# MarkZ's Volvo S60



## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

I'm going to add pictures to this thread later. But I wanted to start by describing phase 1 of the system.

Source: 
CarPC + Gigaport HD USB sound device + Xenarc touchscreen
Processing: 
(CarPC) FooBar2000 audio player with crossover, polarity, and delay DSP plugins

Front stage: 
Adire Audio Extremis (80-250) in the rear doors
B&C 6mdn44 (250-4000) in the front doors
stock tweeters (4000+) in the upper front doors
[approximate xover points in parenthesis]
Sub: 
(1) IDQ15, infinite baffle

Amps:
ESX Q604 (4 x 60w) - for the tweets and mids
ESX Q1752 (2 x 175w) - for the midbass 
Zed Minilith (1 x 600w?) - for the sub

Phase 2 will probably be converting to VST plugins for processing (so that I can add phase adjustment to the list of goodies), and the addition of a windshield-firing center channel (again, probably using the B&C driver). Not sure how I'm going to power it though.

Currently, here are pictures of the installed speakers and Damplifier-treated doors...

B&C in front doors









Extremis in rear doors









Trunk-mount battery + distro block


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

Any issues you noticed from rear mounted extremis ? [ 250 hz , makes me wonder about localization of speakers ].


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

a$$hole said:


> Any issues you noticed from rear mounted extremis ? [ 250 hz , makes me wonder about localization of speakers ].


I'll let you know when the amps are hooked up this weekend. 

I'm not terribly concerned with localization. Well, I shouldn't say that. I *was* terribly concerned with localization, and so I deadened the holy hell out of the inner and outer door, as well as all the vibrate-y parts of the door panel. Will it kill localization cues? Probably not. Other things in the back might vibrate too. Door lock maybe?

But it's also worth pointing out that this is a small-ish car. The back of my seat almost touches the front of the back seat, and so the speaker is about as far forward as my head is. Occlusion due to the seat shouldn't be much of a problem due to the low crossover point.

This is how we anti-kick-panelers roll.


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

You're aware of the odd-order distortion [ which may contribute to localizing these drivers  }

Quote>
MarkZ

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Join Date: Dec 2005
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Default Re: ? to those of you running Extremis woofers...
I'm in the same boat. Since I blew one of my mids, I've had to reconfigure the Extremis' to run up to ~2kHz instead of ~275Hz where they were before. Yeah, I don't really like the midrange from them, although it does sound better than I thought it would. Better than some car audio component sets even. Although, it's not entirely a "muffled" or attenuated problem as much as it is a lack of clarity/detail and some harshness at higher volumes. I haven't even looked at Zaph's graphs so I don't know what you're talking about, but I wouldn't be shocked to find that the odd order distortion is a bit higher than some others at appreciable output levels. I'd also guess that IMD becomes a factor when using it across such a broad spectrum. 
Quote>


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

a$$hole said:


> You're aware of the odd-order distortion [ which may contribute to localizing these drivers  }
> 
> Quote>
> MarkZ
> ...


But I'm not running them up at 2kHz anymore.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

UPDATE: "Phase 1" is almost complete. I will upload the finished interior pictures hopefully by tonight.

The trunk is in pieces right now. I had ALL THREE of my amplifiers fail between the time I took them out of my old car and installing them this time. Waiting on parts, and then trunk pics will come.

In the meantime, my GPS works.


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## lsm (Mar 11, 2009)

Nice!


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## SSCustoms (Oct 16, 2008)

Looks good so far!!! Eagerly awaiting more pics!


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Ok, the trunk is "done". I'm still waiting on parts for amp repair #2. But it works for now.

The goal of the install was stealth. I failed because you can still see the sub. Oh well. I use the magnet to wedge my bike tire under, so it serves a purpose.

The amp/computer racks fold up and so it looks stock, only with flat walls. Pictures of that will come with the final set of the finished install. In the meantime, they're folded down so I can take the amps and computer in and out while working the bugs out. Here's the crap mounted to the underside of the walls...

[Sorry for the crappy camera phone...]

SUB and AMPS









ESX AMPS









MINILITH and COMPUTER









Edit: After posting this, I realize that these pictures are awful. I'll take some more with a real camera this weekend, along with pictures of the dash. (which you can sort of see in my avatar)


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

By the way, this will be a tuning weekend. My parts should come in the morning, so I'll have that amp ready to go. I plan on using an impulse generator, mic, and softscope to measure what my delays should be. After that, TrueRTA to see what's going on. The way the processing is currently set up (through foobar, and NOT vst plugins), I can adjust delay, xover points, and polarity for now. I don't think there's a very good phase adjustment foobar plugin.

By ear, I think I have some issues at the tweet/mid xover point to deal with, and the midbass seems uneven with what sounds like a bit of peakiness between 120-180Hz or so. I have a feeling I'll be able to tackle most of the problems with xover adjustment because I pretty much just threw it in the car with "default" values. I'm hoping the midbass doesn't end up needing EQ because I'm not really prepared to do that correctly right now.

Gotta get back to setting up the vst plugins for this sucker pretty soon. But console and audiomulch don't seem to like my sound card...


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Pictures of the dash...










There are some issues with the paint at the interface with the screen's bezel. Color doesn't match either, so I have to find the right paint in the right color. But, in the meantime, functional. 

Here's another one with the GPS going...










Have to do a lot more tuning. The midbass remains very uneven, although I managed to get it to mate well with the B&Cs with slight tweaks of the xover, reducing the level a bit, and reversing polarity.

"Finished" trunk pics hopefully by tomorrow. I had to yank the computer yesterday, which I talked about in this thread.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

By the way, here's a pic of the car (after the birds got it).


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## I800C0LLECT (Jan 26, 2009)

oh wow. Shat town!


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## 98RedGT (Jan 11, 2009)

Looks good man ! Birds really put a hurtin' on it!


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

How are the midbasses in the rear doors working for you?

I had a demo of a carputer today...I am jealous. I want one.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

thehatedguy said:


> How are the midbasses in the rear doors working for you?
> 
> I had a demo of a carputer today...I am jealous. I want one.


There are always bugs to work out, but it's definitely worth it.

I'm not sure what I think about the midbasses in the rear doors yet. As far as localization goes, it's even less of an issue than I thought it would be -- and I didn't really think it would be. The xover point is now down to about 240Hz. The problem with them is that there's a null between about 140Hz and 180Hz which I can't track down. This wasn't present in my last car using the same drivers. I haven't spent much time tuning yet, so it may emerge the more I play with it. I'll probably RTA it first to confirm my observations.


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

Before I do my kicks, I may try my midbasses in the rear just for ****s and giggles. See how far I can tweak it and make it work. Good thing the Lexus has 6x9s in the rear deck and I have a set of ID xS69s just sitting here.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Yeah, give it a shot. I'll be interested to hear your take on how high you can go with it so far back. I did midbass in the rear deck in an old car of mine and also the back panels of a two-seater my friend had a while back with decent results, although not as good as these.

Btw, I found a rattle coming from the rear door yesterday playing a song heavy in midbass without much in the way of midrange to mask it ("Damage" by Yo La Tengo). I may do another treatment on the back door panels. These Adires are pushing a remarkable amount of air for such small drivers. They actually outperform the XLS8's and IDQ8's I've tried in the same freq range. I still can't make sense of that.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Updating the install a bit.

1) Today I'm removing the Adire Extremis midbass drivers. Subwoofer handles midbass.
2) I'm replacing the IDQ15 with a w15gti, so expect subwoofer pics next week.
3) I added a center channel a couple months ago. Pics will be added to this thread.
4) Changed out the amps and completely reconfigured the carPC case. Pics will come later today.

The main project today will be to install new signal processing software and haul the RTA back out there. I don't use a VST host. I use the VST wrapper in my audio player (foobar2000) to load whichever VST plugins I need. The problem with this is routing multichannel. But the Voxengo tools seem to take care of this by virtue of being 8 channel plugins with customizable routing options. I'll use the free plugin, Voxengo Sound Delay, to do delay. And I'll use the GlissEQ for crossover, EQ, and L+R summing for the center channel and sub (summing takes a little bit of work to implement...). Fingers crossed.


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## bassfromspace (Jun 28, 2016)

So you're running the GTi up to 250hz and having the midrange take over from there?


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

It's closer to 210 now.


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## DS-21 (Apr 16, 2005)

MarkZ said:


> It's closer to 210 now.


I don't know why more people (with closed cars, at least) don't do that. 

Sure, one needs to be careful with rattles, but every time a higher sub crossover is done well IME it results in a considerably more dynamic system with heightened midbass palpability. (Assuming a top-tier driver, which with a W15GTi you're obviously using.)


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## bassfromspace (Jun 28, 2016)

MarkZ said:


> It's closer to 210 now.


So factory tweeter, pro midrange, and sub?

Ballsy.


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## ryan s (Dec 19, 2006)

How's the localization of the sub with that XO point (and no midbasses)?


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

ryan s said:


> How's the localization of the sub with that XO point (and no midbasses)?


I don't know..

How's that for sitting on the fence? 

~200Hz is fine. Before today, there was never really an obvious perception of anything coming from the back. I've been adjusting levels today after RTAing, and one thing I did was move the left mid xover point up closer to 280Hz to help get rid of a peak on that side between about 240-300Hz. The right and center are around 200Hz (the xover point is actually not that low, but the Q is actually high, so there's a positive knee). After these changes, either I'm dreaming it or I'm starting to hear some lower midrange come from behind me. Didn't actually change the sub's LPF!

Anyway, I'm liking this Voxengo GlissEQ. I didn't think I would at first. I haven't had to actually "EQ" _anything_ yet. Crossover points and Qs have been sufficient. IOW, only two filters per channel to create the bandpass. Haven't had to introduce a third.

I'll take some pics of the goofy filter settings later tonight. I'm going to wait until I swap subs later in the week before I finish the RTA and I'll post that up too.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Also, here's what it looks like behind the fold-down panels. Computer stuff on the left side, amp stuff on the right side.

After I'm done mucking around, it'll be time to play the hide-wires game. Also considering creating a removable hard drive enclosure out of plexi to match the computer, and installing some sort of laminate so you don't see the wood on the backside of the panels. Anyway, function over form for now...


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Sorry for the crappy pictures, but here were the crossover settings I came up with while tuning this weekend.

Sub - ~200Hz LPF with 2nd order subsonic in the 40Hz vicinity









Center channel - ~200-3500 or thereabouts. The right mid had a similar shape but a slightly different LPF position. You can see the knee to compensate for a falloff in the lower midrange. Adjustable Q FTW!









Left mid - extended up to 3800 or so to account for the off-axis response that seemed to start there. Maximally flat Q on this one. For some reason, the left mid had better lower midrange performance than the right mid. I don't know why. Gain is knocked down about 1dB too.









Tweets - both tweets kick in around 5kHz. Same settings except left tweeter gain is knocked down 1.7dB.









RTA'd the mids and it looks like this (inverted)...









The three are pretty even and when all three are playing together the variance decreases, particularly in the 200-400Hz range. But there's a broad hump between about 800-2kHz that I'll have to take care of. I've put the fine tuning off until after I install my new sub when it arrives.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

The old crossover setting pictures were crap. Here are screenshots.

Sub









Center (Rmid similar)









LMid









Tweeters


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

New sub!

seats down








seats up








trunk shot


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

BTW I don't lie about the lamp cord.


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## bkjay (Jul 7, 2009)

Nice sub how do you like it.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

So far so good. I'll RTA the whole system hopefully this weekend. Need to haul the mic back out there. Tweeters are flat as a board, mids need a little more work. With the new sub, I think I'll probably ease up on the subsonic a bit. It's not quite as overbearing on the low end as the IDQ15, which had that 30-50 hump..prob cabin gain.


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## t3sn4f2 (Jan 3, 2007)

Looks good. Do you notice a difference in the sub sound with the seat up versus down. Output differences aside if there are any.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

It's slight. A little more midbass with it down. I always leave it up though, so I haven't tested this extensively.


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## IBcivic (Jan 6, 2009)

MarkZ said:


> BTW I don't lie about the lamp cord.


i've tried it... and it makes everything sound ''brighter''




nice work on the sub wall. should look purdy,once everything is tucked/tied


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## DS-21 (Apr 16, 2005)

MarkZ said:


> So far so good. I'll RTA the whole system hopefully this weekend. Need to haul the mic back out there. Tweeters are flat as a board, mids need a little more work. With the new sub, I think I'll probably ease up on the subsonic a bit. It's not quite as overbearing on the low end as the IDQ15, which had that 30-50 hump..prob cabin gain.


Given the magnetic braking inherent to the Differential Drive motor, you'd probably be just fine with no subsonic filter at all.


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## chinaonnitrous1 (Dec 28, 2008)

Holy crap. *subscribed*

Hmm...now to finish what I'm doing in my 04' s60r


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

A couple additions. First, I added a rear left midrange. It's only nominally "rear"... realistically, it's lateral. With some mixing, levels, delay, and EQ, I hope to widen the soundstage on the left side while at the same time getting my center right in front of me a little better. Holy crap am I turning this into a one seater...

Ok, so I bit the bullet and went with Console. Why? Because I wanted to add two features that I didn't have with my old setup -- phase adjustment and sub bass shaping.










Sub bass shaping can be useful since I run the sub across 3+ octaves. Most setups can simply use level controls to control the amount of bass in the song because people run their subs so narrowband. I don't.  So I'm trying out this LF Max plugin. It allows you to select a filter point, below which you can control the level. So it's sort of like a shelving EQ. It's nice having a one knob adjustmenet for bass. It has an additional feature though, where you can add sub-harmonics. Similar to those bass enhancement car audio boxes. That's the other knob.  I have some CDs where the bass is lacking and this could help a lot. Played with it in the house, not yet in the car.

You can also see the delay and phase adjuster in the top panel plugin, and the crossover/EQ in the bottom panel plugin. In the schematic, the first plugin for each group is a mixer which is probably near the top of my tuning to-do list.


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## bimmerman11 (Aug 27, 2009)

Nice setup. You put a lot of work into it.


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## OnTheEllipse (Oct 28, 2010)

Mark, your image links have died. Do you have the photos handy? I have an '05 S60 I'm looking to start working on and was hoping to see other S60's.

I'll probably just be doing a component site up from, a 4 channel amp and a sub. I'm specifically interested in getting speaker wire into the doors, ideas for mounting the amp in the trunk (or under the seat) and what I'll be looking at as far as mounting a 6.5" driver/1" tweeter in the doors.

(love yo la tengo!)


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## ashman5 (Aug 30, 2009)

Mark, are you using a front end to control foobar or do you have a custom skin with larger buttons?

Default foobar install doesn't seem to be made for small touch screens


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## CroppedBee (Jul 3, 2021)

I'm just going to bump this 12 year old thread. 
Unfortunately I wasn't able to restore my account, so MarkZ = CroppedBee now.

I sold this car shortly after I moved to Philadelphia and went without a car for years when I lived in the city. Now I live in a pretty rural part of Northeast Maryland and had to buy a car... so I bought another Volvo S60. An older one, 2009. Planning the new build now. I won't go carPC this time (thanks to having all my music accessible from my iPhone these days!) and already bought this Dayton DSP thing to take over for the VST plugins I used to use. I can predict that I will definitely miss the VST plugins but hopefully the Dayton will be ok.

HU: some generic Sony touchscreen with Carplay
DSP: Dayton Audio DSP
Front doors: Dayton RS180
Center channel: Either B&C 6mdn44 for center or a 3" small full range driver I bought years ago and never used, I forget the brand.
Tweeters: I don't know!
Subwoofer: JBL w15gti (IB configuration)
Amplifier: I bought the 6 channel Zuki that was posted in the classifieds here last week to power everything.
Obviously this is a much simpler install than my old build. My questions are about the two items in red above. The B&C would make for an excellent center channel, but at 97dB/w/m it's probably way too much speaker for this application. I haven't been following car audio for about ten years. *What would be great bang-for-the-buck options for small-ish tweeters that would fit this car? Same question about a windshield firing speaker with narrow dispersion (to reduce lobing) for center staging? *I'm leaning toward just using the B&C I already have but I'm open to suggestion.* 

Also, any recommendations for shops to install this stuff who would be willing to install per customer direction? * I just had surgery 6 weeks ago so I won't really be up to doing an install myself for a little while. I live between Baltimore and Philadelphia and can go anywhere in between.


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## SQ_Bronco (Jul 31, 2005)

Welcome back!


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