[makkan00]

Originally Posted by mob17

Reading all this has made me think i NEED to start my install soon. Just the morels and jehnerts for now.

Mo
You are busy in some other things and later you are going to moon to bring some honey.
These things don't happen so often and while its happening, enjoy it thoroughly. (Forget the car and audio for few months)

[mob17]

Originally Posted by makkan00

Mo
You are busy in some other things and later you are going to moon to bring some honey.
These things don't happen so often and while its happening, enjoy it thoroughly. (Forget the car and audio for few months)

LOL true true. I'll try my best

[taibanl]

Spacer!

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by taibanl

Spacer!

Yes mate, thats on the agenda.

Stage IV begins.


1- P99RS is here. Scooped it and it produces 61/62 clip free signals compared to P88RS which was producing 55/62 clip free signals. But then P99RS is 5 times the price of P88Rs.



2- Morel Elates are here. I have made 18mm spacers to fit these to underseat boxes, but they are 71mm and OEM enclosure can take 50mm dirvers. This method has failed.

So I have to figure out a way to fit these. I may have to modify OEM enclosures (as kaig did) or make custom boxes to fit these underseats.
How much am I going to gain?
It is earthquakes 150W vs elates 200W. I cannot comment on sound quality yet, as I have not heard these.



3- JL Slash 300/2 (Class A/B) is here and I have scooped it in my laboratory (kitchen table).
Jl Slash is supposed to produce;
150W@ 4 ohms in stereo mode
300W @ 3-8 ohms in bridged mode

And results are
171W in stereo mode
and whooping
718W in bridged mode

I have re-tested it on other frequencies and it is easily producing 700W. Thats tells you that JL under rate their amplifiers.

I wanted to install few bits and bobs today but weather is lovely and not helping.

[mob17]

Looks very very good makkan, bet you can not wait!

[kaigoss69]

Looks good. I'm sure there will be absolutely no comparison between the Morels and the Earthquakes. Don't forget, they will need some time to break in so don't judge too quickly!

The OEM enclosures should be used because they use the side sills to extend the volume of air behind the woofers. Also there is no height space to be gained, on the contrary, you may loose a few mm's by building custom enclosures and they will be ridiculously small and it will likely not sound very good!

You have to dry fit them first without the enclosures to make sure you can find a location that allows you to place them with the basket resting on the floor pan and then let the seat down to make sure you still have clearance between the surround and the seat rail. The clearance can be as little as 2 mm. Then you have to measure the position of the woofer relative to some fixed points, then put in the OEM enclosure and mark the basket position on the enclosure. Then you'll have to get the Dremel out and go to town! It took me at least a couple of hours per enclosure to get everything cut away. Any holes you open up to the enclosure inside you can seal with Dynamat. It'll be fun!

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

It'll be fun!

Thanks Kaigoss. I am reading it now after fitting those. Thanks for all those tips and your thread really helped me.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by mob17

Looks very very good makkan, bet you can not wait!

Thanks Mob. Looking forward to it.

[makkan00]

For stage IV, I want to install the under seats first and run them for a week before I change my HU. The reason is that I want to distinguish the impact of under seats and HU on my sound system. If I fit them both together, it will be difficult to tell if sound has improved due to under seats or HU.

So, I started with fitting Elates.
I applied dynamat on the interior surface of OEM enclosure. Since OEM enclosures are made of plastic and they resonate if you feed them more than 70-80W. Dynamat should reduce the resonance and vibration (in theory).
I started making spacers for Morel Elate 9 last night. After taking few measurements, I made 18mm wooden spacer. After trial to fit, I had issues fitting Elates into these enclosures. Problem was the rear cage of Morel Elates 9 which is wider compared to the rear basket of ADMW SW9. And hence most people opted for ADMW SW9. This cage was getting stuck by the ridge in the OEM enclosure (marked by red arrows).

I read kaigoss69's thread (thanks Kaigoss) of fitting 10 inch morels under seat. That gave me an idea of cutting OEM enclosure to use the space below the OEM enclosure. Also the installer of Mega has done the same (thanks Mega).
BMW engineers are clever. They have used plastic under seat enclosures and in order to avoid any rattling created as a result of these enclosures hitting the lower chassis, they have used a rubber spacer (4-5 mm in height) which sits b/w enclosures and the lower part of your car.

Well, that is the plus point for some of us. We can take that spacer out and open the back of OEM enclosures to use that 4-5 mm of space, provided the condition that there is some sound deadening b/w enclosure and the body of the car. By cutting the OEM enclosure, I was going to give morel's cage a bit more space to fit it and rest against the chassis of the car (separated by Dynamat).


So I started with the sound deadening of the lower part of my car where OEM enclosure sits.


Then OEM enclosures were cut.



Sound deadening was applied to seal them again but bit deeper to accommodate Elates.




After having these mods, next task was to separate the seats from the woofers. One of the reason, I opted Elate was that it came with Morel grills.
So, Morel grills were fitted with woofers to wooden spacer. After that the seats still struggled to fit. I had to modify the grills by depressing it. Approximately 3mm space was left b/w grills and woofers. It was later tested at full volume and different tracks that there was no physical contact b.w the woofers and the grills.

Now the fun part was comparison b/w SWS-8s and Elate 9 @150W. One driver was SWS-8 and other was Elate 9.
I turned off sound processing and time alignment (will explain the reason later).
---On sub bass SWS-8 was winner.
---On mid bass Elate was better.
It was very hard to choose which one to go for. Since Morels are expensive, so it comes into your mind that they are better (or at least this is what people perceive that expensive things are better). The other reason is that they can take 200W RMS so you can have SQL setup.
Since I have a sub in my setup and Elates can take 200W, I opted to go for Elates.

Now after having all this, I installed the other Elate 9 and done the calibration.

Few interesting things;
1- Elates reduced my over all sound stage. During the auto-calibration, P88RS did following;
Focal mids at -6db left / -4 db Right (previous -0 db left and right).
Focal tweeters at -9db left / -9db Right (previous was -3db left and -2db Right)
Whereas Elates were at -0db Right and left. (Previous was -3db left and 1- Right with SWS-8s).
My understanding is that with SWS-8, Focal mids were set as reference to setup the sound system. However this time, Elates were used to setup the system. There are few more interpretations of these, but I’d limit myself to this for the time being. I need to sit and play with the sound system for some good time before I write any further comments.
So overall sound stage has gone down with elates, however I am expecting to overcome this issue when I feed them @200W and focals @70W with 300/2.
2- Without sound processing / time alignment, both under seats rattles equally, however with a sound processor in your car and time aligned sound, passenger under seats always rattle more. I noticed it first time in Rudz’s car where passenger side under seat rattled more. On my hi-fi system they were equal but since I moved on to P88RS, my passenger side under seat rattled more.
This is the reason that I turned off sound processing / time alignment when I compared SWS-8 and Morel Elates.
3- No matter what other says, I found earthquakes brilliant drivers especially as sub bass drivers. Though it struggles at mid ranger or upper mid range but it is so good at bass.

That's it for the time being. Next week, I will be fitting P99RS if time allows. BT kit for P99Rs has been ordered and will be on its way and that will be going with this HU into my car.

[kaigoss69]

Let them break in!!!

I'm sure you will find that the bass and mid-bass is miles apart from the SWS-8's. Sub-bass the SWS are better, but who cares, you've got a subwoofer for that!

I'm glad you got them in without too much hacking!

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

Let them break in!!!

Kaigoss thats what I am waiting for now.

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

I'm sure you will find that the bass and mid-bass is miles apart from the SWS-8's. Sub-bass the SWS are better, but who cares, you've got a subwoofer for that!

I'm glad you got them in without too much hacking!

Kaigoss, I love my bass. And I was compensating the lack of mid bass on SWS-8 by using minor adjustments on equiliser, and it was perfect.

Sound was so even with SWS-8 and bass was coming from underseats and rear (very balanced front and rear bass).

With Elates, mid bass has gone up, but now I clearly feels that the bass is only coming from the rear. Both SWS-8s and Elates are HP @ 70Hz.

I take your point and let them break and then review the settings.

Thanks for the suggestions mate.

[makkan00]

Few updates;
-Giving Elates a week, I still struggle to get used to it. They are excellent mid bass driver and do not miss even a single beat. However they don't play low very well.
Another benefit is that they play very clean (evern at 180-200W) and much better than Jehnerts.

-Installed P99RS and Slash 300/2 today so,
P99RS
a) HI signals ---> 2 channels XD 600/6 ---> 35W to focal tweeters
b) MID signals ---> Slash 300/2 ---> 75W to focal woofers
c) MID bass signals ---> 4 channels (bridged) XD 600/6 ---> 180W to Elates 9
d) Sub signals ---> JL 1000/1 ---> 1000W to 12W7

And P99RS set these drivers as follow;
1- JL 12W7 @ 20-63Hz (reversed polarity)
2- Elates 9 @ 63-1.6Khz (normal polarity)
3- Focal woofers @ 1.6-8Khz (normal polarity)
4- Focal tweeters @ 8-20Khz (normal polarity)

I must say that sound was all over the places. Sound stage was sort of at your knees (due to Elates producing vocals). Again Elate was reference point during the auto calibration and all other drivers were adjusted in -db.

So I went for custom network but auto allignment;
1- JL 12W7 @ 25-80Hz (reversed polarity)
2- Elates 9 @ 63-200Khz (normal polarity)
3- Focal woofers @ 200-4Khz (normal polarity)
4- Focal tweeters @ 4-20Khz (normal polarity)

And boom! Sound stage was up there in front of you.

This is truely premium HU and gives you that feeling. You can set custom light colours. I have set orange and white colour which matches my car's light (orange) and speedometer (white M3 conversion).

So how much do you gain by moving P88RS to P99RS? It is a question which I asked many people but did not get the technical response.

P88RS is awsome kit. So good to be true. It has BBE option which retrieves compressed sound. It improves the sound SO GOOD that its is very hard to beat.

So listening to music on P99RS (ipod kit on both HU), I heard hardly 5-10% difference and its mostly at top end (mid - tweeter). You hear bit more music. But that can be due to tweeter being amplied whereas with P88RS they were being run by HU built in amplifier.

Difference goes upto approx 20% when you listen the music on CD. P99RS gives you way much more details in the music, both on high and low ends.
Other benefit of P99RS is that each channel can be set on different parameters compared to other side. So you can have L elate crossed at 63hz with 24db slope and R elate at 125hz with 6db slope (if you are dumb!).

So if one can justify the price tag of P99RS for 20% improvement, then its worth of upgrading.

Otherwise, P88RS is so good that you can live with it and with bit of clever way, you can set it as 4 way semi-active HU (as I did).

[kaigoss69]

Interesting that the P99 set the phase of the underseats to normal and is out of phase to the sub. This seems to be opposite what the P88 did, or not?

Why are you expecting the Elates to play so low? They are midbass drivers, that's what they're there for.... or not?

What kind of response curve does the PRS autotune give you? Perhaps you need to do some eq'ing to raise the the levels in the area where you think you need more. Also, I did an RTA the other day with the sub and woofers in and out of phase, and in phase had less cancellations. Since your sub is on the rear deck I would think you should also have better results with the sub and midbass in phase.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

Interesting that the P99 set the phase of the underseats to normal and is out of phase to the sub. This seems to be opposite what the P88 did, or not?

Kaig
Since P88RS is 3 way out and I used sub out to play underseats, therefore they were on reversed polarity. I may be wrong but I felt that sound was way better with the underseat in reverse polarity.
And P99RS does 4 way time allignment and it kept the underseats at normal polarity.
I do not think that these units are as clever as I initially though. They does the networking on the based of the info they are fed with but the time allignement on the basis of the distance of the drivers from the listener. They are fed to tunes for tweeters, mid bass and mids fitted in the door IMO and hence a reason that they played elates that high on auto networking.

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

Why are you expecting the Elates to play so low? They are midbass drivers, that's what they're there for.... or not?

You are right there. But when I am having kids in the car, sub is always off. And I am used to SWS-8s which plays low as well (and you don't miss your sub that much).
Elates play low upto 40Hz but does not sound like a sub at all!

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

What kind of response curve does the PRS autotune give you? Perhaps you need to do some eq'ing to raise the the levels in the area where you think you need more.

I have iphone crappy RTA and will do further testing.

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

Also, I did an RTA the other day with the sub and woofers in and out of phase, and in phase had less cancellations. Since your sub is on the rear deck I would think you should also have better results with the sub and midbass in phase.

Thanks for the confirmation. My feelings were subjective but you tested it and objectively, it worked better.

I may then reverse the polarity of underseats to reverse, so they'll be more in sync with the sub than mids.


My other finding with P99RS is that it play clipless and clean on the max (60/62 for me) volume. One of the reason is clean signals from HU and other is that I have set the gains bit less than max of each amp to give them that headroom to play dynamic music.
Jl 1000 out of 1250W
JL XD 600/ 6 bridged 180W out of 200-220W
JL XD 600/ 6 stereo 25W out of 75W
JL 300/2 75W out of 150W

So all of them have some power left at the end to play / deal with the dynamic music and one of the reason that Active system sounds so well.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

What kind of response curve does the PRS autotune give you? Perhaps you need to do some eq'ing to raise the the levels in the area where you think you need more. Also, I did an RTA the other day with the sub and woofers in and out of phase, and in phase had less cancellations. Since your sub is on the rear deck I would think you should also have better results with the sub and midbass in phase.

I was reading few good articles and here is something (which we both have done)...
Always attempt to align the phase of your sub with the phase of your mid bass speakers, and your mid ranges and your tweeters.

[mob17]

Sounds great makkan. Your hard effort is nice to see

I have found the following links very useful when tuning.

Polarity and EQ: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...sy-cmusic.html

TA by ear: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...your-ears.html

Haven't actually tried TA by ear, but it looks like a good method. Just another tune for you to try...

[kaigoss69]

The auto tunes are great for frequency response and tonality, but imaging is another story. There is nothing that tells the microphone AT WHAT HEIGHT the speakers are located. Therefore the achievement of (proper) stage height is solely dependent on speaker placement, speaker frequency response, and manual selection of crossover points.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by mob17

Sounds great makkan. Your hard effort is nice to see

I have found the following links very useful when tuning.

Polarity and EQ: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...sy-cmusic.html

TA by ear: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...your-ears.html

Haven't actually tried TA by ear, but it looks like a good method. Just another tune for you to try...

Funny enough that second link is already on my bookmarks and was planning to play with manual tunning when get bored.

Thanks for these links. how is your fabrication going on?

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

The auto tunes are great for frequency response and tonality, but imaging is another story. There is nothing that tells the microphone AT WHAT HEIGHT the speakers are located. Therefore the achievement of (proper) stage height is solely dependent on speaker placement, speaker frequency response, and manual selection of crossover points.

+1

Kaigoss
I am going to play with MS-8 in another car. Just a quick question and will save me reading multiple threads. Does MS-8 consider polarity of the speakers and change it automatically?
And if yes, is there a way to know that it has been done?

or Do we have to rely on manual tunning?

Thanks.

[mob17]

Originally Posted by makkan00

Funny enough that second link is already on my bookmarks and was planning to play with manual tunning when get bored.

Thanks for these links. how is your fabrication going on?

Its going along ok thanks. I made some yesterday and they should be fully dried today, so might try fitting them in today if i have time.

I can't wait to start tuning again!

[kaigoss69]

Originally Posted by makkan00

+1

Kaigoss
I am going to play with MS-8 in another car. Just a quick question and will save me reading multiple threads. Does MS-8 consider polarity of the speakers and change it automatically?
And if yes, is there a way to know that it has been done?

or Do we have to rely on manual tunning?

Thanks.

No MS-8 does not check or correct polarity. You're supposed to hook up all speakers with normal polarity, and then the processor makes its corrections through EQ and TA.

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by mob17

Its going along ok thanks. I made some yesterday and they should be fully dried today, so might try fitting them in today if i have time.

I can't wait to start tuning again!

Any Photos of what you have done?