Edconline's Bose/Nav upgrade

edconline

I decided to make a new thread for my build rather than continue to post in another thread I had which actually started as a question.

I have the factory Bose/Nav system and I was never happy with how it sounded. (I have never like any Bose product I have ever heard, so I wasn't surprised I didn't like it.) I added a Wicked CAS Magic Box (Spare tire type) with a 13TW5 and a JL XD600/1 to the system last year, using an AudioControl LC2i for signal from the stock sub output. It added the extra bass that I was looking for, but I still wasn't happy with the overall sound and I wasn't sold on the placement of the sub. All these things led me to say it's time to do it all over, and here we are.

As my car is off the road for the winter, and there is a lot of winter left the build will take place over the next several months. I have finalized 95% of the component list for the new build, and parts are now starting to come in.

The Plan:

Midbass: Hertz HV 165XL 6.5's in the factory door locations.

Tweeters: Hertz Mille ML 280.3 in the factory tweeter locations.

Rear Fill: Hertz Energy ECX 100.5, 4" Coax in factory rear speaker locations. (**Up in the air between that and the DCX 87.3's)

Sub: JL 10W3v3 in a WickedCAS corner mount Magic Box.

Processor/Factory Integration: JBL MS8 - Giving me a clean signal from the factory navi and allowing me to run the front 2-ways active.

Amplifiers:
JL HD900/5 powering the Subwoofer on the mono channel and powering the Tweeters and Rear Fill Coax's with 100W RMS/channel. More than the Tweeters or Rear speakers will need, but more headroom is always nice.

JL XD400/4 running bridged to provide 200WRMS for the 165XL's. These mid bass drivers are known to crave power.

Power: 4GA power run (KnuKonceptz Kolossus) to the trunk where a distribution block will split into a 4GA supply for the HD900/5 and an 8GA supply for the XD400 amp. In hindsight I wish I had run 2GA to the trunk when I put the XD600 in, however the 4GA should be sufficient going off of conventional amplifier power/wire gauge charts. No plans at this time to replace the battery or alternator or to do the Big 3. I do have the Stillen grounding kit in, so at worst that won't hurt my grounds in the back.

Cables: Audiobahn CE 600 RCA's. Awesome looking cables and got them for a great price. Monster XLN 16Ga speaker wiring for the new speaker cable runs. 12Ga for the subwoofer run.

Sound Deadening: Dynamat Xtreme and Dynamat SuperLite for vibration dampening. I'll do the outer skins of the doors, and some of the inner skin, as well as some in the spare tire well, trunk floor, hatch lid, and rear wheel wells. I plan to use some MLV and CCF for the doors and trunk floor/spare tire well also, provided that I can get some here in Canada. The goal is to reduce the road/tire and exhaust noise inside the cabin as well as eliminate any possible rattle and improve the Midbass driver performance. HOWEVER - at the end of the day, it is a sports car and despite the previously mentioned goals, weight will remain a big factor. The entire system with all of its components will absolutely not exceed 100lbs of additional weight. An arbitrary number perhaps, but one I have set my mind to. (I've cut at least 100lbs+ of weight in other areas of the car so I don't feel as bad)

Some caveats: I don't want to hear anything about rear speakers lol. Installing them is honestly more of just a testing thing for me, it has nothing to do with cost or preference, etc. Don't say 'but you could have spent that $100 on blow and that would be way more fun than rear fill!'. 1) My budget for car audio and powder is completely separate, so no worries there and 2) As I stated, if I don't like them I'll just fade them out or disconnect them. But with the wizardry the MS8 can do, I'm confident they will only enhance the system.

Well that's a pretty long introductory post to the build, but that is the gist of it so far! I will be posting lots of pictures as it progresses so stay tuned! Only one picture for now:

Oooo Pretty:

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edconline

I should also add, if you follow this build hoping to see custom MDF amp racks with the amps lit, etc you will be disappointed lol. Back to the whole weight thing, adding wood to a car that isn't a Morgan doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Amps/MS8 will be mounted where the foam piece is in the trunk (where my nismo brace is now) Decoupled from the floor with CCF and fastened with velcro strips. Everything will look 100% factory except for the sub. Actually, that will look factory too if you didn't know better. Those WickedCAS boxes are the truth!

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90 ST

Hey Edconline they have or can get CCF at JB's Power center, they sell Hush Mat, which is great stuff.

edconline

Nice! I don't suppose they have MLV as well do they? Looking like an order from buddy at sounddeadenershowdown, good product just killer shipping from the US


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90 ST

I don't think so no.

edconline

Oh well, still not a horrible price from there and I won't need a ton. One of the beauties of using the MS8 is I can run a calibration with my status seats in and another one for the stock seats and save them as favorites. Having the hard carbon backed seats in VS the factory leather ones with way more padding completely changes the dynamics normally. This should solve that issue for good.


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daveb91

Will the fours fit in the rear spots...in before someone tells you don't do it.

edconline

I 100% guarantee the 4's will fit in the rears. Now ask me how much work I'll have to do to make them fit, I'll have to get back to you


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Morbid370Z

I would highly recommend considering not getting the 4" fills. It may just muddy up the front stage.

Just something to think about. When I did my build I just had the Focal's installed in front, deleted the 4" rears, and a sub in a Zenclosures box. I don't miss the rear speakers at all.

edconline

After reading through the (408 page ) JBL MS8 thread on DIYMA, it looks like the MS8 handles balancing the rears so that they don't affect the front stage whatsoever with ease. I have the extra amp channels anyways, and the car will be apart already. So for the 10 min of extra time it'll probably take me to install them, and $100, I'm gonna try them out. If it don't like it, I'll just unplug them and that'll be that.

While I'm approaching the build from an SQ standpoint (certainly more so than SPL anyways), it is a bit redundant in the sense that 85% of the time I listen to electronic music, 10% Rap/Hip-Hop and 5% Pop. I have little taste for anything recorded using instruments, so in reality 'staging', 'depth', etc is going to mean very little for the music I listen to.

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edconline

Slowly but surely, Canada Post brings the pieces:





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edconline

Now that the interior is stripped running the wiring has been fairly simple. Some changes to my original plan are happening, now the amps will be placed behind the seats, and fastened right into the fuel lines. (Joking - hopefully) This will be the easiest place for access, mounting, ventilation, etc. They will still be hidden as well day to day. The MS8 (It's pretty big! - 12"x8") will be mounted where the factory Bose amp used to be. I know I said no wood in the build, lol, but I will need to make a small base for the MS8 as the floor is anything but flat in that area. Ignore the cabling just lying there loose, tech flex is ordered!

HD900/5 placement (in the green box) drivers side:


XD400/4 placement on passenger side:


Where the MS8 platform/unit will go:


Bose amp out of all its cases (just out of curiosity):


And finally, the Bose tweeters next to the Bose rear speakers. Hard to tell which is which LOL

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edconline

Today was Dynamat day. That meant tearing down the doors, so I cabled the front speaker locations while the doors were apart. Running the new speaker wiring into the doors was simple. There is a nice big blank spot where you can drill on the car side, and you don't need to drill at all on the door side, just fish it in. Once you remove the door from the car, it's like a 5 min job.

Stripping down the door was more of a process, taking out the glass left me with that feeling like everything wasn't going to be ok when I went to put it all back together lol... Oh well, had to happen. Worth noting in order to fully strip the door down, the glass must come out, and in order for the glass to come out you need power to the window motor to raise it up a bit. I had to temporarily plug my gauge cluster back in so that I could get ACC power again.

Dynamat went well, it will be a good first step in soundproofing. I used both Xtreme and Superlite, I had read that there wasn't much of a difference in weight/thickness between the two but that's just not true. It was quite noticeable. I used the thicker Xtreme in the doors where I was most concerned with deadening, and Superlite everywhere else. A fair bit went into the doors as the Midbass drivers will be bumping pretty hard, and the very rear of the trunk floor is terrible for reverb so I used a fair bit of Superlite there. Everywhere else I did was just small pieces to deaden the panel overall.

Next step in the sound deadening will be doing the whole trunk floor and door panels with mass loaded vinyl and closed cell foam. If I can get my hands on some thinsulate acoustic, there are a couple of the plastic trim pieces I would like to throw some behind as well. All in all, should be sub 40lbs of total soundproofing. Not enough to make any noticeable difference in performance, but should be a massive difference in SQ and how nice the cabin noise (or lack of) is.

Pictures:

Passenger door stripped:


Little bit of matting on the trunk lid:


Passenger door after matting:


Speaker cable fished into door harness:


Speaker wire coming out of new hole in car side grommet:


Trunk matted:

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bigaudiofanat

Have to love those (high quality) bose products. SMH. The install is coming along very nicely are you going to install mat on the doors as well?

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edconline

Yup, I used the Dynamat Xtreme on the front doors. It's kinda hard to see in that one pic I posted because it's dark in the door and the Xtreme is black, this one shows it a little bit better:



For the doors I'm also gonna cut a sheet of MLV/CCF for the whole panel. Then for the 6x9 to 6.5 adaptors, I'm gonna make it out of 3/4" or 1" MDF so it acts as a baffle as well as a spacer.

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