[MarkZ]

I'm going to add pictures to this thread later. But I wanted to start by describing phase 1 of the system.

Source:
CarPC + Gigaport HD USB sound device + Xenarc touchscreen
Processing:
(CarPC) FooBar2000 audio player with crossover, polarity, and delay DSP plugins

Front stage:
Adire Audio Extremis (80-250) in the rear doors
B&C 6mdn44 (250-4000) in the front doors
stock tweeters (4000+) in the upper front doors
[approximate xover points in parenthesis]
Sub:
(1) IDQ15, infinite baffle

Amps:
ESX Q604 (4 x 60w) - for the tweets and mids
ESX Q1752 (2 x 175w) - for the midbass
Zed Minilith (1 x 600w?) - for the sub

Phase 2 will probably be converting to VST plugins for processing (so that I can add phase adjustment to the list of goodies), and the addition of a windshield-firing center channel (again, probably using the B&C driver). Not sure how I'm going to power it though.

Currently, here are pictures of the installed speakers and Damplifier-treated doors...

B&C in front doors

Extremis in rear doors

Trunk-mount battery + distro block

 

[Oliver]

Any issues you noticed from rear mounted extremis ? [ 250 hz , makes me wonder about localization of speakers ].

 

[MarkZ]

Any issues you noticed from rear mounted extremis ? [ 250 hz , makes me wonder about localization of speakers ].

I'll let you know when the amps are hooked up this weekend.

I'm not terribly concerned with localization. Well, I shouldn't say that. I *was* terribly concerned with localization, and so I deadened the holy hell out of the inner and outer door, as well as all the vibrate-y parts of the door panel. Will it kill localization cues? Probably not. Other things in the back might vibrate too. Door lock maybe?

But it's also worth pointing out that this is a small-ish car. The back of my seat almost touches the front of the back seat, and so the speaker is about as far forward as my head is. Occlusion due to the seat shouldn't be much of a problem due to the low crossover point.

This is how we anti-kick-panelers roll.

 

[Oliver]

You're aware of the odd-order distortion [ which may contribute to localizing these drivers }

Quote>
MarkZ

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Join Date: Dec 2005
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Default Re: ? to those of you running Extremis woofers...
I'm in the same boat. Since I blew one of my mids, I've had to reconfigure the Extremis' to run up to ~2kHz instead of ~275Hz where they were before. Yeah, I don't really like the midrange from them, although it does sound better than I thought it would. Better than some car audio component sets even. Although, it's not entirely a "muffled" or attenuated problem as much as it is a lack of clarity/detail and some harshness at higher volumes. I haven't even looked at Zaph's graphs so I don't know what you're talking about, but I wouldn't be shocked to find that the odd order distortion is a bit higher than some others at appreciable output levels. I'd also guess that IMD becomes a factor when using it across such a broad spectrum.
Quote>

 

[MarkZ]

You're aware of the odd-order distortion [ which may contribute to localizing these drivers }

Quote>
MarkZ

My current user title
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Upstate NY
Age: 31
Posts: 4,405


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Default Re: ? to those of you running Extremis woofers...
I'm in the same boat. Since I blew one of my mids, I've had to reconfigure the Extremis' to run up to ~2kHz instead of ~275Hz where they were before. Yeah, I don't really like the midrange from them, although it does sound better than I thought it would. Better than some car audio component sets even. Although, it's not entirely a "muffled" or attenuated problem as much as it is a lack of clarity/detail and some harshness at higher volumes. I haven't even looked at Zaph's graphs so I don't know what you're talking about, but I wouldn't be shocked to find that the odd order distortion is a bit higher than some others at appreciable output levels. I'd also guess that IMD becomes a factor when using it across such a broad spectrum.
Quote>

But I'm not running them up at 2kHz anymore.

 

[MarkZ]

UPDATE: "Phase 1" is almost complete. I will upload the finished interior pictures hopefully by tonight.

The trunk is in pieces right now. I had ALL THREE of my amplifiers fail between the time I took them out of my old car and installing them this time. Waiting on parts, and then trunk pics will come.

In the meantime, my GPS works.

 

[lsm]

Nice!

 

[SSCustoms]

Looks good so far!!! Eagerly awaiting more pics!

 

[MarkZ]

Ok, the trunk is "done". I'm still waiting on parts for amp repair #2. But it works for now.

The goal of the install was stealth. I failed because you can still see the sub. Oh well. I use the magnet to wedge my bike tire under, so it serves a purpose.

The amp/computer racks fold up and so it looks stock, only with flat walls. Pictures of that will come with the final set of the finished install. In the meantime, they're folded down so I can take the amps and computer in and out while working the bugs out. Here's the crap mounted to the underside of the walls...

[Sorry for the crappy camera phone...]

SUB and AMPS

ESX AMPS

MINILITH and COMPUTER

Edit: After posting this, I realize that these pictures are awful. I'll take some more with a real camera this weekend, along with pictures of the dash. (which you can sort of see in my avatar)

 

[MarkZ]

By the way, this will be a tuning weekend. My parts should come in the morning, so I'll have that amp ready to go. I plan on using an impulse generator, mic, and softscope to measure what my delays should be. After that, TrueRTA to see what's going on. The way the processing is currently set up (through foobar, and NOT vst plugins), I can adjust delay, xover points, and polarity for now. I don't think there's a very good phase adjustment foobar plugin.

By ear, I think I have some issues at the tweet/mid xover point to deal with, and the midbass seems uneven with what sounds like a bit of peakiness between 120-180Hz or so. I have a feeling I'll be able to tackle most of the problems with xover adjustment because I pretty much just threw it in the car with "default" values. I'm hoping the midbass doesn't end up needing EQ because I'm not really prepared to do that correctly right now.

Gotta get back to setting up the vst plugins for this sucker pretty soon. But console and audiomulch don't seem to like my sound card...

 

[MarkZ]

Pictures of the dash...

There are some issues with the paint at the interface with the screen's bezel. Color doesn't match either, so I have to find the right paint in the right color. But, in the meantime, functional.

Here's another one with the GPS going...

Have to do a lot more tuning. The midbass remains very uneven, although I managed to get it to mate well with the B&Cs with slight tweaks of the xover, reducing the level a bit, and reversing polarity.

"Finished" trunk pics hopefully by tomorrow. I had to yank the computer yesterday, which I talked about in this thread.

 

[MarkZ]

By the way, here's a pic of the car (after the birds got it).

 

[I800C0LLECT]

oh wow. Shat town!

 

[98RedGT]

Looks good man ! Birds really put a hurtin' on it!

 

[thehatedguy]

How are the midbasses in the rear doors working for you?

I had a demo of a carputer today...I am jealous. I want one.

 

[MarkZ]

How are the midbasses in the rear doors working for you?

I had a demo of a carputer today...I am jealous. I want one.

There are always bugs to work out, but it's definitely worth it.

I'm not sure what I think about the midbasses in the rear doors yet. As far as localization goes, it's even less of an issue than I thought it would be -- and I didn't really think it would be. The xover point is now down to about 240Hz. The problem with them is that there's a null between about 140Hz and 180Hz which I can't track down. This wasn't present in my last car using the same drivers. I haven't spent much time tuning yet, so it may emerge the more I play with it. I'll probably RTA it first to confirm my observations.

 

[thehatedguy]

Before I do my kicks, I may try my midbasses in the rear just for ****s and giggles. See how far I can tweak it and make it work. Good thing the Lexus has 6x9s in the rear deck and I have a set of ID xS69s just sitting here.

 

[MarkZ]

Yeah, give it a shot. I'll be interested to hear your take on how high you can go with it so far back. I did midbass in the rear deck in an old car of mine and also the back panels of a two-seater my friend had a while back with decent results, although not as good as these.

Btw, I found a rattle coming from the rear door yesterday playing a song heavy in midbass without much in the way of midrange to mask it ("Damage" by Yo La Tengo). I may do another treatment on the back door panels. These Adires are pushing a remarkable amount of air for such small drivers. They actually outperform the XLS8's and IDQ8's I've tried in the same freq range. I still can't make sense of that.

 

[MarkZ]

Updating the install a bit.

1) Today I'm removing the Adire Extremis midbass drivers. Subwoofer handles midbass.
2) I'm replacing the IDQ15 with a w15gti, so expect subwoofer pics next week.
3) I added a center channel a couple months ago. Pics will be added to this thread.
4) Changed out the amps and completely reconfigured the carPC case. Pics will come later today.

The main project today will be to install new signal processing software and haul the RTA back out there. I don't use a VST host. I use the VST wrapper in my audio player (foobar2000) to load whichever VST plugins I need. The problem with this is routing multichannel. But the Voxengo tools seem to take care of this by virtue of being 8 channel plugins with customizable routing options. I'll use the free plugin, Voxengo Sound Delay, to do delay. And I'll use the GlissEQ for crossover, EQ, and L+R summing for the center channel and sub (summing takes a little bit of work to implement...). Fingers crossed.

 

[bassfromspace]

So you're running the GTi up to 250hz and having the midrange take over from there?