The NorCal meet at Shinjohn's house ....

[AVI]

Thank you so much for hosting such a great meet Shinjohn. I enjoyed meeting all of the guys , and had a great time. I look forward to meeting up with you guys again in the future. ;)

[shinjohn]

Hey Derrin,
Enjoyed meeting you too, and having everyone over. The time went really fast, and it was great meeting new folks as well as hanging out with old friends. It was great to hear other systems and compare notes. I came away impressed with something about every system I saw/heard. Here are some pictures I snapped today, for everyone to see:

http://www.pbase.com/shinjohn/20070526meet&page=all

My summary comments:
- Derrin (AVI): your system is top notch, really dynamic sound! I was really impressed by the impact of the dual midbass config, and the smoothness of integration with the incredible JBL sub!
- Steve (Whiterabbit): Your system's sound is really coming together; the lower midrange to mid bass integration is awesome, and what can I say, your install with the DSP head-mod is amazing. Love all the great fabrication tricks and install details you've implemented! Now we just need to cram a large format tweet in the kicks with those BE's and you'd be all set! ;)
- Michael (NoFlyZone): The practicallity and integration of your install is totally enviable, and I was super impressed with the sound quality of the X001 w/ IPOD interface. Your front stage, with just a little more tweaking (IMO) is awesome/amazing! I was a skeptic of the IPOD interface, but no more; it's really good!
- Jeff (JMichaels): Your install is insane!!! Amazing job on everything, we gotta figure out that one midrange issue and I think you are golden! I must say the Peerless XLSs are quite impressive, and great choice of speakers for the front stage!! ;) :D
- Phong (spag_bace): Can't wait to see your system once you get all your new gear in!
- Gabriel (Se7en): Thanks for coming, I think your system will be better than any of ours once you get all your amazing gear in! :D Thanks for letting me try out the Rainbows, I'll post a review as soon as I get a chance to give them a good listen.
- Peter (alphakenny1): OK, I believe you that this will be the end. So let's see it all done by Marv's BBQ, k? :p :D Nice tweets and amps! Those Rainbow kicks really KICK!! (now get them adjusted down a little ;))
- GS3: you got all the gear, so let's get some stuff installed before the BBQ!

Man, with all these systems, it makes me want to get everything on my setup done and "complete". I still have alot of fab work on kicks, some good deadening to get rid of rattles, and alot more tuning work. Anyone want to come back over and help me deaden my car? :D :D

Thanks again for everyone coming and making this a great meet!

[Se7en]

Shinjohn,

Thanks for a great hangout and for your hospitality!

I really enjoyed meeting everyone and having the opportunity to listen to their great systems. All of the cars sounded great!

Nor Cal has an awesome crew!

:)

[alphakenny1]

great meet everyone! very impressed with the installs we got around our area. i'll throw in some notes with the cars i listened to.

shinjohn - the scans and ow2's are sweet in the car. the peerless hds tweets are pretty impressive. just get some kickbasses and you are good to go :D. also, turn it down? nah, spl FTW!

derrin - was impressed on the intensity of the system. the evanescence song was killer :D. was quite impressed on how you got dual door mounted drivers and tweets in sails and a passive network to get a nice centered and focused image.

michael - i love the install and alpine hu. i love the kicks and job you did with the subs in the rear deck. the grills are sick. genesis absolutes and ow1 are quite nice. just work on some t/a and xover on the mids and you are good to go.

jeff - what can i say? top notch fabrication skills and i love how the system sounds. just wished you would have had the xls playing a bit lower ;). but dude those idmaxes slam! gotta love the output on those!

This meet just reaffirms that we are nuts. Jeff said it best when me and him were in his car. he basically said "we must be the only 10 guys in the area who are willing to sit in a sauna (his all black interiored car) and listen to a freaking stereo." I literally was in his car sweating bullets. haha. so true yet its so fun!

Great meet again and can't wait to see you guys again at the BBQ!

[Whiterabbit]

was inspired after the meet to clean things up a little bit:

http://semi.noobing.com/DSCF0001.JPG
http://semi.noobing.com/DSCF0002.JPG
http://semi.noobing.com/DSCF0003.JPG

Just need some spiral loom to finish the look. Or something better that I havent found yet, I dont care for spiral loom. just the lesser of two evils concerning split loom.

[Whiterabbit]

I came away impressed with something about every system I saw/heard.

I agree, and this is a first for our get togethers. usually there are the installs that outshine everyone elses. This time, every stereo simply put sounded phenominal. Every one had at least one aspect going for it that topped every other car. That never happens!

What a pleasure it was to compare notes with everyone. Listening to the other cars here took my ego a peg down. There can never be a replacement for peer review, plain and simple.

And I don't think the morning time choice can be beat. Something about doughnuts and coffee. Next time everyone should bring a couple dollars and demand the host provide tasty frosted circles of deep fried deliciousness!

[AzGrower]

Someone should hold a Central Coast meet...

[ca90ss]

Someone should hold a Central Coast meet...

X2

[3.5max6spd]

Nice meet guys!

[6spdcoupe]

Looks like you guys had a bit of fun over there. Making us East coasters look boring and dull. Damn we need another meet over here then compare notes later. :)

[JMichaels]

Man not much left to say. I was totally impressed like all the others with everyones hard work and results. The best part was I actually came away with some constructive perspective from other audio freaks that will help me make my system better. Let me say it again that others helped whats usually in my "do it by myself while others think your a little crazy sound world" get better and you cant buy that!

Thanks guys now on to the BBQ!

[alphakenny1]

Someone should hold a Central Coast meet...

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11803&highlight=marv ;)

[shinjohn]

shinjohn - the scans and ow2's are sweet in the car. the peerless hds tweets are pretty impressive. just get some kickbasses and you are good to go :D. also, turn it down? nah, spl FTW!

Maybe I should swap my amps for a set of those 25 to Lifes. LOL! A Punch 45, two Punch 75s, and a 150 might be enough.... What do you think? :p LOL.

Yeah, I ain't entering any SPL contests anytime soon. :D

was inspired after the meet to clean things up a little bit:

http://semi.noobing.com/DSCF0001.JPG
http://semi.noobing.com/DSCF0002.JPG
http://semi.noobing.com/DSCF0003.JPG

Just need some spiral loom to finish the look. Or something better that I havent found yet, I dont care for spiral loom. just the lesser of two evils concerning split loom.
Lookin' good!

Where are you thinking of putting the spiral loom? Over the ribbon cable?

[AVI]

Once again , it was indeed a great time , and I appreciate the kind words about my set-up. I spent a lot of the time with Gabriel designing his system with him , and making plans to do his upcoming install , so I did not get to listen to many other systems. I hope no-one thought it was a lack of interest on my part , as I truly look forward to hearing ALL of your systems before too long !!
And Shinjohn , you are probably correct .... Gabriel's system should just be sick once we're finished !! ;)
If I can help any of you guys with anything , just let me know.

Did someone say Bar-B-Que ??? He he he ....

[Whiterabbit]

Someone should hold a Central Coast meet...

Where the HELL were you guys when I was going to school at Cal Poly??

Looks like you guys had a bit of fun over there. Making us East coasters look boring and dull. Damn we need another meet over here then compare notes later. :)

cause ...you know, its not like you have anything else to hold the east coast together.... not like IASCA or anything.... online community is all we have, man! IASCA can't afford us! :(

Man not much left to say. I actually came away with some constructive perspective from other audio freaks that will help me make my system better.

You mean, we gave you a standard by which to live by! ;) werent those your cal28's on shinjohns workbench? I was eyeing those wistfully around lunchtime.... I thought they were shinjohns! :( (let me know if you want to trade those for every last piece of spare gear I have! :p)

[alphakenny1]

You mean, we gave you a standard by which to live by! ;) werent those your cal28's on shinjohns workbench? I was eyeing those wistfully around lunchtime.... I thought they were shinjohns! :( (let me know if you want to trade those for every last piece of spare gear I have! :p)

those are se7en's i believe.

[Whiterabbit]

ah, yes, of course. Didnt I tell everyone I would forget their names? now I have to remember two names? forget about it!

I'll just keep trying to use the power of suggestion to say that jeff should trade me his hiquphons for my lotus reference drivers.

[kappa546]

damn... looks like you guys had fun. more pics!

whiterabbit: super props for the ingenuity. is that a DEQ and DCX? how did you do the 12v mod?

[kappa546]

also what exactly have you done to your door panel. complete rebuilt or carpeted on top of it?

[Whiterabbit]

yes. I'll first alienate half the diyma community by saying that visible speakers in doors suck. I hate door "pods", I think they suck, I hate them with a big flaming ball of hate.

so understanding that I didnt want to ever SEE a speaker, I just did what everyone else did for doorpods, exept makde the podring ID the size of the largest speaker OD I'd consider using. the panel is built for an 8", but holds a 6" on a reducer ring.

the door metal is like any other. was hammered flat, holds a .75" baffle fixed to the door metal, and the door is sealed up with a roll of raammat and 18 square feet of damplifier pro. ...per door. opening cut out with an air body saw courtesy of alphakenny1 as payment for permanantly damaging the value of his accord via kickpanel metal.

the doorpanel itself has a countersunk ring in it, just like any flushmount spekaer or anything. except the ring was flushmounted in the door. because of it's size, it intruded on the map pocket, which afforded me a great aesthetic opportunity.

the top of the ring is flush with the front of the map pocket, and the bottom of the ring sits flat on the doorpanel. that gives the ring texture near the windowcrank plug. yet most of it is flush.

and none of it sticks out from the OEM panel. that was HUGE for me!

and driver changes are now a snap. the grille exposes an 8.4 inch hole. can fit anything the size of an SLS or smaller without removing the doorpanel at all.

90% of the panel is OEM with a layer of carpet right over it.


...and yep, dcx and deq. if you look carefully at the spare tire well pics you can see two DSP boards in the plexi box. they sit one over the other. Signal distribution is on top of the trunk next to the battery. as for 12 volt conversion, they arent. I built a homemade conversion via several brick dc-dc converters, and there was high pitched noise in there. an inverter is at work now, and the noise floor is much much better. I am talking to Aaron Hammet of www.ezamps.com at this moment to correct this problem and reconvert the processors with a "drop-in" 12 volt powered replacement so I can lose the inverter forever. I am sure an EE can design a better power supply than I can. He posted awhile ago on diy, and the internet enthusiast community is patiently waiting for his product.

[kappa546]

cool. i dig it. thats the big reason i never opted for a dcx was the conversion choices and their affordability. very cool what you did with the units though.

got any pics of the baffles without the grills? i'm trying to figure out an efficient way to mount reducer rings without adding height to the baffle.

[NoFlyZone]

Guys - countrymen - fellow car stereo gurus.. this is a late post cause I haven't left my car. LOL! First I'd like to thank ShinJohn again but more importantly thank his wife and kids for stealing their time on this Memorial Day weekend. I'm trying to remember ShinJohns wife's name (Christine?) and the kids names but names simply don't stick with me :blush:

Here are a few things I came away with at this mini-meet. There were sure a lot of messy CD's laying around in some of your cars, clean them up! :D

You guys would get into my car with a CD with nowhere to stick it :( I understand the value of listening to a system with your own music and that couldn't happen yesterday). I wanted to see an RTA but because I didn't have a CD player or a track of pink noise on my IPOD that couldn't happen :( My next upgrade will be a 1/2 din CD/DVD unit under my X001. Problem solved :)

Stephen, your sat in my car and mentioned the one area I didn't sound deaden, my front doors. They are now deadened ;) Thanks for your golden ears to pick that up. Also for the many other tips - baffles etc..

ShinJohn, your deft fingers at the control of my Xovers DRAMATICALLY changed my sound. Not just that but being the newb I feel far more enlightened about the dynamics of xover settings. I played further with these settings and wow, congestion gone, tweets smooth with sparkle, and speaker integration is amazing. Now with some gentle equalization we may never leave the car! :D

The X001 was a last minute decision for me. I was sold on the DRZ9255 even though I had never listened to either. The SRT4 with the DRZ's sound had me somewhat regretful of my purchases. Truth is the DRZ sounded exactly like I thought it would with a smooth textured landscape of sound more organic in nature than I've heard in a car. Amazing setup! I didn't get to hear Stephens car with the MAC, damn.

Everyone's car sounded good in their various degrees of installation. They sounded quite different as well. Again I'm new at this I came away with a very different idea about what can be achieved in car stereo. I had NEVER heard a good one including my own modest installs - hearing a dozen great ones was cool :cool: Now even my own sounds pretty good :o

It was a pleasure meeting you all. A really great bunch of guys with way to much car stereo knowledge. Drugs can fix that :p

Thanks for your kind words on my install and sound, it's inspiring :)

Marv's is a month away. Maybe we could do this again before then at my place South San Jose for some last minute additional tweaking? Looks to me for you folks that's it's an endless installation....happy trails.

[AVI]

Guys - countrymen - fellow car stereo gurus.. this is a late post cause I haven't left my car. LOL! First I'd like to thank ShinJohn again but more importantly thank his wife and kids for stealing their time on this Memorial Day weekend. I'm trying to remember ShinJohns wife's name (Christine?) and the kids names but names simply don't stick with me :blush:

Here are a few things I came away with at this mini-meet. There were sure a lot of messy CD's laying around in some of your cars, clean them up! :D

You guys would get into my car with a CD with nowhere to stick it :( I understand the value of listening to a system with your own music and that couldn't happen yesterday). I wanted to see an RTA but because I didn't have a CD player or a track of pink noise on my IPOD that couldn't happen :( My next upgrade will be a 1/2 din CD/DVD unit under my X001. Problem solved :)

Stephen, your sat in my car and mentioned the one area I didn't sound deaden, my front doors. They are now deadened ;) Thanks for your golden ears to pick that up. Also for the many other tips - baffles etc..

ShinJohn, your deft fingers at the control of my Xovers DRAMATICALLY changed my sound. Not just that but being the newb I feel far more enlightened about the dynamics of xover settings. I played further with these settings and wow, congestion gone, tweets smooth with sparkle, and speaker integration is amazing. Now with some gentle equalization we may never leave the car! :D

The X001 was a last minute decision for me. I was sold on the DRZ9255 even though I had never listened to either. The SRT4 with the DRZ's sound had me somewhat regretful of my purchases. Truth is the DRZ sounded exactly like I thought it would with a smooth textured landscape of sound more organic in nature than I've heard in a car. Amazing setup! I didn't get to hear Stephens car with the MAC, damn.

Everyone's car sounded good in their various degrees of installation. They sounded quite different as well. Again I'm new at this I came away with a very different idea about what can be achieved in car stereo. I had NEVER heard a good one including my own modest installs - hearing a dozen great ones was cool :cool: Now even my own sounds pretty good :o

It was a pleasure meeting you all. A really great bunch of guys with way to much car stereo knowledge. Drugs can fix that :p

Thanks for your kind words on my install and sound, it's inspiring :)

Marv's is a month away. Maybe we could do this again before then at my place South San Jose for some last minute additional tweaking? Looks to me for you folks that's it's an endless installation....happy trails.

Wow .... You said , and I quote ... " Truth is the DRZ sounded exactly like I thought it would with a smooth textured landscape of sound more organic in nature than I've heard in a car. "

Did I get a chance to tell you that you're beautiful ? .... LOL:p

I'm so very glad you had a good time , and was able to further the sound of your VERY , VERY promising system ! I look forward to hearing it when you are finished.
And lastly ... Yes , the DRZ really is just THAT damned good ! I have to simply laugh when I read posts where people say things like " The DRZ is not the end all to be all " ....... Yes , it truly is :D Your acessment of it is pretty much spot on. It mostly sounds like a great high end home audio unit.

One of my favorite parts of the morning ?? I believe literally everyone who sat in my car asked me " What other processing are you using " ? In which I got to reply " Only the DRZ , and only 3 of the 5 channels of EQ are being used " :D

[spag_bace]

It was a great meet! Everyone's car sounded great. Thanks to you guys for passing on some very valuable advice. Being a newbie as I am, any advice is golden. And thanks to ShinJohn, the little tuning that you did helped my car sound much much better. Everything sounded much even and smoother. The tweets and mids integrate much better.

I'm open for another meet anytime!

[shinjohn]

........ I'm trying to remember ShinJohns wife's name (Christine?) and the kids names but names simply don't stick with me :blush: ..........

My next upgrade will be a 1/2 din CD/DVD unit under my X001. Problem solved :)
......
ShinJohn, your deft fingers at the control of my Xovers DRAMATICALLY changed my sound. Not just that but being the newb I feel far more enlightened about the dynamics of xover settings. I played further with these settings and wow, congestion gone, tweets smooth with sparkle, and speaker integration is amazing. Now with some gentle equalization we may never leave the car! :D
......
Marv's is a month away. Maybe we could do this again before then at my place South San Jose for some last minute additional tweaking? Looks to me for you folks that's it's an endless installation....happy trails.

Hey Michael,
No worries on the wife of kid's names. Everything is cool. They are used to me getting "caught up" with something. :D

About your next upgrade, I might have something you'd be interested in. I have an older Alpine CD changer (CHA-S624) with an optical digital out sitting in my garage. In great working condition, it'd be the PERFECT complement to your system, allowing you have utilize AI-net for control, the optical digital in on your H701, and keep the source hidden away... it's used and scratched on top, but perfect working condition. Take a look here for pics of it:
(scroll to the bottom)
http://www.pbase.com/shinjohn/ody_audio_stage_1&page=all

I'm glad the system tuning is coming together. I didn't do much at all, but am anxious to hear everything after you've got another round of tweaking in. I'll get my music loaded to an IPOD too. :p

About another meet... I definitely can't do anything until about mid-June on weekends, but after that would try to squeeze the time. Set something up and see what people's schedules look like to see.

It was a great meet! Everyone's car sounded great. Thanks to you guys for passing on some very valuable advice. Being a newbie as I am, any advice is golden. And thanks to ShinJohn, the little tuning that you did helped my car sound much much better. Everything sounded much even and smoother. The tweets and mids integrate much better.

I'm open for another meet anytime!
Phong,
Glad things are getting better, and see you again next time.

[Whiterabbit]

got any pics of the baffles without the grills? i'm trying to figure out an efficient way to mount reducer rings without adding height to the baffle.

door is totally redesigned, so with that 10" ring on the panel, I dont have to worry about any interferrence from an 8" speaker or smaller on the doorpanel!

so frankly, my reducer ring is .75 inch MDF. the driver is mounted to the backside, and the top is rounded over on both sides. very smooth transition.