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Having A Box that Rocks, better, cheaper, sound.
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mightyart
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 9:59 am    Post subject: Having A Box that Rocks, better, cheaper, sound. Reply with quote

Here’s a little Friday reading for ya.
This is part one the basics.
When I first got my westy I knew I eventually wanted to upgrade the stereo. In driving it over the first weeks I realized a few things I was up against in putting in a better system. One of the first things I noticed was the amount of “road” noise and other noise there was. I also found out that the alternator didn’t put out allot. So adding big amps and cranking the stereo to compensate for the noise was not an option. I had to make the stereo I put in work as efficiently as possible, I also had to do it on a small budget.
I think I’ve done pretty well, but I have had a bit of experience with this kind of stuff in my past. Here’s a little background on my stereo experience:
Long ago in the land of Middle America circa late 1970’s.
A thing at this time that made a young lad “cool” was to build the biggest stereo system that you possibly could afford. If you had to go into debt for a large set of speakers, then so be it! because you where “cool”. I was about as “cool” as a 16 year old could be on a stock boys wages, but I did build a nice stereo system and started learning about stereo and what makes for better sound. In the 80s I had a job as a TV/Stereo salesman at the mall, here is where I became totally confused by stereo specifications. I did in time figure out what the important specifications meant.
I even remember the first stereo improvement I made in a car. It was a pair of Jensen triax speakers (once the cutting edge of car stereo speakers) I got at a garage sale. I installed them in my (ok it was my moms car) 77 Buick skylark. They made the AM/FM stereo sound allot better. Since then I have put in more stereo stuff than I can remember. Over the years speakers have become much more efficient, but some of the basic principles I learned at first still hold true.
There are three types of sound we will be talking about: the are the highs or treble (tweeters) the Lows or bass (woofer) and the in between or the midrange (midrange). One of the most popular types of speakers over the years has been the 6x9 three-way speakers, they contain 3 separate speakers (a tweeter, a midrange, and a woofer) to provide sound through the whole range.
What we are most concerned about is this simple principle: the highs and midranges are unidirectional and the lows are omnidirectional.
Ok so what does that mean?
It means that the highs and mids produced by the speakers are best heard when pointed at you because the sound projects one way. The lows or bass produced by the woofers can be heard all around the woofer or are projected in all directions. This is best illustrated in a “surround sound” system where the small satellite speakers are pointed at the listener and the Subwoofer is placed on the floor somewhere.
So when I put my stereo together speaker placement was a big consideration.
When I got my Westy the PO had put 3-way speakers toward the bottom of the front doors. This is a great place for a pair of woofers, but the highs and midrange notes are aimed right at your shins, so what finally makes it up to your ears is muffled.
Another important factor for the Woofers, was how solid the enclosures where that they where going into, the more solid the better. The only thing that you want moving or vibrating when the woofer is mounted is the cone of the woofer. Sometimes I’ll pull up to a car that’s thumping, but every time the bass hits the trunk will vibrate and shake like crazy. It makes me snicker a little bit, not because he looks silly, but because he doesn’t realize how much thumb he is wasting. If he would say weld the trunk shut, or better yet put a solid/ridged enclosure back there, the woofer would be pushing more air forward.
Enclosures on most home systems are “tuned” or made to measurements that best suit the speaker that will be going in them. This is more complicated than we are going to get into. So for us backyard mechanics lets stick to making our enclosures as solid as possible. The PO of my Westy had put speakers in the bottom of the door. So since the openings where cut already and it was a common size, this is where I decided to mount my front woofers. So the flimsy sounding 80s doors is what I decided to make more solid. See how this was accomplished here:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=112637&highlight=dampening
Now for our tweeters the enclosure isn’t a big deal, we just want to ensure that they are securely mounted. Again with the tweeters we want the cones vibrating not anything else. As was stated above the placement of the tweeter is most important, it is best when pointed at the listener.
Now let’s look at a third thing, which is the listening environment or the inside of the van.
Cars are really bad places to set up a stereo, as we have discussed the location of the listener is important to good sound, the best place to be is in the center with your speakers all pointed in at you. Where are you driver seated? Front row far left, this can be compensated for using the balance and fader controls of your stereo, but you have to have front and rear speakers, and these features on the stereo your using. We also have to contend with the fact that our environment is moving down the road, shaking vibrating, and bumping all the way. The older the Vanagon the less it was soundproofed, and if you have an air-cooled engine like I do the noise level of the engine is more than a water boxer. If you have a camper, you have more to contend with than maybe a passenger owner in getting the listening environment squared away, I even try to make sure all the stuff that is stored in the cabinets not moving. You also have to dampen the sound of the stove, which can rattle like heck when moving. One thing that I did notice when I got my van was how much road noise I got up front, with the sound dampening I did eliminate almost all of this. At this point the front is all I have done but I plan to continue working my way back. I also try to tighten anything I find that may be loose and could rattle. This goes for things on or around the engine to, even more important if you have an air-cooled engine, you don’t have anything competing with the stereo and you engine will benefit also.
So let’s look at what we have learned so far:
Speaker placement is important when it comes to the tweeters an the midranges but not the woofers,
Your Woofers should be in solid enclosures, all speakers should be solidly mounted and your sound environment must be worked on to eliminate as much outside noise as possible. In part II (which I have yet to write) I will show how I tried to use these principles to setup the system I have in my Westy.. It’s a collection of speakers and stereo that I already had and a few things I bought on Ebay. The sound is very good and is plenty loud enough even at highway speeds with the windows down.


Last edited by mightyart on Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:47 am; edited 2 times in total
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lordsniff
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very Happy Very , very good . I bet your fingers ache a lot .
There should be a lot more of this on these forums . I just wish I had a fraction of your knowledge about stuff , then I would share it .
Great .
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DanJReed
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice write up MA.

I still like my 6X9's down under the back seat in my Westy. However, its VERY hard to fit them anywhere else and have them NOT get in the way. I did see some guy online built a speaker box (woofer) that went behind the passenger seat.

However my 6X9s lack a fully enclosed box, and of course, I have a ton of crap under the back seat (motor oil, coolant, tools, cables, etc..).

Without a dout, for the $30 I spent for them, they sound FAR FAR better then the little worthless 3.5" roundy jobs up in the rear AC unit. I thought this might be a good spot for some tweeters...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


I used a Roto-Zip to cut the holes with a plywood bit - worked great, made *perfect* holes... used the templets to mark them out and then check the clearance with the ECU/PCM on the drivers side... I also removed my stock heater (was leaking).
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bigdood
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 11:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

good write up thus far. for everyone out there looking to learn more there are a few forums good for this, great for asking questions, etc. i find that the12volt is a more 'mature' forum whereas the other seems to be a lot of HS kids....

the12volt.com
caraudioforums.com
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DanJReed
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Im a big fan of the12volt.com - very good stuff. I put in several remote starters thanks to some help from them. My Nissan was tricky.. two starter signal wires, 1 hot weather 1 "cold" weather....

I always point my students to that site for stereo install help.

I also like this site..

http://www.installdr.com/ - nice info w/pics...
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mightyart
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 6:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks guys Very Happy
I wrote this to be very general, like was stated above there is plently more info on the web if you want get more in-depth.
I like that the 12volt.com site, lots of good info.
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Crankey
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 5:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hey, thanks for the how to here Smile

one question, in older VW's I've had, theres always been rust growing under tar paper on the floor....ever worry about rust creeping unseen inder the B-Quiet stuff ?
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 4:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I didn't cover any seams with my stuff. I only put it on the inside of the doors, and over large metal areas w/o seams.

Vanagon's don't seem to rust there...
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Darryl Barber
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 4:54 pm    Post subject: speaker placement Reply with quote

Thanks everyone for all the info.
Darryl
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Phil G
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 8:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

". . . the highs and midranges are omni directional and the lows are unidirectional."

Er, didn't you mean just the opposite? Hey, the chain was there so I pulled it Very Happy
A few other bits on the subject:
A 'spatial anomaly' lets say exists when low tones are bounced off solid objects opposing the listener. This creates an illusion of both greater base punch and of greater distance between the sound source and listener. In other words, when you place your base tube or woofers facing away from you, and it/their sound is bounced off a rear hatch or other bulkhead, you will 'feel' more base and with eyes closed you will have the perception of being in a larger listening space than the confines of you vehicle. Subwoofer boxes like the Bose and many others accomplish this same effect by loading the speaker in a tuned, ported baffle. The advantage of this design is that you can place them in a number of orientations and at various lengths from the listener with no appreciable difference in perceived sound.
This effect can be used with or without digital surround.
Horns are more efficient and accurate drivers of voice frequencies than speakers, but can develop painful sound pressures in small listing spaces like cars, boats, or airplanes. So while they are awesome, they're not the best suited for our vans.
Doors, interior panels, and seat boxes are terrible enclosures for any kind of speaker. Their shapes, volumes and materials would have the skeletons of Altec Lansing turning in their graves.
With just these two issues alone to face, in my humble opinion the most adaptable speaker system to our vans would be the Bose systems comprised of 4 or 5 cubes and the Acoustamass Module. The fifth cube would be the center voice driver for those playing DVD's with surround. With minor effort, I think each cube could fit in the space of the 4 original round speakers with the base module built into the underside of the bench.
This system of course provides it's own tuned enclosures and is very compact. I have this setup on my boat with an HF remote that works well from anywhere aboard. Cost of a system like this including the Bose amp is about $700, then you'll need a deck, changer, DVD, and/or whatever else you want to add. Low frequency back massager? Very Happy
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mgoodwin
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

is there room for 6x9's if you leave in the box heater under the seat?
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 29, 2010 10:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

where is part II?


Very Happy
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kind of part II
It's what"s in the van right now, the amps have been updated, the junky Jensens are gone, Fosgate and an Alpine are in their place and there are also tweeters in the ceiling in front now to.
One of these days I'll take pictures and update this thread...Err, maybe. Wink
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=347832
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting this floated to the top... it's one of the next things I have on my list to revisit. In 2007 I picked up a JVC head unit... last year's (2006) model.. on the closeout table at Best Buy. It fits in the stock position without any shims or adapters to avoid the heater box, but I'll probably need 90º RCA's to feed my sub-amp as you did. It's got the USB-MP3 option on front and I put the iPod plug on it. I think I'd rather have a 3.5mm audio jack... might revisit that one. That same Summer, in prep for a road trip, I bought Polk Audio speakers for the front and rear.

The fronts are 4" Polk DB401 with a 4" "midrange" and a center tweeter. I originally had pics in this thread but apparently I had linked them then moved them. Anyway, I cut the stock grills off the original speakers and used the existing holes so as not to hack up my door panels... they fit perfect, look original, and the tweeters just clear the dash with the doors closed. I don't really expect these 4" speakers to carry much midrange, but I was driving with the AC housing & rear speakers out last week and they actually perform pretty well. I was surprised.

In the back someone had cut in some crappy 4x6 speakers and rattled the web apart trying to get them to produce bass. I Dremel'd the openings bigger and went with Polk Audio 5x7s... which is about as big as you can really get in that space. I didn't really notice any noise from the fiberglass AC housing, but while it was down I used some sound mat to add mass to the inside of the speaker compartment. With that setup I get clean mids and highs and it goes as loud as I really need it to to hear the music under most conditions. It doesn't cut through when I'm passing cement trucks on the freeway at 75mph with the windows rolled down... but what can you expect?

While I was replacing the radiator the beginning of this Summer I scrubbed the inside of the radiator space, sprayed with rubberized undercoat, then glued some thermo-acoustic insulation mat in. I still plan on putting the heavy, butyl & foil (or whatever) on the inside. The space behind the glove box still plays like a drum... bad thing for audio & road noise.

I also picked up an inexpensive sub-amp that will go under the driver's seat. I want bass, but I don't want to take up much valuable storage space for camping. I picked up an 8" woofer with about a 6" depth, and I've got about 7" clearance from the floor to the bottom of the driver's side jump seat with the seat not folded up. That's not much space at all for a bass cabinet, but I'm going to give it a try. I drew up a design for a down-firing box that will fit in that space and have about 1/2" of clearance from the floor for the sound to escape. As Mighty says, bass is omnidirectional so I'm not worried about firing it at the floor and letting it bleed out the sides.

This small box is not going to "boom" enough to really let that woofer cut loose, so toward the front of the van it's partitioned into a folded horn that will fire into the walkway between the jump seats. My current drawings have the horn tuned to about 28Hz, but I need to look up the specs for this woofer and maybe play with that tuning. In my experience building speaker cabinets and rock-band bass bins, the trick with a tuned port is to look for a weak frequency in the speaker's response to reinforce. If you get it wrong the speaker can be really "boomy" rather than natural sounding. I know some folks think that's a good thing... I don't. I'll probably take the frequency where the bass starts to roll off and tune the horn just below that unless I find some other hole to fill between about 30Hz and 65Hz-70Hz where the 5x7's pick up.

Conceptually I think I've got my bases covered (bonus pun included), but we'll see how it works in practice. I know it's not ideal, but it's a car, not a listening room! Smile The other thing is I won't be able to fold the jumpseat up with this sub under it... I'll leave the sub removable for when I need hauling space. If some of you Wolfsburg/Carat folks are interested I'll post drawings & dimensions of the final product.

Paul
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