The next area I felt like digging into was the D-pillar speaker panels

Here's the backside of the panel

Here's the speaker laid bare

Close!

So what we learned with those is they are identical to the center, and the depth / clearances are similar.

Next up, the trunk area

Gotta move this, believe this is the TPMS transceiver for the rear

Depth is about 7 1/4" at the rearmost spot

The whole area is almost exactly 36" wide

Shape with the carpeting, driver's side

It is about 20" long in the center from the backside of where the seats mount

And about 18" on the ends

The top panel is 1.5" deep, and can possibly be reused if I'm crafty enough

So the gameplan so far is to run the Image Dynamics 6x9 midbass drivers, a quality tweeter in the factory location, and build up the rest of the system to match acoustically. Of course the sub side of things will get a nice "bump" as well, hopefully all under the factory floor height. That's the target, as historically most of my builds are full-stealth systems with full trunk usability.

 

Lanson,

Very interesting and informative for someone who is not an audio person at all. I am interested in the possibility of upgrading my speakers because I cant stand the sound coming out of that little 3" dash especially when it is used by the bluetooth on my phone. I think the door speakers are pretty bad as well and had one replaced as it sounded horrible mostly when playing news? My question to you is, how do you utilize the factory connectors with the aftermarket speakers? Are there connectors that can be purchased or does there have to be some cutting and soldering of new stuff? Thanks for your help!

 

Cutting and soldering is my main process, and is exactly how I intended to get in there. I'm sure you could buy speaker pigtails, probably from a company like Metra or Scosche, but I've personally never used them. Unless absolutely forced to, I don't plan on using any of the factory wiring from my amp rack (to be) toward the speakers in this vehicle. If I can slip 14 or 16 gauge, 2 conductor sheathed cable through the doors, that's what I'm going to do. If I can't, I'll only use the factory wiring minimally, using it as a bridge with the shortest amount I can. According to the OEM wiring diagram, the wire is 18 gauge. Given the distances that wire travels and the power I intend to push through, I'd say there's a potential for loss here and I'm going to try to mitigate that as much as possible.
As far as the speaker sounding bad, I don't listen to news but I have to imagine it is because the system is always in "surround" mode, and news is likely monophonic. That's just a guess, but let's call it a highly educated one. As such, the system will likely sound too boomy, muddy. I think any surround system will struggle with mono voice like that, but you could bring down the EQ manually when listening to things like that I guess. The factory speakers (the ones I've seen so far) are "fine" but certainly not superstars. My guess is they are all standard Chinese Chrysler speakers, all standard efficient strontium magnets and paper cones, and while they do sound good (especially with the EQ tweaked a bit), they are certainly able to be improved. But adding amplifier power is vital as these efficient speakers will probably be louder than an aftermarket offering, without extra power.

This is also very interesting to me as I cannot stand the Beats audio. Wish I had my alpine speakers back.

I never heard the Alpine but if you can describe the lost qualities, maybe we can get it back.

To me, the biggest obvious failure is the lack of sufficient deadening/sealing in the doors. They DO have some materials in them, but on certain frequencies you'll notice excessive resonance in the panels themselves. This takes away from the musicality of the system, and actually deters me from listening to certain songs at a volume I would consider "loud". Certain songs excite the panels and ruin the experience, the immersion. Curing this will be at the tip-top of my list of things to do.


Before I tear apart the system, I do plan on breaking out my umik-1 calibrated mic, and running through REW to measure the average response of the factory system. I believe I can tap into the aux-in 1/8" phono input, and send test sweeps through that to get an accurate understanding of the factory setup. Doing this will give us the truth of the system's abilities, qualities, and limits. As far as resonance issues, I'll be able to measure distortion qualities, and resonance will report as a form of distortion. This will be very helpful in understanding what's happening, before trying to cure it.

 

This is also very interesting to me as I cannot stand the Beats audio. Wish I had my alpine speakers back.

 

I've been looking forward to this build! Subscribed.....

 

Looking forward to seeing the results, great pictures too. I agree that the worst part is the sound deadening in the doors. Road/wind noise is minimal in the cabin but certain songs there's a few rattles in the door, sooner or later I'll wind up ripping the panels off and trying to fix it. Curious to see what you do for the doors and how it works.

 

Thank you for taking the time to capture all this info ... very interesting thread

 

The alpine sub had way more bass and was much more consistent and music in general sounded quite good with the bass at -1 or -2. Now to get any bass out of the sub it seems like I have to set the bass much higher which just causes distortion on the other speakers. And rattles elsewhere. It almost seems like the bug fix for the EQ issues that my 14 had were fixed by damn near shutting off the sub. But it now almost has a mind of its own. Some music will have a fair amount of bass coming from the sub and the rest it's virtually nothing. I have confirmed that the sub is on even when it doesn't seem to be. Wish the EQ had a separate sub control

 

OK so I've developed a gameplan. The equipment I've got:
JBL MS-8
Arc KS900.6 main amp
set of Image Dynamics 6x9 woofers

Equipment I think I'm going to add:
Sundown SD-3 12" sub in the cargo well area (or pair of SD-3 10's)
Sundown SAE 600d subwoofer amp
Image Dynamics 6.5" coaxial set for rear doors
Tweeters (unknown for the doors, I need to get in them to measure maximum dimensions.)
And solid quality 3-3.5" drivers for the d-pillars and center, especially the center. Thinking of the LGK 1.0 or may step down to a standard type of 3.5" coaxial speaker.

 

Great thread... can't wait to hear more.

Lanson, I have some old Boston Pro 6.5s and was thinking about putting those in the front doors (if the tweets fit). I would obviously have to make a 6x9 baffle with a cut out for the 6.5 mid woofer. Those and a Boston amp are just sitting in my closet so I'd like to utilize them if it makes sense.

 

Great speakers BUT you're sacrificing major cone area there. You'd have to decide if you'd be OK with losing that much potential up-front midbass. In some situations it works out, but in others it can be a downgrade from stock's original design. Remember a 6x9 is essentially an 8" cone's worth of surface area, and when you compare a 6.5" to an 8" in terms of potential efficiency, frequency response, etc., you may find the compromise isn't worth it.

I sure wish Boston would have stayed in business. Great speakers and amps.

 

As long as it's good and tight. I hate those systems that sound like they are using an old sail for the woofer. All they do is rattle and give big systems a bad name.

 

Definitely! Distortion in all forms will be targeted. I want to only open the doors once or twice, to keep the clips and all the parts in good condition, but my goal is to sweep the car and find where and what is resonating, and try to kill that resonance if I can. That's a type of distortion, and one of the worst IMHO. Clean and clear is all I build, or its not worth the time, effort, and money.

 

OK more research pics

I believe these are the wires I'll need to tap in to. Convenient since they are "right here", no need to pull the rear 1/4 panel. We'll see if this works out

This is what the battery looks like, as viewed from under the seat. A tough location in some respects. Tough battery terminal setup too.

I started with some woodworking, just fabbing as I went in a sort of free-form mode, but I'm scrapping the design for something more sinister. Here's some pics of what I was working on, prior to the scrapping of this simple setup.

I decided to use a simple step design since I had tons of small scrap pieces laying around. Cutting these to shape worked well

That step setup was going to calculate out to ~.6 cubic feet with plenty of space above for the sub to set well under the factory floor covering.
Anyway, I'm scrapping that. If anybody local wants this "box" beginning, just claim it and enjoy.

I ordered a pair of passive radiators from creative sound, the 10" variety. I also ordered an Arc KS500.1 mini, which will sit in the trunk here with the rest of the gear. I ordered my front tweeters, a pair of creative sound LD22 tweeters which I'll cut down (somehow) to fit the factory location. I also ordered a Wavecor 3.5" fullrange speaker to install as the center. This speaker won over the Fountek FR89 I was considering due to a few reasons, one being the Qts of the speaker is much higher on the Wavecor and since the center channel area is not a sealed enclosure, the higher Qts will keep the speaker from flopping around out of control at high volume. It also has better sensitivity at 4ohm, and the response plot on and off-axis is stellar for a 3.5" speaker. I'm still hunting down the perfect micro 4 channel to power the rear D-pillars, and entertaining a simple series-wire setup for them to connect with the rear door speakers electrically. I also ordered more techflex to sheathe my wiring, red double-density LED light strip roll, and a couple other odds and ends. Basically, we're getting there.

edit: snagged a small 4ch amp to power up the rears and d-pillars as well. That's 3 amps and a processor, with 11 channels of amplification, and 8 channels of processing power.

 

Update time, we start with this:

And I decided to carefully knife out the factory carpet to get to bedrock, so to speak. I'll be adding deadening (not sure if I'll pull out the stock stuff, it is really thorough) but this is the general trunk shape.

I decided to downfire, with a 2 1/2" spacer placed first

Had to put a slight cut in the spacer, to clear these drain things

This is the preliminary starting board. It might end up shorter than this, but this is maximum length to clear the spare tire wrench thing

Here's the reason for all the effort.

I realize that can be very hard to see, so I'll just describe. What we have here are 3 plots, each one with an 80 hz, 4th order LR slop on the Lowpass. The blue plot is a standard SD-3 10 D4 at 500W with a sealed box, about .7 cubic feet. The orange plot is a pair of SD-3's with the same 500W, with a bit larger box. The red plot is a single SD-3, and a pair of Creative Sound 10" PRs with added weight of 360 grams each, with a relatively small box of about .7 cubic feet (will try for bigger), just wanted to show the potential performance difference.

With equal power, the PR setup gains 2.6dB over a single sealed at 60hz, 3.6dB at 50hz, and after that the PR setup beats even a pair of 10's. So at 40hz, 4.4dB gain over single, and 30hz gets a 3.4dB gain over single. Things start evening out after that. So the idea with the PR set is to get that boost without taking much extra space. If it works out poorly, I'll just rebuild the box with a different set of subs, and write this off as an experience.

 

Tiny update time, I didn't have much time to actually work on the truck since my water heater failed and I was scrambling.

Anyway, my KS500.1 mini came in. I wrapped it in shrink wrap to protect it during fabrication, and happened across a great new home for it.

There's sufficient clearance when the seat is up

And plenty when the seat is folded down as well

A small but important victory in the space battle, and ones like that will let me build a bigger subwoofer box which will make it more efficient with the passive radiators, and capable of a lower tune as well. The big space hogs are the MS-8 and the KS900.6, and there's not much I can do about that.


Some other goodies are on their way, but they are taking slower routes I guess. This Saturday my goal is to make it down to my upholstery supplies place and let them find me a match to my red leather interior, so I can get some beauty in that trunk area.

 

Very interested to see how this is turning out, I also have been attempting to put a system in my '14 and also live here in Vegas.....maybe we can meet up sometime!

 

Definitely! And if you want that box I started building, just let me know and pick it up. It is ~.6 cubic feet and suitable for a 10" SD3 (or possibly other shallow-ish subwoofers.) It won't be doing much for me but it might be a head start for someone else.

 

New gameplan, I scored a much more powerful sub amp (and some other goodies) and I'm ditching the PR setup to run two SD10's in a sealed config. With the additional power I'll get the SPL I was expecting with the PR setup, very similar to MoparMike's setup at this time. I predict our setups will look quite similar near the end, but it isn't on purpose, in fact I think it is more just how this vehicle "wants" to be built.

The PR setup would have been cool but more power with more active cone area is always better if it is available. If I was forced to keep my power level the PR solution would still be implemented.

 

Sweet! Looking forward to watching your build and playing off of one another for info and tips. What you accomplished on the Vette build at DIYMA was awesome so this probably will be too. Keep it up!

 

This weekend I started on my new plan, and came across a semi-decent way to do it. Turns out the rear interior trunk panel (the one the covers the sub) is "only" about $98 online brand new, oem so I decided to take a chance and cut it up. I did this because my design plan has me keeping the factory top cover, and the best way I've found to keep it is to also keep the trunk interior panel.

This is what it looks like on top, just like stock. But underneath, this is the initial trim I did to make it work.

I trimmed much further, to get a somewhat consistent cut around the part. I startted with as big a panel as I could, but quickly I realized that my equipment is just too large for this.

With the part trimmed, I have 5" of clearance (4.25" of side, .75" top board) to make a box.

Based on the fact I need to mount my processor, my KS900.6, and some other parts, I needed to change my box shape. This is what I came up with as a solution. This gives up a bit of airspace but it make it possible to mount all my equipment at least.

Before I packed it in, I soldered up my speaker terminals

My other amps should be here tomorrow or so, which will let me figure out the final mounting design.

 

After getting the two subs in, and test-fitting / measuring, I realized my path was not a good one. I decided to start over again and this time, build firing up. I don't mind restarting because its just wood, glue, and air brads... not exactly expensive to learn on.

In other news I got my CSS LD22 "seconds" tweeters in, and within 10 minutes of arrival I had "ruined" them. hahaha. Well I was told this by other experts, that the LD22 is really a Wavecor tweeter, and I guess I had to see this for myself. Lookie:

So it really is a Wavecor tweeter, and the model number is W022WA03 4 ohm

I had to tear into them pretty good

I also got my center channel, a somewhat hard speaker to get I guess... Wavecor , cute little thing, hope it fits!

 

Time for some update pics, the new direction is working!

Clearance to the subwoofer is about an inch

I decided to mount the subs close together, just for aesthetics (for the top board to come)

You can probably see here that I had use a roundover on the subwoofer cutouts. I cut them to 9 1/4 like it shows in the spec list online, but that's not quite enough. Using the roundover on both sides took care of it.

Just a messy test fit

You can see from these pictures I had to trim the inner plastic trunk panel where it will contact the enclosure. To get this nice and straight, I ran it through my saw very carefully. Worked like a charm!

Here is the box sealed up. I made it as large as I could, even stealing a little bit of amp space.

I had to cut the inner panel further to clear the subwoofers. I created notches to let the subs fit right underneath, and this works well

To mount my processor, I decided to take advantage of the little cubby space on the driver's side. I made this board and I'm able to use existing threaded studs located at the bottom, to hold the panel

I used some of my strongest L brackets and created a nice, stable mount for the MS-8

The processor will fit like this, which will give access to the crucial microphone port, for calibration/tuning purposes.

 

Minor update, I had a few moments free so I decided to work on the box some more. I first added some (extra) bracing, just to be smart. Deadening mat also added strategically

I sprayed the inside and outside with rubberized sealer. A great value at Lowes for only ~$3.90 a can, I bought a few JIC. This stuff effectively seals, and has become my preferred way to guarantee a sealed up box, vs. hitting the edges with caulking. It also works a little like a deadener.

I also added Ultratouch radiant barrier (like a jute padding) to certain areas

I then added poly batting and loose polyfil

The padding/insulation/etc should provide an apparent 10-20% extra space, so this new box should sit around 1.1-1.2 cubic feet (apparent) after displacement.

 

So time for an update I think,

In order to power the rear and D-pillar speakers, I've implemented a Power Acoustik CA4-1600D to handle the job.

This is the stock RCA converter setup that's on the CA4-1600D, I've simply cut the factory wiring and soldered up some RCA's in a Y config.

I'm using Switchcraft short body RCA's, soldered up to Gepco EZ RCA wire

I've soldered in a high current XT60 connector to power up the amp with a quick-disconnect cable. I love using XT60 connectors

Here it is bolted up to the vertical panel, along with the MS-8

Here it is in its planned mounting spot

Fits!

 

OK I just completed 89 full sweeps of the factory system (including results of each step of EQ up and down) , and I'm working on compiling, screen-shots, and analyzing of the data gathered. I need to source a place to store high res images and files so I can properly represent the research. Distortion analysis will also be part of this, since I was able to measure and capture that data at the same time (thank you REW!)

I can tell you that my initial analysis is that the distortion (at this test volume) was significant at some frequencies, and significant resonance as seen in the waterfall graphs. What this tells me is that A: the factory speakers aren't too good after all, and B: the vehicle is resonating like crazy, and it is severely screwing up the final response as heard by the ear. As example, I got spikes of more than 7% THD and I was "only" sweeping at around 100dB. I would have sweeped at lower volumes but I really wanted to capture what my ears were hearing when the system is pushed, and that's the door resonance, etc.

I can also say that, despite these bad things, the factory system is "voiced" very well and produces a nice smooth downward slope which is nearly ideal. Also the EQ sections produce predictable bumps up, or down.

 

Here's the Bass EQ measurements, I tried to keep the mic dead stable, directly in front of me.

Mid EQ measurements, same with the mic

Treb EQ measurements, again keeping mic as steady as possible

 

Left front without subwoofer, as swept via several points of measurement approximately around my ears.

LF sweeps averaged together

Left front without subwoofer, distortion profile.

 

More to come, this is time consuming so it might take a while to get everything laid out.

 

I'll get back to the measurements in a bit, here's an update on the build itself:

So this is the amp rack layout plan

I made these amp boards out of 1/2" MDF. They are beveled, smoothed, and set up with T-nuts to fasten the amp.

I used a cool crosshatch vinyl for the amp rack parts

Backside of the board

I decided to stagger the height to clear a few things. I had a clearance issue with the top panel's latch otherwise, plus I needed just a little bit extra width left to right so this got it done. PLUS, it let me add lighting as you'll see very soon.

Lighting

I wanted a sweeping shape, something that would let the light curve around, instead of being forced around a 90 degree angle. This way the light is smoother and more "floating".

Tested the setup, love it!