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With the type of builds we prefer to do, smaller, thinner and lighter gear are always welcome as they provide easier mounting options and allow for more freedom in design...but that in general has applied to amplifier and subwoofers. Front stage speakers on the other hand, i dont feel that we have seen as much progression over the years...the Illusion audio Carbon and Luccent midbass drivers are some exceptions, but the truth of the matter is, they still arent SUPER shallow and they have been in existence for a long time when you consider the origins of the product.
Other manufacturers have tempted us with shallow drivers with mounting deoth of under lets say 1.5 inches for a 6.5, and i have sampled some over the years, and honestly, quite a few of them fall short of my desired performance goals that i have never really caught on to them.
so...when Morel contacted me about trying out their new Virtus Nano speakers, i was cautiously interested. I have heard about them before and from some brief second hand experiences, seem that they would be good performers, but still, my past experiences with the shallows kinda made me wary...as i wasnt sure how well they would work for me in a real world car environment.
After finding the right vehicle for the build, i got my package in and when i opened the box and took out the midbass, i almost fainted. I have been in this game a while and honestly, i have NEVER EVER NEVER EVER seen a speaker like this...forget about shallow midbasses with a mounting depth of 1.5" or less, this ENIRE speaker, top to bottom is around an inch tall! the mounting depth is uh...less than 3/4"?!!! (.67 inches to be exact)...it just looks really really odd. Infact, the thing that popped right into my head is that these are flapjacks. Words cant describe how crazy these things look, so i will post the pics of it and let you see it for yourself:
to drive home depth thing, here is the speaker sitting next to a 1/2" spacer:





basically, there is virtually no place this speaker cannot fit into, classic car kicks, older car's door panels with no depth, hondas doors with zero metal cutting, etc etc...infact, you can probably create spekaer pods in places that are no taller than just the grille! the possibilities are pretty endless. You can read more about these here:
VIRTUS NANO 2-way - Morel
So...back on point, enough of going gaga over how the midbass drivers look, and lets get to the build and focus on they perform.
the vehicle we have chosen to use these on is a 2006 honda S2000, recently shipped from IL to CA. it is one of the cleanest examples i have seen in a long time...and iirc only had something like 15k miles!
Goals:
1. to achieve a decent level of sonic improvement via a passive system and using stock locations
2. maintain a totally stealthy look in the interior
3. maintain a completely stealthy look in the trunk and place all gear in the storage well.
so. lets get started:
the signal source starts with a kenwood 998 headunit, and as with most s2k builds, it can be hidden completely with the factory door:
the front stage is of course, the virtus nano set. lets take a look at the other half of the speaker, the MT120 tweeter, which is the same tweeter utilized in the standard virtus set i believe. it has the cool lotus grille on it as well, and no more tripoint wave guides:
first, jesse ran new speaker wires into the door, sound proofed the outer door panel with blackhole tiles, and the inner door panel with some STP CLD damper:
then he fabricated some spacers for the virtus nano and coated them with several layers of truck bedliner to protect them against the element:
then the bigger openings in the door were better sealed off with focal BAM, and the nano midbass driver wired up and installed via oem mounting points..odd when you think about i that virtually NONE of the speaker basket actually really protrudes into the door cavity
the MT120 tweeters were then bonded to the factory mounting tabs with epoxy, and these were secured back to the door. the inside of the door card also received some CLD damper to help with resonance:
the same of course, was done on the other side:
jesse then bundled up all the wires and ran them to the back of the car, ziptied and organized every few inches:
once the wires were in the trunk, i took over the rest of the wiring and the fabrication. all the bundles were organized and drops down into the storage well area at the very back of the car:
Other manufacturers have tempted us with shallow drivers with mounting deoth of under lets say 1.5 inches for a 6.5, and i have sampled some over the years, and honestly, quite a few of them fall short of my desired performance goals that i have never really caught on to them.
so...when Morel contacted me about trying out their new Virtus Nano speakers, i was cautiously interested. I have heard about them before and from some brief second hand experiences, seem that they would be good performers, but still, my past experiences with the shallows kinda made me wary...as i wasnt sure how well they would work for me in a real world car environment.
After finding the right vehicle for the build, i got my package in and when i opened the box and took out the midbass, i almost fainted. I have been in this game a while and honestly, i have NEVER EVER NEVER EVER seen a speaker like this...forget about shallow midbasses with a mounting depth of 1.5" or less, this ENIRE speaker, top to bottom is around an inch tall! the mounting depth is uh...less than 3/4"?!!! (.67 inches to be exact)...it just looks really really odd. Infact, the thing that popped right into my head is that these are flapjacks. Words cant describe how crazy these things look, so i will post the pics of it and let you see it for yourself:
to drive home depth thing, here is the speaker sitting next to a 1/2" spacer:
basically, there is virtually no place this speaker cannot fit into, classic car kicks, older car's door panels with no depth, hondas doors with zero metal cutting, etc etc...infact, you can probably create spekaer pods in places that are no taller than just the grille! the possibilities are pretty endless. You can read more about these here:
VIRTUS NANO 2-way - Morel
So...back on point, enough of going gaga over how the midbass drivers look, and lets get to the build and focus on they perform.
the vehicle we have chosen to use these on is a 2006 honda S2000, recently shipped from IL to CA. it is one of the cleanest examples i have seen in a long time...and iirc only had something like 15k miles!
Goals:
1. to achieve a decent level of sonic improvement via a passive system and using stock locations
2. maintain a totally stealthy look in the interior
3. maintain a completely stealthy look in the trunk and place all gear in the storage well.
so. lets get started:
the signal source starts with a kenwood 998 headunit, and as with most s2k builds, it can be hidden completely with the factory door:
the front stage is of course, the virtus nano set. lets take a look at the other half of the speaker, the MT120 tweeter, which is the same tweeter utilized in the standard virtus set i believe. it has the cool lotus grille on it as well, and no more tripoint wave guides:
first, jesse ran new speaker wires into the door, sound proofed the outer door panel with blackhole tiles, and the inner door panel with some STP CLD damper:
then he fabricated some spacers for the virtus nano and coated them with several layers of truck bedliner to protect them against the element:
then the bigger openings in the door were better sealed off with focal BAM, and the nano midbass driver wired up and installed via oem mounting points..odd when you think about i that virtually NONE of the speaker basket actually really protrudes into the door cavity
the MT120 tweeters were then bonded to the factory mounting tabs with epoxy, and these were secured back to the door. the inside of the door card also received some CLD damper to help with resonance:
the same of course, was done on the other side:
jesse then bundled up all the wires and ran them to the back of the car, ziptied and organized every few inches:
once the wires were in the trunk, i took over the rest of the wiring and the fabrication. all the bundles were organized and drops down into the storage well area at the very back of the car: