)

switching the dc amps eh? Did the poor user interface you showed me get the best of you?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bertholomey said:


> I am looking forward to seeing and hearing the changes - I'm doing the same thing with my system - I need to buzz over to Raleigh again in the near future....


I am still not 100% on which amps I am going to but Ryan told me he is a DLS dealer so the ultimates are tempting me  Two of the A5's and an A6 would be awesome for channel separation, save me some money to put toward the new Car PC and then probably give my niece the Dell Mini 10 for Christmas. From what I hear you were able to get with david edwards and he is all for channel separation in amps as well, good thing  It will be a month or two before I can even have money and decide on equipment. I really hate working in the winter time, it doesn't get that cold here, but its enough to bother. 

PS: If you want to know what really caused the shift then give me a call.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

minibox said:


> switching the dc amps eh? Did the poor user interface you showed me get the best of you?


haha, not really to be honest, I mean sure it could be a pain in the butt and it was during tuning, but I mean typically after I tune I dont mess much with it at all. Its certainly going to be nice to get away from it, but thats not what motivated me to move onto something else.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

i had an A5 in the past. awesome amp thats for sure. as far as a computer though, have you thought of getting a laptop to slide somewhere instead of building one? i dont know what the requirements for your soundcard is - but if you get some kind of USB or eSATA sound card or external thing it might be way more convenient for you. just a suggestion i suppose. i loved how your sound was - i just wish i could help you with the fabrication hahah. keep it up man way cool **** you got going on there.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Well I ended up going with C2k amps because of such a great deal I got on some and am having a 4.0 fully modded by Matt Roberts to put on my midrange and tweets. Cant wait to compare an unmodded 4.0 with it  The PC is already built, I would do a laptop but since the only good options for sound cards are PCI/PCIe, I had to build one and it actually ended up costing less.

Second battery is going in the trunk and changing how the trunk is, speakers are all staying the same and in same positions. Screen in the front Will eventually be changed but I put the money toward the equipment first and then will upgrade the Screen to a more sunlight viewable one later. Sound is still more the priority, will update in the next few weeks as to the progress, still waiting for a few things here and there and for my tax return as well


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Got a little bit of an update, got nearly all of the equipment and did a little bit of work. Still waiting for the Modded 4.0 from Matt to get in which should arrive next week sometime. 

































New custom built computer








Power supply for PC


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Frame around the sub is coming out and doing something else there for the cover just not sure yet. 
















Picked up some of these for the frame of the amp rack, was going to just use wood but wanted to try something different, the aluminum should be lighter and stronger. 
















Here is a mock up when I test fit with a wood frame in the car








Then put it together with the rodding








Test fit in trunk with amps.









I plan to make another level of that frame and put the two 4.0's above those other amps with enough space for air flow. Put the battery and computer on the side areas and then panels over everything with some cutouts for plexiglas to see the top two amps. its a rough idea and probably will change before the end, haha.


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## Shelbrain (Mar 1, 2008)

Looks good....Where did you purchase the CarPC from? MP3Car?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Its a custom built machine. Case, power supply (M4-ATX) and power supply case came from mini-box the rest of the system is as follows:

Zotac GeForce® 9300-ITX-WiFi
Asus Xonar D2X
Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93Ghz
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB)
OCZ Vertex 30GB SSD

Hitachi 1TB HDD 

Much of the other USB devices are staying the same such as GPS, DVD writer, remote, etc...


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## felix509 (Dec 17, 2006)

That looks great! 

If you are using the resume from hibernate method, 4GB of ram may slow down the resume a good bit.... Seeing as you are using a SSHD and high speed RAM it may make little difference.. 

I ran a similar system and started with 3GB, but ended with 512MB due to faster resume times. That was XP Pro and roadrunner/winamp. Of course i was not doing the processing in the computer, i was using optical output to a DSP-6. SO, you may need the ram for the software.. 


from Microsoft:

'Many newer laptops resume from hibernate in 20 seconds to 30 seconds, but the actual time it takes to do this is heavily dependent upon the contents in memory at the time you choose to hibernate your computer.'


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Very cool Drake - I can't wait to see / hear the updates. The car was amazing with the last set up - it is going to be hard to beat, but I'm sure you are going to.


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

Hey Drake-
You've only got 4 weeks till the next meet- keep pushing it man!


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

haha, yeah thats wishful thinking to believe this can get done by then! At least cosmetically anyway. I am going to focus more of my time to just getting the sound setup then starting/finishing the panels in the trunk. 

Its probably going to take at least a couple of weeks to get all the bugs out of the PC and adjust what I need to let alone tuning! This week is the only free week I really have to work on stuff, after that its all going to be tests and midterms until the meet, but who knows I guess I can just go without sleep for a few weeks right?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

finished the rack for the amps and found out that the top two 4.0's arent align with the sub which I want both to be viewable  Its a little late to redo it and plus I dont think there is enough space to move the top frame over enough to align them. I gotta figure out how to mount the computer so I can put some fans around it for airflow and mount the battery, I may just use some industrial strength Velcro on the battery which should hold it in place under worst case scenarios.


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## j-man (Jan 5, 2009)

Looking good Drake! It is crazy how we are all changing things up constantly! You and Jason because of searching for the golden Unicorn and me cause I blow stuff up  Looking forward to the finished oroduct! 

Jman


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Hey - it is the long lost JMan! Talk about unicorns  Dude - check out that NC meet thread....

It is looking good Drake!


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## j-man (Jan 5, 2009)

Ha ha Almost as hard to find as a unicorn  I do need to check out the thread but have pm'd Drake bout it a couple times 

Back on topic


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

j-man said:


> Ha ha Almost as hard to find as a unicorn  I do need to check out the thread but have pm'd Drake bout it a couple times
> 
> Back on topic


haha, yeah yeah chalk it up to me for not replying. I been trying to get this done! 

I really didnt Want to change my setup to be honest, but due to certain circumstances I was pretty much forced to and well its fine. Part of what I enjoy the most is doing the work of installation. I was thinking about getting someone else or a local shop to do the panelling as it wouldnt have been that much, but I really do enjoy planning, figuring out how to setup. I am not a very creative person but thats alright, there are plenty of ideas that you can find online, especially in these build threads.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

this is coming along as slow as I thought it would!

Got the battery mounted and all hooked up, got the PAC200 installed and tested. Has a nice little LED that shows green, orange, or red based on the voltage it reads. Ran the power and ground wires, mounted the bottom two amps down and thats about it for now. Hopefully I can get some more work done the rest of this weekend.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Finally got the new modded 4.0 from Matt in and got it mounted in the car, didnt have time to hook it up or anything yet. Here are a couple of pictures of the amps, battery, and PC mounted. Its just a nice cluster of wires that I gotta figure out how I am going to clean up at least a little, even though it hasnt been that hot here, but in the 60's the PC gets up to 50C without any additional fans so I am hoping that getting the fans in there will cool it down some, I dont want to go above 70C on a really hot day.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

Looking forward to seeing this

2.5 weeks....that's plenty of time!!!


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

You know meng... it's going to be embarrassing if you get this up and going and I'm still team no sounds for the NC meet


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Notloudenuf said:


> Looking forward to seeing this
> 
> 2.5 weeks....that's plenty of time!!!


haha, so you think. All the way up until the meet guess what? Exams/Midterms! Let alone the fact that Final Fantasy XIII is out now and God of War III will be out next week, its been very tempting and I cant do it all, lol!


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

slade1274 said:


> You know meng... it's going to be embarrassing if you get this up and going and I'm still team no sounds for the NC meet


lol, yep that would be pretty embarrassing so let that be some motivation!


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Here are some before/after pictures of the modded 4.0, dont have any pictures of the installed Class A input boards. According to Matt "The push/pull class A bias was increased by 3X, I was able to to get that much bias because of the cooling and fan mods."

Before pics, stock output filter, stock coupling and feedback caps, stock fans and input board. 

































After pics with all the new goods installed.


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## Matt R (Aug 29, 2007)

Sweet man, looks good. I've always wanted to try the peerless 8's, hopefully I can hear your car one day.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Another thing that I am Loving about this setup/amps too is absolutely ZERO noise, no alternator whine, not even a little hiss, nothing! With the DC amps I had a little hiss that was noticable but not audible enough while the vehicle was running. I still have some things to work out on the software side to eliminate the crackling/popping, but its about 95-98% clean right now. There is however a little issue I have with the onboard sound which I am using to run the rear midbass drivers, every other boot it seems to like to have constant crackling and its just the onboard sound, I tried different drivers to no avail so I dont know. 

Also when the system shuts down there is a loud pop on the rear midbass as well, but thats pretty simple to fix, just put the turn on signal from ignition instead of from the M4-ATX PS. But I am assuming its something to do because its using the onboard sound card.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

I've run in to a few cars where the (factory) amps take a couple of seconds to turn off once they don't see turn on anymore. So they are still on when the head units shut off the RCA outputs upon shutdown resulting in a pop.

On some Benzes I've found that putting a ground loop isolator on the RCA's solves this...when interfacing with the stock system.

Not the preferred method, I know...but on the stock system no one would notice the difference.

Jay


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Some updates here: I have been having some heat issues with the Computer in the trunk. I decided to ditch the stock heatsink, I was really hoping to get it working as it would fit very nicely with the top of the case but thats alright. I picked up Thermalright axp-140 which encompases almost the entire size of the motherboard! So clearly the top of the case will not be used anymore. 

I am going to force the computer toward the corner and "make" some vents to the outside so that air can flow, the only thing that concerns me is humidity from the outside, but as long as water doesnt come up through the vent I think it should be ok. 

Here are a few pictures with the new heatsink and fan.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

did you ever find software to act as a processor giving you active crossovers, time alignment, eq etc. ?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

yep, using audiomulch and vst plugins, but been having time delay issues that I need to sort out.

Got the PC in my living room, just testing it out, trying to get all the cracks and pops out of it before I stick it back in the car, plus the thermal paste needs to cure.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Well after the third trunk design I settled on this. I really wanted to try to use a Plexiglas sheet over the amps and possibly over the sub, but I just couldnt get it to work, wasted one sheet of acrylic because of a screw up....

I may still need to throw in another fan blowing air down for the bottom two amps, but I think it will be alright. 


























Got a bunch of tuning done today as well and its starting to sound Much better now. Havent been able to get rid of the last 2% of cracks/pops and its really annoying, nor have I been able to fix the time delay issue but as long as I can get it close then I can do the rest by ear, it might not be exacly perfect but close enough IMO.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

Dunno if this will help, but I've noticed that any type of digital EQ will reduce my digital dynamic range by a few dB and lead to pops on my PC. For instance, when I run Foobar's crossover plugin, I get digital clipping which goes away when I reduce the digital level by a given amount.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

That looks great Drake! Good work.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

t3sn4f2 said:


> Dunno if this will help, but I've noticed that any type of digital EQ will reduce my digital dynamic range by a few dB and lead to pops on my PC. For instance, when I run Foobar's crossover plugin, I get digital clipping which goes away when I reduce the digital level by a given amount.


Well, there is a lot more than just digital EQ that can cause that I am sure you know. Some sound cards clip at 100% and you gotta back them down to 90 or 80%. In some digital EQ's any positive increase will cause clipping. When I was testing in the house all I did was use audiomulch and went straight from sound in to sound out, no processing whatsoever and the clicks/pops remained.... Tried tons of solutions to no avail. I am still messing with buffer settings and other things, I will figure it out eventually.


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## fish (Jun 30, 2007)

Nice & simple. I like the sight of that huge sub back there.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

The Drake said:


> Well, there is a lot more than just digital EQ that can cause that I am sure you know. Some sound cards clip at 100% and you gotta back them down to 90 or 80%. In some digital EQ's any positive increase will cause clipping. When I was testing in the house all I did was use audiomulch and went straight from sound in to sound out, no processing whatsoever and the clicks/pops remained.... Tried tons of solutions to no avail. I am still messing with buffer settings and other things, I will figure it out eventually.


Sorry, I meant to say digital crossover. When I would add a simple filter, it would start clipping. I would then have to lower the amplitude by almost 6 db depending on the crossover frequency. Just found that weird since a filter isn't suppose to add amplitude (I would think.......).

Maybe it's just my particular PC with that plugin causing that funky result.

Curious.....have you ever encountered something like that with the other programs?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

fish said:


> Nice & simple. I like the sight of that huge sub back there.


Thanks. I like it too, I wanted to do something a little more "showy". I have a bunch of blue LED strips too that I am going to stick on the "roof" of the trunk and see how that looks.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

t3sn4f2 said:


> Sorry, I meant to say digital crossover. When I would add a simple filter, it would start clipping. I would then have to lower the amplitude by almost 6 db depending on the crossover frequency. Just found that weird since a filter isn't suppose to add amplitude (I would think.......).
> 
> Maybe it's just my particular PC with that plugin causing that funky result.
> 
> Curious.....have you ever encountered something like that with the other programs?


Even if its the actual plugins which I highly doubt, I dont have volume anywhere near 100% so chances of it clipping the output are pretty low. 

I didnt test the setup out by taking audiomulch out of the equation so I couldnt tell you, but any player will do the same, winamp, foobar, WMP, VLC, powerDVD, etc... So what that tells me is that its something to do with either audiomulch and/or ASIO.


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## ungo4 (Jun 5, 2009)

Glad to see your getting the car closer to working properly Drake. Maybe the next gtg we'll try one of my discs again and see if it will play properly on the first try.:surprised:

That sub looks cool setting back there. You don't see many 18's being used now days.

Tim


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Hey Drake - I love the new look! Wow - I can still remember what it looked like the first time we got together for a listen - you did a fantastic job! 

I really want to get together and listen - I'll give you a shout about meeting up in Raleigh.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bertholomey said:


> Hey Drake - I love the new look! Wow - I can still remember what it looked like the first time we got together for a listen - you did a fantastic job!
> 
> I really want to get together and listen - I'll give you a shout about meeting up in Raleigh.


Thanks Jason. I still have A LOT of tuning ahead of me, but its getting better every session  We need to start thinking about another little git together too! I wouldnt mind hosting a smaller one again at the end of May beginning of June.


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

Nice look Drake- I assume the way the drivers side is done with the fan that you still have the PC in the trunk. Everything going well with the heat?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

slade1274 said:


> Nice look Drake- I assume the way the drivers side is done with the fan that you still have the PC in the trunk. Everything going well with the heat?


Thanks Ryan. Yeah, I hacked up a "vent" to the outside of the car so its pulling air from outside pretty well and keeping it cool. It actually stays cooler when I am driving than when I am parked. Havent gone above 47C on the hottest day we have had so its looking good, plus the new heatsink, thermal paste, and fan help as well  Will continue monitoring as the temperature goes up. I do need to put a filter on the air coming in though, dont want dirt or anything coming up into the trunk.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

how much would you say you have invested into this carpc? i have a laptop im thinking about gutting and turning into a carpc... any thoughts?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> how much would you say you have invested into this carpc? i have a laptop im thinking about gutting and turning into a carpc... any thoughts?


Well I listed all the components I have used in this thread so you can look those prices up to see. I dont really know off the top of my head, I would guess around $600 give or take, but the software cost probably as much or more than the hardware. When you are talking about OS, audiomulch, plugins, GPS, VAC, frontend, etc... That will easily add up to more than the hardware.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

damn, any pointers as to go about using the guts of a laptop for this project?

im hoping most of the software can be pirated off of torrent sites


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> damn, any pointers as to go about using the guts of a laptop for this project?
> 
> im hoping most of the software can be pirated off of torrent sites


you would think, but I doubt it. Alot of this "specialized" software that we use for CarPC's are difficult if not impossible to find. Plus there is a little something immoral about that so I am personally against it. 

I had a netbook prior to this setup and there were never any good USB 5.1 or 7.1 sound card options, too many issues with coming back from standby/hibernate let alone the processing issues with USB sound. DAC's are a little more windows friendly when it comes to coming back from standby/hibernate IIRC. The better option is to use a USB sound/DAC to an external processor.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

i wouldnt mind paying for software if i wasnt in college... until i start my career im ok being an a$$hole and stealing it because im broke... honesty will come later


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> i wouldnt mind paying for software if i wasnt in college... until i start my career im ok being an a$$hole and stealing it because im broke... honesty will come later


I hear ya. I was the same way in college so I am no less guilty than anyone else who does it or has done it. Heck I used to run a server in college that was a conduit for pirated software  But over the years God had convicted my heart of it so I avoid it as best I can, only reason I use it is if some software doesn't have a demo/trial version and I need to make sure it works for my application.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

small update for those that are curious how the computer does in the trunk on hot days. Was up to about 33C (91-92F) today, drove the car around for a while in this heat and processor capped at 55C but typical temp was 47-49C. Well within safe temperatures, the GPU ran a little hotter capping at 57C which is still perfectly fine. CPU is rated at 74.1C IIRC but I dont want to go above 65 which is looking pretty good right now. It Rarely ever gets over 38C (100F) here so I dont forsee having any heat issues, but will still continue monitoring of course. The only thing I still have a concern about is moisture, it hasnt rained much at all lately which is surprising considering what TN got earlier, so I havent really been able to gauge those conditions just yet.


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## sedtc (Jan 26, 2008)

this is truly an excellent install! i don't really post often but i just read most of your thread so i could see where you've come from to where you are now. carpcs are definitely the best way to get the most control over the sound and it seems that you have studied up and accomplished just that. i've been running a carpc in my ride for a couple years now and my next step is building an active system around the pc. 

some thoughts that came to mind after reading:

how do you like that asus card for tuning? 

there's a freeware program similar to console that you may be able to use for vst plugins, i'll have to think about the name of it.

i really like that case you're using, what kind is it? the m4 doesn't look like it fits in there and i'm running two m2-atx (one for the mb, the other for peripherals), do you think they might fit in there? 

i wish i was in nc to hear your setup. keep up the good work!


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Thanks for the kind words. The asus card is fine, no issues other than it doesn't do internal routing, I am using VAC which isnt ideal but gets the job done. The M4 is a little bit to fit in there unless I just scrapped the 3.5" bay. Not sure the size of the M2 so I cant comment. The case I got at mini-box, there are a bunch of similar ones on their site.


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## blazron22z (Jun 15, 2009)

i always wanted a carputer in my car but i heard its to much hassle for a daily driver


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

blazron22z said:


> i always wanted a carputer in my car but i heard its to much hassle for a daily driver


Naw, it's basically a customizable aftermarket head unit with MUCH MUCH more potential in everyway. 

The only hassle is the STEEP learning curve and the setup trouble shooting in order establish a stable unit that functions JUST LIKE an aftermarket NAV head unit, in EVERY way.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

The carputer requires little to no maintenance for a daily driver (which mine is) unless something goes wrong. The biggest pain is setting it up for the first time. There is a great deal to learn and I would Never recommend setting up a computer in the car unless you have significant experience with both the hardware and software side.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Been a while since I updated this thread, but a few things have changed as they always do given enough time 

Ordered a few supplies and invested in a good jigsaw. 










A lot of you know that I got rid of the Zapco amps and moved to Audison LRx's for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to get my spare back and two, I wanted to push some more power to the L8's. 

I picked up a 5.1k and two 2.9's as a replacement for the zapco's. Since I wanted to put my spare back I needed to figure out how I wanted to install the amps. The two I liked are pictured here:


















I liked the first setup there but wiring would be a little messy, it would be heavy to lift to get to the spare, and I wouldnt be able to put anything on top of the amps, if I covered them I would be too concerned about them getting too hot. So I decided on the second setup but with the setup at an angle in front of the sub. I cut a spare piece of wood from my last setup to see if it would fit alright. Something like this but upside down. 










So, I cut the "U" shape piece of wood, carpted it and wired everything on the back, a little bit of a mess, but its an organized mess, haha. 


























Here is it installed with the floor piece made over the spare tire.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

I have always complained about the 10.4" screen I originally installed because during the day, even on a cloudy day it always look washed out and difficult to read, impossible to read in direct sunlight. I have been searching for a better screen (sunlight viewable) for a while now but they were always so expensive, anywhere from $800 to $2000 just for a 10 or 12 inch screen. Even some of those cheaper ones on ebay or elsewhere that say they are sunlight viewable really arent and you gotta be careful about how they use that language. The specs show you if it will be useful. 

But anyway, after a long search and not wanting to dish out 1k+ on just a touchscreen I found a great deal on ebay for a Planar LX1200TI for $200 free shipping. This is a crazy price cause these things go new for about $1200. From what I understood the lot of these screens were from a police auction, I honestly couldnt believe it wasnt gone as soon the auction went up. Not only is it sunlight viewable, but its a higher resolution as well at 1024 x 768. It was a little bigger than I wanted at 12.1" but that was alright, for such a great price I will go through the hassle of fabricating something new. Now it was a matter of figuring out how to install this thing as well, I had room to stick it far into the dash (since I dont want to cut the dash up) or it would have to come out in front of the dash. 

Here is the new screen entirely in the dash, basically behind it. You might not be able to see it, but from a normal seated position the screen was about 4-6 inches out of reach, I found myself leaning forward to use the touchscreen or even the Climate controls. 









Here is the picture in front of the dash. It seems a bit close because it is, lol. Its definitely in reach in this position so I decided to go with this setup. 









Finally got around to fabricating something for the screen just recently and here it is:


















































Got a few cracks that look pretty awful, not sure what all those specs are in the pictures because they arent there when you look at it. I will probably fix these, but who knows. My laziness might kick in, haha.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

you most likely have cracks because you didnt use a strong enough product. it looks like you just globbed bondo on there to build it up. you really should have made wooden mounts for each thing to mount in, then stretched cloth and done fiberglass from the back side. that would have given everything strength. then you can build up the shape to your desired shape and then use kitty hair to keep it rigid. then use light weight filler at the end to fill in the pin holes.

basically bondo expands and contracts in the heat cold and will end up cracking because its basically fiberglass epoxy resin without the fiberglass, just fumed silica to thicken it up (kind of like flour + water). its the same thing with paper mache, the flour+water is brittle without the newspaper for rigidity.

but i like the way it came out. i think i would have shot it with a SEM texture paint though


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

While I was at making some changes I ended up getting a new case so it had room for a bigger micro-ATX motherboard and room for the M4 power supply. Had some trouble finding one small enough to fit in the trunk, but this one worked provided I take off the front face. 

Newegg.com - Linkworld Black body/ Silver strip Steel 6280-01 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Got a ASRock G31M-S to go with the motherboard. Since this board didnt have built in wifi I grabbed a Edimax EW-7128G PCI card. I also threw in a very old Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound card I had from years ago to expand my available channels from 8 to 14. I had planned to get a video card just to play HD content more smoothly, but ended up getting something a little more powerful for the occasional game, although I dont really forsee gaming on this thing I like knowing that I have that option, lol. Picked up a Radeon HD 5670

Everything is installed but the computer is yet to go back in the car, still waiting to finish a few things. With the added sound card I now have the option for setting up surround sound like I wanted from the very begining. I had such a difficult time trying to get rid of all the pops/clicks out of this system and its still not perfect. I have it setup where a audio dropout (<1 second) happens once every 23 minutes. From what I had to troubleshoot just to get there that is more than acceptable to me. Then had the trouble of trying to get 4.1 to work. All in all I had this computer setup in house for about 3 weeks trying to figure it all out. Anytime I had free I was working on the computer so much so that I was sick of working on it but I just couldnt stop! Guess thats what you call an obsession  

I honestly should have made sure that I could get the multichannel to work before I purchased parts for rear surround but I probably put too much faith in my ability, haha. Luckily it all worked out. Doing a two way rear with:

Tang Band W3-1364SA 3" Bamboo cone
Peerless SLS 8's or Hybrid Audio L8's (depends on if I change up front)
Massive Audio NX4 - bridged to the 8's
Massive Audio NX2 - on the Tang band's

picture of the new gear: 


















Going to put the two MA amps under the seats, got them because of their size and they easily fit under my seats. I actually had much more space than I thought I did. I dont have pictures right now but will post them later. 

I decided on throwing the Tang band's in the rear pillars and the 8's in the doors since I already had some fabricated anyway. The doors you have seen, nothing has changed there yet, I will finish them later just not sure exactly how. Got the rear pillars done this past week. 

Fiberglass first.

























Body filler and spot putty


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Primer, paint, and clear coat


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

req said:


> you most likely have cracks because you didnt use a strong enough product. it looks like you just globbed bondo on there to build it up. you really should have made wooden mounts for each thing to mount in, then stretched cloth and done fiberglass from the back side. that would have given everything strength. then you can build up the shape to your desired shape and then use kitty hair to keep it rigid. then use light weight filler at the end to fill in the pin holes.
> 
> basically bondo expands and contracts in the heat cold and will end up cracking because its basically fiberglass epoxy resin without the fiberglass, just fumed silica to thicken it up (kind of like flour + water). its the same thing with paper mache, the flour+water is brittle without the newspaper for rigidity.
> 
> but i like the way it came out. i think i would have shot it with a SEM texture paint though



Thanks, I am aware of the process  But it had more to do with me forcing the Climate controls in there, it was a pretty tight fit, obviously too tight, lol. Again, I will probably go back and fix it if there is enough time before the meet.

I didnt want the texture paint on the center console, but I might redo the pillars, both front and rear with that. I just pick up whatevers at the local store.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

lol gotcha.

you didnt include details about the forcing climate controls in hahah 

either way - its way more work that i think is worth the effort.

there is software out there somewhere that lets you do all kinds of crazy eq\xover\tcorr\phase\ect stuff ... megalomaniac showed it to me a while ago. ill see if i can figure it out - i think you would be incredibly interested in it! ill let you know.


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Wow Drake! I expected to see some evolutionary steps to your install, not a complete revolution!

I of course had seen the amp change and new layout - very nice. And I was privy to the purchase of the new screen and saw it in action - nice improvement. I really like how you integrated it into the dash, and I'm sure that if you feel the need, and can find some time, you may re-work it a bit if you feel it needs it. 

I had no idea though about the surround - wow! I'm really looking forward to your new system and hearing what it will be capable of. You said you weren't able to get much done over the break, but it looks like you accomplished a lot. Good job!


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

So looking forward to hearing this.

I guess in addition to CDs I need to bring DVDs as well??


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

req said:


> lol gotcha.
> 
> you didnt include details about the forcing climate controls in hahah
> 
> ...


Yeah, there are literally hundreds of thousands of plugins you can use with Audiomulch, possibilities are endless, for what we would use for real time audio is nothing compared to what you can do with this software. Its so customizable, I love it! Although it is overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang of things its pretty easy. I am still finding new plugins that I want to try. 



bertholomey said:


> Wow Drake! I expected to see some evolutionary steps to your install, not a complete revolution!
> 
> I of course had seen the amp change and new layout - very nice. And I was privy to the purchase of the new screen and saw it in action - nice improvement. I really like how you integrated it into the dash, and I'm sure that if you feel the need, and can find some time, you may re-work it a bit if you feel it needs it.
> 
> I had no idea though about the surround - wow! I'm really looking forward to your new system and hearing what it will be capable of. You said you weren't able to get much done over the break, but it looks like you accomplished a lot. Good job!


Thanks for the kind words. The center console piece actually took a good month to do, pretty much all of February was dedicated to that. Granted I dont have much time between work and school but it was many hours, I just never could figure out how I wanted it to look. I really wish I was more creative, but I just made whatever I could for functionality. 



Notloudenuf said:


> So looking forward to hearing this.
> 
> I guess in addition to CDs I need to bring DVDs as well??


Thats exactly what this means!  I will probably bring a few DVD's for demoning, but if you have one you want to hear then by all means bring it. Much of our music doesnt get down low so I am excited to see what my system can do with movies


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

you looking for some HAT L8's? i got a new set if you want.


every time i see this thread it gets my gears turning about building a car pc.


couple questions:

how do you run the power supply to your car to have it power on with the car and all that jazz?

how do you go from the little 3.5mm jack to rca for the amps?


what are these clicks your talking about, why did they happen and how did you get rid of them?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> you looking for some HAT L8's? i got a new set if you want.
> 
> every time i see this thread it gets my gears turning about building a car pc.
> 
> ...


No, I have L8's already up front, but might switch to dual 8's up front with 4 SLS 8's and then move the L8's in the rear, I am making/made some kick panels to test out. 

With the M4 power supply is an intelligent design so it has the trigger for the PC turn on and the amp turn on and the USB hub and screen both power off the computer as well so when the PC gets turned they are on. Not much else to say about that. Power supply does all the work for me. 

3.5mm to RCA cables are what you use. 

clicks, pops, crackling and the like can come from practically anything when your talking about a computer. Can come from your wifi device, usb devices, high CPU load, bad drivers, buffers, clock differences, etc... Troubleshooting those in a complex system like this one can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack it seems. So many variables can cause it and with mine it ended up being VAC, I had to forever mess with settings in VAC to get rid of them and even now its not 100% free from anomalies, but acceptable to me and probably not even noticeable to anyone else. Its never the same for every computer, some people I know never had any issues at all or at least never mentioned them.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

I also picked up another little toy, a Tektronix 475 oscilloscope for $80 on ebay. Was sold as-is and only testing done was it was powered on so I was taking a gamble, but luckily it was working perfectly when I got it, needs calibrating but for my needs it doesnt matter. Had a chance to play with it on the PC outputs on both audio cards. Will have some more fun with it once I get everything back in the car.


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## ryomanx (Feb 18, 2011)

Looking good! I like what you did with the rears and I appreciate that advice you gave me on another thread. I finally got access to all 8ch on my sound card with a stereo input. I was wonder what did you do exactly to get the 4.1 working as that is exactly what I'm wanting to do myself. If it's already in the thread I must have missed it.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

how much did your setup run? i have a guy about to buy my F90BT DD and i will likely be going this route


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> how much did your setup run? i have a guy about to buy my F90BT DD and i will likely be going this route


For the PC or everything? Either way I couldnt tell you. My first Carputer build was around $600 for hardware alone, no accessories, monitor or anything else as I mentioned earlier, but a few things have changed here and there over the months that I wouldnt know anymore, but all the parts I have listed in the thread if you want to do the math. Depends on what kind of deals you can get too or if you go with some used parts.

I dont even know how much I paid for all the fabrication material, couldnt even guess but its probably more than I care to admit, especially with all the mistakes I made and had to redo, lol.


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## saMxp (Jun 22, 2007)

That's the price to pay to be ahead of your time! I can't wait to see the new setup.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Got the amps installed under the seats, not the prettiest thing but they are secure in there and with the seats in position you cant even see them. 


















I also refinished the a-pillars with SEM texture coating, fixed a few imperfections as well and put the dashmat back in there just because.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Got around to building and finishing the kicks for the 8's as well. They vent into the area behind the kicks, whatever that is called I dont know. Its still to be determined if I am going to just go with the L8's in the kicks only or do dual SLS8's in the kicks and doors.


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

I'll be sure to watch my feet when I get in.

Can't afford to kick holes in L8s.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Notloudenuf said:


> I'll be sure to watch my feet when I get in.
> 
> Can't afford to kick holes in L8s.


haha, no need. There will be grills covering them


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## MTopper (Nov 4, 2009)

looks really good. those kicks form well to the contours of the floor.

what is the main difference you notice between the L8s and the SLS?


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Great work Drake -can't wait to hear and see it in a couple weeks. What is your initial impressions of the 8's in the kicks vs the doors?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bertholomey said:


> Great work Drake -can't wait to hear and see it in a couple weeks. What is your initial impressions of the 8's in the kicks vs the doors?


Pretty good so far, I havent gotten them in there completely, still need to seal off the area to the vent if that makes sense. Because of that the low end is lacking a bit but easter break starts on the 18th so I should be able to get everything done that I want in the next two weekends. The trunk is next and then Maybe I will do something with the rear doors and if I decide to go dual 8's then I will have to refinish the front doors, but honestly I just dont see that there is enough time for all that, I gotta leave myself plenty of time for listening and tuning before the meet too.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

jesus christ make your mind man! lol good work though, always love a good carputer build


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

I meant to post these earlier, but here are a few snaps of the PC in the new case. Its still pretty crammed in there. Every PCI slot is full and the video card's fan barely clears the wifi card below it. So far it does get pretty hot, I will have to put in the other fans to keep it cooler. I hit 72C (161F) on the video card on our hottest day here which was about 29C (84F). The Video card is safe up to 100C but I would rather stay below 70C when its idle. Plus the hotter the Video card gets the hotter the rest of the components will get as well.


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## BowDown (Sep 24, 2009)

Quick suggestion. Disable the WiFi when you're not using it. I remember back when I had my first carPC in 2002... I was driving to PA and couldn't for the life of me figure out why my music was pausing. :lol: Turns out every time there was an unsecured network the PC was trying to hookup. Ah the joys of war driving.


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## BowDown (Sep 24, 2009)

Also whats the deal with the unprotected speaker wire going into the power supply? If that's permanent I would use some kind of rubber bushing.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

I suggest for cooling, that should keep you much cooler would be the coirsair h70, its a "watter cool system" but its a in the box WC system, it'll free up all that overhead space, should cool things down quite a bit, plus the cpu would likly run allot cooler, you would never fit the rad and fan in that case but you should be able to easily mount it externaly, would get better air flow like that anyways. idk im a techy buy  this might be a bit of overkill. but if heats a problem. 

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Hydro H70 CWCH70 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

BowDown said:


> Quick suggestion. Disable the WiFi when you're not using it. I remember back when I had my first carPC in 2002... I was driving to PA and couldn't for the life of me figure out why my music was pausing. :lol: Turns out every time there was an unsecured network the PC was trying to hookup. Ah the joys of war driving.


Appreciate the help but that hasnt been a problem in years, at least I never had a problem with it in any of my carputer setups. I read about it when I did have clicks and crackles a year or two ago, but it was never an issue with the netbook or with these two "desktop" setups I have had. Plus I use the Wifi while I am driving connected to my android wireless tether service  



BowDown said:


> Also whats the deal with the unprotected speaker wire going into the power supply? If that's permanent I would use some kind of rubber bushing.


I dont know what you mean by unprotected, if they werent they would short on the case immediately. Those holes are not unshaved metal so no risk in them getting cut up or anything if thats what you think. Had them like that since I had the M4 (1 year+), it runs the 5V line for the usb hub up front. If I did use anything I would use some high temp glue on it since its cheap and I already have it available.



eviling said:


> I suggest for cooling, that should keep you much cooler would be the coirsair h70, its a "watter cool system" but its a in the box WC system, it'll free up all that overhead space, should cool things down quite a bit, plus the cpu would likly run allot cooler, you would never fit the rad and fan in that case but you should be able to easily mount it externaly, would get better air flow like that anyways. idk im a techy buy  this might be a bit of overkill. but if heats a problem.
> 
> Newegg.com - CORSAIR Hydro H70 CWCH70 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler


Thanks for the suggestion, I am familiar with the corsair's. They arent that great and they definitely arent anything close to a water cooling system. Believe it or not but in reviews and tests of the heatsink I have now beat the H50 in performance, the H70 is new so I havent compared the two, but the CPU heat isnt an issue for me and I am not going to spend another $50+ just for something that doesnt need changing. The GPU temperatures are what could potentially be an issue. But when I had the computer in the car just for testing there were no fans at all in there, I will have at least two 120mm 133CFM fans in the trunk circulating air and thats usually always plenty.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Thankfully we survived the tornadoes on Saturday and the house/car are still all in one piece so I was able to get some work done on Sunday. Put some carpet down in the trunk and was setting gains with my new old oscilloscope.

The L8's in the kicks sound great, some good chest impacting midbass although it lacks on the low end in comparison to when they were in the doors. 70Hz and below drops off really quick and not sure why. Only had time to set gains and do a little level matching before I completely drained the rear battery, lol. Thank goodness its Easter break so I have a bunch of time to finish this up.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

what do you do with your old gear? im in the market for some stuff


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> what do you do with your old gear? im in the market for some stuff


most of the stuff I usually sell, cant afford to get new gear without getting rid of the old stuff usually. PM me with what you need, I have lots of various stuff around, no drivers or amps though if thats what you are looking for.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Quick update, I figured out why I was having such a difficult time with setting up multiple sound cards... Apparently each sound card has a different clock and according to Ross over at Audiomulch he said:

"This is normal, and due the the slight variation in clock rates from different quartz crystals -- no two sound cards will run at _exactly_ the same speed, although you might find that some are more closely aligned than others (either due to better crystals or luck)"

So in sum, no two audio cards will have the same clock, even exactly identical sound cards and so when you try to use them together like I am here then one will be off from the other and that will cause pops, clicks, dropouts. The way I found this out was because when I attempted to do T/A the audigy 2 sound card would never return consistent results, it would always drift. A lot of this is over my head, lol. 

Sooooo, onto what the solution would be. I either have to get a single sound card that has all the outputs I want which none exists unless you go to the pro audio gear and spend literally thousands of dollars, no thanks on that. Or I can get a sound card that has whats called a word clock connector so that it can sync up the clock between audio equipment. After a little bit of research I found the M-Audio Delta 1010LT can do this and they are pretty affordable especially considering the price of that pro audio gear I was looking at, sheesh. Gonna try to find some used 1010LT's for under $100 each and throw them in there. Messes up my setup a little bit because now I will have to sell my Asus Xonar D2x and grab a PCI Express wireless card since the M-audio cards are both PCI. I may not have the new cards in before the meet so I will most likely just keep the Asus card in there and only have the front stage plus sub setup. Might not have the rear surround setup for the meet


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

The Drake said:


> Might not have the rear surround setup for the meet


What, no T-Rex lunch in 10.1?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

slade1274 said:


> What, no T-Rex lunch in 10.1?


lol, well you know thats not how it works. If I can ever get it setup properly I probably wont even have the rears on with a stereo source. 

I can get the new sound cards in this week but honestly it would be too much to try to get them working and wired up since they are RCA's and not 3.5mm.... I am just going to leave the setup as is and only use the Asus card for now, probably wont invest that much time in tuning it now since it will have to be redone with the new cards.


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## AdamTaylor (Sep 7, 2008)

no, mainly looking for car pc


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

AdamTaylor said:


> no, mainly looking for car pc


well, I might have an Asus Xonar D2x sound card available provided I can get a pair of delta 1010lt's to work the way I want. From what I can tell the M-audio cards dont like standby or hibernation which will make this a longer boot up time.

I do have an old school Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum pro card that can do internal routing through kx project but it only has 6 channels available.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

drake, i dont know if its been mentioned, i couldnt find it.

but what software do you use for the DSP again? you told me but i forgot and im trying to set it up on my home PC if i can- but i can not figure out what its called.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

req said:


> drake, i dont know if its been mentioned, i couldnt find it.
> 
> but what software do you use for the DSP again? you told me but i forgot and im trying to set it up on my home PC if i can- but i can not figure out what its called.


Sent you a pm


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

right on. thanks for the info - any tips on the xover\eq\tcorr plugins? i have no idea how that website you linked me to, or this software for that matter works 0_o

you may need to give me some pointers man.

i downloaded virtual audio cable. and i installed it and see it as a device. it shows up in audiomulch. i set it as the input source. i set the speakers as the output source chan1\2 for left\right i believe. i put an VST equalizer plugin in between, and whatever i do nothing effects the audio signal on the speakers.

do i have to have a dedicated sound card?


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## strakele (Mar 2, 2009)

Drake, it was nice getting to meet you yesterday. I really hope your system is working next time I'm up there. Your pillars look really nice, and carPC + 4 8" midbasses, plus Fi 18 IB has to = awesome.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

strakele said:


> Drake, it was nice getting to meet you yesterday. I really hope your system is working next time I'm up there. Your pillars look really nice, and carPC + 4 8" midbasses, plus Fi 18 IB has to = awesome.


Thanks, it was great meeting you too. I enjoyed your system, thanks for letting me listen, hope to return the favor next meet and have something for you to listen to in my car.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Update - Some new equipment ready to be installed. Gonna keep the Audison LRx 2.9's, replacing the 5.1k with the amps below.


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Wow! I didn't realize you got tweets as well - illuminators? 

Those X Series amps look amazing - I'm curious as to your impressions will be when you have more power on tap.


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## strakele (Mar 2, 2009)

Are those the illuminator midrange or midbass? Either way.. Awesome. Also, I know we were talking about getting that nice kick bass at the meet... Installing a front sub has absolutely done it for me. It's great.. Jason can attest to it as well. Just something to think about. Nice gear you've got here!


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bertholomey said:


> Wow! I didn't realize you got tweets as well - illuminators?
> 
> Those X Series amps look amazing - I'm curious as to your impressions will be when you have more power on tap.


Yes, indeed. specifically they are:

ScanSpeak Illuminator R3004/6020-00 1" Tweeter Small Ring Radiator: Madisound Speaker Store



strakele said:


> Are those the illuminator midrange or midbass? Either way.. Awesome. Also, I know we were talking about getting that nice kick bass at the meet... Installing a front sub has absolutely done it for me. It's great.. Jason can attest to it as well. Just something to think about. Nice gear you've got here!


They are the Illuminator 12MU's, L8's still taking care of the midbass. 

Yeah, I saw your build thread talking about it. I still am messing with dual midbasses (one in door, other in kicks). Gonna exhaust all of those options before I try anything else. My main goal right now though is just to get the whole 4.1 working near flawlessly, if successful then prolly switching out the rear amps, redoing the rear doors.


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## The A Train (Jun 26, 2007)

Cant wait to see what you will come up with!


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

been awhile since i followed this one. looks good mate, how did that carputer ever turn out?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

eviling said:


> been awhile since i followed this one. looks good mate, how did that carputer ever turn out?


Which one? This is like the 4th iteration, lol. But they all worked out well, nothing particularly wrong with any of the setups I have had, just wanted something different each change. Biggest problem that is hard to overcome is heat/humidity when the PC is in the trunk, luckily I havent had any issues there, but thats probably because I mess with my setup so much that it never has a chance, haha. I have been happy, I just need to stop messing with things so much and give myself more time to enjoy the setup before I decide to try something new.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

The Drake said:


> Which one? This is like the 4th iteration, lol. But they all worked out well, nothing particularly wrong with any of the setups I have had, just wanted something different each change. Biggest problem that is hard to overcome is heat/humidity when the PC is in the trunk, luckily I havent had any issues there, but thats probably because I mess with my setup so much that it never has a chance, haha. I have been happy, I just need to stop messing with things so much and give myself more time to enjoy the setup before I decide to try something new.


yeah, my setup i picked parts VERY carefuly, im a prtty solid computer builder, so i have a strong advantage but even than theirs always osmething you end up wanting to change. did you check out my build?


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

eviling said:


> yeah, my setup i picked parts VERY carefuly, im a prtty solid computer builder, so i have a strong advantage but even than theirs always osmething you end up wanting to change. did you check out my build?


Ha! Took me months to even decide if I wanted to do a carputer setup, then a few more months to plan it out and another few months to execute it! 

Yes, I checked out your build, replied to your PM.


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## eviling (Apr 14, 2010)

The Drake said:


> Ha! Took me months to even decide if I wanted to do a carputer setup, then a few more months to plan it out and another few months to execute it!
> 
> Yes, I checked out your build, replied to your PM.


well ive been picking the parts for months my self, the only loose ends i really had my self were the car relevent parts i didnt know much about ive learned allot about those in the past few weeks. I think i have a pretty strong grasp on what i'm doing with the setup, I just need to figure out a few loose ends  thanks for the replly, nothing wrong with a little tough love. :laugh:


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Been a while since I updated and honestly my interest has kinda wavered over the past year in car audio, some other things in my life have taken priority, mostly personal/family stuff that I wont bore anyone with. 

Re-did the A pillars with the new mids/tweets, wanted to move the tweeter over to the other side of the midrange, closer to the doors for some extra width in the stage, lost some depth but I think its worth it. The pillars and speaker enclosure are no longer one piece but seperated into two. 

Driver side









Passenger side









Trunk has changed up a bit. As mentioned a couple posts ago the amps have changed: kept the LRx 2.9's, got rid of the 5.1k and replaced it with 2 X-ion amps (160.4 & 280.2). I had some problems with the case and fitting in the two new m-audio sound cards, The alignment with the motherboard and the actual case was off and I couldnt quite fit the bottom PCI sound card in, so grabbed a new case that looks a heck of alot better and much more space for air to circulate. Since its bigger its not in an ideal spot, but you gotta work with the space you have. Because of the bigger case and bigger amps I had to get rid of the spare and moved all the amps in the wheel well, computer still on the driver side and extra battery on the passenger side. 

A "little" surprise for those that haven't seen it yet. And Yes, those are TWO 18's  couldnt believe I got them to fit in there.



























The LRx 2.9's are below the X-ion amps and there is a small crossflow fan that blows directly across them to keep them cool.


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Great pics of the updates......heard Drake's car at the NC Spring Meet, and it sounded fantastic!!! He had said that he wasn't as into the hobby lately, and then he showed up at my house with huge changes. I can't wait to hear it again at the Fall Meet!


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

I have a video on youtube of your car playing "Drop" by Cornelius.
I could link it if you approved.


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

was thinking to myself... if one 18 was a tad overkill....


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

bertholomey said:


> Great pics of the updates......heard Drake's car at the NC Spring Meet, and it sounded fantastic!!! He had said that he wasn't as into the hobby lately, and then he showed up at my house with huge changes. I can't wait to hear it again at the Fall Meet!


Thanks for the kind words, brother  Very much looking forward to the meet as well. 



Notloudenuf said:


> I have a video on youtube of your car playing "Drop" by Cornelius.
> I could link it if you approved.


Sure man, link away. 



slade1274 said:


> was thinking to myself... if one 18 was a tad overkill....


Me, overkill? when have you known me to do that? /sarcasm


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

The Drake said:


> Me, overkill? when have you known me to do that? /sarcasm


Jurassic Lunch DESERVES overkill


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## Notloudenuf (Sep 14, 2008)

I'm not Michael Bay


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

That is sweet! Very cool to see those drivers workin'.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Couple more pictures forgot to post, thought I had some pictures of the LRX amps underneath but I guess not.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

I havent messed much with the system since I had it all setup for the NC spring meet, but the kick panel 8's really dont add much, I dont know if its because of my installation, driver's, lack of power or combination of the above. I want to try pushing some more power to them just to see, I remember the SLS8's love more power. If I cant get it to sound the way I want, I will probably get rid of the kick panels and try putting a smaller sub up front similar to how grayson has his setup. 

I was happy with the Scan 12M's and the 12MU's are just an improvement over those. I am very happy with my frontstage as it stands right now, still needs some more tuning but as I have said before, thats always ongoing  

I still have yet to redo the rear doors and also want to redo the rear pillars, money has still been tight so not sure if I could do any of this before the meet in November but I will do what I can. 

I got rid of most, if not all, the pops and clicks in the audio, I do however have a new problem with this new setup and its that the audio will drop out every now and then, could be anywhere from 1min to 10 min between drop outs, sometimes the dropouts are for 1 second, others are 0.1 second. Hopefully I can find the cause before the meet, either way its not too bad. 

I am honestly just so happy I did get the surround setup to work in the car, its what I have wanted to do for some long but ran into so many dead ends and/or limitations. I really would have liked to setup a center channel but I would have a hard time finding something that would keep up with the rest of my frontstage that I would fit in the center, lol. If anyone has some suggestions I am all ears. At this point in time I dont want to do too much modding because the car is getting on in age/miles, but who knows with me, I may just get bored one day and break down and do a bunch more, haha.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Alright, time for a new car. Getting close to 150k in miles and wanting to move to something a little more fun to own and drive. Looking for some suggestions, new or used in the 20-25k price range. 

I liked Jason's Subaru BRZ and also like the Hyundai Genesis coupe just to give you an idea of my taste. Doesnt have to be a coupe, can be a 4-door sedan as well. Honestly though I would like to have something that wouldnt attract too much unwanted attention, I am not exactly in the best neighborhood but not the worst either. Another downside is I park in a parking lot. 

All suggestions welcome


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## Hdale85 (Jan 21, 2012)

An Audi S4 in the 06 or so range fits into that budget, it's what I'm looking to get. Not flashy, but very fun to drive  The Genesis and BRZ are both pretty out there cars so you seem to be contradicting your self lol.


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## subwoofery (Nov 9, 2008)

The Drake said:


> Alright, time for a new car. Getting close to 150k in miles and wanting to move to something a little more fun to own and drive. Looking for some suggestions, new or used in the 20-25k price range.
> 
> I liked Jason's Subaru BRZ and also like the Hyundai Genesis coupe just to give you an idea of my taste. Doesnt have to be a coupe, can be a 4-door sedan as well. Honestly though I would like to have something that wouldnt attract too much unwanted attention, I am not exactly in the best neighborhood but not the worst either. Another downside is I park in a parking lot.
> 
> All suggestions welcome


Hard to beat the Scion FR-S for its handling and fun 
Hard to beat the Hyundai Genesis Coupe being the best bang for the buck Horsepower and fun 
If I wanted to a nice car that wouldn't attract too much attention, good mileage, and powerful enough to be fun, I'd go with the Kia Optima 2.4L New 2013 Kia Optima LX Sedan Performance Specs - 2013 Kia Optima LX Sedan Performance Specifications - Motor Trend Magazine 

If you have the 7 year warranty in the US, that's a bonus 

Kelvin


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

Hdale85 said:


> An Audi S4 in the 06 or so range fits into that budget, it's what I'm looking to get. Not flashy, but very fun to drive  The Genesis and BRZ are both pretty out there cars so you seem to be contradicting your self lol.


I dont know if its a contradiction, but something that might need to be compromised based on my situation. are the Genesis and BRZ considered flashy cars? I guess maybe they are a little. Thanks for the suggestion, but I never really liked the look of Audi's. 



subwoofery said:


> Hard to beat the Scion FR-S for its handling and fun
> Hard to beat the Hyundai Genesis Coupe being the best bang for the buck Horsepower and fun
> If I wanted to a nice car that wouldn't attract too much attention, good mileage, and powerful enough to be fun, I'd go with the Kia Optima 2.4L New 2013 Kia Optima LX Sedan Performance Specs - 2013 Kia Optima LX Sedan Performance Specifications - Motor Trend Magazine
> 
> ...


Yeah, I did look at the FR-S too, definitely considering. Not the biggest fan of the look of the new Optima tbh. I dont like the look of my car, I got it cause it was cheap and practical, lol.


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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

Kelvin, the Optima is a great suggestion, even if it was a bit obvious.  I think that the new Optima can look mediocre, or really great, depending on the color. Nice wheels and rubber help, too. But you get a lot of car for the money and it's still just sporty enough to make it fun to drive while still being somewhat practical as a daily driver. Funny, Kia hired the lead designer from Audi for this line, and it really is evident, especially in the interior of the top line SXL. Kia has come a long way since 2002.

On another note, do yourself a favor and stay away from Audi, unless you can afford the time and expense of being an "Audi Owner". Don't get me wrong, they are amazing cars inside and out, but IMHO not worth the down time for repairs and "quirks", even for a brand new vehicle under warranty. And I would shoot myself in the foot before I even considered buying a used Audi that is out of warranty.

Some people never have an issue with theirs, but that must be rare, because every other Audi owner that I talked to after I purchased mine had multiple (and usually expensive) issues.

For reference, I owned a 2002 Audi Allroad 2.7T Wagon. I absolutely LOVED that car, but it quickly became a love/hate relationship. It ended up being an absolute money pit...I could fill a few pages with all of the issues it had during my ownership, but I won't waste your time. Fun to drive? YES! But, even for warranty repairs, it just wasn't worth the hassle of being without a car while it was in the shop (every other month it seemed). At some point, you just want (and need) a reliable vehicle, and the allroad wasn't it, at least for me. 

Just my .02 YMMV

Have fun new car shopping. After seeing all that you did in your build log here, I can't wait to see what you do with the car you end up purchasing!

Good luck!


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## bertholomey (Dec 27, 2007)

Hey Drake.....fun times. I can't wait to see your audio install in whatever new car you get. 

My Subi dealer is getting a new BRZ in - they were good folks to deal with. For some reason, I really like the look of the 2 dr Genesis Coupe in White.....can't explain it.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

I loved my Genesis Coupe. Only traded it in because I needed something that I could carry my table saw in, and maybe get better gas mileage. The new ones are ugly as sin tho, (IMO) no matter what color....most of the Hyundai line got ugly again in the last year or two. I like Kia's styling on their similar models much more.

The GC's trunk is only about 11" tall, with the trunk foam and carpet in place. It's kinda small to work with. 

Even tho it was rated higher, I only got about 20-24mpg with the turbo in mixed driving.
Factory HU says "Transfer complete" or something like that, EVERY time you start the car and it pairs to your phone. Many owners have complained that it gets VERY annoying. I barely noticed it. Mine was a 2010, and I know the 2011's were the same (unless it had nav, maybe) but not sure about the new ones.


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

Fun and practical? 2011+ WRX


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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

slade1274 said:


> Fun and practical? 2011+ WRX


Very true. Great little all-around car. They just need some extra sound deadening and I've been disappointed with the overall quality of the interior fit & finish in the new models compared to the competition.

Is it easy to add an aftermarket head unit or get a clean, flat signal from the factory HU? I know the '07 I worked on was a PITA.


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## The Drake (Apr 3, 2007)

JayinMI said:


> I loved my Genesis Coupe. Only traded it in because I needed something that I could carry my table saw in, and maybe get better gas mileage. The new ones are ugly as sin tho, (IMO) no matter what color....most of the Hyundai line got ugly again in the last year or two. I like Kia's styling on their similar models much more.


Haha, it really is personal preference with aesthetics cause I didnt like the 2010 model as much as the 2013. 

Appreciate all the recommendations and advice. It will be a couple months before I finalize what vehicle I will get, I like doing a lot of research ahead of time with big purchases.


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## subwoofery (Nov 9, 2008)

The Drake said:


> Haha, it really is personal preference with aesthetics cause I didnt like the 2010 model as much as the 2013.
> 
> Appreciate all the recommendations and advice. It will be a couple months before I finalize what vehicle I will get, I like doing a lot of research ahead of time with big purchases.


Why not tell us which kind of car you like, aesthetic wise? So that we have a base to help you from  
Aesthetically pleasing let's say below $50,000 

Kelvin


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## slade1274 (Mar 25, 2008)

bbfoto said:


> Very true. Great little all-around car. They just need some extra sound deadening and I've been disappointed with the overall quality of the interior fit & finish in the new models compared to the competition.
> 
> Is it easy to add an aftermarket head unit or get a clean, flat signal from the factory HU? I know the '07 I worked on was a PITA.


Sorry if this is a bit of a thread jack, but the door was opened 

Easy to put in what you want.... 

Build quality and reliability are great- interior fit is great, but finish is probably on the lower side; still much better post 08 than before IMHO. I'm someone that likes to personalize and tweak- this car is perfect if you like the exterior styling as you can build a very logical cost justification for a custom rig. Take a look at what Robb has done... 2011 WRX
Take resale out of the equation and he has a car that exceeds interior fit finish and performance of anything in the price range equal to his modifications. The car is amazing- and it has a sick new exterior mod coming soon.


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## bbfoto (Aug 28, 2005)

^Thanks Ryan! Just thought I'd ask so Drake would know up front in case he decided to consider a late model WRX as his next car.


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