My Retrosound stereo install (including underdash amp, speakers)

[tootype2crazy]

Heyo!

Took a break from my scab project to install a retrosound in my current driver. I was missing those tunes and listening to the engine drone all the time gets old. I ended up thinking hard about where to install the front speakers and amp. Here's what I came up with:

I dislike putting the speakers in the bottom of the door because [A] it gets wet in the door and potentially can get the speakers wet and corrosion is bad, mmkay and [B] having the speakers pointing at each other can potentially cause sonic dissonance in that the colliding sound waves can cancel themselves out. So I cut out some sheet metal rings with my plasma cutter and carefully positioned them to line up with the kick panels and welded them in. I smeared grease on them then installed the kick panel, thus marking their position on the back. I cut the holes in the kick panel out with a jig saw.

Here's how that turned out:

I am powering the speakers with an 80wx4 @ 4ohm amp. I didn't want to be showing it off because of possible maleficence on the part of miscreants in my neighborhood, so I put it under the dash. I put it behind where the glove box goes. To do this I took some thick sheet metal and bent the left side to stand off the dash just a little. I cut holes in it to line up with the mounting tabs on the amp and then welded in some 6mmx1.0 weld nuts. The other side I took a small piece of sheet metal and did the same. The upper right mounting tab I left unmounted because it was to hard to welded up in there. I bolted the pieces to the amp then tacked them on the air box, then took the amp off and fully welded them up.

I will have to cut down the glove box, which is ABS and can easily be solvent welded.

I am waiting on the amp for my sub which is a 120w monoblock x1 channel @ 4 ohms. It will power a passive bazooka bass tube which I will mount under the rear seat. When it comes in and I figure out where I want to mount it I'll post up pics.
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air-cooled or nothing for me
1978 Sunroof Deluxe Bus (daily driver)
1978 Transporter (mom's, making into a camper)
1970 Single Cab 2.1 turbo/EFI 6 Rib, 78 front beam, vanagon backing plates on rear (project)
2001 GTI VR6 (wife's)

[Stuartzickefoose]

Wicked.

I run a pair of 5.5" cheapo speakers with a 4 channel alpine and a direct MP3 headphone jack into the RCA jacks and I love it trying to figure out how to run a sub without a head unit though...
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[ccpalmer]

[tootype2crazy]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

I keep saying this and I don't thing anyone has tried it....

in all of my early bays I have a quality 6x9 3 way speaker in the dash. the sound is simply amazing. when I re paint my dash tops I weld studs to the bottom of the dash to mount the 6x9.

the way the sound bounces off the windshield is like being at a concert. it had good mid/bass/highs as well. I run it as a center channel. having owned buses with low mounted speakers the dash speaker simply annihilates any other system I have come across.

I have yet to play with a late bay in terms of a dash mount, as they will be different due to the small speaker size but the early bays sound awesome with a dash speaker
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[tootype2crazy]

I'll keep that in mind for my scab skills. It would be nice having the music pointing right at your face. The component system plus the amp I'm using here makes for crystal clear clarity at moderate volume which I appreciate in a noisy old bus. The single cab will be a lot more quite so that might work.
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air-cooled or nothing for me
1978 Sunroof Deluxe Bus (daily driver)
1978 Transporter (mom's, making into a camper)
1970 Single Cab 2.1 turbo/EFI 6 Rib, 78 front beam, vanagon backing plates on rear (project)
2001 GTI VR6 (wife's)

[Stuartzickefoose]

So the bazooka hooks up like a third speaker or as a designated sub? Someone got a simple step by step description? Hook sub bridged to the 3/4 channel etc? Or run a dual amp setup? How am I hooking a second amp to my first one?
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[tootype2crazy]

[Stuartzickefoose]

Perfect! Thanks for that explanation!! Definitely gonna source that out and get one for the Westy setup.

Now, if I can find a set of speakers that would fit in the pockets next to the front wheel wells...anyone got a source for a sub that would fit there?


Skills, defiantly dig the 6x9 idea, been thinking about it but haven't done it. I'll try it out for sure
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[skills@eurocarsplus]

I don't think it will work on a late dash due to the vent change. I have yet to research a small round one to stick there...
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[Stuartzickefoose]

Was looking at mine on my way home...thinking a solid sturdy 4-6" woofer MIGHT fit between the vents and not hang to low visually. Since I'm not running a head unit at least I don't have to worry about that....
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Stuart Zickefoose

2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDi 6 speed manual

206-841-7324
[email protected]

[vwwestyman]

Kicker 6.25. Note I trimmed the sides of the frame a bit.

Sounds pretty good as skills says, though I also have under dash speakers. I think the mid cone is slightly too close to the dash as I get a buzz at certain frequencies so it needs a little bit of adjustment.

Because of the under dash speakers, I need to install an adjustable resistor to control the volume. Then I think it would be prefect to fill in frequencies lost by the speakers being under the dash.
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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[69BahamaYellow]

If you're doing a RetroSound Install on a late Bay, adding a circuit to power the system whenever the key is inserted into the ignition switch is a really nice improvement vs adding an under dash switch or something that is easy to forget about and drains the battery. Here's a power circuit I made for mine (that uses the door buzzer circuit), but plug into fuse S11 instead of fuse S10 (as the diagram shows). The S10 fuse is not powered when you turn the ignition to the start position, but the S11 fuse gets power in both the run and start positions, so you can listen to tunes with the engine off, and then start your bus, without the Retrosound momentarily losing power. You've probably noticed that it takes a long time for the Retrosound to "power up" if you turn it off then back on.

You probably have extra relay slots in your existing fuse box, so it looks nice and clean, my fusebox had 2 extra slots, so theres room to add another relay for an external amplifier. When using these slots in your fusebox, use "tanged" female spade connectors on your wires, so they will hang in there. You can't find these autoparts stores, but www.delcity.net has everything you need

[vwwestyman]

Here is my relay setup for my '73, which provides a key in/radio on signal through the wire that is grounded when the key is inserted into the ignition. (Similar to above.) '74 and up have a wire powered by the key being put into the switch, '73 and down have a wire that is grounded.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=649658
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Dave Cook

President, Wild Westerner Club

1978 Champagne Edition Westy, repowered to '97 Jetta TDI
1973 Wild Westerner
My Thing

[tootype2crazy]

Got the amp for the sub in and decided to place it under the driver's seat. It fits like a glove. I welded on upside-down weld nuts so that a 1/2" tube of 6mmx1.0 threads were sticking up off the floor. This keeps the amp just off the floor for ventilation.

Next it was onto installing the bass tube. I wanted to put it under the rear seat. To do that, it had to go over one of the seat's bars. This presented a small problem in that the little plastic saddles the tube gets strapped to are quiet thin, and the bar was higher than them. To fix that I took some thick pieces of steel and cut them to shape with my plasma cutter. I drilled holes and tacked in some weld nuts for the saddles to bolt on. I then put the whole thing together and tacked on the pieces of steel I made. I took everything back off and welded them fully to the floor.

The straps that come with the bass tube are pieces of crap so I modified some cheapo ratchet straps to work in their stead. It's in there very well now!

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air-cooled or nothing for me
1978 Sunroof Deluxe Bus (daily driver)
1978 Transporter (mom's, making into a camper)
1970 Single Cab 2.1 turbo/EFI 6 Rib, 78 front beam, vanagon backing plates on rear (project)
2001 GTI VR6 (wife's)

[andrew_c]

I've been looking at installing a retrosound model 2 in my 77, so hoping I can piggyback on this thread.

My plan is to run the RSM2 with a separate amp, and a pair of 3-way Polk Audio DB691's.

I want to install one of the speakers in the dash (heard great things from Samba folks on that placement), and then have the second one placed somewhere near the z-bed.

Getting to my question- since my speakers will NOT be placed in a way that will provide a listener with a proper L/R channel mix, is there a way to wire each speaker on its own to produce the sound from both L&R channels? If so, what would that entail? I don't want to be stuck having people only hearing just the left, or just the right channel sound- that'd be super annoying.

Lastly- to run this setup with the engine off, do I need some sort of alternator or something? Forgive me if that's the wrong term..

[lintbrush]

[khalimadeath]

Im gonna be installing a basic head unit, 2 6x9's and a couple small old speakers. You think its necessary to have 2 batteries? I figure with the radio wired to constant 12v for memory and switched power it should be fine? I don't have much experience with stereo install but I figured it wouldn't be too difficult.

[SGKent]

on bays with the seat backs there is a square opening on each pedestal at the back slightly behind each front seat. One can mount a high end speaker in each one with a big magnet and high end axial tweeter. These face straight up at the driver and passenger. Combined with a dual coil 6x9 under the dash or door speakers this gives great spatial separation and exceptionally clean sound.

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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin