Quote:
Originally Posted by parapaul
That, dude, is impressive! 
Interesting to see that 5.25" comps will fit with a bit of work - that must increase the range of possible options enormously. They look like they're mounted onto the door cards themselves - are the baffles between the door card and the skin itself?
Those A-pillar builds are lush  fibreglassing is a skill I'd love to have. It looks like the tweeters are firing slightly towards the windscreen - no wonder that initial brightness has improved!
I'm intrigued by your comment about the change of amplifier - I'm not suggesting for a second that you're wrong, but the Richard Clarke Amplifier Challenge has been running for many years, offering a $10,000 prize to anyone who can actually tell two amplifiers apart under lab conditions. Nobody has yet claimed the prize 
Genuinely pleased you're happy with it though - it's a big outlay, but as a fellow audiophile I understand the frustration with crappy ICE. |
The 5.25" fit, but needed quite a bit of work. The possibilities do increase, but not by as much as you think. You'll notice on the picture of the passenger door that there literally is no room for anything wider than that Rainbow midrange. I wouldn't be able to guarantee that a set of DLS midranges would fit - depth wise it would be fine, but if it's so much as 1mm wider in diameter (due to the grill or trim ring) then you're scuppered!
The mounting itself was tricky too - first a little bit of the door card (in towards the cabin) had to be nibbled away to allow enough clearance in front of the dash. Anil then made a set of wedged (angled) teardrop shaped baffles to a) mount the speakers off the door card and b) angle the speakers into the cabin. The OEM speakers you will notice angle into the dashboard and have a hard time projecting into the cabin. The baffles Anil made slip underneath the leather, on top of the door card, and therefore are invisible to the eye but work wonders in positioning and strengthening of the door cards.
The A-pillar builds are beautiful. Yes, we fired the tweeters into the windscreen a little to create more of a soundstage and to lose a bit of the initial brightness. When I finally trim the dashboard in Alcantara that will help even more to control the treble.
I personally can definitely tell the difference between amplifiers. I have done all my life, being brought up as a musician, and can easily point out the timbre and characteristic of each different amplifier. Class D digital amplifiers are harder to distinguish, but it can still be done. I have ears attuned for this particular skill set!