The ongoing E36 sound system build
What's up everyone.
I had started a thread a while back about redoing my entire system due to the previous owner botching some of the wiring and doing some janky installations. I had put a Powerbass 4 channel basic amp in for the speakers, a rockford fosgate punch p300.1 amp for the sub, a Phoenix Gold Radial SD 4 ohm dual voice coil 10" sub, and I did the speakers as follows:
Remove rear speakers
Old School MB quart 5.25 kick panel woofers
Kicker 41KST254 1" silk dome tweeters
Vifa NE65w-4 2" mid range speaker
audiopipe passive 3 way crossovers
At first I wasn't as impressed as I really felt I should be, considering I ran all new 12 gauge oxygen free copper wiring (properly ran through the door's harness)
I went with the overkill size because if I chose to change out my speakers, I wanted the wiring to be able to handle it. I had spliced in butt connectors and detachable connectors where applicable just for ease of installation/maintenance of the door panels.
I also fixed loose felt in the doors where the rails for the window were located, as well as adding sound deadening and felt to any potential rattling wires and cables.
Recently I came into possession of a lot of old school equipment. Now honestly I was around for the 90's but I hadn't played with car audio at the time. I'm really learning as I go, and I'm really into the concept that not only is the equipment period correct, but it just works so damn well.
Here's some of the equipment that I got, just for you audiophiles:
Precision Power A204 Art series amp with all original plugs, excellent condition, which was a nice surprise.
Xtant 202m Amplifier, excellent condition
Dynaudio 8" midrange woofers
Avi Canadian built beastly 5.25 component woofers, the magnet is gigantic.
Audio Control EQT 1/3 octave sound processor
Precision Power OMX-432 equalizer (sold quick for top dollar)
3 JL audio 8" subs in a custom box, sold
JL audio 10w3v3 Sub, repaired surround and missing dust cap. I blew the rest of the surround when I pushed it hard with my JL 500/1 amp!
Alpine CDA-9815 Receiver
So, I had some new toys to play with. Honestly, I had no idea what I had because I thought it was old crap. I was very wrong. My friend (Cblock) told me that what I had was actually very good stuff back in the day. I decided to swap the amps and give the setup the power it deserved. I put the PPI art series amp in there to power my speakers, swapped out one of the blown MB quart (blown voice coil speakers with some JL coaxials I had laying around. I disconnected the tweeter so it was just powering the woofer temporarily. I will need to figure out a better long term solution. I picked up a another JL 500/1 as a spare and just ran that to my subwoofer. The prefab box isn't really my first choice, but it will do for now until I pick up some wood working tools to build my own. I plan on getting a 12" powerful sub to match the amp.
So far it changed the sound completely, the speakers up front sound more full and they get pretty damn loud. I haven't gotten any clipping from the sub or the speakers at all with the gain turned up. I decided to just adjust it to a safe level for now, but it's definitely a different setup from when I hooked it up the first time.
I'll post some pictures of everything. I'm in the process of designing an amp rack that's worthy of the equipment, because right now it seriously just seems thrown together for my taste. I like hidden cables and tucked amps while still being able to disperse the heat properly. That's the next project, but for now I'm just happy to be diving into this new old school world.
I'll be updating the pictures as I go:
Untitled by andrew johnson, on Flickr
Untitled by andrew johnson, on Flickr
Untitled by andrew johnson, on Flickr
Last edited by Jaws; 08-18-2017 at 11:49 AM.
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