Anyone with a real stereo yet?

[Snoman]

Originally Posted by fhpchris

Focal KRX2s active on 2 JL 300/2s
Audison Bit One
FI BTL N2 (Neo Magnet, 2 ohm coils) on ~2000-2400 watts?
2 Digital Designs M1d. One per coil linked.
80 lbs of Second Skin Damplifier and Damplifier Pro
Discuss.

What made you choose the FI BTL N2 and DD-M1d's ?

[SWRocket]

I fully support this initiative, especially since I plan to do the exact same thing
Two of the things I most concerned about tackling are the headliner removal and reinstall and the door speakers (tweeters)
Any tips you can provide on the headliner?
I assume you're going full active, do you plan to run new wires into the doors?
Any pics and tips are greatly appreciated

[Snoman]

PM'd pics, though I didn't deaden the headliner.

Door speakers and tweeters are stupid easy, just be sure to purchase a 6.5" door speaker kit from Metra or build your own.

Pro 16awg twisted jacketed wire isn't going through the Harness, you'll need to drill the door if you go passive like most do. If you go full active, I believe you'll need to drill the body of the car as well as the grommet in the body only allows 1 wire through. fhpchris hopefully has photos of the door wire runs he did with his active set up.

[Snoman]

In the body of the vehicle is this grommet, which may or may not allow 2 wires through for active speakers.





For the door itself, you're drilling. There are some walk-throughs out there explaining how to go through the harness itself, but requires drilling (damaging) the harness which I had zero interest in.

[SWRocket]

Thanks again Snowman.
As I do plan to go full active, I guess drilling is it.
I have to wait now for the spring to start, it's too cold already here in Toronto. I'll start a thread when i do.
Meanwhile, I will follow this thread with great interest.

[The_Raging_Bull]

Originally Posted by 1110110

Where are you going to put your luggage?

Back Seat??

[fhpchris]

Originally Posted by 1110110

Where are you going to put your luggage?

Back seat? The Z/28 trunk is extremely useless as anything becomes a missle!

We got everything hooked up and working for a few minutes of testing before we called it a night. I set the gains up on the 300/2 with a +3.4db gain overlap, but they were so powerful we turned both of them down a ton. I guess we will have to live with having a ton of headroom! The door sound proofing made a huge difference! We are going to try to do some fine tuning tomorrow on the BIT and get everything reinstalled and do some trunk finishing work. ( mount JL amps in final spot).



Hooking up both 300/2s including remote wire in next 3 pictures






Finished driver's door. (forgot to take before picture)




Naked passenger door.


Finished passenger and driver's doors




Connecting amps and setting gains




closeup of wiring to door




Showing wiring to driver's door and speaker install




Passenger's side speaker installed

[fhpchris]

Originally Posted by Snoman

What made you choose the FI BTL N2 and DD-M1d's ?

I wanted something that was lighter weight and cheaper than using two JL 10w7s. The Neo BTL packs a huge punch for 42 lbs!

I was going to only run 1 M1d, but decided that I could strap a pair of them and they would run a ton more efficiently at 2 ohms per amp instead of 1. At the time I was just looking to run any korean amp (sundown, DC Audio, etc) and decided upon DD because they seemed to be of decent quality and cheap on ebay used. My alternative was to run a T2500... I could have gotten one brand new for 899-999ish, but my friends have personally seen a few with major issues -- they changed my opinion to run the korean amps for now. It might have cost less to just use JL XD 1000/1s (ebay or on sale). I didn't really think of that until tonight.

Originally Posted by SWRocket

I fully support this initiative, especially since I plan to do the exact same thing
Two of the things I most concerned about tackling are the headliner removal and reinstall and the door speakers (tweeters)
Any tips you can provide on the headliner?
I assume you're going full active, do you plan to run new wires into the doors?
Any pics and tips are greatly appreciated

I ran the older Focal KRX2 tweeters and they perfectly fit in the tweeter pods. We used a soft spacer behind them inside the housing to keep them tight. (you would need something like foam). Extremely perfect fit!

The headliner was not difficult after you remove everything else.... I guess it just takes time. I think you are fine as long as you budget a few days. My roof still flexes, so I would recommend spending some time here and I think you will see real gains.

I am running full active. Both of these amps have a ton of power. Way too much in fact. ( with a 3.4db gain overlap the mids were loud on volume 6!). We had to turn down the gains heavily because the speakers were getting over powered, but we have tons of clean headroom! We ran new wires to the doors and used the stock wires into the doors to run the 8ohm tweeters. We drilled new holes (door-side) and used the existing holes (removing the rubber caps in the car-side under the molex) to run wiring for the mids. The molex was just so small we didn't think our over-sized 14ga was going to fit.

We used the ******** 6.5 door kit because it was less hassle/cheaper than doing it ourself. We had to trim the bottom a little for door panel clearance, but otherwise they were fine once we painted them.

Originally Posted by Snoman

PM'd pics, though I didn't deaden the headliner.

Door speakers and tweeters are stupid easy, just be sure to purchase a 6.5" door speaker kit from Metra or build your own.

Pro 16awg twisted jacketed wire isn't going through the Harness, you'll need to drill the door if you go passive like most do. If you go full active, I believe you'll need to drill the body of the car as well as the grommet in the body only allows 1 wire through. fhpchris hopefully has photos of the door wire runs he did with his active set up.

I posted clear pictures of our door wiring. We heatshrinked the wiring loom in place at the ends ( ends are hidden in the car/door) so that it looks really clean and ran it through a grommet at the door.

Originally Posted by SWRocket

Thanks again Snowman.
As I do plan to go full active, I guess drilling is it.
I have to wait now for the spring to start, it's too cold already here in Toronto. I'll start a thread when i do.
Meanwhile, I will follow this thread with great interest.

I bought two B-stock packs from Second Skin and had some left over. I think doing the sound deadening is extremely important to get the most out of your install.

What sub were you planning to use? Hopefully all the information here helps you decide on a box and a whole setup. There is enough room in my box dimensions to build a decent 4th order.... that is something to consider. We are going to build one for a 12w6v3 using a similar sized box to mine.

A DC Audio XL 12 would probably fit in this box really nicely. It would be about the same weight as my BTL and fit really well in a 1.80 net cubic feet box.
Two mid-size 10s might fit well here (FI Q 10)
The new Rockford T2 13 might also fit well here.

[SWRocket]

Thank you so much Chris for the photos, info and time to document this amazing build.
I agree with you 200% that sound deadening is crucial, especially in our car.
I already have all material and equipment for the install, although some design decisions remain open.

Deadening: Sound Deadener Showdown (https://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/)
HU: Pioneer AVH-4100NEX with Scosche adapter but considering using this instead (http://shopddmods-com.3dcartstores.c...aro_p_433.html)
SIGNAL: MiniDSP (https://www.minidsp.com/products/min...ox/minidsp-2x4)
AMPS: ARC Audio 2300SE (http://www.arcaudio.com/p/se-2300), ARC Audio 4200SE (http://www.arcaudio.com/p/se-4200?pp=24)
(I have two JL Audio amps as well that I may use, an XD600/1 and XD400/4)
MIDS: Dayton Audio RS-180 (https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...4-ohm--295-374) I have the door adapters from ST as well.
TWEETERS: SEAS Prestige 1" (https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.co...-dome-tweeter/)
SUBS: 2 x Dayton Audio RSS-265HF (https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...4-ohm--295-460) in 4th order bandpass boxes vented into cabin through rear deck 6X9 holes (this is subject to change, I may still go sealed or vented...)

Some issues I'm facing are where to put the amps (they're huge) and subwoofer box config. Here is the 4th order design

[Snoman]

Originally Posted by fhpchris

I wanted something that was lighter weight and cheaper than using two JL 10w7s. The Neo BTL packs a huge punch for 42 lbs!

I was going to only run 1 M1d, but decided that I could strap a pair of them and they would run a ton more efficiently at 2 ohms per amp instead of 1. At the time I was just looking to run any korean amp (sundown, DC Audio, etc) and decided upon DD because they seemed to be of decent quality and cheap on ebay used. My alternative was to run a T2500... I could have gotten one brand new for 899-999ish, but my friends have personally seen a few with major issues -- they changed my opinion to run the korean amps for now. It might have cost less to just use JL XD 1000/1s (ebay or on sale). I didn't really think of that until tonight.



I ran the older Focal KRX2 tweeters and they perfectly fit in the tweeter pods. We used a soft spacer behind them inside the housing to keep them tight. (you would need something like foam). Extremely perfect fit!

The headliner was not difficult after you remove everything else.... I guess it just takes time. I think you are fine as long as you budget a few days. My roof still flexes, so I would recommend spending some time here and I think you will see real gains.

I am running full active. Both of these amps have a ton of power. Way too much in fact. ( with a 3.4db gain overlap the mids were loud on volume 6!). We had to turn down the gains heavily because the speakers were getting over powered, but we have tons of clean headroom! We ran new wires to the doors and used the stock wires into the doors to run the 8ohm tweeters. We drilled new holes (door-side) and used the existing holes (removing the rubber caps in the car-side under the molex) to run wiring for the mids. The molex was just so small we didn't think our over-sized 14ga was going to fit.

We used the ******** 6.5 door kit because it was less hassle/cheaper than doing it ourself. We had to trim the bottom a little for door panel clearance, but otherwise they were fine once we painted them.




I posted clear pictures of our door wiring. We heatshrinked the wiring loom in place at the ends ( ends are hidden in the car/door) so that it looks really clean and ran it through a grommet at the door.



I bought two B-stock packs from Second Skin and had some left over. I think doing the sound deadening is extremely important to get the most out of your install.

What sub were you planning to use? Hopefully all the information here helps you decide on a box and a whole setup. There is enough room in my box dimensions to build a decent 4th order.... that is something to consider. We are going to build one for a 12w6v3 using a similar sized box to mine.

A DC Audio XL 12 would probably fit in this box really nicely. It would be about the same weight as my BTL and fit really well in a 1.80 net cubic feet box.
Two mid-size 10s might fit well here (FI Q 10)
The new Rockford T2 13 might also fit well here.

- I'm not a fan of the W7s due to the weight, at this level I'm generally recommending Morel Ultimo Titanium (custom order non-US product) or Polk for SQ, though for ported applications it's usually Sundown or the RF-P2s for SPL.

- The great thing about amps these days is that available technology allows almost anyone to build a quality amp. While I would have gone a different direction for efficiency, there is quality throughout your build and you've chosen well.

- Highly recommend the Focal KRX series, though I do dislike their power rating, it sucks balls.

Originally Posted by SWRocket

Thank you so much Chris for the photos, info and time to document this amazing build.
I agree with you 200% that sound deadening is crucial, especially in our car.
I already have all material and equipment for the install, although some design decisions remain open.

Deadening: Sound Deadener Showdown (https://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/)
HU: Pioneer AVH-4100NEX with Scosche adapter but considering using this instead (http://shopddmods-com.3dcartstores.c...aro_p_433.html)
SIGNAL: MiniDSP (https://www.minidsp.com/products/min...ox/minidsp-2x4)
AMPS: ARC Audio 2300SE (http://www.arcaudio.com/p/se-2300), ARC Audio 4200SE (http://www.arcaudio.com/p/se-4200?pp=24)
(I have two JL Audio amps as well that I may use, an XD600/1 and XD400/4)
MIDS: Dayton Audio RS-180 (https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...4-ohm--295-374) I have the door adapters from ST as well.
TWEETERS: SEAS Prestige 1" (https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.co...-dome-tweeter/)
SUBS: 2 x Dayton Audio RSS-265HF (https://www.parts-express.com/dayton...4-ohm--295-460) in 4th order bandpass boxes vented into cabin through rear deck 6X9 holes (this is subject to change, I may still go sealed or vented...)

Some issues I'm facing are where to put the amps (they're huge) and subwoofer box config. Here is the 4th order design
Attachment 826166

Highly recommend against Scosche/Metra, the PAC dash kit is much better. I know both Phastek (Sponsor) and DDMods personally, though DDMods has an free PAC kit with the Kenwood Excelon line. There are much higher reviews for the Excelon series over Pioneer and double the warranty. For installation, you can check our feedback thread in our audio forum here.

Unless you're receiving the ARC amps at a significant price discount, you would be wise to consider the Mosconi line at this price level. The ARC appears to be putting out impressive wattage, though I'd be cautious with the low S/N and efficiency. I prefer products with decades of proven experience in this stage like the RF-punch line and Zapco (if purchasing new).

You've got some nice HU, Amp quality and cabin preparation there so I'm surprised with mids, tweets and sub choices. If you've heard this combo before and enjoy it then by all means .

[SWRocket]

The mids and tweets are a proven combo and work very well. I know that most people prefer car audio brand speakers, but the SEAS/Dayton combo is as good or better than most car audio brands.
I already have the HU and amps. The amps were used in my previous install in my 2010 Camaro SS.
Certainly, If I was buying equipment now, I probably would make different amp and HU choices.
I will order a PAC kit from one of the two suppliers, I want to wait a bit though in case there are firmware/design updates.

[Snoman]

The PAC kit is indeed less than 30 days old on the market. They've done one update already to the kit and I know they are working closely with those units on the market at the moment for a possible second kit update. I know it's long, but there is good info in our audio forum thread.

[SWRocket]

Originally Posted by Snoman

The PAC kit is indeed less than 30 days old on the market. They've done one update already to the kit and I know they are working closely with those units on the market at the moment for a possible second kit update. I know it's long, but there is good info in our audio forum thread.

Just finished reading that entire thread it's excellent info.

[fhpchris]

Originally Posted by SWRocket

Just finished reading that entire thread it's excellent info.

What??!! You don't want a head unit missing any modern features that clips at volume 22 of 40???!!!