Sorry about the test thread, I'm new at this...

My baby....







Doors prior to Dynamat...



After..










Dynamat on trunk and rear deck....








Running the wires....
















Rear of amp rack...





Front of amp rack...





Sub enclosure..





Sub installed...









Access to spare and tools




Amps installed...









Audiocontrol Four.1 mounted in center console...



Stock HU..







Modified by saltyone at 9:25 AM 7/22/2007

 

What's in the car...

(1) Alpine SWR-1242D 12" Type R sub
(1) Alpine PDX-1.600 mono amp
(1) Alpine PDX-4.100 four channel amp
(1) Set Memphis 15-MSQ6 (6.5" component set in front with tweeter in stock location)
(1) Set Memphis 15-MsYNC6 (6.5" coaxial mounted in rear doors)
(1) Audiocontrol Four.1 EQ

A butt load of Dynamat

(Could a mod please insert a "s" in my thread title...Thanks)

 

Nice!! Looks like you spent a ****-ton of time and energy.

Hella clean!

 

very nice... i love the amp rack. i would like to do something similar when i get a chance. how long did it all take? and most importantly, how does it sound?

 

SQ is excellent. She's not designed for SPL, but there's plenty of that also. A lot of planning went into getting the cleanest signal possible without changing out the stock HU (Huge pain in the rear). I believe I accomplished what I set out to do....great sound from a daily driver.

I'm not sure about Honda, but the Acura TSX head unit has a balanced differential output. I had a friend make a harness to keep the output balanced going to the EQ. The Audiocontrol EQ accepts a balanced signal and has switchable outputs (balanced to unbalanced) It has up to a 13v signal output, which helps keep the signal noise free going to the Alpine amps unbalanced.

I'm not an expert, but I am unable to hear any distortion or unwanted noise in this system. I'll get it tested next week to see a printout. Staging is excellent, we only had to do a little tuning to bring the tweeters down a bit. Another reason for the Four.1 is because the signal from the stock HU is perfectly flat. The stock amp did all of the equalizing in the stock system. We need it to fine tune.

Total install time was one full week.

Overall, so far, I love it.

 

I was actually kinda curious about your choice of using the Four.1 -- I didn't know if the stock headunit had any built in equalization or not. I am not positive if mine does or not so I was going to use a Rockford 3Sixty (LOC + Signal Processor)... But yeah, I am all for leaving the stock one in there, on some cars it is not worth the hassle. Plus, it wouldn't look right to me -- the aftermarket kits never look right taking up all that space.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by balanced/unbalanced... hopefully my 3Sixty will take care of this for me.

I'm glad it sounds as good as it looks. Can't believe that only took you a week. Was that after your normal working hours? Also, how long have you been doing this kind of work (is it your job)?

And how do you like the Memphis components? What can you compare them to? (Sorry for all the questions.) I'm still undecided on what comps I am going to run.

 

looks great, however it might suck when your door lock actuator takes a dive and u gotta rip off some of that dynamat...

but looks great

-chris

 

looks damn good.

 

verynice install man.

 

Very nice job! I really like the simplicity of the appearance, and appreciate the complexity of the install! Very well done.

I am wondering if you could expand a bit on how you tapped into the stock HU. I now have a 2003 TL Type S and would like to add my amps and sub (get rid of the stock sub), but don't really want an aftermarket HU in such a large space so I would like to utilize the stock HU with full functionality (similar to what you get with the EQ). How much was the EQ?

Do your amps stay cool buried behind the seats like that? Is there adequate airflow to keep them cool?


It is similar to the setup I had in the trunk of my old teg.



Modified by pnthr30 at 11:07 PM 7/25/2007

 

very nice install

 

I had a guy up in NY make a custom harness that plugs into the factory twelve pin connection on the stock HU. It was pretty simple really...just unplug the factory amp from the HU, and plug in the harness. The guy goes by mercman over on acurazine.com. It cost $60 and probably saved two hours on the install.

The amps are actually vented to the cab of the car. We removed the rear 6x9's and left their holes open. The top of the amp rack is open also. Base from the trunk is ported through the holes in the rear deck, and air can get down to the amps also. The PDX amps are extremely efficient, and would most likely be OK even without the air flow.

The reason I had the harness made wasn't just for simplicity of the install, but to keep the output of the HU "balanced" going to the Four.1. There are two types of outputs...balanced differential, and unbalanced. Balanced is preferred due to it's ability to carry the signal without the potential of picking up ambient noise from the car's electrical system. The Four.1 has switchable inputs and outputs. The signal is switched at the EQ to an unbalanced signal, but the voltage is heavily increased going to the amps (up to 13 volts). The higher the voltage, the less likely to have unwanted noise enter the signal.

You can run a straight balanced signal from the HU to the amps if you use certain amps that accept a balanced input....JL Audio and Rockford Power Series are two of the best choices. I chose the PDX amps for their size, and their extremely clean yet powerful signal's. I really had no other choice but to go with the Audiocontrol EQ because I had to switch the signal before the amps.

The same guy that made my harness also makes a custom balum (a type of line output converter) that will switch the signal from balanced to unbalance, but I also wanted the ability to fine tune the system from up front in the car. I could have used a trunk mounted EQ, and still might add one, but it wouldn't have been as user friendly as the Four.1.

My factory settings on the stock HU are all centered. All equalization is done through the Four.1 and the amps. We only used the front inputs from the HU to feed the signal to the EQ. From there we used the multiple outputs on the EQ to send the signal to the amps. By doing this, we insured that we had a perfectly flat signal before any equalization was done with the amps or EQ. The signal from the HU is completely unequalized...the factory amp did all of the equalization. For SQ, this is a preferred situation.

Aftermarket pieces like the Rockford 360, and the JL Audio Clean Sweep are unnecessary as long as you have a flat signal to begin with, which we did. It may be different depending on which type vehicle you have. The folks at Audiocontrol are very knowledgeable on which factory HU are equalized and which are not.

Thanks for the props guys. I'm still fine tuning her, but so far so good.

 

Again, thats hot. Thanks for the explanation. I have some more background homework to do on my situation, but I may hit you up later for some more specific questions. Nice job!

 

hey im really interested in this set up, id like to know who id email to purchase the "mercman harness" thatll connect to my 04 tsx with a nav system, can you pm me asap thanks

 

hey im really interested in this set up, id like to know who id email to purchase the "mercman harness" thatll connect to my 04 tsx with a nav system 6spd , can you pm me asap thanks

 

I looks suuuuper clean! Nice job. How dies it sound like that? It almost seems like you're pusposely blocking the bass from getting into the cabin, is it possible to flip around the box and amp rack for a minute to see how it sounds the other way?