Sillyboy's 07 Audio Upgrade

I was tired of the other thread

Current status:
- Second Skin installed all over hell on front doors
- Scond Skin installed behind and around rear speakers (but not rest of door)
- Front speakers are installed: Infinity Reference 6010cs
- Rear speakers are installed: Infinity Reference 6012i
- Pulled 4 sets of wires + ACC to "trunk" (speaker level to amp)
- Pulled 4 sets of wire from trunk to head unit (amp to factory speaker wiring)

I am still waiting for wiring adapters, should show up Tuesday, but this other stuff should happen this week:
- Profile AP1040 Amp for doors
- Really old school Soundstream D200 amp for a sub
- Old skool Boston Pro 10.4LF subwoofer (10")
- A triangle shaped (what do you call a triangle that has 3 dimensions... a triangloid? ) enclosure for the sub will run the whole width of the prius and snug up against the rear seats.

Current listening thoughts:
When the rear speakers were installed, i was really really happy. For just $70, I thought they sounded insanely good, and I was really looking forward to having the components done up front.

After getting the components installed last night, I am less happy. While it sounded like 50 times better than the factory speakers... they sound a bit ... off. Hard to describe, I don't have a great audiophile vocab. It reminded me of when I am flipping through the stupid settings on my receiver on my home theater "Concert Hall", "Rock Concert", "Church" ... all those goofy settings that sounds like nice person, and add a certain hollow sound? That's what the front components remind me of. Or possibly maybe kinda that while the bass was surprising good, and the very highs were good, there are some frequencies in between that are lacking.

I really have no idea what the problem is:
- maybe a power issue (the components can take 90 rms, the rear 2-ways just 60).
- maybe an install issue (the rears went in nicer snugging right onto the door covers, where the fronts had to be mounted farther back in the door, create a bit of a gap before the door cover).
- maybe a head unit issue (weird that the back sound better, but who knows).

Anybody have thoughts on what might be up here? Maybe these speakers are just so much better that I am hearing the crappy processing in the head unit, and understanding why people buy the CleanSweep.

I am sorta hoping that it will magically get better when i install the amp, but I am skeptical.

 

Was driving in the wife's truck today. She has a 3 band equalizer, and I was messin' w/ the "mid" channel. What I found is that... well, I am sorta deaf

Well, not so much that... but then when I moved the mid channel way high, or way low... it (not surprisingly) sounds real bad. However, I have a hard time hearing "oh, there are not enough mids". I simply hear "bad".

I bring this up because by tweaking the mids really far out of whack, it *did* remind me of how the new front channels sound. I am gonna play try the -3db on the x-over again, and play w/ the head unit bass/treble settings to see if things sound better.

 

Really nice install GeoGeek. Clearly, I am going to have to do *something*. I bought a radio shack spl, and took measurements... um, ouch.

Google for "Radio Shack SPL Calibration".

hz db
20 75
30 73
40 79
50 79.5
60 81.5
70 79.5
80 83.5
90 82.5
100 85
125 82.5
150 72.5
175 67.5
200 65.5
225 66
250 68.5
275 71
300 70.5
350 73
400 72
500 72
600 72
800 72
1000 71
1200 74
1600 71.5
2000 71.5
2200 67.5
2500 64.5
3200 71.5
4000 74
5000 85
6000 85
8000 83
10000 84
12000 79.5
14000 76.5
16000 71
18000 66.5
20000 63

<sarcasm>I just can't imagine why I thought it sounded... "weird"</sarcasm>

 

If anybody has an opinion on whether or not this is simply "bad output from the stock head unit" versus some other (install) issue, feel free to speak up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dzoutzidis @ Mar 20 2007, 03:01 PM) [snapback]409130[/snapback]</div>

It sounds pretty non-optimal right now :-P

I did try pushing treble and bass all the way down, but the frequency response graph was only vaguely better. Still went from 67db at 3.2khz to 81db at 5khz. 14db change in less than an octave is unsavory, any way you slice it.

JL Audio CleanSweep on the way...

 

/sigh

So, I sorta wasn't paying attention, and wired the amp turnon to the power antenna. As expected, my amp now only works for AM/FM. Not CD/Ipod.

So... uh.. where do I tap into something good? ACC I guess, where is that?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Merchant @ Mar 21 2007, 10:56 PM) [snapback]409955[/snapback]</div>

heh. Clearly, I don't.

But the head unit does have a connection for the power antenna, which is what I tapped.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sillyboy @ Mar 21 2007, 11:07 PM) [snapback]409959[/snapback]</div>

Okay, I tapped into the front cigarette lighter. It's really easy, as long as you are willing to be totally ghetto I literally just jammed a wire into the back of the + connector, and taped it on there. I screwed up the first time and routed my wire the wrong way, so I had to redo it... allowing myself an opportunity to prove that I actually had to apply decent force to the wire to get it out of there

Only had to pop off the vent just right of the dash, and the very bottom center molding (which has the lighter on it).

Okay, so now that the amp works... <woah!>

My first thought was "woah, why did I order the eq? this sounds awesome". The biggest change was in separation of the instruments... was really easy to pick up each one. And I swear I could hear the singers lips parting before they sing ;-) Really diggin' it.

I decided to go ahead and do my frequency response graph again, and it was actually still pretty screwed, so I am still glad the EQ is coming today

 

Today's Progress Report and Such:

- got my CleanSweep. However... the seller forgot to send the calibration cd, and hasn't seen it for 6 months. /sigh. Guess I will pay the $10 from JL Audio for another... and wait. If somebody wants to send me an mp3/wma of the calibration track, I will love them long time. PM me.

- When building a subwoofer enclosure, it totally helps if the accessories for your table saw are running square. Nightmare.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MacDude @ Apr 14 2007, 02:08 PM) [snapback]423306[/snapback]</div>

Attempt #1 was basically a wipe out. I had way too much noise (hisssssssss) that I could not get rid of. I am honestly not sure if it was the head unit or the inputs to the cleansweep, I tend to think the former. Simply because if I hooked up an ipod to the cleansweep, it was fine. (however, its not *that* clear since the ipod had a relatively small signal to begin with... the high level from the head unit might have been treated differently!?).

And, I was getting *nasty* clipping. Playing a 50hz sample, even at low settings for the volume on my head unit... was bad enough clipping to fry my tweeters.

I just got everything together for Sillys System #2. New alpine head unit, PAC SWI-Jack for stearing wheel controls, Metra kit for mounting the head unit. I have a brutal cold or I would be attempting the install right now...

Updates soon.

 

Well, it's pretty much done. and I am pretty much happy.

Final stuff:
- Front speakers: Infinity Reference 6010cs
- Rear speakers: Infinity Reference 6012i
- Alpine CDA-9857 head unit.
- Metra head unit kit 99-8213 http://www.metraonline.com/downloads/pdf/T...INST99-8213.pdf
- PAC SWI-Jack steering wheel control
- 4 channel amp for doors
- sub woofer amp for old 10" boston acoustic sub
- cable for my ipod to alpine

I suppose i can put up pics if anybody really cares, but silentak1 has a picture of his install in this thread: http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=1...hl=pioneer+avic showing something fancier anyway

Naturally it sounds very kick nice person, especially compared to where I started I do think replacing the head unit is the way to go. Of course, there are down sides...

- the steering wheel controller is... ok. at best. The first problem is that it is slow to respond. If you click a button fast, it just does nothing. But... if you hold it for awhile, you are gonna jump more like 4 notches of volume, instead of 1. Using it to control volume was useless enough that i switch those buttons to "change track" and the normal track change buttons to "change folder"... which seems to work on mp3 disks with folders, but doesn't really do stuff w/ my ipod. the mode change button works great, heh. I like how on the stock prius holding the buttons had different meanings -- like holding mode would power it off. That is gone. Really, it kinda makes me want to learn enough electronics to build my own solution, because I am pretty sure a better one exists.

- Alpine's ipod control is... ok. There are some things it does which are quite nice. The station preset buttons on the head unit jump by percentages through lists (so, the 3 button might jump to say 45% through the lists of artists, and 6 button would jump to 90% or whatever). Makes it a bit easier to move through larger lists. Still, there are some pretty un-intuitive pieces to their UI. I never know if I should hit the search button or mode button, the track change buttons vs up/down buttons around the search button vs volume knob. they seem to just pick something at random. It also a serious bummer that I can't continue to use the controlls on the ipod -- they are locked out, gotta use the head unit.

Overall I am pretty happy. It all ended up being a bit more extreme than I intended I just want new speakers! The stock speakers on the non-JBL are just soooo awful. But, once you pull on that thread... all hell breaks loose and you end up where I am...

[edit: added speaker info to list]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusFTW @ Apr 20 2007, 09:03 AM) [snapback]426659[/snapback]</div>

LOL. Ya, sorta forgot to mention that here again.

Front: Reference 6010cs
Reader: Reference 6012i

I don't love the fronts. To me, even w/ the -3db settings, the component tweeters are too loud/harsh. It is way better w/ the new head unit, but it does get a bit nasty at high volumes.

I will probably just live w/ that for awhile. Or try and stick a resistor in series w/ the tweeter? I might be that crazy.

Honestly, I think I would have been happy w/ just a good head unit replacement, and really good and efficient speakers. The amp and subs were probably a bit extreme for my needs, but it is typical for me to go over the top w/ projects like this

I will be really interested to hear how your "just speaker replacement" goes. That is what I hoped for, and they just sounds like po po.