My 900BT nav unit is on it's way to me right now, so I want all of this to be done for when it arrives. I also got the bypass for it, and bought the JDM bezel for it.
Hope you didn't pay for the bypass. You don't need it. You have to move a wire in a plug (usually the mute wire, and tie it and the parking brake to ground.)
Check out AVIC411.com for more info.
Also, did you get the map and software updates? The 900BT is like 3 generations ago now...(Not necessarily a bad thing, but the new software updates are supposed to add some features as I understand it. I have a 90BT -- Premier version of the 900bt.)
Looking good!
You should repost the a-pillar pics. I'm curious to see how those are turning out.
They should be there now. But now the ones I posted yesterday aren't showing up. Weird. I got the sub box totally wrapped and it fits amazing in the car. Way better than I imagined. I have an issue with my grill now. I didn't account for how thick this carpet is. I wrapped the grill and box and it wouldn't press fit. I need to cut a new ring and re-do. Sucks cause the grill I made turned out perfect. Hot glue + carpet is a really tight bond! I also put some Raamat on the inside of the box on the large flat portions.
I'll get some pics of the final sub box put up later today. I need to get some hardware to bolt it into the car today too.
Well, right now I really want to wrap them in grill cloth. My plan is to get the entire system done (getting close!) and listen to it for a bit. As long as I'm happy with it (and don't want to get more complicated by adding tweeters) then I will pull them out and do more finishing work (there are a couple places that need grinded down, and some that need built up). I plan to experiment with some dye and paint to match the stock interior color exactly with the grill cloth. I have a good size piece of white grill cloth, so I should have enough to experiment with. In the end, if all else fails and I cannot match the color or wrap the pillars, I'll do some SEM texture paint.
Grill cloth is a good way to go. It stretches really easily and has a nice texture.
I wouldn't worry so much about matching colors exactly. As long as you don't have a stark contrast it should blend with the grays and blacks in the car.
Painting can turn out really good but it's a LOT more work getting that finish just right.
Well I'm reposting the pics from a couple posts up because they seemed to have disappeared.
I also put some final pics of the sub box. I bolted it into the car using two existing bolts. One is near the hatch and used for a tie down, the other is where the grocery hook used to be (directly behind the box). In the tie down bolt hole, I just stuck a stud (cut the head off a bolt). This is how Audio Integrations does with their box for the 08+ WRX because you really can't reach in and get the bolt to thread. With that stud and the other bolt, this thing isn't going anywhere! I had to install the sub with the box installed. As a result I noticed that the bottom edge of the sub appears to be out a bit more than the top even with all of the screws tightened. I need to pull them all back out and see if I can get it more even. I'm gonna see about sticking a Ensolite gasket under it to help. I also found that I had an extra MDF disk leftover from cutting holes for the mounting baffle that will fit exactly for a new grill. I just need to cut the center out and reattach my grill and carpet.
My nav unit will be delivered friday and I can FINALLY hear the complete system. Psyched!! I'm gonna get this grill finished up today and work on my USB/composite video input panel for the center console.
Ahaha it lives! Friday afternoon after work I got the new Alpine 900BT installed and finally got to hear my sub. So far seems pretty good, but I need time to dial things in. What I will say is the 900BT fits AMAZINGLY in the JDM double DIN slot. Maybe better than any double din I've seen in a Subaru. The top and sides are essentially totally flush with the trim. I'll post pics of all this later today. I'm also thinking about trying an Imprint run to see what I think of it. It sounds great, but I will say that I really liked an old setup I had with DLS Ultimate amps on everything. There is something about the way those amps sound that I like. May have to plan an upgrade in the future. But they're pretty much as big as my car, so not sure if I can.
Alright, got some pics of things as of now. There are some of the 900BT screen installed with the JDM bezel, the custom USB/iPod video panel I installed in place of the OEM aux jack in the center console, and some more of the sub box along with the new grill I built.
The grill is just a MDF ring and some steel mesh I bought for $10 from Lowes. Cut it out with snips and painted everything black. Then attached the grill with hot glue. I should note that the strength of hot glue on MDF is amazing. I had to re-do my first grill because it wouldn't press fit in (too thick of carpet). I was pulling the carpet off of the MDF, which was hot glued, and it literally ripped apart the MDF.
OK, so I also had a chance to play with Imprint today and wanted to give my impressions.
First off, you need to make sure and install the software correctly. I did mine wrong at first and kept getting Error -2 and Error 0014. It worked for me when I took my computer out to the car, plugged in the mic to the H100, then plugged the H100 to my computer and turned the ignition to ACC. Then I started my computer. Once it was started, I installed the software. First, make sure and open the USB drivers folder and install them. Then, install the sound manager program. I then restarted the computer and was good to go.
So I took all my measurements from the driver seat. For this preliminary run, I just took 3 measurements. One right in the center of the seat where the middle of your head would be, then two more, one to the left and one to the right, probably about where your ears would be.
I set my crossover points PRIOR to doing the auto-tune. I am sure now, that Imprint respects your midbass high pass and low pass, as well as your tweeter high pass. I am sure of this because of how Imprint considers an active arrangement. It combines the high and mid into a single driver for EQ and determine the crossover point between the sub and midbass. I verified this using sine waves at a variety of frequencies and listening to when the sound starts to come out of the tweeter (widebander for me). It just uses whatever crossover values you have set prior to running MultiEQ.
I set the gain for my highs (Trinity widebander) prior to doing and auto-tuning. Then I put my midbass and sub gains at maybe 1/8. This seemed to work very well for me. I was able to turn them back up to normal levels afterwards and get pretty good midbass and sub bass performance.
In general, the Imprint tune resulted in a well defined soundstage. I had done a quick manual time alignment before and Imprint improved it further. It significantly improved the stage width for me, which I was happy with. It was also able to really tame a few frequencies that were fatiguing before. Overall it added more detail.
Now, I don't like the fact that I cannot see the exact settings it ended up with. Here are the calibration results. The results here back up what I was saying about respecting crossover values. You can see in channels 3 and 4 it does not show any crossover values since it just uses what you have already set. But, the sub low pass and midbass high pass are shown. It shows the crossover frequency and then the cutoff frequency (20 Hz here). I think that means below 20 Hz it fully cuts it to zero output and uses a 2nd order slope between 20 Hz and 60 Hz for the midbass. Also note the different settings between left and right. Now, what I am afraid of is the cutoff frequency for the sub. It shows 40 Hz and then the crossover frequency is at zero. So I guess the sub is only 40 Hz and below. I'd like that to be higher.
I'd like to do some more runs to see if I can get even better results, but for now I'm pretty happy. I'm most happy to know that it respects the crossover settings for the tweeter and midbass. I think it will be OK until I can eventually get some money together for an H800, which would be a straight drop in replacement for the H100. So now all I need to finish is building an amp rack for the NX5 and finish and wrap the a-pillars. I'm gonna give it a couple weeks before I mount the amp so I can change gain settings easily.
Still screwing with Imprint. I just noticed that the sub trim level up there was a NEGATIVE 7.xxx relative to the positive 4.xxx and 7.xxx on the front sets. That would explain a decrease in bass. Gonna try some other things after reading a bunch of Imprint threads to see if I can get it to improve. Also tentatively looking for some DLS amps to replace the NX5 with. Not 100%, but looking into it.
My flocking supplies came in yesterday! So this weekend I may pull the a-pillars back out a do some final shaping and smoothing, then try to flock them next week.
2010 Subaru WRX: H-Audio Trinity and Ebony, sealed IDQ10v3, Massive Audio NX5 and NX2 amps, Alpine INA-W900BT with H100 Imprint, RAAMat/Ensolite, KnuKoncept/DIY wiring
I bought an additional amp, a Massive NX2. I went to a MECA event near me and my car actually did well, I won the modified SQ class. But, the major criticism was a lack of overall volume. So I will be bridging the 4 ch portion of the NX5 to put more power to my Ebony drivers and then run the Trinities from the NX2. I noticed if I turn the gains up on the Trinities as is, they easily overpower the midbass and sub. With the new arrangement I should be able to get more midbass volume without distortion and then up the Trinity and sub gains accordingly. Along with the amp, I got a fused distro block from KnuKonceptz and some new speaker connectors and extra wire.
I also decided I will be re-making my a-pillar pods from scratch. I took them out to see about flocking them and the trim is separating away from the pod in a few places. I learned a lot making them though and it will be way better to just re-do them. I will also eliminate the boost gauge pod from the driver's side and get a new gauge cluster surround to mount it in. That should make the new pillars significantly easier to build.
For now, I will be sticking with the H100 Imprint box, but I think I will focus on manually tuning things rather than relying on the auto-tune. Eventually I will replace it, but I'm not sure what with and still need to RTA my car to see how bad things look. The major thing I wish the H100 had right now was L/R independent EQ. For some reason you can get independent L/R crossovers, but not EQ. I might be able to use different L/R crossovers to help with some EQ.
Finally, I plan to get another 10 sheets of Raamat and 1 yd of Ensolite to add to the backside of the door trim and hatch trim, plus deaden my roof. The roof on my car resonates soooo bad if you knock on it. Worse than any other panel on the car.
2010 Subaru WRX: H-Audio Trinity and Ebony, sealed IDQ10v3, Massive Audio NX5 and NX2 amps, Alpine INA-W900BT with H100 Imprint, RAAMat/Ensolite, KnuKoncept/DIY wiring
Actually I have 2 of the DVC HOs running at 1 ohm off a n4 sealed. 2k watts. My rear deck hates me! Lol! It sounds good on some rock and country, but really is not listenable on rap or anything with alot of bass. I have damplifier and ccf set aside for the rear deck, but have not gotten around to it yet. It's honestly aweful right now and might be too much when im done. Might have to just use one sub in the end, but we'll see.
Well I finally decided I need to really know what my sub box volume is. So I took it out, plugged up the mounting hole, and filled the whole thing with water. It came out to exactly 0.635 ft^3 to the bottom of the trim ring. So a good bit smaller than I was hoping and what I estimated with packing peanuts. So I may end up trying to swap my sub with an IDQ10v2 or TC sounds epic, etc.
I also temporarily hooked up my NX2 amp. Midbass is so much better with the additional power. Probably the best my system has sounded so far. Still needs a lot of tuning, but getting better. I'm going to be remaking my a-pillar pods after I finalize my amp install. The NX2 is gonna go under the passenger seat and the NX5 back under the driver seat. I may make some kind of trim to hide the wires on the ends. I plan on aiming the Trinity widebands very similar, maybe a touch more off axis to try to make the pillars less obtrusive. But not by much if any. They will be higher up the pillars slightly and will be made a bit different to avoid any glassing of the end that transitions into the dash. If all goes well, I'm going to send them out to JPM Coachworks to get wrapped with alacantara with red stitching to match the seats (depending on price).
Once I get all that done, I'm going to try to pick up a new Alpine processor. Hopefully by then the H800 will have the kinks worked out and I can get one, otherwise I'm going to look for a used H701. If I ran a H701, can I just plug the RUX in when I want to change settings and then unplug it and put it away? Or does it need to always be plugged in.
I'll make sure to get pics of all this stuff to liven up this thread.
2010 Subaru WRX: H-Audio Trinity and Ebony, sealed IDQ10v3, Massive Audio NX5 and NX2 amps, Alpine INA-W900BT with H100 Imprint, RAAMat/Ensolite, KnuKoncept/DIY wiring
Alright, got my rear hatch deadened (mainly plastic trim), sub box was re-sealed (and I also stuck the rest of the duct seal I had around the inside of the baffle just to add some more mass), then I fully deadened the plastic trim for both front doors and made some nice gaskets around the speakers to seal them to the door trim piece.
On the sub box, I had it out of the car to check the volume and thought maybe it had a leak that was causing it to sound less than optimal. It doesn't really sound much different, so I think it was fine. Oh well.
The work I did on the front doors really made a difference! Specifically the gaskets I made out of RAAMmat. I think it really decreased the amount of sound that was getting into the door because the trim doesn't vibrate as much as it used to. I also noticed I could get the floor under my feet to vibrate now with some real heavy midbass, which was awesome.
Next project is to permanently mount the amps under the driver's and passenger's seats.
2010 Subaru WRX: H-Audio Trinity and Ebony, sealed IDQ10v3, Massive Audio NX5 and NX2 amps, Alpine INA-W900BT with H100 Imprint, RAAMat/Ensolite, KnuKoncept/DIY wiring
I've still been working on finishing things on the car. Since getting my Massive NX2 amp, I played around with gain settings, etc and got it where I want it now as far as the NX2 on the Trinities, bridged NX5 on the Ebonies, and sub channel. I really shouldn't have to change anything on the amps since all my crossovers and EQ is through my head unit. So I took both seats out and re-screwed them to pieces of MDF under the carpet, attached by an OEM bolt. I somehow managed to fit my KnuKonceptz distro block under the carped along the driver's side footwell. It was a tight fit, but I made it work.
Everything sounds good, still need to play with tuning more. Couple of pics of the amps, including the Imprint H100 box, attached through an OEM bolt. Still planning on switching it out for an H701 or H800 (once kinks are worked out), or maybe something else. I'm getting a Behringer mic and USB preamp so I can RTA my car.
2010 Subaru WRX: H-Audio Trinity and Ebony, sealed IDQ10v3, Massive Audio NX5 and NX2 amps, Alpine INA-W900BT with H100 Imprint, RAAMat/Ensolite, KnuKoncept/DIY wiring
Anxious to hear your impressions with the additional NX2. Still thinking about wiring in that NX4 I've got standing by to give the midbass some more headroom. Right now the gains are close to max on the NX5 for the midbass channels.
Way better with the NX2 added. All my gains are just a tick below halfway pretty much (with bridged midbass channels). Midbass is much improved. The other thing that really helped was sealing around the mid to the door card with Ensolite. That and adding more mat to the backside of the actual door trim. My crossover on the mids is 63Hz at 24db/oct (same as the sub). I'm waiting on my RTA setup, then I can tune things better. I have totally given up on the Imprint auto-tune process. It just plain does not work. Eventually I'll get a proper processor.
2010 Subaru WRX: H-Audio Trinity and Ebony, sealed IDQ10v3, Massive Audio NX5 and NX2 amps, Alpine INA-W900BT with H100 Imprint, RAAMat/Ensolite, KnuKoncept/DIY wiring
Re: 2010 Subaru WRX hatch build
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Linear Mode
