What's in your car????

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I am debating on new components for my car audio and was wondering what other people on here were running in their cars.....

Also, what if would you upgrade to and why?

Has anyone done DIY work for their car audio? If so, how did it work out???

Thanks for the input :confused:

Eric
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
Ericd2281 said:
I am debating on new components for my car audio and was wondering what other people on here were running in their cars.....

A V-6 in the truck and a flat-4 in the wife's car... or are you talking about tunes :D

99.99% of the time i just listen to the radio ... stock system in the car. A Denon cassette deck & modified Bostons in the truck. Nothing to get excited about. A big upgrade would be to replace the antenna on my wife's car (lost in one of the rare snow storms we have here).

dave
 
"What's in the car?"

Seats and a steering wheel.

- one of my favorite movie lines; from Snatch.

I listen to the stock system in my car. I don't hold out any hope for high fidelity on the road, thanks to all the engine and tire noise. But, I might just add a subwoofer to drown all that out. :D ...or perhaps that's just the teenager in me talking. Deep down, I still crave deep, loud bass. Can't satisfy that hunger at home (*sigh*... apartment living). Maybe a 10" JL sub and Phoenix Gold amp will cure me.
 
"Maybe a 10" JL sub and Phoenix Gold amp will cure me."

Just watch out for those nasty surface mount car audio tweeters - most of the ones I've heard will give you tinnitus in about 5 minutes.
I've had loud car audio in the past, but nowadays I'm perfectly content with the original Am/Fm/Cassette and the standard 4" speakers - I can hear the drivetime radio shows and the news perfectly well at 5W/ch.
Besides if I want LOUD, I just turn up my workshop nearfield system - 12" 3 way and 150W/ch. :)

Eric.
 
Koss CD player head unit, 50wX4 at 0.1THD all the way up,Premium Speakers (plymouth's stock premium speakers kick ***) and a 6'' bandpass sub on a 350W jensen amp Right beneath my seat,Screw the masusse i got my own massage (the bass made my rear veiw mirror fall off twice.) I also live apartment sytle and i need my audio fix somewhere.
 
I am using clarion hx-d10 headunit, pg zx475ti amplifier. Front stage is setup using image dynamics two way components 6.5" mid and 1" silk domes (they actually sound very close to my ss9500s :). The rear two channels of the amp go to a pair of image dynamics idq v2 12" woofers in sealed box. About 200 sq.ft of sound deadning in the car, multiple layers in places like doors. Floor has extra padding under the carpet to lower road noise. No rear speakers, everything comes from the front. Subs are crossed over at around 70hz.
 
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Joined 2002
Jean said:
About 200 sq.ft of sound deadning in the car, multiple layers in places like doors. Floor has extra padding under the carpet to lower road noise.

What kind of car do you have? I have 98 civic hatchback, and the road noise is really bad. I applied Dynamat to the drivers door, and trunk to stop the rattling from my sub (small infinity kappa perfect 10 in a small sealed box), driven by an old rockford fosgate punch power 360a. I have more dynamat, but I figured I should figure out a way to reduce road noise first.

How much did you spend on the dampening? Which products did you use? Would normal carpet padding work to dampen the road noise under the carpet?

Thanks for the insight. I started to try to get my car quieter 2 years ago, but I got sidetracked and forgot to finish.

--
Brian
 
BrianGT said:


What kind of car do you have? I have 98 civic hatchback, and the road noise is really bad. I applied Dynamat to the drivers door, and trunk to stop the rattling from my sub (small infinity kappa perfect 10 in a small sealed box), driven by an old rockford fosgate punch power 360a. I have more dynamat, but I figured I should figure out a way to reduce road noise first.

How much did you spend on the dampening? Which products did you use? Would normal carpet padding work to dampen the road noise under the carpet?

Thanks for the insight. I started to try to get my car quieter 2 years ago, but I got sidetracked and forgot to finish.

--
Brian

Hello Brian! Like your Thor speakers btw!

Car is 3rd gen. acura integra. I used B-Quiet extreme, Brown Bread and finally B-Quiet V-Comp from www.b-quiet.com. Me and my brother stripped the whole car down in the garage, everythin was yanked out except for the headliner and the dash. Prepped the surface first with cleaning adents, then applied brown bread on the floor , and trunk area. Door panels (inside, sheet metal that gets dings and all) were first cleaned and then one layer b-queit extreme was applied. Then another layer on the door panel itself. Its a two door hb, so there is some areas to the left and right of the back seat that we covered in brown bread. The trunk lid got two layers, the rear tail lights were taken out and that area was deadened too, down to the spare tire well. Before taking the car for new carpet, V-Comp was installed on the floor upto the firewall. The only thing that we did not sound proof is the headliner.

It made a night a day difference though, it was worth it and saved alot of money doing it in the garage instead of taking it to a local car audio shop. Driving the car w/o any interior in it or stereo for that matter for couple months was not cool though :bigeyes:
 
Retired diyAudio Moderator
Joined 2002
Jean said:


Hello Brian! Like your Thor speakers btw!

Car is 3rd gen. acura integra. I used B-Quiet extreme, Brown Bread and finally B-Quiet V-Comp from www.b-quiet.com. Me and my brother stripped the whole car down in the garage, everythin was yanked out except for the headliner and the dash. Prepped the surface first with cleaning adents, then applied brown bread on the floor , and trunk area. Door panels (inside, sheet metal that gets dings and all) were first cleaned and then one layer b-queit extreme was applied. Then another layer on the door panel itself. Its a two door hb, so there is some areas to the left and right of the back seat that we covered in brown bread. The trunk lid got two layers, the rear tail lights were taken out and that area was deadened too, down to the spare tire well. Before taking the car for new carpet, V-Comp was installed on the floor upto the firewall. The only thing that we did not sound proof is the headliner.

It made a night a day difference though, it was worth it and saved alot of money doing it in the garage instead of taking it to a local car audio shop. Driving the car w/o any interior in it or stereo for that matter for couple months was not cool though :bigeyes:

Thanks for the advice. I am considering buying some of the brown bread for the floor. What made the most difference? How much $$$ did you spend total on the dampening? I have been trying to find something cheaper then buying the dampening stuff. It does seem kind of funny that I will be driving a car with no interior for a bit until I finish. It might give me an excuse to buy a racing seat for my car that a friend of mine wants to sell me. It is quite comfortable, but makes the car look ridiculous (red and yellow color).

As for the Thor TL speakers... they are done and I have been listening to them since Saturday. I took them to the DIY2002 atlanta event on saturday, and they got decent reviews. The speakers were not broken in, and are still being broken in. Until ~50hrs, they had poor bass response, but now, it has increased a lot. I will post pictures of them soon on my website.

--
Brian
 
I have a '98 VW Polo. Great little car!

It has a Sony CD Head unit...CDA-5000R I think.
Lanzar Components are run from two channels of an 4 channel 800W (yeah right!) amp. The final two channels are bridged into a Kenwood 12" sub. I've installed it all and built the (**********) fantastic install. It is removable but looks and feels built in. After having my last setup stolen (I hate TWOCers!) I built up this system to be far more musical. I have a custom xover (as in homebrew!) which is in a box hidden underneath. By setting all channels of the amp to "all pass" it ensures perfect integration. As I said, it is very musical, but it can blow the house down when I click Sony's DBass button a few times!

Gaz
 
My car hasn´t any stereo equipment. Only the sweet and authentic sound of engine and mechanic:
 

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B-quiet Extreme is awesome

I have a 2001 Passat with custom made kickpanels that have Focal 165K2 woofers and TN51 tweeters, an Eclipse 8061 cd player, 3 image dynamics IDQ12DVC subwoofers, and four Lunar HC25X2 amplifers...Also I have a modified Image Dynamics IDX24 Crossover and a pair of Image Dynamics IDQ31 Eq's. Using 200sq ft of B-Quiet Extreme I put 3 layers over the entire floor of the car and 4 layers on each one of the front doors. I also used Black Hole five under the dash and in a few other places for added sound deadening. To answer the original question, all of this stereo is DIY that a friend of mine helped me with and it was a ton of fun. My dad is really into home audio, and I have been exposed to high end home audio since I was about 2 years old. That is why I place 100% of the blame on him for turning me into the audio nut that I have become today. :D I always work on my stereo to see how close I can come to achieving great sound in the car. Of course it is impossible to have a car audio system that will be as good as a home system, but it is really and truly incredible what can be done in a car to have great sound.
 
There`s a good old 350ci equipped with a crane roller cam, headers and other goodies, not bad sounding at all:cool:

I`m living in the city and won`t have my car-windows smashed. So I`m using some old two-ways speakers (-laying flat down in the back) looking really cheap, but with fancy drivers and just one simple cap as a filter.
A Denon CD-tuner gives the signal through a Vivanco KX-710-based interconnect, to an old Concorde HP-70II amp(2x70w/4ohm) poered by 10mm solid-core from the battery.

It`s a big car but it`s wery little noise inside!
 

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