[solacedagony]

Where did you get your heavy duty velcro from?

 

[bobditts]

they sell industrial velcro at home depot and lowes

 

[dawgdan]

Yep, what he said. Lowe's.

 

[tyroneshoes]

Get the metra kit and a 880prs. Go active man. You got all you need but those passives are holdin you back.

 

[dawgdan]

Yeah, I know. The 3sixty.2 is on the wish list. For around the same price as the Metra + 880PRS (or any other really nice and flexible HU) I can keep the stock HU. I also need to add a second amp (probably a RF T5002) so that I can use the T4004 to power the each front driver individually.

 

[illnastyimpreza]

how did u estimate your box volume before hand?

 

[DaveRulz]

Go active man. You got all you need but those passives are holdin you back.

Agreed, go active! Ijust swapped in CDA-9833 and pulled out my CDT passives. It made a world of difference. There is so much more detail now. Active is clearly the only way to go.

I just need more deadening in the doors, they are rattling like crazy now.

Fellow 6 owner/enthusiast

 

[dawgdan]

how did u estimate your box volume before hand?

As in, before I started building it? Honestly, there's not really a method to do it - I just sorta knew from past experience that 1.0 cubes, especially with a molded box, is quite often bigger than your mind may think. Basically, I got really lucky with the box volume.


Dave- Yeah, I'm the one who chewed you out on mazda6club.com for recommending Elemental Designs. I will eventually go active when the funds allow. Christmas is coming soon, and my wife is about to receive a long list of items.

 

[illnastyimpreza]

whats wrong with elemental designs???

 

[DaveRulz]

Dave- Yeah, I'm the one who chewed you out on mazda6club.com for recommending Elemental Designs. I will eventually go active when the funds allow. Christmas is coming soon, and my wife is about to receive a long list of items.

I know, I know. Like I said, I've never had a problem with their products and I'm not using them in my car. Sounded like you had some bad experiences with Ben, and I guess it's just one of those situations where everything is just fine until there is a problem with the product and then the true colors come through.

I've had my CDTs running passive for over a year, and had never been super happy with the sound. I started with the tweeters in the stock locations, and they were painful to listen to, even padded down on the x-over. It seemed that no amount of EQ could fix the harshness at high volumes. So I moved them down to in front of the mids. I drilled out the holes in the door panel "grill" and mounted them behind there, aimed up at the listening position. This sounded better, but then it sounded like a lot of the highs were missing. So I reinstalled the stock tweeters in the sail panels, and ran them off of the image tweeter outputs on the crossovers. This was the best sound I could get out of the passive crossovers. When I pulled the passives, and just bi-amped the tweets and mids that were near eachother, crossed at 5k, the whole thing came alive. I remembered why I had gone active in my last full set up years ago.

Whatever, I digress...

I do have a question for you in regards to the sub enclosure. I built a pair of enclosures for a friend's 6 very similar to the one you built (pix below). We used Home Depot resin and mat (because we were dumb and impatient) But I swear, we used 4-5 gallons of that stuff to get them done. Did it really only take a gallon of resin for you to create that entire enclosure? Would you attribute that to the kyntex?

 

[dawgdan]

Wow, Knytex or not, those are killer looking boxes!

When I did have to use chopped mat, I did notice that I needed to use more resin. So that's probably the case. Since the cloth is what gives resin its strength, I suppose that the dense Knytex fabric simply doesn't need as much resin. I was told by an experienced friend (the one that recommended Knytex) that it seems that most installs on the internet used way too much resin.

But yes, only one gallon to build the structure, with enough leftover to make the Bondo-Glass milkshake.

 

[DaveRulz]

ok, so kyntex it is for the next one! and thanks for the compliments. We were really happy with how it came out. Sounds pretty good too. Not the equipment I would have chosen, but it gets the job done.

 

[dawgdan]

Trust me, you won't regret going with Knytex. The layup method is a little different than the little strips of chopped mat. You can work with much larger pieces, and pre-fitting them really helps a lot. It lays around curves beautifully for as thick as it is.

 

[Dichotomous]

why did you mold off the interior fabric instead of cutting that away and going back to the metal frame? I would imagine you could get much more box volume without going into the trunk as much. is there some reason why doing so would be bad? if not I intend to remove as much carpet and foam and plastic that will just be covered up anyways as I can, to tuck it deep in there. also did you take into consideration the direction that the sub fires or is that not really all that much of a concern for your install?

 

[illnastyimpreza]

why did you mold off the interior fabric instead of cutting that away and going back to the metal frame? I would imagine you could get much more box volume without going into the trunk as much...

This is a good point... It would definatly help out the design of the box. But at the same time sort of kill any resale value you might be trying to save...

 

[dawgdan]

Because it's how I've seen it done before.

Actually, my trunk trim is pretty thin. I doubt you'd gain much room behind there, if any at all.

 

[DaveRulz]

I've taken the side trim out, you wouldn't have gained much if any volume. In older vehicles you might. But in new cars they usually realize that space is a premium and make pretty good use of it. The best part of leaving it in is that it gives you a smooth, complete surface to lay your glass on. You also have to remember that since you're popping a mold, you have to be able to pull it straight out. All of the room that you would gain would make it impossible to pull the mold back out of the car.

Also, as far as placement goes. In the Mazda 6, that's is the best placement. I've moved my sub into about every position possible, and that one sounds the best.

 

[dawgdan]

Agreed, Dave.

Also, maybe because it's in the farthest-corner of the trunk, I am noticing a little bit of a delay on the sub. The lower midbass (80-140 Hz) "snap" of a kick drum seems to hit just a tiny bit sooner than the seat-kicking thump. Need to get some time-delay soon to remedy that.

 

[Dichotomous]

never thought of the resale value afterwards, very very good point.
as far as the time delay on the sub, if your sub is firing sideways instead of forward or backwards, there will be a bit of a time delay on it, not much, but a tad bit more than if it were forward/backwards. or it could be in the wrong phase and just SEEM to be delayed.

 

[cthip]

Trust me, you won't regret going with Knytex. The layup method is a little different than the little strips of chopped mat. You can work with much larger pieces, and pre-fitting them really helps a lot. It lays around curves beautifully for as thick as it is.

a note on the knytex: i've read this tutorial before, and always assumed that knytex would be very expensive, but this is apparently not the case!

as i understand it, 17 oz knytex is two layers of woven cloth (approximately 8.5 oz each) with a layer of 3/4 oz chop mat between them. if you were to add up the cost of the three layers individually, you would be paying nearly double what the knytex costs. considering that the knytex may save you some resin money as well if you can use fewer layers, then it sounds like it really works out to be a pretty good deal to me.