NA Car audio options

[smiles]

Hi smiles, looks like it should be a good system. The jaycar speakers have certainly received good reviews in the past.

I had my amp low down behind the passengers seat, as I needed to make sure the drivers seat would still go back the full amount. Never had a problem with it there. Seemed to avoid any rain, and with the seat backrest leaning back a little, there actually ends up being a gap (depending on height of amp of course) to aid air circulation around the amp. My crossovers were mounted behind the glovebox.

Keen to hear what you think of the setup once it's installed. Also, sound deadening the doors will make a surprisingly good difference to the sound.

Hey,

I almost completed the work on Sunday night but had guests over so had to be social at the same time ... I really just wanted to play with my toys. The car is still in the garage with dash and seats apart, might have to wait till the weekend before I get to finish it off.
Just need to mount the amp, tidy things up and put everthing back on. Everything is plugged in so I got to do some sound tests and it was pretty good.

How much room is there between the fuel tank and the rear panel? Down low is what I had in mind but the amp with cables plugged in is now too wide, I should have spent a bit more and got the digital amp which is a smaller size.

Sound deadening might be for another project!

[sabretooth]

I'm currently thinking about options for sound deadening in the doors. The problem is, I don't want to trap water (and then subsequently cause corrosion/rust), and I don't want to make the doors heavy to the point where they feel like they're lined with lead. I'd just like something that isn't too heavy but still is effective - and importantly doesn't cost the earth.

Any opinions/ideas?

I'm running the Jaycar Kevlar 6.5\" splits - the tweeter and crossover are unutilised until I get that NB interior.

[Brad]

Unfortunately sound deadening and lightweight are mutually exclusive. Jaycar sell pretty cheap matting which I've used extensively before. It's not too heavy and you can cut it to deaden the most resonating areas.

[sabretooth]

How about effective but not overly heavy?

Have you heard of deadening causing rust issues?

[Brad]

How about effective but not overly heavy?

Have you heard of deadening causing rust issues?

Dynamat is very good, but expensive. The thing with deadening is that it needs to be heavy to work, that's the whole idea, to add mass to the panels.

My Alfa had enough rust that any possible rust from the deadening wouldn't of been noticed

[bigdog]

The point of the matting is not to 'deaden' but to trap unwanted wave reflections, to do this it has to have specific properties relating to the unwanted wavelengths (generally resonant bass frequencies), but weight is not one of them - weight is a factor of the manufacturer's making only. Good traps can be made from open celled foam that weighs very little.

Deadening the sound of the door would entail strengthening the structure of the door to stop rattles. Don't confuse a heavy pad with an effective trap, they are not the same.

What can be done about rust? Try putting in a couple of vertical spacers to stand the matting off the door structure so that moisture can run freely to the drain holes and the air can get around the matting - even a 6mm gap would help a lot.

I am a philistine in the area of car audio - I wouldn't bother putting a great system together for any car - it's always going to be flawed. Save the $ and put toether a real listening room at home I say.

[sabretooth]

Cool. I'm not out for audio brilliance (I have $150 splits, $150 sub, $250 amp, etc etc) - but I do want something that sounds decent at an affordable price. I'll have to do some shopping around when it comes to deadening - I know I can get much better sound out of the splits than I'm getting now and if all it's going to do is cost like $50 in deadener then I'll do it.

I think with my system that from here all I'd do is see how the deadening goes, stop the trim rattle in the doors on bass hits, get the tweeter set up (once I get the NB interior) and then see how the system sounds. I daresay I may do minor upgrades to the system's components but I really doubt it. It is a convertible after all.

[Brad]

The point of the matting is not to 'deaden' but to trap unwanted wave reflections, to do this it has to have specific properties relating to the unwanted wavelengths (generally resonant bass frequencies), but weight is not one of them - weight is a factor of the manufacturer's making only. Good traps can be made from open celled foam that weighs very little.

Sorry bigdog, but that's plain wrong. In home audio they are usually wood, but in cars they are metal. Metal is a terrble mounting material as it reverbarates and flexs in harmony causing either either cancelling or componding wave forms. This colours the sound and makes for a lot of unwanted noise. Sound deadener increases the mass of the baffle (surface the driver is installed onto) and the other encompasing panels to reduce the amount of reverbiration.

I agree however that making a good sound 'trap', or enclosure is also a benefit of a well dampened door as the materials used to span the voids is usually wood, and the dampening makes a pretty good seal for a very holey door.

I quote Dynamat:
Speaker panel distortion occurs when a speaker panel resonates or vibrates due to the speaker’s energy. This distortion discolors the desired sound and always results in reduced sound quality. No other component, accessory or device can stop this level of audible distortion. The improvement in sound far exceeds the improvement gained by upgrading the speaker wire. Better speakers don’t stop speaker panel distortion, Dynamat Speaker Kits do. The weakest link is the flimsy door that makes a very poor speaker mounting panel. from [/img]http://dynamat.com/download/2602_Sound_dBate_Speaker_Kit_English.pdf

[NMX516]

I used Dynamat on the outer door skin, just behind the speaker. This made a surprising difference and is something I intend to do when installing my system into the new car I installed the Dynamat after having the speakers in for about a week, so was able to notice the difference.

[bigdog]

I stand corrected Brad, obviously the Dynamat is designed to address the issue of flimsy panels and as such would need to be dense and thus heavy - I would work on strengthening the enclosure personally so that the mat was uneccesary, but that's just me.

My point was that most of the time people use matting without a thought to what they are trying to achieve.

BTW my brother and I built some incredibly effective and space efficient boxes years ago from sheet steel - fully sealed (took a couple of hours to settle the spekers into the box) with 4\" Bose type full range drivers powered from a 40WRMS amp - they were simply awsome! So despite it's shortcomings, steel can work if its done right...

[smiles]

I''ve got it all installed and it's better than I had imagined. Still need to fine tune the amp settings and everything else but I'm pretty happy thus far.

Sound deadening is something I'd probably save for another day, I'd like to sit in a car with it done to hear the difference.

Jaycar stuff is pretty good value, I was sceptical before hand but I'd be happy to recommend their audio bits now.

Is there anyone that makes up custom size bin trays, the generic single-din tray I have doesn't look right and isn't a perfect fit (gaps between it and the headunit), I'd like to tidy this up.

[NMX516]

Glad you're happy with it smiles! FWIW, the sound deadening does make a noticeable difference. At least you'll notice the improvement more if you wait a while to install deadening, having been used to it without

You can get 1.5 DIN cubby hole tray type things (technical term) from Mazda. Don't have a part number unfortunately, but from memory the one I used was from a 626. Have a talk to the parts guys at your local Mazda dealer, unless someone here has the details... Fit perfectly and very neat.

[meanmx]

Hi Smiles. I just recently bought the 97 (I think) radio surround that is a proper 2 din space which eliminates any gaps. As well as this it sits the radio and cubby hole flush with the front of the radio surround. It looks like it was meant to come from the factory like that. Spot on

On another note, sound deadening is very, very worthwhile. I was sceptical at first but after installing it just behind the speakers it made a huge difference. Can't wait to do a whole door with it! Jaycar do some nice cheap deadening.

Ben

[mio]

What kind of Jaycar material did you use behind the speaker Ben? The thin bitumen based adhesive stuff, or the more foam padding looking stuff? Did you use just a square of it behind the speaker?

[meanmx]

I used the bitumen based stuff. Cost about $25 approx for two sheets and I just put it behind the speaker itself. I will do the whole door eventually but at the moment this has gotten rid of the worst of the rattles. I had one really shocking vibration from the drivers side speaker which is now a thing of the past.