Scope of build in EQ

 

The response in your last plot (dark Blue line) should sound half way decent. Maybe a little shrill at 1KHz. What are your impressions?

BTW: That car is screaming for a full blown upgrade. The first time I have ever seen an OEM do a kick panel / foot well subwoofer solution. I'll bet you Focal Utopia M midbass, midrange, and tweeters would nearly be drop in replacements. And with your 3D modeling skills making the adapters you'll need would be easy.

Common, you modified your 911. You need to do your daily driver 😈.

 

You can try to use the three bands to flatten it out. somewhere around +6,-6,-3 ?

 

So I have found B-2 M-7 T-0 remove the 1k 'telephone voice' effect.

Decided to try the new focal drop in kit, otherwise it was a very slippery slope into MOST150-to-SPDIF + DSP + AMPs + ESOTAR 3 way + god knows

It looks to be pretty linear to 100hz, but lets see how they perform vs the stock generic german 'premium' drivers

 

Yeah the 1k 'old telephone' style vocals sounds artificial, especially with so much missing 150-450.

I'll start with the focals, they do a drop in sub but I don't think it needs that; rather a mid-bass in the floorwell and a proper sub in the boot.

I'll document the progress tho

 

So just got a 1 year old Merc wagon:
View attachment 297362

Thoughts?

The steering wheel is on the wrong side for you 😁

 

Ha yes

Going to see what difference the Focals make, if if they fill in that mid bass dip then I'll just look at the bottom end like so:

Front-Bass feed into a high level (non DSP) amp with x-overs so I can HP the front bass and LP to a 10" in the boot.

 

Looks like a good plan Muu. MAYBE add something like a DSP mini in front of that 4 channel amp to help correct midbass dip and blend the sub properly.

 

So I did think about stealing the Mosconi from the 911 however given any processing will have an inherent delay (expected 5ms) it means you shouldn't (in my humble opinion) mix the OE amp chans and say a DSP powered amp. Really it's then about going all in; MOST150 gateway feeding a DSP & amp combo.

Baby steps, let's see what the Focal drop in kit brings. I'm unconvinced about the sub in floor, but would see it as a very nice midbass, some have put a upside-down MW172 in that location with success.

Just a nugget of nostalgia. I've been using your Avatar pic as the lock screen avatar on my work computer for about 10 years. I adopted it after the 1st time I visited Japan on business. How about them apples?

So when google tried to weigh into the social media space and force me to have a google plus user account, I wanted to make mine anonymous and chose this as a random smiley that fit in their round avatar space. Since then forums let us log in using google auth, so it's kinda followed me here

 

Just a nugget of nostalgia. I've been using your Avatar pic as the lock screen avatar on my work computer for about 10 years. I adopted it after the 1st time I visited Japan on business. How about them apples?

 

Doors tomorrow

 

So Focal's in across the front now, a more open sound and certainly less harsh. Certainly better, and some work with the EQ I suspect has helped, but bass is still flabby with that acoustically loaded boom.

So the component speakers came with a cross over which looked to just be 2 caps for the tweeter, however there was also an inline large cap for the woofer too between the crossover and the mid.

Black = baseline system with no EQ
Green = Focal 'inside' MBZ components and centre
Blue = As above but tweaked the EQ to -6 -6 -6 which had the net result of pulling that 200-400 up

 

So listening today on a run out, it's made the system bright. A step forward from an imaging perspective, but personally a step back tonally. Maybe they need some hours on them.

 

So scope creep..... idle thoughts are:

• Focal Centre
• Focal Components (passive xover to tweeter)
• Factory subs converted to mid-bass using adapter with 6.5" MW162GT
• Rear doors left alone
• C Pillar drivers unused
• NAV TV to get clean faded optical signal from MOST150
• Helix V eight running as per diagram
• Sub amp
• 10" in a stealthbox

Difference between this car and my 911 is that it's a family wagon, so needs a '2 seat' tune and rear seats need some love too. The helix looks amazing for this use case, with real-centre to drive the centre chan and enough IO for all the other speakers and chan 9&10 for the sub.

 

So scope creep..... idle thoughts are:

• Focal Centre
• Focal Components (passive xover to tweeter)
• Factory subs converted to mid-bass using adapter with 6.5" MW162GT
• Rear doors left alone
• C Pillar drivers unused
• NAV TV to get clean faded optical signal from MOST150
• Helix V eight running as per diagram
• Sub amp
• 10" in a stealthbox

Difference between this car and my 911 is that it's a family wagon, so needs a '2 seat' tune and rear seats need some love too. The helix looks amazing for this use case, with real-centre to drive the centre chan and enough IO for all the other speakers and chan 9&10 for the sub.

I knew you would give in . Do yourself a favor and buy the V Twelve. This will give you the ability to go fully active in the future with just a slightly larger amplifier.

 

Just a shame the V12 doesn't do bridging as per your discovery, otherwise could bridge 9&10 into coil1 and 11&2 into coil2

 

Many folks run a 2ohm DVC sub off two Helix V Twelve amp channels. That will net about 250W into a sub which is enough for a lot of people. Especially if you are hauling the wife and kids around .

 

Hmm yes that isn't bad idea is it, nice one box solution

 

Hmmmm they'd fit for a 102 + 142 + 162 trio.

 

Meh... Skip the MD142 and go straight for the E430. It would probably fit nicely behind that Burm grill. I'd like to see what's behind that A-pillar grill too. You should be able to mount the MD102 behind it.

 

Either way, not convinced on these focals. Wife commented unprompted how harsh they sounded.

Thinking the JL dual 8" box would go in nicely.

 

I've only used the Focal Utopia M so can't comment on the Flax. If the Flax are anything like the 3.5wm then they will require in car tuning. Provide a flat frequency response and they sound sweet. Leave any peaks in the response they will bite (sound harsh). They over accentuate flaws in frequency response.

 

Ok that's golden advice, I'll get on with my helix order. They could be good, but need taming.

First run out I was like DAFUQ but they've warmed a little, but I suspect the burmester EQ is trying to put glitter on factory turd speakers.

 

 

 

Nice amp you have there.

 

Looking forward to giving it a go.

Know the Zen says it's a V it's really a M one

 

So I'm thinking optical feed for the front channels, but use a analogue input for the rears to retain the fader but more importantly the rear parking sensors. However I don't really want a nest unused loom and connectors barrelled between the Zen and the Helix which will be back to back, so I'm going to make my own custom loom between the two.

So while updating the firmware to the latest, I set about finding new connectors on RS:

It's a Molex, Micro-Fit 3.0 Female Connector Housing, 3mm Pitch, 24 Way, 2 Row
RS Stock no.:511-1004

Connectors and pins ordered, see what I can make up.

 

Going to make up a custom Zen-M to Helix loom

 

Thinking 12tw3 in custom box down firing into the well:

 

More bits arriving