I just did this interesting project over last weekend.  the client has a double DIN navigation system that wants to put it in the boxster.  problem is the boxster only has a single DIN space for stereo.  To do the install, we need to relocate the AC control unit to the storage space underneath the radio, that way we can create a double din space for the deck.  for boxster, there are kits available for double DIN deck installation, but some cutting, fitting, wire running still needed to be done.  after several hours of work, the end result is very factory looking and beautiful .

The client also bought a pair of factory rear speaker to be installed too.  He said that when he had the top down, at high speed, you can’t hear the music any more even if cranked way up.  By adding the rear speaker, it would make it sound much better and he can hear more clearly when he has the roof open.  since the factory speaker only uses 3″ full range speakers, the high frequency area needs a little bit more volume.  So I installed another pair of high quality fabric dome tweeter capped with audio grade capacitor to fill the missing piece.  I also attached 2 little piece of dynamat right on the center of those full range cones to get rid of cone break up noise and to extend the lower frequency part.  End result is very clear and natural sound with flater frequency response.  I am very happy with it.

This is a simple sub & amp installation on a 2008 BMW 335.  It’s actually surprisingly easy to do a sub & amp install on this car.  The car come equipped with Logic 7 sound system and the stock amplifier just happened to be conveniently located at the left corner of trunk area.  All I need to do is to find out which wire is for subwoofer underneath the front passenger chair and use that signal to feed to the Alpine 12″ sub that he has.  This car is very much like others that have factory subwoofers, there are already plenty of upper bass.    So we adjusted the sub to have low pass frequency of only 50Hz and filling the end where the stock woofer isn’t capable of.

Custom installation on a 2000 Range Rover.  The stock deck is a single DIN space, but we have put in a double DIN JVC GPS deck.  In order to do that, we need to cut away a lot of metal and plastic behind the console to create space without compromising any of the function.  A portion of the air vent was even cut out to make space.  Aluminum foil tapes were used to make sure no hot or cold air would come into the console and create moisture.  Because the customer needed to head out to Prince George the very next day, we only fabricated the covering panels out of ABS plastic.  It would have looked much better if it’s made out of wood finishing.  I will update the photo next time the customer is in town.

This is a fairly simple GPS deck installation, but because the double DIN mounting kit for ’04 Matrix is a universal one.  Therefore, it created two 1/8″ gap at the edge where the deck connected to the black mounting kit.  I needed to fill the gap with glue gun and carefully remove excess glue to create a cleaner transition.  Can I make it better? Yes, but not without fabrication another ABS board and charging extra to customer.  This way, it’s simple and the end result is not bad either.  If you can’t see the gap of what I am talking about, then I have suuceeded.

This is a system designed by Elite Auto Sport.  I was invited to join the install team to put the whole thing together on a 2005 Chrysler 300.  The end result is very sick and it actually “shook” my house!!  I was afraid that the neighbor would call the police or something.  Elite Auto Sport did a very good job making the custom box and amp rack, and the paint job is very professional too.  Just in the trunk, we put in 2 mono block amp to power each sub, 5 Farad Capacitor for each amp, and finally a 4 channel Sound Stream Amplifier to handle the mids and highs.  Thank you Elite Auto Sport, I had a lot of fun working with you guys!

This is a custom installation on a 2000 Civic.  The customer has Rockford 2000W amp that he wish to install.  The blue LED you see is added on to make a more dramatic effect.  Before there was nothing on the black panel besides the power indicator.  with the LED, I think it’s much more beautiful.

LED OFF

LED ON

Close up, you can see the LED strip I put in

More pictures will be update once the installation is complete.

I don’t know why, but many cable company uses very misleading terms on the descriptioin of the RCA cable they are selling.  First of all I would like to explain a little bit of different kinds of cable construction and then try to clear out the smoke around the term “balanced.”

The number one term is the word “balanced”.  many cable call their twisted pair construction RCA wires “balanced construction” or “balanced design.”  But all it is, it’s just a fancy way to call the twisted construction.

Basically you just need to know that there are 2 different way of making RCA cable.  One is coaxial, and the other one is twisted pair.  On a very low end cable, they are made out of thinner coaxial wires.  Because they use very thin copper wire in the center, and the outer shielding layer is very loosely covered, it doesn’t have very good sound quality & noise rejection performance.

One level up is the twisted pair type.  this is actually a very cost effective way to shield out the noise from coming into the cable.  and because it’s very easy to make, just use two same gauge wire and twist it together.  Many manufacture sells this cable as their higher end cables.  But twisted cable has one trade off.  when the cable are twisted together, it created a higher capacitance inside the cable.  Therefore, the high frequency part will be attenuated and portion of the signal will be lost.

Theoretically speaking, coaxial cable can have better performance when the shielding material is adequate and the capacitance is kept low.  that’s why on higher end home audio RCA cable, you would only see coaxial construction.

Balanced cable in the audio world is actually referred to another kind of cable typically used in professional audio equipments. Basically there are two kind of connection method when connecting the signal from head unit to amplifier, they are single ended design and balanced or differential design.  It used to be that balanced design offer better sound quality than single ended design, but not anymore.  However, the industry would still like to use “balanced” term to fool customer that it’s a better cable.  Just keep one thing in mind, only the head unit and amplifier that is a “balanced” design can use a real balanced cable.  You can’t use balanced cable on single ended design amps and decks.  Right now, 99.9% of car audio decks and amp that are made is single ended design. So next time you see a twisted pair cable stating it’s a balanced cable, don’t be fooled by it.

In car audio world, from my opinion, the cable doesn’t make as big of impact on sound quality when compared to speakers, amps and decks.  so when buying cable, make sure you get a little bit better than basic models to ensure a more secure and reliable connection, but don’t go over board and buy some $100 cable.  It wouldn’t do you justice on the extra money you spend.

In any audio system, the weakest link among the equipments should be the loudspeakers.  Yet, it’s importance is sometimes ignored.  why is it the weakest link you might ask? Let’s look at the the distortion level of a typical equipment:

Head unit:  for a CD player, the distortion level on the RCA pre-out is very low, like 0.002%
But if you use the onboard amplifier to drive speaker, when cranked up, the distortion can become around 0.1%.  That’s why serious listeners would have additional amp to drive speakers.

Amplifiers: the amplifier on decks are around 0.1%, where a dedicated amp is usually operating at 0.01%

Loudspeakers:  you are typically looking at around 5%. That’s right, 5% distortion when play loud.

I think it’s because loudspeaker is the only equipment that converts electrical energy to mechanical energy that we can hear.  and by the design of it, we can get many type of distortions from it, such as harmonic distortions, cone break up, time delay, crossover design, phase distortion, etc.  That’s why in my opinion, it’s always worth it to buy more expensive component speakers.  With proper installation and tuning, it can ensure you several years of music enjoyment without the fatigue.  I have listed a couple of good component speakers that you might want to consider when shopping for one:

TS-C720PRS from Pioneer:

This is a very well designed and constructed pair of speaker.  Everything just sounded nice and natural when I listened it.  this would cost about $500 in retail, but you can get in for around $250 on ebay.

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Putting damping material inside the subwoofer boxes serves two function: one is to smooth out the frequency response and the other is to make subwoofer hit deeper notes.

we know the subwoofer when playing music would move quite rapidly and sometimes violently when we crank it up.  The movement of cone would move air thus creating sound pressure (music), but at the same time vibrate the box too.  That’s why inside a good quality sub box you will see braces all over them to make sure the box wouldn’t vibrate.  However, because usually boxes are rectangular shape, and each walls would create a resonance frequency depending on the length.  By adding damping material in the box, you can absorb some those noises thus creating a more linear frequency response.

Another benefit is that the damping material would actually slow down the air speed in the box.  To a subwoofer, that would have the effect of having bigger boxes.  So when tuned correctly, you can make the subwoofer play even deeper bass.

Because I know putting some damping/filling material actually make very audible difference, when I install sub and amps for customer, I would actually put them in for customer without extra charge.  Just so that the customer can hear even better music. For those of you who is thinking of having the sub & amp done, I usually charge $90 for standard installs.