Custom Fit/Stealth Audio Upgrade

[Cubbington]

Hi All,

 

Hope you're all staying safe and healthy.

 

This is taking some time, and I still have the speakers to do, but just wanted to post some pics and info on the system upgrade I'm currently working on.

 

The standard system isn't too bad, but I wanted to improve things without changing the original display, nor have visual evidence of different speakers.

 

I've already spent some time Dynamatting the boot floor, spare wheel well, tailgate, under rear seat bench, bonnet and front doors, and just have the rear doors and rear quarter panels to do.

 

As such, my research lead me to a German brand, Audiotec-Fischer; they do plug and play systems for the main German car brands, and their Match range has various amplifiers, speakers, subs, wiring harnesses & looms designed to just drop in - the main systems are for BMW.

 

Unfortunately, they've discontinued the VW specific 6.5" component speakers, which have the exact same mounting for the tweeter in the front doors, so I went for their Helix F 62C 6.5" components.

 

I also had a look at Focal, as they make a specific VW component set, but the connectors/wiring in VW is different to Skoda, so they aren't plug and play for us either. I really liked the look of these, as the tweeter fittings are the same, and the speakers include the deep baskets for the mid-bass drivers.

 

I went for the M5 DSK Mk2 amp, which can be mounted virtually anywhere, as it runs cool and has a tiny footprint. It's also configurable via a laptop to enable so many settings it's a bit mind-boggling!

 

 

 

The amp install's been pretty straightforward with the harness and loom in place; I plugged it all, switched the headunit on...and it worked!

 

 

I was able to remove 28 wires from the plug and play harness, as it's a generic VAG compatible unit, so everything's wired - by my reckoning, it was about 8.5m of little wires acting as aerials I got rid of!

 

 

 

The increase in performance was really good; a lot more grip, control, detail, and obviously louder at the same volume level.

 

Not satisfied with that, I bought a Rockford Fosgate amp wiring kit, and ran a direct power feed from the battery to enable 'high output' mode. This is one of the programmable settings, and there's a warning in the manual not tenable it with the standard loom, as the current draw can peak at 40 amps and damage the existing wiring loom!

 

Thanks to @JohnnyType2's excellent write up on his install, I was able to find the loom through the bulkhead, and whilst I'd planned to use that, directly below I discovered another part of the rubber grommet directly below protruding for a wiring loom that my car doesn't have! I made a tiny hole, fed a draw wire (a straightened coat hanger!) through from inside the car, taped the cable to it, and pulled it back through into the car. Oddly, the negative cable was only 18" long, so whilst I couldn't get this onto the battery, I put it onto the mounting point for the dashboard.

 

 

With loom fitted, and amp connected, I switched the system on...and nothing! Total schoolboy error,  I'd connected positive & negative around incorrectly (too much time out in the heat I think), once connected correctly, I tried again and nothing. Thankfully, it was just the fuse in the amp's wiring harness that got taken out, and not the amp...

 

Fuse replaced, all was working as it should, phew!

 

Next was to connect the laptop, and enable the high output mode. It was very easy to do, and nice that you get warnings before enabling the high output mode. All settings changes are live, so you can hear what you're doing - I thought I was saving the file name with the date, pressed '2' and that disabled output channel '2'/front right, pressing 2 again enabled it!

 

The difference between the two output modes was night and day, significantly better than plug and play/low output mode. There's even more control and detail - hard to believe I'm still running the standard speakers actually!

 

I just took the photos below, with the software in demo mode - it was too bright yesterday to take any pics of the screen.

 

 

 

The images below are of all the other setup pages; crossover and equaliser, input/output configuration, time alignment & real time audio analyser - I think you plug a microphone into the computer and it'll do 'room' correction as you find in home cinema and some high end audio amplifiers!

 

 

 

 

 

The amp is five channel, and has a separate sub output, this can also be configured for a centre channel if you don't have a sub...as our cars have the centre speaker mount for the Canton system, I might just buy a cheap speaker to try this out; the bass response with just the standard speakers is fine for me, but it's good to have options.

Configured for now, I put some anti rattle tape and velcro strips on the amp, stuck it in place behind the screen (it's a 30 second job to pop the screen out if I want to make changes to the amp settings), and then cable-tied it to keep it in tight:

 

 

Thanks for reading this, and I'll update when I get the speakers in!

 

Cheers,

Nick

 

Edited 3 May, 2020 by Cubbington

[JohnnyType2]

looks great! well done! i looked at finding a small enough amp/dsp to fit behind the screen but with what i went for was a little too large.

 

one question does it have an 'auto' level setup? where you run it exit the car and let it do its thing for the best speaker output? requires a mic though. 

[Cubbington]

Thanks Buddy, much appreciated 😁

Yep, your system’s a lot more advanced than this!

 

I’m not too sure about the auto setup, but I think probably so, as you can download a pink noise test tone from their website - I’ll check when it’s all up and running. One of my mates has a decent calibrated USB mic, so I’ll borrow that in due course.

 

I got one of the rear doors almost done today; Dynamatting went well, but then realised I didn’t have decent fixings for the speaker adapters, luckily Screwfix had M4 bolts, nylon locknuts and washers, although I’ve just ordered some toothed shake-proof washers as the bolts just started to squash into the adapters.

 

I ordered some Stinger Roadkill Fast Rings last week, the same as you fitted, so popped that in too - sorry no photos of the work outside today, just wanted to crack on with the job.

 

Also glad I tested the speakers before fitting, as I found a faulty tweeter crossover, which needed a bit of soldering work to fix a broken track on the PCB.

 

what I thought was going to be the hardest job after seeing your photos was the fitting of the tweeter, which was actually a doddle. I guess more by luck than judgement, the Helix tweeters drop into the original hole, and have slight lip so they sit in almost perfectly! I tidied up the surround before fitting, and have used bathroom silicone sealant to hold it in place!

 

 

 

I’ll hopefully make some more progress tomorrow, and start on the other rear door and fit the front door tweeters, no point doing any of the bass drivers until I get those locking washers.

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

 

 

Edited 26 April, 2020 by Cubbington

[dubDEAN]

Skipton Car Radio also do a massive range of plug and play kits etc should you need anything , they specialise in upgrades with no wire cutting and soooo many brands 

[Cubbington]

Thanks mate, happy just cutting the connectors off and going directly into the crossovers, but worth knowing if I need some more gear.

 

A bit more prep work today; all tweeters fitted, and a roll of speaker gasket tape turned up, so I put that on the adapters.

 

After removing the tweeters, it purely by chance that I could see that the holes in the panel weren’t all fully clear, and there was loads of plastic flashing still in the housing; I used a safety pin to punch them through, but the plastic was so thin, even sanding it just pushed it back in the holes. You can see the difference with a few lines done.

 

Apologies for the pictures being the wrong way round - I’m posting from my iPad, and for whatever reason, it keeps rotating them by 90 degrees!

 

 

 

 

 

The adapters are really solid, and are actually for the MK2 Octavia - I couldn’t find MK3 specific adapters, and these were sent after the first set (for VW T5) were found to be incorrect. They’re Connects2 CT25SK02 and fit perfectly.

 

 

Also trimmed the Roadkill foam to clear the front windows before sticking them in place.

 

 

 

Hopefully the toothed washers arrive tomorrow and I can get the speakers fitted, and start putting it back together...if it’s not chucking it down with rain...

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

[dubDEAN]

its great to see its not just me that still loves a bit of audio ☺️ , great work look forward to the updates 

[Cubbington]

4 hours ago, dubDEAN said:

its great to see its not just me that still loves a bit of audio ☺️ , great work look forward to the updates 

You're definitely not the only one buddy - love my music and have a decent setup in the house so wanted to get more out of the car system, as under normal circumstances I'm in it an awful lot!

 

Another update a little later today...I'm glad it was chucking it down yesterday...

Cheers,

Nick

[Cubbington]

Not much progress with the rain being pretty awful for the past couple of days, but in a way I'm quite happy and also somewhat p*ssed off.

 

Leaving the speakers out, but fitting the adapter rings has shown up a problem with regards to water ingress.

 

The top of the Connects2 adapter rings has a lip, however this is only small, and allows water to pool at the bottom of the adapter. also with it being raised, it drips into the car and can't drain away.

 

Front door this morning when I opened the car:

 

 

Rear door showing the water ingress with my wife (begrudgingly!) pouring a jug of water along the length of the window:

 

 

 

The Roadkill foam rings help as they soak up the water, but I'm still not completely comfortable with it all.

 

Original speaker showing water defectors, with raised centre to encourage water to run down (the speaker adapter doesn't have this raised section, so guess that water's pooling in the door cutout), and angled lip to allow any water the pools at the bottom of the speaker to drain out:

 

 

I must admit, I'm feeling a bit deflated after this as I've got so far, and to find this out now is damn annoying, but better now than a few months down the line.

 

I've researched the Focal IS65 VW in a little more depth, and they do have the same shaped lip at the top of the bass drivers, so I'm seriously tempted to rip out what I've done so far and just go with them.

 

If I do, there'll be a smoking deal on a full set of Helix speakers and all the installation paraphernalia should anyone else want to attempt this...

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

Edited 1 May, 2020 by Cubbington

[dubDEAN]

On 30/04/2020 at 11:15, Cubbington said:

Not much progress with the rain being pretty awful for the past couple of days, but in a way I'm quite happy and also somewhat p*ssed off.

 

Leaving the speakers out, but fitting the adapter rings has shown up a problem with regards to water ingress.

 

The top of the Connects2 adapter rings has a lip, however this is only small, and allows water to pool at the bottom of the adapter. also with it being raised, it drips into the car and can't drain away.

 

Front door this morning when I opened the car:

 

 

Rear door showing the water ingress with my wife (begrudgingly!) pouring a jug of water along the length of the window:

 

 

 

The Roadkill foam rings help as they soak up the water, but I'm still not completely comfortable with it all.

 

Original speaker showing water defectors, with raised centre to encourage water to run down (the speaker adapter doesn't have this raised section, so guess that water's pooling in the door cutout), and angled lip to allow any water the pools at the bottom of the speaker to drain out:

 

 

I must admit, I'm feeling a bit deflated after this as I've got so far, and to find this out now is damn annoying, but better now than a few months down the line.

 

I've researched the Focal IS65 VW in a little more depth, and they do have the same shaped lip at the top of the bass drivers, so I'm seriously tempted to rip out what I've done so far and just go with them.

 

If I do, there'll be a smoking deal on a full set of Helix speakers and all the installation paraphernalia should anyone else want to attempt this...

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

https://www.skiptoncarradio.com/17cm-speaker-waterguards-11721-p.asp give peter a bell they also do some silicone ones   

https://www.skiptoncarradio.com/17cm-deluxe-waterguards-11842-p.asp  here they are 

[JohnnyType2]

i had the connects 2 rings but had issues fitting them in the back doors.

 

The rings i ended up getting on ebay were easy to modify as well as my speakers had a very strong heavy duty frame.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MDF-Front-Door-165mm-6-5-Speaker-Adaptors-Rings-Spacers-Collars-for-Skoda/184019558417?hash=item2ad86ba011:g:FXQAAOSwA3deO3EY

 

your test goes to show how much water drains down around the speakers, you would never guess it.. 

 

how did you get the wiring into the door or did you use the existing wires and cut them?

Edited 1 May, 2020 by JohnnyType2

[Cubbington]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for the comments & links - if I'd have known about those water guards in the first place, this would have been a very different job!

 

I've pretty much decided on just going with the Focals...I've bought some many adapters and bits & bobs, and it's taking far too much time...I just want to get a simple solution and finish it!

 

I may also remove the fast rings from the inner door panel (although not the ones on the outer door skin) as when I got into the car, I saw it was still wet, squeezed it, and loads water ran out of the drain hole!

 

@JohnnyType2, I've not fed new speaker cables, and am just using the existing loom - this was supposed to be a simple upgrade project after all 🥴

 

On the plus side, I decided to tidy up the wiring harness/loom yesterday, and managed to get rid of even more wires and connections.

 

I carefully popped the flying leads with the ISO connectors out of the harness, then popped the amp's leads out of the ISO connectors and refitted them directly into the harness. There was also no need for the power cables, as I'd fed the direct battery feed in.

 

I finished it off with some cloth TESA tape to give it that factory look, then fitted it all back in.

 

 

Additional wiring removed yesterday:

 

 

Pic below gives you an idea of the original path of cable and connections removed from between the harness.

 

 

And these were the 28 unused cables I originally removed from the harness:

 

 

All in all, I've removed about 9m of unnecessary cable from the harness!

 

Basically that cheered me up a bit after the downer with the speakers earlier in the week 🙂

 

Hopefully I can order the speakers tomorrow and they arrive before the bank holiday weekend.

 

Cheers,

Nick

 

 

Edited 3 May, 2020 by Cubbington

[GordoGT]

That little amp is nuts! I've seen some of the reviews on the M5 DSK Mk2, matchbox sized miracle and I'll be watching this thread with great interest🙂

[Cubbington]

1 hour ago, GordoGT said:

That little amp is nuts! I've seen some of the reviews on the M5 DSK Mk2, matchbox sized miracle and I'll be watching this thread with great interest🙂

 

You're absolutely right buddy!

 

Honestly, if I'd have known it was going to sound that much better with the standard speakers, and how much this much grief it was going to be to change them, I'd have just done the amp and Dynamat!

 

That being said, I've got the Focal IS 156VW on order; I tried a couple of stores and they were all out of stock...ordered them from a retailer in France, as I have a mate over in Euroland I can get them shipped to, and they're much cheaper than buying over here - £130/pair here, or €100/£85-90/pair in France:

 

https://www.son-video.com/article/haut-parleurs-voiture/focal/is165vw-la-paire?LGWCODE=115755;157267;9377

 

I'm seriously tempted to blow the budget and order the UP7 DSP so I can do centre channel & sub, and stick the M5 in my wife's Smart Fortwo as the system in that is utterly sh*te and needs to be run at almost full tilt all the time!

 

Will report back when this is all done!

 

Enjoy the weekend all, and stay safe,

 

Nick

Edited 9 May, 2020 by Cubbington

[Cubbington]

HI All,

 

Hope you're all still keeping safe and well.

 

Update!

 

The Focal IS165VW arrived yesterday, and I actually made some progress!

 

Midbass drivers are all fitted, along with the front tweeters - all pretty much dropped straight in, so that was a relief.

 

The only modification required was to increase the size of the fitting holes on the mid bass driver chassis' with a 9mm drill as they are meant for use with small metal rivets as used in VW cars. This enabled me to use the original rivets:

 

 

Wires removed from harness proved useful to test (the connectors I ordered at the beginning of the month still haven't arrived):

 

 

Comparison between the drive units, also showing the splash guards and different connectors used by VW & Skoda:

 

 

 

 

The tweeter fitted perfectly inside the front tweeter housing, and this time stuck in place with hot glue, rather than silicone sealant - much tidier, a lot less mess, and sets quickly:

 

 

 

I was up early this morning, so fitted the rear tweeters in the door cards, although the holes were a smaller cutout, and needed a little bit of light sanding & shaving with a Stanley knife where the 'Focal' logo sits a little prouder than the grill:

 

 

 

Now, if I had the connectors I'd be able to put this all back together, but unfortunately the company I bought them from are a massive electrical components supplier, and have notices all over their website that they're on skeleton staff and to expect delays, but almost month is a bit silly, considering all the other bits and pieces we've bought in general over the past couple of months...

 

With that in mind, I'm tempted to cut the car's connectors off and solder the cables directly onto all the mid bass terminals, along with the front tweeters, and use some basic connectors for the rear tweeters, seeing as they're fitted to the door cards, and will need easy removal. Would've liked to have done it all with the correct connectors, but I just want to get it back together now...

 

And with the Focals successfully installed, the Helix will be for sale; I'll tidy them up and post an ad when I've got the time to do so.

 

And finally, as with most parts of this project, it's been a bit 'two steps forward, one step back', and I've taken a massive step back, in as much as tidying the loom a couple of weeks ago, I managed to short the direct battery feed against a metal part of the dashboard (I did pt insulting tape on the connector, but it pulled off!)...As such, when I started the car, a bunch of errors appeared, which went pretty much as soon as I pulled away.

 

 

I didn't think anything of it until we went out last week when it was really hot, and the climate control was playing up, fan on full speed but nothing directed to the vents...pushing the direction buttons didn't make much difference, and the only way we could get some of the vents to open was to press the max windscreen defrost button...I tried the motor flap recalibration and could hear the motors going through their reset procedure but this didn't work, so when home disconnected the battery, and all the error codes came up again, cleared when driving, but come up every time I disconnect the battery.

 

I called Skoda Assist, and the technician cleared all the error codes (apparently there were hundreds), but did tell me that there was a permanent error (J255 I think), which was either climate control module or motor position sensor fault, so I've blown something. It's booked into the main dealer next Tuesday to diagnose and put right.

 

Stupid, stupid, stupid mistake, it was late in the day, and I should've disconnected the battery, but it's a lesson learnt.

 

Will update in the coming week or so!

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

Edited 27 May, 2020 by Cubbington

[Cubbington]

Hi All,

 

Well, I finally have a very positive update!

 

All speakers are in, door cards fitted, and even box-fresh it sounds stunning; in hifi geek terms, there's now a proper image from the front speakers where there was none before and the higher frequencies are real sweet...a decent tweeter makes all the difference... the extension and openness in the mid to lower frequencies is also really nice...dare I mention the volume it now goes up to without distortion 😉?

 

I couldn't wait for the connectors to arrive, so used bullet connectors for the rear tweeters, so the door card can be removed easily, and as the terminals are deep into the moulding of the midbass' basket, I couldn't solder the cables directly, so have temporarily used blade connectors until the proper connectors arrive (it's an easy job to remove the door cards and fit these).

 

The one thing I noticed whilst tapping around to check for rattles is the the big plastic access panels in the rear doors don't have any gasket foam around them (one was rattling, hence the discovery). The panels in the front doors do have gasket foam, so I measured and ran a strip around the rear panels too, which did stop the rattle I found!

 

The jump in performance has made it a worthwhile job after all the farting about, and I'm really pleased.

 

I wasn't sure whether I'd need a sub, but the bass weight from the Focals is more than enough, and I'm sure will only extend further once they've run-in properly...Which leads me think that as the M5 amp has an additional channel that can be configured for sub or centre channel, I may get a pair of 4" Focals and fit one in the empty hole in the dash that houses the Canton centre speaker...

 

@JohnnyType2 I'm definitely going to get the USB mic once the speakers have fully run in as I want to get the most of it, and the calibration will be the finishing touch.

 

 I'll also give a final update when I know the extent of the damage I caused shorting the battery out...

Cheers,

Nick

 

[Cubbington]

Well there's a certain bit of irony in seeing what popped through the letterbox after leaving the car at the garage this morning:

 

 

The part numbers are s follows:

 

BassMid Drivers: 4D0 972 704 (£2.63 exc. VAT each)

Tweeters: 3B0 972 712 (£2.24 exc. VAT each)

 

Luckily the cables on the tweeters were so long that I cut long legs off - I can cut the short legs off and resolder these when I get the car back.

 

I also picked up a bit of a rattle from the driver's door this morning (was giving it some beans!) and I think it's the wiring looms rattling, so will pack some foam around them when I have the door cards off again.

 

Further investigation also lead me to find that the centre channel is 3.5", not 4" and as Focal don't make any 3.5" drivers, I'm not going to mismatch with a unit from another manufacturer.

 

I will probably go for the sub though, as reading through Audiotec Fischer's DSP setup documentation, they quite rightly point out that limiting the bass extension to the door speakers and adding a sub to deal with the low frequencies will also help reduce distortion...as boot space is something I like about the Octavia, I don't want to lose it, but they make a couple of really compact enclosures specifically designed to work with the Match amplifiers.

 

If the repair cost isn't too horrendous, then I'll probably go for the sub.

 

More updates to follow.

 

Stay safe,

 

Nick

Edited 8 June, 2020 by Cubbington
Component part number update.

[rossinio]

I also have the m5dsp (with stock speakers and an underseat sub). Have you had a go at tuning it with a calibrated mic etc? Mine is better after some light tweaking and a umik-1 but still needs work..

 

I'm still on low power mode (no connection to battery) and no soundproofing etc in doors yet.

[Cubbington]

Hi Mate,

 

Not had a chance to do the tweaking yet, but I'm hooking up with my buddy next week and he's got a calibrated USB mic. I'll have a quick play about next week, but I do want to wait until the speakers are fully run in before doing it properly...and I've just bitten the bullet and ordered the Match PP 10E-Q compact subwoofer, so hopefully that'll arrive sometime next week or the week after.

 

Sound deadening the doors and enabling high power mode (just be careful with the wires, unlike I was!) will make a massive difference; I was still running the standard speakers with it in this mode and was pleased enough.

 

If you've followed the whole thread, you'll see I've had some frustrations, but have also had some great news today, and collected the car back from Skoda, with them fixing the climate control and supplying me a new door handle/lock cable for the total sum of £117.50, along with a courtesy wash, which was at a level I'd do - the interior was pristine, I guess because they need to make sure there's no chance of spreading Covid!

 

Door cards off again this weekend to fit that lock cable and the proper speaker connectors, but at the moment, I'm just happy looking at how it's been returned to me:

 

 

Cheers,

Nick

 

 

[Cubbington]

Hi All,

 

Big update!

 

Slight change of plans with regards to the sub, and I decided I didn't want to lose the boot space, so cancelled the order for the Match sub and went for a custom-fit enclosure & Focal RSB-250 sub. Focal don't make a grille so the bars were just a cheap job from Amazon.

 

Didn't get any pics of the enclosure, but the quality is amazing, and it arrived within a few days from Poland for a sniff over £90.00...don't know how they do it, but here's the link for anybody interested:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/173036155328?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=173036155328&targetid=908661247816&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1006636&poi=&campaignid=10199631325&mkgroupid=103626356284&rlsatarget=pla-908661247816&abcId=1145987&merchantid=101742229&gclid=CjwKCAjw57b3BRBlEiwA1Imyts1hpIWvKJCveT81B7VLG6OKFD4-50S3p1VHdB9Q1K4WEHNoE5HvPRoCCQQQAvD_BwE

 

 

Dual voicecoil wiring to bring the impedance down to 2 ohms:

 

 

Some Dynamat on the rear panel - a bit of wadding also went in as the driver's meant for a 20 litre enclosure, but the enclosure's on 15 litre. You can also see where I removed the terminal panel and used some silicone sealant to completely seal it; the front panel is made from two sheets of MDF, so also needed a tiny bead of sealant along the edges, and speaker gasket foam tape around the lip:

 

 

Driver in, and grille on, and the job's done:

 

 

I was lucky to get the use of a friend's carport over the last week, which was great as it meant I could work on it in the rain, and not have to worry about rushing to put it back together in a hurry, so now was the time to work on sound-deadening the rear quarter panels and wheel arches.

 

Pay attention to the two pieces of grey foam behind and next to the seat belt reel, as these are obviously there to block noise from the void entering the cabin. Neither of these were seated correctly on either side so weren't really doing anything; I wonder if this could be the problem for those suffering with a boomy boot? There's also another piece inside the area of the wheel arch and outer panel quarter skin, again these weren't seated correctly. I'll add this info to the thread on the main Octavia 3 section.

 

 

Getting there:

 

 

And the final touch; Hobbycraft's finest "soft toy filling" to fill the voids:

 

 

I didn't get any pictures, but also put Dynamat on the inside front of the wheel arches, and filled the space with soft toy filling; this is the area covered by the big plastic trim in between the doors and the rear seat backs.

 

Also thanks to @JohnnyType2 for the great idea of running the sub cable down the centre console and cutting a hole in the carpet to run it down the transmission tunnel and pop out under the rear seat bench - very easy, and much nicer than trying to remove all the trim around the bottom of the doors I'm sure.

 

Not content with just doing the inside, my buddy had a few sheets of Silent Coat left over from another project, and as there was the space and a set of axle stands kicking about, the rear wheels and arch liners came off, and the outer arches also got some treatment:

 

 

 

 

The difference this has made is crazy...there's virtual silence from the rear of the car at 30-40mph, and sooooo much quieter and serene at motorway speeds. The only problem is that it now sounds like the engine & road noise from the from the front has increased 🤣 Considering how easy it was to deaden the rear arches, I'll do the front sometime soon.

 

And all back together; my buddy had some sorbothane (isolating material) washers, which work by being under compression, so there are two of these at the bottom of the sub between it and the mounting points, and then at the top of the sub where it clips into the car trim - we cut the washers into section, straightened them and pushed them into the space - the sub is extremely rigid in there, but also decoupled so doesn't rattle at all!

 

 

The pic isn't very forgiving with the difference between the original carpet and that on the sub, but it doesn't look that different in the flesh...and it's in the boot, so I don't care as I'm not going to be looking at it 😉

 

The only thing I have to do now is sort a couple of rattles in the front doors; both doors are doing it in the same place at the top, near the back where the door card is split and stuck together where the LED lights trip is. I think some hot glue and foam padding should cure that, as when I push that area with my hand the rattles stop.

 

Having the sub in has allowed me to roll the low frequencies off form the front speakers, which has opened them up considerably. I've currently got the crossover point set at 100hz, after playing about with it at 80 & 120hz.

 

I've also experimented with muting the rear speakers and just going with the fronts + sub, which sounds so much better. I think due to the position of the rear speakers (the tweeter's much closer to your head than the front speakers and points backwards), then it smears the image and sounds all phasey - I've checked and double-checked the wiring, and flipped phase live in the amp's software and it just doesn't sound anywhere near as good with the rear speakers enabled. 

 

This isn't a problem, as I hardly ever have rear passengers, and it also gives me the ability to remove the passive crossovers from the front speakers, and configure the amp to run them actively with all four channels. I'm probably going to remove the rear speakers, pop the originals back in just to fill the holes, then I have a spare set of Focals just in case...this system goes loud now 😈

 

I think in the short term, I'll do some measurements with the mic and real time analyser and tweak the amp's EQ settings and see how it goes from there!

 

If you've made it this far, then thanks for reading!

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

Edited 21 June, 2020 by Cubbington

[JohnnyType2]

great job! id love to hear it in the flesh to do a comparison. My sub is well broken in now and the bass is nearly as good as when i had two 12" type R's. I haven't padded out the rear arches yet but its on the list of to dos. Those basser sub boxes are excellent for the money. mine has held together well.

[Cubbington]

Thanks buddy, much appreciated!

 

Of course if there's some way of hooking up sometime then would be great to do a comparison.

 

Good to hear you're pleased with both the performance of your sub, and the long-term quality of the enclosure.

 

With regards to padding the arches, it's cheap as chips to do; the 200g bags of soft toy filling were on special offer (2 for £6.00) and I bought 14 bags...8 were returned for a refund!

 

More progress last night getting rid of the rattles in the passenger door. 

 

I replaced the broken lock cable, which was a doddle, and hot glued the gaps where the very top section of the door card is fixed, along with the connector blocks on the LED light strip, as they are really loose and rattly - I made sure I got the hot glue to run down the gaps in between the two sections. The card can still flex as hot glue dries with some flexibility.

 

The pics were taking during the job, and I trimmed the leather slightly (you can see in the bottom left of the pic) before adding more hot glue as that small section is responsible for an awful lot of the creaking noise!

 

 

Door was held up vertically to allow the glue to run down in between gap before adding a bit more to bring it right up past the join.

 

 

Connection for LED lightstrip glued, with all the sections where blue and black mounting points also done, as that the mounting plate for the door handle...which also creaked a little.

 

 

I checked where the wiring loom was loose on the door, and ran sections of the speaker gasket foam in line with them on the door skin, along with wrapping small sections around the loom in the clips where it fits loosely. Tight but still flexible.

 

Also stuffed a little more of the foam filling into the tweeter housing where the cable was loose.

 

Took the car for a spin afterwards and it was worth doing as there are no more creaks and rattles from that door now!

 

I'll do the other doors over the next few evenings, as it's now starting to feel a bit luxurious in there with the reduction in noise, squeaks and rattles so far 🤣🤣🤣

 

Thanks for reading, 

 

Nick

Edited 23 June, 2020 by Cubbington

[Cubbington]

Right, I think I'm finally there with pulling the car apart for a while 😁

 

There was still a nasty buzz coming from the passenger door, and I really thought I may have blown the speaker, so had the door card off again (and unfortunately for neighbours!), gave the system a blast.

 

Thankfully it wasn't the speaker, it was the electrical connectors on the black electronic box, which are really loose, so I put a little bit of anti-rattle tape around them:

 

 

That didn't make much difference and I realised it was also the cable pins rattling - the four big cables nearest in focus were the worst culprits, so out came the hot glue again:

 

 

This did the trick, so I continued and did the same with all the connectors, as they are all both loose when seated and have loose pins.

 

I did the same to the driver's door (including the work to the door card in my previous post), took it for a drive, and my word what a difference that made; with no music, the doors are now silent, where there wasn't really annoying noise I was aware before, and with music on it sounds significantly tighter and more controlled...no vibration and distortion from all those loose connectors!

 

Considering the sheer amount of time it's been in pieces, I'm just going to tune it with the amp's software and enjoy it for a while before taking it apart again to run cables to the front doors and go active on the front speakers 😊

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

 

[rossinio]

Incredible! Very impressed, I couldn't figure out how to get to my rear arches on the hatchback without dismantling everything including rear seat back :( I see in your pictures that you managed to do it but looks like a lot more work on hatchback.

 

i would be very very interested in seeing your m5dsp results after tuning. I'm still struggling a bit, I can make dance music sound pretty good but really having a harder time with rock & vocals..

 

The other thing I have noticed is that it is much easier to get a half decent sound on the drive but this doesn't translate to something good on the motorway due to all the road noise. This is with silent coat and noise isolator across boot floor and back seat. I even did the driver side arch from the outside but didn't make much difference. If only I could get to the rear arches.. I actually have some mass loaded vinyl so that might be next project for the rear.

 

How much difference did deadening the door panels do? 

[Cubbington]

Thanks Buddy!

 

Once it was looked at with a bit of space and time, removing the side panels wasn't that difficult; I didn't remove the rear seats at all, as it was easy to push the side panels out and into the middle of the car due to them just being attached with carpet.

Deadening the doors, and the OCD detail tidying the looms & hot glueing/anti rattle-taping the connectors has made a hell of a difference. I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing the hot glue on the electrical connectors unless you're really sure, but just applying sound deadening and anti-rattle tape is so worthwhile. To give you an idea, we nipped out early yesterday morning and the roads still had some surface water in places; at around 40-50mph you're really aware of the spray from the tyres hitting the underneath of the car, but in the dry, it's oddly quiet - you can now hear the diesel clatter if you listen for it, the majority of other noises are really muted.

 

I've still not spent the time tuning it as I want to get some real time on the speakers before doing so, and need to get a passenger (not my wife!) to sit with the laptop and analyse the road noise with the microphone whilst at motorway speed, so the DSP can be configured to allow for the road noise.

 

I also think the the M5DSP is extremely revealing so if you feed it bad source material, it's going to show it up - I've got a mix on the phone ranging from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds to Excision, but it is all stored in either uncompressed CD or High Res format using the Qobuz streaming system. For example Lana Del Rey's "Norman F*cking Rockwell" sounds really good, but The Smashing Pumpkins' "Siamese Dream" sounds a bit rough...

 

I would recommend downloading the "Sound Tuning Magazines" from AudioTec-Fischer's website to help with the setup:

 

https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/dsp-pc-tool/sound-tuning-magazine/

 

I think they've named them incorrectly, as they are the setup guides, and it's worth reading all three as they cover different aspects of the setup; remember you can run a demo mode disconnected from the amp so you don't mess any settings up(!), and it really helped me to understand what changes I was making.

 

I'm using version DSP Version 4.52a, but have literally just looked at the website to see that the beta version 0f 4.65a (which was a Beta version until last week) is now an official release, with 4.70 now being the Beta...I'm not interested in being a Beta tester, so will update to 4.65a today as there are quite a lot of updates to the interface which look good 😊

 

Maybe we can hook up sometime once lockdown eases and do a little tweaking on the systems.

 

Cheers,

Nick

 

[rossinio]

I've gone through the steps in the "magazines" using their RTA in the tool with a calibrated mic (umik-1) and it sounded ok, but it's still a dark art. E.g. Placebo "Nancy Boy" or Nine Inch Nails sounds weak but anything like Anjunadeep or actual techno sounds fine (both Spotify via Android Auto). I suspect that converting to full power mode would really help (even with stock speakers) but I am very hesitant to run wiring to the battery (for now). Only concern about getting the door panels off is putting it back together and getting rattles, but at least we don't have to deal with that awful black goop like my old mx5!

 

Your bit about source material is spot on, it's always frustrating getting better audio equipment and noticing bad mixes, awful compression etc etc.