# my first 2008 scion Xb install :)



## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

well, i had the pleasure to work on Fred (fredridge)'s brand spanking new 2008 scion Xb, and i have to say again scions are great to work on, even for a car i have never touched before, this new model scion proved to be mostly trouble free 

goals:

1. good sound quality

2. stealth

3. with some flash when needed.

Fred supplied me with all the gear...including amps and subs from Zuki audio, a brand i have never heard of before... along with the goold ole iridium 6.3 set...

anyway lets getstarted.

as mentioned the iridium 6.3 is the front stage. the midbasses were installed in the factory lower door location, the entire door was sealed via foam and edead UE, fred also did the outter door skin and inner plastic door panel before i got hte car...



















for the midrange i fabricated some on axis kicks, trimmed in black suede





































and since this is a very tall car with a hgih dash, the tweet was installed into the A pilalrs for the best staging. At first i thought about flushing it, but the big DLS tweeter hat, in dark grey, just looked too out of place aginst the milky colored A pillar. So after some head scratching, i realized that i can cut out a hole in the A pillar, and seucre the tweet front behind, so only the arches show...i thik this looks much cleaner 



















so here is the entire front stage:










moving on to the trunk 

here is the normal stealth view, as you cansee, the floor wasnt raised a single inch 










remove that carpet and here is the semi-stealth mode. the entire floor is wrapped in factory matching vinyl, with two covers, the back one, is vented with grille cloth, and the front one, is solid mdf with SCION in raised vinyl. the middle is another vent for the crossflow fan that cools the amps:




























remove both cars and here is what you get, two Zuki audio 10" subs sit in a blue suede lined, flushed mounted box, and two Zuki Audio 4 channel amps, sits end to end in a suede line well, over the well is a piece of thick plexi, and as directed by Fred , a picture of Cross and a bible verse is on the plexi.




























hard to see but all te wires coming out of the amps pas through grommits in the floor 










and flick a switch on the side panel, and here is what happens:




















overall, it sounds pretty nice, i am deecntly impreseed by the Zuki gear, the amps seem to be well built, solid and dish out a lot of poewr, and the subs sound pretty nice, and really gets good transient response 

driving it back down to LA tommorow morning hhehe


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## azngotskills (Feb 24, 2006)

very nice...i wish i could do a floor with perfectly matching trim pieces


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

Bing, you are awesome...incredible work


Let me say, not only does he do incredible work, but great communication. Asking what I want and really great to work with.

A total bonus was that he was able to pick up my car and bring it back. He is in San Jose and I am in Orange County.


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## hypnotiq (Jul 5, 2007)

How did you get the cross on the plexi? Is it some sort of etching?


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## coffee_junkee (Jul 13, 2006)

Is the petroleum jelly in the first picture for insertion of the phallic come invoice time? 

Sure looks clean as hell and costing a bundle... 

Another clean one from the Man Himself.


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

Honestly, I feel like a got a great value for my money. I gave him my budget and told him what I wanted and he put something together for me..... I kept trying to add stuff in and on a few things told me for my budget and time frame they weren't going to happen and on others just told me how much more it would cost. 

Now that I see the finished product there is no doubt I got more than my moneys worth. Besides, I think he probably has as many hours in e-mails back and forth with me as the actual install  



coffee_junkee said:


> Is the petroleum jelly in the first picture for insertion of the phallic come invoice time?


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## Boostedrex (Apr 4, 2007)

Great work Bing! And I'm glad to see that your new system is now installed Fred. What do you think of it? 

Zach


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## Vestax (Aug 16, 2005)

An installer that delivers your car to your house.... now that's service


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## azngotskills (Feb 24, 2006)

can you deliver to Texas? :blush:


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

Haven't got it yet... still waiting for delivery. Should get it tomorrow morning.  




Boostedrex said:


> Great work Bing! And I'm glad to see that your new system is now installed Fred. What do you think of it?
> 
> Zach


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## ocuriel (Oct 7, 2005)

I swear if I buy a new car, you'll be doing my next install.


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## Pseudonym (Apr 17, 2006)

awesome install but wtf is up with the glow in the dark ****?


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## Buff (Apr 17, 2006)

Very nice!

Great install, great products.

Congrats!


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

fred, i dont think i drive that fast to make it to you "tommorow morning" lol, as a matter of fact, i dont think your car can go that fast even if i wanted 

the cross idea is simple, its a reverse cut vinyl, and attached from the BOTTOM of the plexi, when LED light shines through the plexi, it completely illuminates the vinyl below, causing it to glow...a brighter light than etched glass (not that i hvae the ability to etch class anyway)...

but yeah...the "glow in the dark ****..." hehehe you dont have to glow, if oyu dont hit hte buttom


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## dBassHz (Nov 2, 2005)

I like it. Nice and clean.


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

Bing No worries, just getting excited... whenever you get here  


BTW- the turbo is going on when Ed McMahon shows up at my door


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## lucas569 (Apr 17, 2007)

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

JOHN 15:13


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## skr928 (Aug 3, 2007)

Well Done!


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## dvflyer (May 11, 2007)

Nice. Always love seeing Bing's work.


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

Just "Impressive" !!!

Awesome Sq too I bet, very nice Bing


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## sr20det510 (May 20, 2007)

Very nice install!

I would love to have my system installed by you but the San Jose/L.A. thing makes it hard for me!


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

OK, so I just got my car a bit ago and I am going to give a brief review.

Install looks great and Bing did an awesome job. 

Sounds really good. Has some left bias and with the tweeter and mid far apart the freq overlap is a little noticeable. One 10" sub might have been enough. Apparently I had an older set of iridiums with a weaker tweeter, I may need to change that, we shall see. The are a little higher on the a-pillar and closer to the driver/passenger than I might have preffered, which might be impacting bias, but still not sure and with time, budget and space not sure what else could have been done.

I popped in my Zuki Demo CD and has nice tonality, good midbass and clear and clean sound. I like that I have the ability to keep turning it up and get good clean sound almost all the way to the top of the volume knob. Michael Jackson sounded great and could hear him walking from one side of my dash to the other in the intro. Since I am not familiar with the CD it is hard for me to give much more than that at this point.

Then I popped in my current favorite CD, Life Changing by Smokey Norful. All I can say is wow. Great low end, vocals are fantastic and the piano sounded like I was in the room. Great detail from percussion section, I could almost hear the hand going across the chimes. 

Overall I am very pleased... it looks phenomenal and sounds really good.... Not sure but maybe a H/U with time alignment and eq might fix some of the issues. That will be down the road, I will just enjoy it for now


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## 03blueSI (Feb 5, 2006)

What are your crossover points or you using the passive? Also, the angle of the tweets don't look optimal to me.


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## req (Aug 4, 2007)

i am not a fan of Xb's all that much,

but you did a great job making that look professional. 

my only gripe is the kicks, where the bottom corner meets the door trim panel. you could have taken some kitty hair or bondo and built that up to meet that corner shape.

otherwise, simply awesome. i love the trunk. exelent use of space.


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## Bluto Blutarsky (Apr 1, 2007)

req said:


> i am not a fan of Xb's all that much,
> 
> but you did a great job making that look professional.
> 
> ...


You should call simplicity in sound directly, so you can tell them how to build kicks


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

Right now I am using passives.... Not sure I will be making any changes for a while. That way I can figure out exactly what I want to change. For now I am thinking tweeter location and maybe newer/different models and maybe a H/U with T/A and EQ. 

A quick word about the Zuki equipment.

Most incredible 40 watts I have ever heard. Totally clean power, plenty of dynamics and running subs and fronts with more power than I will typically need. Like I said before, I can keep turning it up and has great clarity at all volumes. 

How do the amps sound?? Honestly, since this is all new setup I have nothing to compare it to, but overall they are great. I am extremely impressed with the amp/sub combo. It is actually more than I expected and I tend to keep them turned down. I am guessing cabin gain has some to do with this, but overall an A+

Front stage - as I have said, very clear, nice tonality, but so far I find them to be a bit sterile for me. I will give it some time and see if my opinion changes. I bought the set used, so it is broken in so that is not an issue

if you are in OC and want to hear it, let me know and we can set something up. I am going to do my best to make the meet, but have a wedding reception at 2pm that day. I will try and get there when/if I can.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

well here is a copy and paste from me hehe:

hehe just got back from LA 

i will chip in a little.

IMO the sidebias is the function of hte car and the location, i acutally put the tweeter to a few different places up and down the A pillar, well sa much as i could since very few places it can acutally go due to the airbag, but i found that it sounded the best when its about as high as it can go whcih was where i put it. but one thing is, the sidebias never changed. i just think with the shape of hte car, the path difference from A pillar to A pillar, and also lowe rdoor to lower door is still big enough that it would give you a side bias. and time alignment deifnetly would be the cure. IMO every car that i have heard with lower door speakres and A pillar tweets have had some side bias without time alignment, hence another reason why i love kicks, but for staging, this was the way to go for this car 

2. the tonality differenc ebetween this ir 6.3 set and EVERY other 6.3 set i have done is acutally, to be honest, quite dramatic, there is definetly something werid about this one.
i would say its one of three things:

1. this much older gen 6.3 just sounds dramatically different (at least 2 model years old) but i hav eheard older DLS cars before... 

2. the function of this cars particular interior, having a lot of hard plastic

3. the factory headunit isnt putting out a flat signal. 

in either case, i think Fred, the starting point is an EQ 

hehe

oh on the issue of hte kick panle meeting point. acutally, the part where the door sill trim meets the kick is compeltely unresined, meaning its the stock shape. and acutally, the mesh up perfectly.

But, what happens is...believe it or not, when the door is closed, the front edge of hte door panel acutally TOUCHES the stock kick panel. like i mean its like that stock. i didnt realize this until i started molding. and what happens is, even with just a single layer of mold cloth/resin and the suede, when the door closes, it pushes on the kick, cuasing the top to go int a little more and kick out the back of it a bit causing hte slight gap...i think in the future, for htis car, i may acutally just mold soemthing off of it and then attach to the stock kick, versus molding the stock kick directly  does that make sense?

b


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

thanks Bing, I was thinking something like that.... I checked to make sure they weren't fakes, but the age may be an issue... 

I am thinking something like prs880 might be the first place to start but I still want to take some time.... thanks for the input on the location.... I was thinking that.... I will try some eq first and then maybe see what else I can do.

Was the tonality different across the board or just in the upper end where the tweeter runs?

I also had someone suggest that my H/U could be a limiting factor also.

I want to be clear though, I am extremely pleased with the install. All these are minor.


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## 03blueSI (Feb 5, 2006)

I would look into EQ and crossovers. For the A-pillar I would not run them any lower than about 5K. The scion HU is no where near flat. With proper tuning and a new head unit you should be thrilled with the sound, or you could get the cleansweep and probably be happy with that


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## Bluto Blutarsky (Apr 1, 2007)

have you played with speaker phase?


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

this might be part of the problem... I think it is a different deck and the one I have has a neutral setting that is not car specific, but I will play with it to be sure, but here is an RTA someone did on the Scion radio


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## 03blueSI (Feb 5, 2006)

In order to change the type of car I think you hold down the dsp button and it will beep and you can select xA, xB or tC. Most people say the xA feel sounds the best, but all of them are highly EQed to sound decent with the stock speakers


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

On the H/U I have it also has a flat setting and when it is set on there you can't choose any of the processor features...

I just went and played with it for a few minutes on about 4 different tracks and was able to get some sparkle using the SSP (Scion sound Processing), but it boosted too many other areas. 

I am going to guess for now it is the car. I know the crossovers (passive)have some jumpers, I will read up and check and see if it helps.... it may just be a me thing because I can definitely pick up fine details in the music, but just a little sterile or dull to me. 


I will give it a few weeks and then figure out what I want to do about processing since I pretty much have none.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

just to save fred some work perhaps, here is what i did while doing some tuning:

my main issue with this set up versus all the othetr IR6.3s i have done was the upper midrange and highs, or perhaps hte transitional area, not sounding quite as realistic. and seems to be a bit more brightness than normal in the upper ranges.

1. i had both midrange and tweet settings on the xovers at min, then:

2. adjusted the midrange xover to mid and then high, and decided it sounded better on mid level, which is wher ei left it.

3. adjusted the tweeter xover to mid and then high, and definetly thought the LOW setting was best, which is where i left it.


fred. i think one thing yo ucan try really easily, is to find someone and just temp swap in a Headunit in there, just to see if any difference can be had, i mean your HU is so easy to swap, all you need to do is to get a harness for 5 bucks, and give it a quick wiring change and be done...i am sure you know some local SQ folks? perhaps give dom a try? juts to see...10 mins of work can save you a lot of guess work 

b


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## SouthSyde (Dec 25, 2006)

how big is the box, and is it ported?


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

each sub is in it's own sealed box. I am not exactly sure of the size since Bing did it, but they should be around .75 each. 

Bing, thanks for all your work. it is awesome and couldn't ask for better.


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## drocpsu (May 3, 2005)

great looking install. Bing, your work always amazes me. Fred, you're lucky for having such an excellent install. Good verse, too.


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## bullyx2 (Jun 27, 2007)

I have a question I hope you can answer. How did you get such a perfect round hole cut in the pillar without any marring of the plastic? Thanks!


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## Boostedrex (Apr 4, 2007)

I'd be willing to bet that the stock HU is what's causing your problems Fred. Again, beautiful install!

How good of a job do the subs do at blending in with your front stage?

Zach


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

Subs to pretty good when I keep them turned down 

They are actually more than I need, but sound excellent, amp drives them well and great response from them. The box Bing built is excellent and pretty much air tight. 

Bullx2 - I am not sure what he used.... maybe a hole saw on slow speed with it wrapped in tape but that is only a guess


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

bullyx2 said:


> I have a question I hope you can answer. How did you get such a perfect round hole cut in the pillar without any marring of the plastic? Thanks!



a first slow speed through the BAKSIDE to score the plastic

then tape applied to the front side, and then slow speed cut through

then about 45 mins sitting htere sanding with a 150- then 220 grit sand paper 

b


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## bullyx2 (Jun 27, 2007)

simplicityinsound said:


> a first slow speed through the BAKSIDE to score the plastic
> 
> then tape applied to the front side, and then slow speed cut through
> 
> ...


OK, following up because I also have DLS tweeters and am thinking doing something similar in the sail panels though (assuming i have the depth). I am assuming you used a hole saw. After scoring the back and taping the front side, I am assuming you then drilled through the front, correct?

Awesome work btw. I love the install while retaining all of the storage space. And it is CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN. Really awesome work.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

yeah from the front with a holesaw 

just go slow 

b


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

> remove that carpet and here is the semi-stealth mode. the entire floor is wrapped in factory matching vinyl, with two covers, the back one, is vented with grille cloth, and the front one, is solid mdf with SCION in raised vinyl. the middle is another vent for the crossflow fan that cools the amps:
> 
> 
> remove both cars and here is what you get, two Zuki audio 10" subs sit in a blue suede lined, flushed mounted box, and two Zuki Audio 4 channel amps, sits end to end in a suede line well, over the well is a piece of thick plexi, and as directed by Fred , a picture of Cross and a bible verse is on the plexi.
> ...



Simply , Beautiful


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## garvinzoom (Mar 23, 2008)

A bit O/T but do you listen to Casting Crowns? I am not really into christen music but they have very powerful sound and message IMO.

Back O/T this is a very nice looking install. I really like the back lighting on the amp cover. Some people may not see why you would do that but why not?


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

I wish it still looked that clean... the vinyl is fairly scratched up and I moved some stuff around and have some alt whine right now.... gonna cut some holds in the plexi and ditch the cross flow fan because it is loud and maybe use bedliner material instead of vinyl for more durability.

I do listen to some casting crowns, and lots of different stuff, I tend to listen to a little more black gospel type stuff... Smokie norful was my most recent favorite

right now Michael Buble is at the top of the list, along with some OS Michael Jackson and some Zuki Cd's


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## Ge0 (Jul 23, 2007)

Fuggin WOW!!!

I feel the only thing missing from my skill set is the ability to envision the final touches like you do Bing. I always leave stuff looking like it is still under construction. Steallar job. An artistic touch from hell, err.... heaven.

Ge0


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## Rock-G (Apr 6, 2008)

another great install by simplicity in sound. if only texas is closer to cali, i will definitely have my system done by you guys!


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

whoa, who raised this thread from the dead 

fred, have you figured out what you are going to do yet? i saw that you are now selling hte 9255?


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

no... was thinking about it, but it is staying, just got to find a better way to use my ipod..

I know someone who owns a machine shop that does metal and plastics.... I am going to try and get him to cut a couple large holes in the plexi.... the take the cover and router out the center and use mesh over it

I need to get rid of the alt whine I have..... not sure what I did to get it, but I am pretty sure it is only in the tweeters and coming from the rca..... bought some rca ends and some shielded wire and going to make some and see if that works.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

try tap plastics, do they hav eit down there? the routing part iwll be tough, mainly beucaes trying to remove the vinly and you are left with a residue...

when did the whine get into the system?


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

when I moved some stuff around and went active.... I doubt it is the head unit, but I will try the ground again.

It is not bad and have been working on other things trying to decide how I am going to finish the trunk.




simplicityinsound said:


> try tap plastics, do they hav eit down there? the routing part iwll be tough, mainly beucaes trying to remove the vinly and you are left with a residue...
> 
> when did the whine get into the system?


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

fred, time to get the w505/205/200/h701 and you'll have EVERYTHING. no alt whine and great control of the ipod.


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## fredridge (Jan 17, 2007)

see that is what I was thinking, but everyone said keep it




alphakenny1 said:


> fred, time to get the w505/205/200/h701 and you'll have EVERYTHING. no alt whine and great control of the ipod.


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## tiwatt (Feb 1, 2008)

Good job


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## alphakenny1 (Dec 21, 2005)

fredridge said:


> see that is what I was thinking, but everyone said keep it


who cares what everyone thinks. i just think from what you want (getting rid of the alt whine and ipod), i think that alpine screen/h701 combo is perfect for you. you have all processing available and you get an excellent interface for the ipod. i give alpine props for designing a good interface. i don't know what i'd do without it.


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

a$$hole said:


> Just "Impressive" !!!
> 
> Awesome Sq too I bet, very nice Bing


Still beautiful to look at !


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## keep_hope_alive (Jan 4, 2009)

love it! the rear cover is beautiful.


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## kdxrider200 (Feb 1, 2010)

the subs look really good. that amp is huge.


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## cgw (Jan 31, 2009)

Love those kicks for the mids!!!!!


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