E55K standard system improvements?

[John]

This is the one I built for my son he has no problem with the sound getting through to the cabin, then again it is only a Clio and he can no longer fit anything in the boot.

Looks great!

Damn it - I had to install my own first system in my first car. Didn't really have the budget for anything really good and consequently, the learning curve was steep and the sound quality was sheet. Early 90s car audio was expensive! At least I learnt the skills mind...

I have one 10" free air sub in my lwb s class. I have the gain on minimum and on some songs I still have way too much low end. Big fan of infinite baffle!

I got this idea from another MB forum where the guy had a single 10" mounted under the parcel shelf in a W211.

I didn't want to spend a lot so I could leave it in the car and not feel the need to take it out - but £220s-worth of stuff running 250w RMS into 4 ohms should mean I have no issues getting bass in the car and I will probably end up having it quite low volume to match the rest of the system.

I'm not interested in looks - just sound!

There don't seem to be many free air subs around though - mostly sealed / ported / bandpass typres. Natural successors seem to be dual voice coil units so I wonder if they are not making a free air subs deliberately in favour of less subs able to do more than one function...

 

[V12]

When looking for mine I noticed that there weren't many free air appropriate subs any more. The boffins over on talkaudio assured me that this was just marketing rubbish and a sub was a sub.
A source that used to work for Kenwood said they stopped labelling them as free air applicable because the subs get a much harder work out in free air and people were complaining after abusing the hell out of them.
They taught me a little behind the t/s parameters and what to look for in a potentially good free air sub. Basically most subs with a stiff suspension seemed to work fairly well.
I can look up the specifics if you like.
I ended up buying a new - old stock sub that would have retailed for hundreds for just 40 off eBay. Manufacturer recommends it for a sealed box, but it works excellently in free air.
Most people seem scared to try this application due to the supposed difficult nature of getting it to work correctly. As long as you seal all holes from the boot to the cabin, you'll be fine.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using MBClub UK

 

[John]

This is the sub I've ordered (which is in the archive so I guess old model):

TS-W258F (Archived) - Pioneer UK

Just reading through the spec - there are a lot of specifications which I've never even seen before below 'Qts'!

I think there was a JVC unit but the Pioneer looked the better bet.

I think the sealing in the boot is already very good given the difficulty I had with the active Pioneer unit.

I will try it out and see. I do have some Dynamat left over from my old days which I can employ as and where required.

 

[V12]

Good luck, remember you can run it inverted and poke the magnet up through the existing hole to save you a little space. Just make sure you wire up the polarity accordingly to get the sub in phase.

Mine sounded ok with the standard shelf deadening etc, but a million times better when i filled the small cavaties with carpet underlay and then dynamat (or equivalent) to finally seal all holes.

ANY leak, really did make an audible difference.

QTS seemed to be the significant Parameter in determining whether a sub would perform well in free air. any figure over 0.4 seemed to be accepted as good for in car free air use. At over 1, that should be well suited!!

 

[John]

OK, so that Pioneer sub is no longer available.

However, now I know the score with open air ones - I am a little less bothered.

It will now be this one (which has a dual voice coil which I don't think the other had):

TS-W259S4 Pioneer - Speakers & Subwoofers - Car Entertainment

 

[John]

Good luck, remember you can run it inverted and poke the magnet up through the existing hole to save you a little space. Just make sure you wire up the polarity accordingly to get the sub in phase.

Mine sounded ok with the standard shelf deadening etc, but a million times better when i filled the small cavaties with carpet underlay and then dynamat (or equivalent) to finally seal all holes.

ANY leak, really did make an audible difference.

QTS seemed to be the significant Parameter in determining whether a sub would perform well in free air. any figure over 0.4 seemed to be accepted as good for in car free air use. At over 1, that should be well suited!!

That is a good idea. Unfortunately, it isn't shallow mount and the magnet is so large and the woofer so deep, I don't think it will fit. I was going to mount it on MDF and bolt it to the metal shelf.

OK - it's that sensitive... wow. The gaps aren't big thankfully. Carpet underlay is a good idea!

OK, so 0.84 is OK. Shame about the other one.

Thanks for all that - most useful.

 

[farouq]

In my CLS i installed a JL 200W subwoofer and a 175W JL amp.
It sounded good loud enough for me.
I then removed all the insulation in the parcel shelf and now it sounds alot louder, the sound is coming streight into the seating area.

I got a custom slim subwoofer box made so it doesnt take alot of room in the boot and i can still pick up the carpet to get to the spare wheel and storage area.

 

[V12]

You will have to mount on a baffle board anyway, so make the board a couple of inches thick and then invert the sub. I saved 4" total doing this...If my explanation isn't great, I'll do a diagram to explain.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using MBClub UK

 

[John]

OK, so my replacement hardware arrived today.

Reading through the amp instructions, it uses a 'floating ground' so I am not totally sure what I am going to ground the negative speakers wires to (high level input) as it suggests grounding it to the car receiver.

Given where that is , is there another (more convenient) ground which can be used (I'm thinking AWG or something)?

 

[John]

So in the spirit of keeping this updated in case anyone might be following it (god help you... and there is a 'Floating Ground' thread related to this)... I finally finished installing everything today.

There's good and bad news...

The good news is it sounds incredible.

The bad news is, the clearance is not enough between the top of the sub and where it meets the circle of metal where the stock sub normally goes (which has holes in it) and it touches it in full flow (not at lower volumes).

It's not difficult to fix, I can just unbolt it and cut out another couple of MDF shapes to fit in between but I wont be doing that for another week.

The hardest bit is wiring in the amp properly and considering ground locations and running cables separately up through OEM trunking so nothing gets chaffed or damaged. In the decade since I last dabbled, I forget just how many injuries and how much blood you can obtain from doing this kind of thing. Other time-consuming stuff includes sealing the holes on the metal parcel shelf with Dynamat. Even the JVC amp comes with a high level input plug with three wires - which is virtually zero in length - so needed to extend that out.

Infinite baffle with sub mounted under the shelf if the way to go to maintain boot space and a great sound - highly recommended!

I'll take a picture once the mod is done.

 

[bolide]

If there are holes in the shelf seal them with MDF bolted up good & tight with silicon sealer in between. The better the airtight seal round the woofer the better the bass response. If you can completely seal the cabin from the boot so much the better

As a rule of thumb a 120 Hz low-pass filter on the woofer amp and an 80 Hz high pass filter on the front speakers will improve the the sound enormously. Removing the low end from the front speakers will let them play a lot louder without distorting

Also try flipping the phase of the woofer to see what sounds best. It'll interact a bit with the crossover frequencies so have a good play

Nick Froome

 

[John]

If there are holes in the shelf seal them with MDF bolted up good & tight with silicon sealer in between. The better the airtight seal round the woofer the better the bass response. If you can completely seal the cabin from the boot so much the better

That's possible, but it would require edging all around to get it flat (there are a lot of peaks and troughs). To be honest, V12's Dynamat solution took me about 20 minutes to cut and fit all the pieces (I will try and get this in the photos).

It sounds like it is in phase wired + > +, - > - as it happens.

However, adding extra levels of MDF may alter this.

I meant to say, V12, it wont matter in my case whether the sub is mounted up or down as my shelf does not have a whole for the magent to be recessed into (I don't want to cut out the stock 'hole' - which is a embossed metal circle with lots of holes cut out).

 

[V12]

Ah, that makes sense, that's how it was in my clk now i come to think of it. In the S there is a big gaping hole! Sounds look a job well done. Amazing how little power you need for IB. Can't wait for the pics.

Nick, he's not independently amplifying his front speakers, just running from the AGW, so will be stuck with the internal cross over points. But as a side note, i was led to believe that the cross over points should be set the other way round so as when they overlap (approx 100hz) there is no bump in the level. Would be interested to hear your view on this as someone who is better qualified than most forum goers?
For a long time I have had my sub on a 50hz LPF and my fronts on a 75-80hz hi pass. Have been meaning to get it on an RTA to see what's going on, but it doesn't sound too bad to the ear.

 

[John]

Thanks for your tips - some good stuff there. I'm working on sourcing the underlay but will try a revised mount first to see what vibrates. I've got a small rectangle of Dynamat left (it has lasted me 13 years for a roll so far!).

Sounds look a job well done. Amazing how little power you need for IB. Can't wait for the pics.

Aye, a job very well done EIISSM. Having OCD and perfectionism issues means I spent a lot longer but I want it to sound the very best it can.

No, the amount of power required surprised me a lot (my amp is only 350w RMS continuous). Even at low levels to avoid the "woofer slap" as I call it, you can definitely hear the lower order which was missing before - without it being 'in your face'. I cannot believe how much the cone moves and I did question the amount of space I'd left but thought it wouldn't be moving a lot...

Don't go thinking the install looks like the one SavMan posted of his son's Clio the other day! It's very neat and functional, but in no way "object d'art'!

Nick, he's not independently amplifying his front speakers, just running from the AGW, so will be stuck with the internal cross over points. But as a side note, i was led to believe that the cross over points should be set the other way round so as when they overlap (approx 100hz) there is no bump in the level. Would be interested to hear your view on this as someone who is better qualified than most forum goers?
For a long time I have had my sub on a 50hz LPF and my fronts on a 75-80hz hi pass. Have been meaning to get it on an RTA to see what's going on, but it doesn't sound too bad to the ear.

I could still add a capacitor of LPF (but would need to be after the tweeter feed in the doors) for the remaining channels as full range is going to them (I imagine the tweeters have built in capacitance).

I've got my LPF on the sub amp running at 50Hz and the gain / boost controls on about 2/3s.

This system is slightly unusual as said previously - because I am not binning the whole lot and starting again, I have a situation where the system I had before, with the bass control up fairly high, I had a fantastic sound to my ear, but just missing the very low levels and they clipped early (it took me 16 months before I realised it had no sub!).

Now I am in a position where I can bring down the bass level on the head unit, and increase the sub volume, to bring in the lowest levels and give the stock woofers less work to do (and avoid clipping of course) - probably without the need for an HPF.

I really don't have my system at loud levels at all and the stock system before I did anything got to a level which is too loud for me (albeit with clipping on certain songs) - so I really didn't have much work to do to get it how I wanted it...

I have some more MDF now so this weekend is highly likely for completion. I also produced some cardboard 'gaskets' to bridge the MDF and the metal body - these work really well but I will make some new ones as I made the first lot quite roughly. I can't think of a better way because the shelf is not flat as said. Anything permanent (like sealant) will be a pain if I have to take it off (again) for any reason e.g. the woofer develops a fault or something.

 

[John]

Finished the extra third MDF layer yesterday, installed finally today.

The grey layer is foam which seals the gap between the plastic sub mount ring and the MDF above.

Sub slap gone! Very little resonance at all except at loud volumes. I can't be spending a week installing Dynamat everywhere though as life is too short. The sound would be awesome if I did.

Anyway, here are some pictures. First one is of the mount and sub, second what your dealing with under there and third is of it all installed. Note the cardboard gaskets to seal the choppy shelf round where the stock sub fits. Also, the inside of the cardboard gaskets fits up to the edges of the large outer holes within the stock sub circle.

Custom mounted shelf is probably somewhat easier in the long run but I didn't want to spend much money on this. Total cost, < £200.