# T-bird horn installs



## funkalicious

Can only find Todd Matsubara's online and that one doesn't show the front end. Anybody have any links?


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## bigbubba

I have several magazines that have articles on his car at home. Did not show a whole lot on the waveguides but I can look after work. I always wondered what happened to that car.

I think there is a website somewhere that has scanned images of those magazine articles as well as others. That's on my computer at home as well.


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## funkalicious

bigbubba: Any help you can give is greatly appreciated!


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## Patrick Bateman

Coupes are on of my favorites for staging. The T-Bird has an interior that's similar to my old Honda Accord, where the rear seat slides back so far, your head is almost two meters from the kick panels.

Not so great for rear seat passengers, but very good for the sound.

For my money, this is the best T-Bird I've heard:










https://web.archive.org/web/20140810210759/http://all4sq.com/grey_title_page_1.html

Mike Petersen out of WA, aka "all4sq" on Diyma


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## bigbubba

Patrick Bateman said:


> .
> 
> For my money, this is the best T-Bird I've heard:
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> https://web.archive.org/web/20140810210759/http://all4sq.com/grey_title_page_1.html
> 
> Mike Petersen out of WA, aka "all4sq" on Diyma


Wish all of the pictures were still in that link. That is one interesting build.


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## bigbubba

funkalicious said:


> bigbubba: Any help you can give is greatly appreciated!


I've been trying for the last 2 hours but the scanner part of my printer will not work. I've found 4 different articles on Todd's T-bird but found only one small picture that shows any of the dash with the waveguides showing. Just looking through them it just hit me how little they actually show you in what few pics there where of that car. I did take a picture with my phone of the picture I found. Sorry. If I find anything else I'll post it.


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## thehatedguy

There wasn't much to the front of that car. He had 8" midbasses in the rear. Of the USD cars it was considered the weakest because it ran the smallest midbasses of the team at the time.

Mike Peterson"s T-Bird had a pretty nice install for it's time when he bought it from Dale Fontenot...I believe it was was an IASCA Expert World Champion before he bought it and changed everything in it. Some folks say it was a shame that he bought such a nice car and basically threw it all away. I heard it after he bought it in 2001 when he had just started changing stuff...and it wasn't very good.


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## Patrick Bateman

bigbubba said:


> Wish all of the pictures were still in that link. That is one interesting build.


The car is a trip, because when you look down it's a straight shot to the kick panels. By opening up the front and rebuilding the dash all4sq eliminated a lot of the early reflections that screw up imaging cues.

I heard it in Vancouver WA about three years back and it was the highlight of the show.


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## Lorin

correct me if mistaken, but I dont believe that t-bird uses horns?


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## bigbubba

No, it doesn't have horns. It is a T-bird so I guess Patrick wanted to show another example of a nice T-bird install.


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## pocket5s

Mike Peterson still competes in the expert class with his. He took 5th this year. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## funkalicious

Thanks for the help guys. Please post anything else you come across. Considering one of these for my next horn build.


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## thehatedguy

Maybe someone has the old AS2K books and has the articles about Dave Navrone's T Bird he built.


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## BigRed

There was an Asian guy in the 90s that killed it with Id horns in competition


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## Eric Stevens

BigRed said:


> There was an Asian guy in the 90s that killed it with Id horns in competition


Tjinsin Tjo (I think I am spelling it close)

He was from Washington.


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## bigbubba

Eric Stevens said:


> Tjinsin Tjo (I think I am spelling it close)
> 
> He was from Washington.


I just found my AS&S magazine with the article on his T-bird. I'll try and scan them tomorrow.


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## bigbubba

I tried to match the pages together but couldn't remember how.


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## BigRed

That's cool. There was another guy from California I remember running horns and did well back in the day. Eric?


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## bigbubba

BigRed said:


> That's cool. There was another guy from California I remember running horns and did well back in the day. Eric?


What was his name?


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## Eric Stevens

BigRed said:


> That's cool. There was another guy from California I remember running horns and did well back in the day. Eric?


Ugh! Not remembering any others with T-Birds running horns from 
CA.

Hints?


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## thehatedguy

That Silver T-Bird had a pretty similar speaker setup as a Sable from Ca.


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## thehatedguy

Those Pioneer decks like the one in the T-Brid article got popular because they were named the 7909 successor in AS2k.


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## bigbubba

The only guy I can think of in California is this guy.  I know it's not a T-bird but it is from a division of Ford.


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## BigRed

Best sounding horn car I've ever heard


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## thehatedguy

That was an old install. You have pictures of it with the Zapco amps that Matt did?


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## bigbubba

That is the only article I have in a magazine. Was that when Eric had the subs reverse mounted in the white fiberglass tub with the lighting? I have a few magazines with random shots of that I think.


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## bigbubba

Per the OP request I found an article of Todd's T-bird that somewhat shows the front end of the interior.


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## SteveH!

There was a guy who ran ID in a 90-93 bodystyle tbird. he ran id processors and speakers. he also raun butler amps . his tbird was silver. i think his name was tsin tjo. i remember he even ran the id dac. think he ran a denon deck. car was supposed to be killer. he competed in expert 1-600 watts in iasca . the only pics i ever saw was when autosound and security did a writeup on one of the versions of his car.


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## SteveH!

there are not alot of pics of the car i just described .


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## SteveH!

hey bubba, that silver sin article is the one i just talked about! that was the earlier version before the butler amp upgrade.


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## Guest

Man these are a blast from the past.....

I LOVE these old horn car installs !
Makes me want to put some in....


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## funkalicious

Thanks for posting these! Hmmmm. Eric Stevens, Eric Stevens. Name sounds familiar but can't quite place it. Didn't he form some sort of audio company ? Yes, I'm joking. Anybody have the AS2000 issue with Navone's T-bird?


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## bigbubba

funkalicious said:


> Thanks for posting these! Hmmmm. Eric Stevens, Eric Stevens. Name sounds familiar but can't quite place it. Didn't he form some sort of audio company ? Yes, I'm joking. Anybody have the *AS2000 issue with Navone's T-bird*?


I would love to see this as well. Don't think I've ever seen his T-bird.


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## thehatedguy

They mentioned it once or twice in the Tech Briefs, and may have been some photos, but the quality of the photos back then were not great.

I think they were putting in some of the "new" Veritas horns, which was what they were recommending over their own horns...if I remember correctly.


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## bigbubba

There was a comment in the article for Tjinsin's T-bird I was curious about. 

_"Dispersion patterns of the horns have been modified on the off axis side of the horns so as to better adapt with the acoustics of the car."_ 

Any thoughts as to what modifications were made?


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## SteveH!

thehatedguy said:


> They mentioned it once or twice in the Tech Briefs, and may have been some photos, but the quality of the photos back then were not great.
> 
> I think they were putting in some of the "new" Veritas horns, which was what they were recommending over their own horns...if I remember correctly.


 There was a write up in carsound on navone's car back in the day, i think.


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## SteveH!

bigbubba said:


> There was a comment in the article for Tjinsin's T-bird I was curious about.
> 
> _"Dispersion patterns of the horns have been modified on the off axis side of the horns so as to better adapt with the acoustics of the car."_
> 
> Any thoughts as to what modifications were made?


 hard to say so manyt horn tweaks behind grills back then. i wonder if eric stevens knows what was done?
11-4-14 I WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT LAST NIGHT the one thing i could come up with maybe he felt he heard some reflection issues and decided to tweek his horns with a stiffer foam to change how the wve came out. i hoinestly have no idea what he did . could have been blowing smoke.


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## JoshHefnerX

I know on the ones he's selling right now there is a 6db bias to the offside of the car from each horn to account for the difference in distance between the 2 front seats.

Josh


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## Patrick Bateman

JoshHefnerX said:


> I know on the ones he's selling right now there is a 6db bias to the offside of the car from each horn to account for the difference in distance between the 2 front seats.
> 
> Josh


That's one of the reasons that Gary Summers' car images so darn good.
But in Gary's car it's done across the entire bandwidth; IE it's not a simple "6dB" shift to one side, it's tweaked across the entire frequency range.


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## funkalicious

Please elaborate.


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## Patrick Bateman

funkalicious said:


> Please elaborate.


Back in the day people adjusted the levels so that one side of the car was louder than the other.
For instance, you might increase the right side by 6dB to move the image to the right.

Now that we have really flexible EQs we have the luxury of doing the same thing, *but doing it on an octave-by-octave basis* or even a fraction of an octave.

IMHO Gary's car sounds great because Gary has spent a TREMENDOUS amount of time tuning it. Gary's car is a testament to the power of modern processing when used by an expert.

On Sunday I had the opportunity to listen to a really good car stereo* back-to-back with a well regarded home stereo** and it was interesting to note that the car stereo imaged significantly better than the home stereo, and the bass in the car was on a whole 'nother level.


* the Magic Bus
** Wilson Audio Sophia


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## bigbubba

Gary who?


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## SteveH!

gary summers. ran a benz with morel speakers and alpine amps a nd tore up meca mastger class a few years ago


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## bigbubba

Ok. I couldn't think of anyone named Gary that had horns or a T-bird. Got it.


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## funkalicious

Patrick Bateman said:


> IMHO Gary's car sounds great because Gary has spent a TREMENDOUS amount of time tuning it. Gary's car is a testament to the power of modern processing when used by an expert.


And that, kind sir, is the secret sauce added to a well planned, executed and fundamentally sound recipe for sound that ends in sonic nirvana, IMHO .


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## SteveH!

Steve Collotta - 1993 Ford Thunderbird - 1993 AS&S


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## oabeieo

bigbubba said:


> The only guy I can think of in California is this guy.  I know it's not a T-bird but it is from a division of Ford.



Wait a second ...... The drawing on bottom says image dynamics 15" and I'd tweeters. I don't remember id making a paper cone woofer like that and wasn't that before ID even existed ???? 


And also who had the t bird with Alesis meq-230s in the visors with horns? That was a awesome car , I converted about 100 of those eqs and loved them back when that was the hot ticket.


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## bigbubba

You do realize that that car was owned by Eric Steven's, the one who started the Image Dynamics company right?


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## oabeieo

bigbubba said:


> You do realize that that car was owned by Eric Steven's, the one who started the Image Dynamics company right?


Lol ! Yes of course ! But did you read the article? This was his company car when he was a salesman for a tool company. I don't think ID existed at that time. Yet it says he has ID subs and tweets in bottom pic .  and I surely don't remember a paper cone pro audio driver as one of his that I can remember


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## cajunner

Eric was a re-badger, haha...

I think the TAD 1601b's made an appearance as ID product, and Electro-Voice CD drivers were Ultra2's?


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## thehatedguy

Nope on both of those.


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## thehatedguy

The IDW subs were paper coned until he stopped selling them...and there was for a little bit of time a paper coned IDQ8, though that one was well before my time (bought my first horns straight from ID in/around 95).


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## bigbubba

I'm running a pair of the IDW-15's and they are paper cones.


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## oabeieo

So did he own ID as a startup during this period and work another job simultaneously ?


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## oabeieo

bigbubba said:


> I'm running a pair of the IDW-15's and they are paper cones.


I would love to see pics of those. I'm a nostalgia freak. I love old subs and history of this kind of stuff. I would almost give my middle leg for a set of 12" RF pro series subs .


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## thehatedguy

Best SQ that I have ever owned or used...by a long shot.


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## SQram

I'd love to hear more regarding the midbass arrangement in Eric's car... Were both sets playing the same frequency bandwidth? Were they time aligned somehow, or rear set turned off during critical listening? Were they vented to the outside (front set)?


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## thehatedguy

Crap...Eric has told me about that. but I've forgotten some of it. Probably not T/Aed since everything in the car was analog...if it were, then it couldn't have been much delay going on.

Long story short, he said it worked better with only the ones in front playing.


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## Eric Stevens

SQram said:


> I'd love to hear more regarding the midbass arrangement in Eric's car... Were both sets playing the same frequency bandwidth? Were they time aligned somehow, or rear set turned off during critical listening? Were they vented to the outside (front set)?


The rear 8" were there for the physcological enjoyment of the judges when the Staging was judged for front stage with "rear fill", made convienient spares if I ever had a problem with the drivers that were doing the work. When the car was re-done we romoved them altogether.

Front 8" were using a cavity n the firewall for the endlosure and it was also somewhat vented to the outside. I had stuffed the enclosures with our AP material to resitively damp the drivers. They were mounted to a thick baffle mounted to the floor.


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## Eric Stevens

The 15" that are shown in the photo is what we called the PA15, we made OEM arangements with many companies over the years. Yes we used quite a bit of TAD drivers through 1993/4. Never did we use anything from EV, The CD3 Ultra was a OEM driver based on the 9028B from Altec, assembled with different tolerances and a lighter diaphragm and shorter winding length for improved upper frequency range.


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## SQram

Thanks Eric, appreciate the response.


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## oabeieo

I got my first set horns on 1996 from rich cesselear from power house car audio. I didn't know ID even had other stuff till about 1998/99 this is cool to learn. I remember looking at CA&E and A2TB like they were playboys





SQram said:


> Thanks Eric, appreciate the response.


x2


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## oabeieo

The 902-8 plays from 500hz up. I have got try this driver! This and even some of the old theatre of sound stuff drivers I want to try. This one is aluminum and I have heard aluminum sounds like Be , I have yet to find a aluminum diaphragm in a modern driver. Just titanium and plastic. .......hemmmmmmm . Defiantly on the top ten list of drivers to try this year.


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## Eric Stevens

oabeieo said:


> The 902-8 plays from 500hz up. I have got try this driver! This and even some of the old theatre of sound stuff drivers I want to try. This one is aluminum and I have heard aluminum sounds like Be , I have yet to find a aluminum diaphragm in a modern driver. Just titanium and plastic. .......hemmmmmmm . Defiantly on the top ten list of drivers to try this year.


While the CD3 Ultra were good there is a reason we stopped selling them. The CD-2Comp sounded and performed better in every way.


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## oabeieo

Eric Stevens said:


> While the CD3 Ultra were good there is a reason we stopped selling them. The CD-2Comp sounded and performed better in every way.


Oh I'm glad you said something. I don't need any more mediocre drivers laying around. I just get so excited!


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## SteveH!

does anyone have a copy of that issue of carsound that had david navone's 93 ford thunderbird? he ran mtx amps , veritas horns and midbasss , rane processors and mtx thunder amplifiers


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## danssoslow

I remember reading about Navone's car, when using transformers to reduce the impedance was a fad. He wrote highly of those crinkle black Thunder amps.

Good times.


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