This is going to get crazy... If you've started reading this please make sure you've set some time aside. The thought of listing all the things I've done to make this system should've made me reconsider pressing the 'new thread' button :
where do I start....
The heart of my system is the thoroughly amazing JVC KD AVX77 because I'm e one of these audio-peeps who loves to tinker there wasn't a better choice for me. I mean, single din dvd 5.1 iPhone media hub -what's not to love??
I have it in Dolby pro-logic II music running 5.1 through a matched front stage and stock rear stage (the stock speakers sound better for rear effects than the pioneers did in the same location) speaking of pioneers, as this vehicle has tiny tiny gaps between the door speakers and the electric windows, mods are limited without major fabrication (which hasn't been ruled out!) so I have 2 sets of TS-Q131c's, but only 3 are in use.
My original set-up included the alpine SBS-05dc, which for a single din sized unit sounded surprisingly good... Just not quite good enough.
So it was time for drastic measures. With a lack of options for a single din full-range center channel I got out the soldering iron and set about on one of the scariest and craziest (but best) tasks I'd undertaken...
The JVC's front panel sits on a frame which drops to put discs in or tilt the display, as long as the front panel is connected it stays on (unlike countless flip front stereos which disconnect the panel pins when dropped, disactivating the display and deactivating it once the pins are reconnected and a switch is activated to tell the unit that the face is on) no doubt the JVC does have such a switch, but its activated by the frame on which the panel sits... Which got me thinking... If the panel is always on... Maybe I could... Maybe...
28 pins connect the front panel to the main unit, instead of these pins being a few mm's of copper connecting the 2 boards, mine are 10 feet long I now have a remotely mounted touch screen front panel monitor above my rear view mirror, and a head unit under my driver seat, connected to the car's wiring harness by a home-made 6foot ISO extension lead!! -this freed up a full double din space in my dash for a center speaker.
Center stage is taken care of by a pioneers TS-Q131c and a kenwood tweeter, ran from a JVC's 2 channel amp through a crossover network from an old paradigm home center speaker, which works very well for the pioneer but made the kenwood sound a bit brash and harsh, so an in-line bi-polar 2.2uf capacitor solved that, now it integrates properly with no obvious holes in the spectrum.
As its in 5.1 with the center width set at 1, very very little centered information is actually sent to the front speakers -so they're run directly from the head unit, as are the rears. As mentioned before the rears are stock, plastic basketed paper drivers which do the job surprisingly well, rear sound-steering is done very well by the JVC's PLII processor, and I choose to have the rear levels slightly higher than the fronts (cus I like surround sound) -the only major difference I've made to the rear channels is added a kenwood tweeter each side slightly higher that ear level at the tops of the pillars, which behave more like super-tweeters as i've put 1.1uf BP caps in line with them. -Such a small addition makes so so so much difference, and I'd recommend it to anyone just to open up the rear stage, also, rear speakers without tweeters are a bit "pro-logic-ish", as opposed to being pro-logic-II-ish with full spectrum steering *in stereo* -sounds fantastic as it is set up now, which took a very very very long time.
The JVC is fully manual to set up, crossovers, center width, panorama, distance, speaker size, speaker level etc. output to all 5 main channels is crossed at 120hz. Center width 1. Panorama on. Speaker size small. Distance is the JVC's own kind of TA, which took a very long time to get sounding right without front stage sounding skewed, rear stage sounding skewed, then getting all 3 stages to fit together was a nightmare, once that was achieved, it was time to set the distance, no lets call it TA of the sub...
...this final stage is dealt with by a 15" vibe black air sub and a Kenwood KAC-9152d via the seat mounted remote controller. Setting the upper frequency limit and level seems a lot more difficult with 5.1 than in previous set ups with 2ch+sub (I personally refuse to call it 2.1 as that's not what it is) as the .1 is actually its own channel, it deals with its own signal plus what the other 5 channels are throwing at it due to the shortfalls of the drivers as that's effectively what the JVC's crossover does, but in doing so its throwing time-aligned signals from the 5 main channels -6 channels worth of low frequency information -frequencies which are the easiest to skew -especially with it all being summed into mono
As if THAT wasn't enough, listen to what else the .1 does.... In my quest for surround effects and sound manipulation I went a step further so I could create effects on the subwoofer channel. Introducing, never before seen in a car, a behringer bass guitar effects pedal. This Beauty has been stripped, foot switch removed, upper and lower effects potentiometers removed and extended from the board, then re-installed on the dash with a pretty illuminated switch! years and years ago I had a pioneer head unit with a dsp effect called "octaver" -an effect I have fairly accurately recreated with the behringer. Mid-bass and frequencies slightly higher than what you'd call mid bass are not handled to well with a 15" subwoofer dealing with 6 channels worth of mono low frequency signals, so the behringer effectively recreates them a full octave below the original frequency, but it doesn't remove the original signal, so they're amplified and output in tandem through the sub as well as the higher (original) signals being reproduced by the door speakers. Putting such an effect into words isn't easy, nor is putting it into practice though! When the pedal is off the original signal bypasses the dsp so it's standard, but when it's on the original and adjusted signals can be controlled independently. Some recordings are made 50% better, some are made 100% worse, but hey, that's what it's all about -or the stock head unit would still be in
More than sound....
The spec list and features run down for the KD-AVX77 does not mention one of its best features, it has video out which is active ALL THE TIME. Obviously its in use if youre watching dvd's or iphone videos or netflix but also If you're playing a cd with text or an mp3 cd, it shows a list of track names, artist name, album name, time, album art. It does the same for iPod/iPhone too, with the same display including artwork, in addition, if you've got your iPhone on random there's no way of knowing the next song, well JVC breaks that wall down by giving you the list of the next 20 tracks! Yeah yeah I know it takes the whole randomness out of being random -but you don't have to have a screen plugged in if you don't want to know!
Speaking of screens, my car is one step shy of flagship, which means it didn't get sat nav, instead it get a radio readout and tyre pressure monitoring screen in a smaller pod atop the dash... Well that's where they were... Now they're remotely mounted against the center console with extended wiring to free up that space for the bigger sat nav pod to house a 5.8" necvox screen, constantly run by the JVC's constant video out, looks standard, performs perfectly. A further 2 4.3" no-make Chinese LCD screens are glued onto the headrest bars, separately switched and ran via a video amplifier.
Screens aren't the only visual aspect to my system, and these other bits are what make it mine... I have a 7x5 led spectrum analyzer showing the signal for the center channel, a 7x10 led spectrum analyzer showing the summed signal of RL and RR, 4 x 10 led level meters for each of the 4 channels being driven by the JVC and a 40 led meter showing subwoofer level. Two led voltmeters, one for the vehicle system (via the cigarette lighter power socket which runs all this *extra* stuff) and the other used to be on top of the 1farad capacitor in the boot, it's still connected to it and its only on when a large current is drawn.
Because I like surround sound, and for when I'm tinkering or improving the sound stages I can switch off the center channel and sub channel amps independently using my PIAA switches mounted on the center console. Another switch turns on the analysers, and the final switch turns on the rear LCD monitors. In addition to the analysers and level meters the switch also turns on the led strips on the back of the pioneers, oh, did I forget to mention the front stage is back-lit??
Welcome to my system, all made up of fairly inexpensive components, a few home made modules, a few butchered wiring mods and several unique ideas... All put together by someone with too much spare time who's never been taught anything electrical....
Thank-you
where do I start.... The heart of my system is the thoroughly amazing JVC KD AVX77 because I'm e one of these audio-peeps who loves to tinker there wasn't a better choice for me. I mean, single din dvd 5.1 iPhone media hub -what's not to love??
I have it in Dolby pro-logic II music running 5.1 through a matched front stage and stock rear stage (the stock speakers sound better for rear effects than the pioneers did in the same location) speaking of pioneers, as this vehicle has tiny tiny gaps between the door speakers and the electric windows, mods are limited without major fabrication (which hasn't been ruled out!) so I have 2 sets of TS-Q131c's, but only 3 are in use.
My original set-up included the alpine SBS-05dc, which for a single din sized unit sounded surprisingly good... Just not quite good enough.
So it was time for drastic measures. With a lack of options for a single din full-range center channel I got out the soldering iron and set about on one of the scariest and craziest (but best) tasks I'd undertaken...
The JVC's front panel sits on a frame which drops to put discs in or tilt the display, as long as the front panel is connected it stays on (unlike countless flip front stereos which disconnect the panel pins when dropped, disactivating the display and deactivating it once the pins are reconnected and a switch is activated to tell the unit that the face is on) no doubt the JVC does have such a switch, but its activated by the frame on which the panel sits... Which got me thinking... If the panel is always on... Maybe I could... Maybe...
28 pins connect the front panel to the main unit, instead of these pins being a few mm's of copper connecting the 2 boards, mine are 10 feet long
I now have a remotely mounted touch screen front panel monitor above my rear view mirror, and a head unit under my driver seat, connected to the car's wiring harness by a home-made 6foot ISO extension lead!! -this freed up a full double din space in my dash for a center speaker.Center stage is taken care of by a pioneers TS-Q131c and a kenwood tweeter, ran from a JVC's 2 channel amp through a crossover network from an old paradigm home center speaker, which works very well for the pioneer but made the kenwood sound a bit brash and harsh, so an in-line bi-polar 2.2uf capacitor solved that, now it integrates properly with no obvious holes in the spectrum.
As its in 5.1 with the center width set at 1, very very little centered information is actually sent to the front speakers -so they're run directly from the head unit, as are the rears. As mentioned before the rears are stock, plastic basketed paper drivers which do the job surprisingly well, rear sound-steering is done very well by the JVC's PLII processor, and I choose to have the rear levels slightly higher than the fronts (cus I like surround sound
) -the only major difference I've made to the rear channels is added a kenwood tweeter each side slightly higher that ear level at the tops of the pillars, which behave more like super-tweeters as i've put 1.1uf BP caps in line with them. -Such a small addition makes so so so much difference, and I'd recommend it to anyone just to open up the rear stage, also, rear speakers without tweeters are a bit "pro-logic-ish", as opposed to being pro-logic-II-ish with full spectrum steering *in stereo* -sounds fantastic as it is set up now, which took a very very very long time. The JVC is fully manual to set up, crossovers, center width, panorama, distance, speaker size, speaker level etc. output to all 5 main channels is crossed at 120hz. Center width 1. Panorama on. Speaker size small. Distance is the JVC's own kind of TA, which took a very long time to get sounding right without front stage sounding skewed, rear stage sounding skewed, then getting all 3 stages to fit together was a nightmare, once that was achieved, it was time to set the distance, no lets call it TA of the sub...
...this final stage is dealt with by a 15" vibe black air sub and a Kenwood KAC-9152d via the seat mounted remote controller. Setting the upper frequency limit and level seems a lot more difficult with 5.1 than in previous set ups with 2ch+sub (I personally refuse to call it 2.1 as that's not what it is) as the .1 is actually its own channel, it deals with its own signal plus what the other 5 channels are throwing at it due to the shortfalls of the drivers as that's effectively what the JVC's crossover does, but in doing so its throwing time-aligned signals from the 5 main channels -6 channels worth of low frequency information -frequencies which are the easiest to skew -especially with it all being summed into mono
As if THAT wasn't enough, listen to what else the .1 does.... In my quest for surround effects and sound manipulation I went a step further so I could create effects on the subwoofer channel. Introducing, never before seen in a car, a behringer bass guitar effects pedal. This Beauty has been stripped, foot switch removed, upper and lower effects potentiometers removed and extended from the board, then re-installed on the dash with a pretty illuminated switch! years and years ago I had a pioneer head unit with a dsp effect called "octaver" -an effect I have fairly accurately recreated with the behringer. Mid-bass and frequencies slightly higher than what you'd call mid bass are not handled to well with a 15" subwoofer dealing with 6 channels worth of mono low frequency signals, so the behringer effectively recreates them a full octave below the original frequency, but it doesn't remove the original signal, so they're amplified and output in tandem through the sub as well as the higher (original) signals being reproduced by the door speakers. Putting such an effect into words isn't easy, nor is putting it into practice though! When the pedal is off the original signal bypasses the dsp so it's standard, but when it's on the original and adjusted signals can be controlled independently. Some recordings are made 50% better, some are made 100% worse, but hey, that's what it's all about -or the stock head unit would still be in
More than sound....
The spec list and features run down for the KD-AVX77 does not mention one of its best features, it has video out which is active ALL THE TIME. Obviously its in use if youre watching dvd's or iphone videos or netflix but also If you're playing a cd with text or an mp3 cd, it shows a list of track names, artist name, album name, time, album art. It does the same for iPod/iPhone too, with the same display including artwork, in addition, if you've got your iPhone on random there's no way of knowing the next song, well JVC breaks that wall down by giving you the list of the next 20 tracks! Yeah yeah I know it takes the whole randomness out of being random -but you don't have to have a screen plugged in if you don't want to know!
Speaking of screens, my car is one step shy of flagship, which means it didn't get sat nav, instead it get a radio readout and tyre pressure monitoring screen in a smaller pod atop the dash... Well that's where they were... Now they're remotely mounted against the center console with extended wiring to free up that space for the bigger sat nav pod to house a 5.8" necvox screen, constantly run by the JVC's constant video out, looks standard, performs perfectly. A further 2 4.3" no-make Chinese LCD screens are glued onto the headrest bars, separately switched and ran via a video amplifier.
Screens aren't the only visual aspect to my system, and these other bits are what make it mine... I have a 7x5 led spectrum analyzer showing the signal for the center channel, a 7x10 led spectrum analyzer showing the summed signal of RL and RR, 4 x 10 led level meters for each of the 4 channels being driven by the JVC and a 40 led meter showing subwoofer level. Two led voltmeters, one for the vehicle system (via the cigarette lighter power socket which runs all this *extra* stuff) and the other used to be on top of the 1farad capacitor in the boot, it's still connected to it and its only on when a large current is drawn.
Because I like surround sound, and for when I'm tinkering or improving the sound stages I can switch off the center channel and sub channel amps independently using my PIAA switches mounted on the center console. Another switch turns on the analysers, and the final switch turns on the rear LCD monitors. In addition to the analysers and level meters the switch also turns on the led strips on the back of the pioneers, oh, did I forget to mention the front stage is back-lit??
Welcome to my system, all made up of fairly inexpensive components, a few home made modules, a few butchered wiring mods and several unique ideas... All put together by someone with too much spare time who's never been taught anything electrical....
Thank-you
