[andy9188]

Looking very nice Dave.

[Rudz]

Any updates from the weekend gone by Dave ?

[MEGA]

Yes but not had time to copy the pictures over.

The amplifiers are IN and the front end is DAMN impressive.

I've been working on the EQ over the week as certain tracks force the underseats into clip right now. It's close. Need to get the ranges just right. Alot of tinkering to do still.

I'll provide a build update soon - but I'm very impressed so far.

Sub is going in hopefully this weekend

Dave

[makkan00]

Originally Posted by MEGA

Yes but not had time to copy the pictures over.

The amplifiers are IN and the front end is DAMN impressive.

I've been working on the EQ over the week as certain tracks force the underseats into clip right now. It's close. Need to get the ranges just right. Alot of tinkering to do still.

I'll provide a build update soon - but I'm very impressed so far.

Sub is going in hopefully this weekend

Dave

Looking forward to see pics. Is Audison DSP in?

[MEGA]

Yes. The Bit one.1 is providing input to the amp. The bitone is the EQ I mentioned above

[mistryn]

Just out of interest what size thickness mdf board did you use for the underseat sub spacer?

[MEGA]

12mm.

As said it wasn't enough for the driver to clear so the bottom of the unit was cut open and the entire unit has been sealed in place to make it air tight..

[AWBimmer]

Nice work Dave! I'm so keen to have mine installed but I'm waiting for the installer to free up some time - he is totally snowed under so this waiting business and reading your build thread is getting me frustrated and excited LOL.

[MEGA]

I am not sure I want you to get excited

After this weekend Sub will also be in. So Sam why not pop down one evening to give it a listen

[mistryn]

thans Mega, did you use a spacer to fit the grill back on ? if so what size thickness?

[MEGA]

Didn't need a spacer. It was close but it fitted. 12mm left 2-3mm between the speaker and the original housing which should be enough for the speaker excursion without causing any difficulties.

That said, I'm getting some vibrations from one of the speakers. Time will tell if it's something "in the area" being vibrated by the mid, or something in the mid housing itself. I'll upate tomorrow.

Drivers side seems fine it's just passenger side so I don't think it's an issue of the housings - more something under the seat or on the door..

[MEGA]

So week 2 was "amplify it" week.

We therefore spent most of the day making the cable runs. We needed a source first of all. We took the source from near to the door where the old cable used to run into the coaxial and ran this to the back using 12 gague audison shielded speaker cabling.






This was run into the carpet near to where the underseat mid lives, and under the rear seats:






Along of course with the new wiring, which per side was one underseat pair and one crossover pair (which fed the mids and tweets).


This is fed under the rear seat into the boot:






And that's it for the audio wiring!



In terms of bit one.1 setup, the front speaker wiring is going to act as the source for the whole system. The rear speakers are being left in place and will continue to be fed by the car. This provides a tiny amount of rear fill and in my experience so far (although it was an experiment at the time! ) doesn't impact the sound stage negatively.

There is another reason too. It was considered to fade the system all the way forward, but on the stock EQ (cars WITHOUT Hifi coding) this also equalises the system heavily towards treble and significantly removes the amount of low down frequency provided to the bit one (way beyond the 6db of additional gain the bit one can provide).

If I ever decide to actually replace the rears and go for proper rear fill, I'll need to get Hifi coding. However, leaving the EQ set with fader right in the middle is enough for the bit one to have a good enough source to do it's business on: Namely de-eq and then split.

So here's the beast:




And a first shot of the WIP getting both amps wired up to it, along with power etc.

We have used source detection to power the bit one up, meaning it doesn't need a remote in to be thought up any more cleverly. The bit one is a great toy with this. We've then used the remote out to daisy chain and power up both of the HDP amps.

The bit one is just powered by a tiny little 12 gague power.

The two hertz amps have a 4gague run each, individually fused by 60A fuses. Given where the battery lives, the only reason I can see to go 0 with a dizzy block is split charge. When we were setting this up we didn't know if it'd be needed or not. In retrospect I can't see a need for it at present to be fair.

Few more shots in this state:

Power into the bit one:








Speaker wiring from the amp back into the car





And well, that's it for this little update! The car went back together and I drove home with the front end lit up (And boy is it damn loud) but no sub as of yet.


What I will say is that the HSK 165xl package, as per the name's indication, is LOUD. The midbass underseat is surprising. I'd say the vast majority of people would hear it running and feed back that a sub isn't even needed. But I'm not post people, I like my bass. So I'd conclude the following. If I'd bought a car with speakers half that good I'd never have been able to justify the expendature on the upgrade project. However I didn't. I'd bought an E92 with cack audio! And once I was bothering to spend and put the effort in, I had to sort out the bass as well.

Similarly, the tweeter is just immense. It's far too harsh for human ears at the top of what it's prepared to reproduce and for anyone considering the setup: An EQ is absolutely essential if you want to go for high volume. I'm giving the crossover approximately 110-1[img]http://www.megaginge.info/personal/upload/audio20121118/part2/IMG_20 watts RMS (150 per channel at 4 ohms, gains at about 70%) and it seems like the tweet can still take quite a lot more: It's the ML300 mid I've paired it with (not from the xl range) that makes me stop here - scared somewhat to blow a component rated for quite a bit less than I'm feeding it in any case.

back on that midbass. It's rated for 200 watts RMS according to the packaging. Given it's runinng on the same HDP4, it's obviously also getting the same 110-120. It, could take ALOT more.

In the ported box it's in under the seats (the box as I posted pics up in the first update) it gets very low. Although I was pushing it to clip when not running it with a band pass to drop out the lowest of ranges. It's being fed 40-350 Hz (no point going higher as although it can go much higher, the seat muffles out alot of the sound. I tried it without a LPF and it tried to reproduce voices, which with head down at foot level sounded reasonable good! But muddy would be the word when it's trying to fire through first seat and then 13 stone of idiot sat on seat. So I set an upper limit at 350 with that in mind.



The system has generally taken quite a bit of tuning, which isn't surprising giving it's a 3 way front end. I have ended up cutting the top two tweeter EQ points by as much as 20% (8%, 15%, 20% roughly taken from the 3 top ranges in ascending order .. ). I've also boosted the mids by contrast slightly (not the mid basses!) so they can keep up with the Xl set. I've done this directly in the setup for the two output channels in the bit one, in much the same way as I dropped the curve on the tweets. This is because if I'd added it to the master then it would be supplied also to the tweets which isn't what I wanted.



I'll stop prattling on about setup now and conclude simply this. It's f*cking loud! For just 6 speakers running off one amp, it's close to needing ear guards loud at the top. Drop it a few notches though and AFTER the tuning I've done, it's very very pleasant. I've been running around listening to the likes of Propellerheads, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and it's just stunning the way it's reproduced. The best sound setup I've had.

I find the HDP4 amp to provide a little harsh a sound to be fair compared with the Phoenix Gold To 500.4 pair I ran in my last 2 cars, but it's a fifth of the size and I hope far more reliable (given I've gone through about 6 of the TITANIUM amps!!! ). Without a good EQ, and to my mind the bit one is a very good EQ, I'd not enjoy the sound the amp reproduces. But having tuned it now - I'm extremely happy.

It was also pretty easy to set up. I'm a gadget man but with relatively little audiophile experience. Anyone that listens to the car will conclude that if I cycle the DSP from mode A (default) to mode B (my settings) that there's a staggering improvement at the top end of the decibel scale from standard. This is far more a compliment to the bit one than me! Let me tell you.



Anyway. That's it for this update

Dave

[P 5UML]

ahhh man cant wait to hear this! whens the sub going in? thats what i cant wait to see

[MEGA]

It's in! Just haven't written the next update yet

If you come on Saturday you can hear it!

[alpina527]

Hey Mega. I notice you have a combox sitting there that you aren't using. That's a lot of potential going to waste.

[mob17]

Nice work.

What sub install did you go for in the end?

[MEGA]

Update Sub in and more tuning



So, Gents - sorry for leaving it so long since the last update. I've had all this in since Christmas but it just takes so long to get around to writing everything up !!


At the end of my last update I had the bit one set up but not really so well configured but nothing regarding the bass yet.


As I might have said, the bass produced by the 6.5 drivers is actually shockingly sufficient.
It's the point anyone would have gotten in the car would have said it was probably good enough.

But I expect more from my bass and just simply had to fit the 10W7.


In my E90, I had this fitted into a custom box firing into the cabin via the ski hatch. This was the best you could do with the sealed boot very effectively blocking out almost all bass.

My E92 had been specced with split fold rear seats rather than a through loading ski hatch. This means the ski hatch install was out of the question - it does also mean the boot is not air tight
like it is on the E90 though. Horses for courses.
So I had to go about things another way ...


In any case, this is how the day started out: HDP1 about to get wirted in and the USB cable you can see is from the bit one.




If you see the trim near to the lock has been removed as well. There's a reason for that..





Sooooooooooo, what box?

For this install I picked up a JL High Output ported enclosure. It's tailor made to go with the 10W7 and is basically a brilliant brilliant piece of engineering.

However. It's big. Damn big.

This shot might not give you a full idea of scale, but that will follow:




You can see my old box here, the sealed one that was up against the ski hatch (This is for sale cheap for anyone interested ! ). Taking the W7 out of the old box ...



And I think you get more of a sense of the scale of the new box when you look at the sub going into the new box:




Sooooooooooooo will it fit or not ???


Errrr:




It's goooing to be close !!!!! Stay tuned






We moved on to getting the DRC (sound processor remote) stealth installed in the cabin, which involved removing the center console






And then taking out the gear gaitor etc as well..







The wiring was run through the center console and out to behind the ashtray.

We cut through the old ashtray and then mounted the DRC in there. End result:




bit further out:



and in stealth mode:






So that was that




Next was phase 1 of sound deadening.

NOW. Let me be very clear and say additional sound deadening is the main priority for me now it's all in. We need to get the boot floor done from underneath as the heat shield rattles like a ___bastard___. But what we did do was the boot lid whilst we had the opportunity ...

And the numberplate









Next job was to do some basic tuning of the sub ...

Obviously yes this means the box went in

Running the bit one.1 to do some tuning ...








View from the front with the bit one controller in, it integrates really really nicely with the rest of the interior







Another stealthmode shot:













Sooooooooo, I've not got a "from behind" shot of the sub in the boot - but it doesn't look like anything particularly special right now. I'm going to integrate the HO box into some kind of boot install like I did with the E90 and that custom box I showed a pic of. Not exactly sure what to go for yet though.

The amps will be displayed somehow, perhaps a perspex floor and a stiched box that they are sunk into? And the box will have a false front as it's not the most attractive thing.

But let's talk about the bass.


JESUS. H. CHRIST.



I have heard many W7s, and ran one myself of course - but I was staggered by just hooooow low this thing drops. Ask Sumil, or come to the Ace next monday! I've heard louder installs full stop OBVIOUSLY but you have to remind yourself this is a single 10" sub doing the driving.

It is at it's loudest with the seats dropped as you might expect but it sounds remarkably not too bad even with them up.

I am really very happy with the amount it produces and with the system in general.

Of course - as mentioned, I do really really need more sound deadening, and can't wait for the boot install to be done. BUT. This is the best sound install I've had. Quality is top top notch (except for a few rattles ... ) and the volume is far higher than anything I've had before.

The only issue I have noticed besides the few rattles is voltage drop. At night and in the rain I often get ni to a position where I have to drop the sub slightly in order for it not to drop out .. This is one of the worst things A better battery will sort this out. Looking at a Bosch Silvertop or Optima Yellowtop.

It only happens when we've got rain so I'm heated seats, lights, aircon, CIC system, bass blaaaaring (to the point of pain. No exaggeration), and wipers on top. It's usually fine



But I'm a perfectionist. It will get sorted.




That's it for now !!
Let me know your thoughts.
Dave

[MEGA]

Originally Posted by alpina527

Hey Mega. I notice you have a combox sitting there that you aren't using. That's a lot of potential going to waste.

I do? I didn't realise. That's a combox?

So what do I need to do, in order to activate it ?!?

Dave

[C.J]

Awesome progress!

[MEGA]

Originally Posted by C.J

Awesome progress!

ps! Are you the CJ I think you are? Of my facebook friend and previously a 206 forum fame? Or another one entirely?


You have the same car as he, but coincidences being what they can be.. Who knows

Dave

[C.J]

Originally Posted by MEGA

ps! Are you the CJ I think you are? Of my facebook friend and previously a 206 forum fame? Or another one entirely?


You have the same car as he, but coincidences being what they can be.. Who knows

Dave

Haha, yes he is me.

[makkan00]

Mega
Good progress. Audison looks more sort of OEM intergation into your system.
I guess a difference b/w novoice and expert is that experts share their technical details.
I think your thread will benefit from
- xovers settings of all the components
- HP/ LP slopes
- RMS feeding to each driver
- Phase

I am under the impression that your sub box is sealed? If yes, have you set up any infrasonic filter/ restrictions?

Looking good Dave.