Quality over quantity - M-R-P's budget ICE install...

Post 535390 by M-R-P on 2012-09-06 22:22:00

Ok, yesterday, my xtrons dvd/ipod/satnav thingy went pop due to an unused wire touching ground. It took down a fuse and proper goosed the head unit. So, last night, I dug the old Pioneer head unit out of the shed (good job I never got round to selling it!), shadowed by the lad next door and "well oiled" with the party fluids from the wife's birthday, I set about fitting it. Within about 5 minutes, it was in. Then the fun bit... setting the bloody thing up. There's sooo many features and settings on it, it took half an hour to get it runnin but holy cr@p! I'd forgotten how good it sounds. This got me thinking... Sod the satnav, bluetooth and dvd, I want quality! But how...? I still have someone's big-ass subs at the bottom of my stairs but if I fitted them, I'd have to take them out again sometime... Then it occurred to me... Maybe I can adapt something I've had kicking around for a while... Creative 5.1 system :) It runs on 12-13.5V and has an adjustable bass and preamp but best of all it has Cambridge Soundworks speakers and, when set up correctly, has the finest quality I have EVER witnessed. I spent the afternoon seeing how/if the speakers came apart and planning in my head, exactly how the hell I was gonna pull this off... Luckily, the Pioneer H.U. has front and rear outputs as well as 2 subwoofer sockets. The plan... fit a pair of speakers under the grilles in the D-pillars, running from the rear output of the Creative amp. Mount one of the C S speaker cones in each of the front doors, just above the door pocket, facing in. Hide the sub in the boot. Have the bass and preamp control beside the driver's seat and possibly use the other sub channel to reactivate the centre dash speaker (that one will be determined later) So tonight, I got busy... The speakers... Mounted and trying out some deanening... Done... Then I hid some of the cables and fired it up to test the sub and rear speakers with my Iponce acting as a source... That's all I managed today. It sounds amazing. I'm aware it won't go loud (it was pretty bloody loud in the spare room) but it's all about quality (for the smallest price possible) More updates as and when. Hopefully, I'll get it finished by the next softies meet :) Stay tuned...

Post 535392 by JamesT5 on 2012-09-06 22:30:01

Nice, job - a portable disco. Pitty they didn't leave the plod lights on the car when they sold it, you could have hooked them up to the speakers and got them to flash in time with the music. :banana: :hihi: :hilarious :cop:

Post 535393 by oblark on 2012-09-06 22:33:22

Looking good :smile: Does the boss no about the upgrade ???:smile::smile:

Post 535394 by M-R-P on 2012-09-06 22:35:05

[QUOTE=JamesT5;535392]Nice, job - a portable disco. Pitty they didn't leave the plod lights on the car when they sold it, you could have hooked them up to the speakers and got them to flash in time with the music. :banana: :hihi: :hilarious :cop:[/QUOTE] I have some sound sensitive green neons that I could mount somewhere... [QUOTE=oblark;535393]Looking good :smile: Does the boss no about the upgrade ???:smile::smile:[/QUOTE] Thank you and yes, she's all up for it :D

Post 535395 by JamesT5 on 2012-09-06 22:36:07

[QUOTE=oblark;535393]Looking good :smile: Does the boss no about the upgrade ???:smile::smile:[/QUOTE] I'm sure Mrs MRP will know when she realises Martin has moved the speakers and they're nowhere to be seen. :hihi:

Post 535419 by d2k on 2012-09-07 09:29:02

my my.... that is a bold plan martin!!, them surround sound subs are pretty good.. i got piles of car audio here mate, id of given you a sub/box & amp for free...:smile:

Post 535423 by p fandango on 2012-09-07 09:44:44

[QUOTE=M-R-P;535394]I have some sound sensitive green neons that I could mount somewhere...[/QUOTE] & you say a carbon wrapped bonnet's too chav for you, come on i know you dream of owning a Saxo really mate lol

Post 535425 by d2k on 2012-09-07 09:50:01

[QUOTE=p fandango;535423]& you say a carbon wrapped bonnet's too chav for you, come on i know you dream of owning a Saxo really mate lol[/QUOTE] lol....... dont listen to duane martin, itll all look great after another beer.. [ATTACH=CONFIG]16915[/ATTACH]

Post 535426 by M-R-P on 2012-09-07 09:52:37

Thanks Mitch, I might take you up on that, perhaps come to some sort of deal when I do your wheels etc. ;) I'm itching to get it all hooked-up so I can set the attenuation and stuff. I'm trying not to take up too much space and keep the whole install as stealthy as possible. I don't want anything on show for the local smackrats to steal. Gonna try getting at least the rear speakers and sub running while I'm waiting for Mrs. MRP to finish work :D

Post 535428 by M-R-P on 2012-09-07 09:54:44

The green neons currently live in my PC... Chavvy indeed, who's car has the matte black bonnet, roof and boot then...?

Post 535432 by partsforvolvos.com on 2012-09-07 10:44:53

[QUOTE=p fandango;535423]& you say a carbon wrapped bonnet's too chav for you, come on i know you dream of owning a Saxo really mate lol[/QUOTE] didnt you used to have a dancing laser in the boot? lmao :crazy:

Post 535446 by V70 Graham on 2012-09-07 12:51:15

Looking good so far mate, should be loud enough, hopefully you'll get the rear sorted today.

Post 535702 by M-R-P on 2012-09-08 19:59:30

Ok... Update... Got the speakers hooked up, and 6 channels of cables implanted down the length of the car, hidden away. fired it all up and as I predicted, not fantastically loud but sounded nice. I faffed about for a bit, setting the rear speakers and sub up. Then I turned my attention to the dash centre speaker. was there a speaker in there? Could I wire it up..? Nuts! Hang-on... I had a spare Dynaudio door speaker left over from a door swap... Prise it from it's cage... Make it fit... "Secured" with cable ties... Mounted! and by a stroke of luck, it had a connection in the dash which worked :D Now that was all well and good but when I started setting the attenuations, I could hear a whistling noise coming from the back... My worst fear, the Creative amp was just not designed to work in a car lol. I could remove the negative from the power supply and it still ran! It was grounding through the head unit which doesn't matter in home audio but in a car - not good. :( So I ripped everything out and fitted a pair of Subwoofer cables that ran through the car to the boot. While deciding what to do about the sound in the D-pillars I pondered weather or not there would be connections hidden away as there were for the centre dash speaker - after some rummaging about in the depths of the rear lower looms Ta-Daa! working D-pillar speakers :D It then became apparant that I didn't have a sub... Oh wait... I've had this at the bottom of the stairs for ages, it's owner gave me the OK to try it out so... 2 x Diamond Audio 12" subs with a 2 channel Kenwood amp @1000W... Boom! I'll be sad to see 'em go now lol. The wife's not pleased - lost a third of the boot lol.

Post 535705 by JamesT5 on 2012-09-08 20:18:36

[QUOTE=M-R-P;535702]Ok... Update... Got the speakers hooked up, and 6 channels of cables implanted down the length of the car, hidden away. fired it all up and as I predicted, not fantastically loud but sounded nice. I faffed about for a bit, setting the rear speakers and sub up. Then I turned my attention to the dash centre speaker. was there a speaker in there? Could I wire it up..? Nuts! Hang-on... I had a spare Dynaudio door speaker left over from a door swap... Prise it from it's cage... Make it fit... "Secured" with cable ties... Mounted! and by a stroke of luck, it had a connection in the dash which worked :D Now that was all well and good but when I started setting the attenuations, I could hear a whistling noise coming from the back... My worst fear, the Creative amp was just not designed to work in a car lol. I could remove the negative from the power supply and it still ran! It was grounding through the head unit which doesn't matter in home audio but in a car - not good. :( So I ripped everything out and fitted a pair of Subwoofer cables that ran through the car to the boot. While deciding what to do about the sound in the D-pillars I pondered weather or not there would be connections hidden away as there were for the centre dash speaker - after some rummaging about in the depths of the rear lower looms Ta-Daa! working D-pillar speakers :D It then became apparant that I didn't have a sub... Oh wait... I've had this at the bottom of the stairs for ages, it's owner gave me the OK to try it out so... 2 x Diamond Audio 12" subs with a 2 channel Kenwood amp @1000W... Boom! I'll be sad to see 'em go now lol. The wife's not pleased - lost a third of the boot lol.[/QUOTE] Tell her it's only fair, seeing that YOU loose a third of the boot everytime she decides to go "window shopping". ;) :hihi:

Post 535707 by M-R-P on 2012-09-08 20:21:00

Haha ;) they won't be there forever, I have something smaller lined up. These are waaay to big and loud for me. I turned everything up half way to "test" the installation, and bits of trim started to work loose and there was a dreadful farty noise coming from the load cover lol.

Post 535725 by d2k on 2012-09-08 20:48:57

ok so here's the replacemets for that huge thing taking up your boot... so weve got a 10'' Lanzar MAX, cracking litte sub 400wrms capable, in a 0.9cuft ported box i had made for the specs of the sub. Ripspeed R2100 200wrms x2 300wrms bridged... great amp.. the missus wont even notice this in the boot....lol

Post 535727 by M-R-P on 2012-09-08 20:51:31

Ripspeed? Datz welw gud innit blud! Nice one mate ;)

Post 535735 by d2k on 2012-09-08 21:02:24

[QUOTE=M-R-P;535727]Ripspeed? Datz welw gud innit blud! Nice one mate ;)[/QUOTE] lmao....... i know i know.:bricks: dont let the branding fool you, a few other audio companies use this same model..... it was built back when amps were amps not just shiney bits for your car. here's one......this is mutants version of the same amp.... another good company which were bought out a while back & now churn out crap.

Post 535777 by V70 Graham on 2012-09-08 23:36:01

Looking good, and I bet it sounds great, shame I won't be able to hear it for a while.....love the "make it fit" comment :wink:

Post 535788 by M-R-P on 2012-09-08 23:58:40

[QUOTE=V70 Graham;535777]Looking good, and I bet it sounds great, shame I won't be able to hear it for a while.....love the "make it fit" comment :wink:[/QUOTE] You know me... I'll bully anything into working :D

Post 535818 by HBall on 2012-09-09 08:31:46

looking good Martin. am amazed you got the creative stuff to work in the first place - skills!

Post 535827 by p fandango on 2012-09-09 09:21:29

[QUOTE=M-R-P;535428]Chavvy indeed, who's car has the matte black bonnet, roof and boot then...?[/QUOTE] i haven't done the roof yet :riceboy: lol

Post 535832 by M-R-P on 2012-09-09 09:36:19

[QUOTE=HBall;535818]looking good Martin. am amazed you got the creative stuff to work in the first place - skills![/QUOTE] Thanks mate. the annoying thing about it is I've destroyed a brilliant little surround system and ended up only using 2 speakers grrr. will you be joining us at the next softies meet? I may have got you a jack by then, hopefully. [QUOTE=p fandango;535827]i haven't done the roof yet :riceboy: lol[/QUOTE] is that because you haven't carbon wrapped that roof vent yet? Ya chav! lmao

Post 536016 by HBall on 2012-09-10 13:36:46

[QUOTE=M-R-P;535832]Thanks mate. the annoying thing about it is I've destroyed a brilliant little surround system and ended up only using 2 speakers grrr. will you be joining us at the next softies meet? I may have got you a jack by then, hopefully. yeah - when is it? Have fitted my Sub in the boot now (total stealth, but I need to cut some 'holes' for the sound to port out) and installed the after-market headrest DVD players and screens. Should do some photos for on here really I suppose! H