Help With Muscle Car System

[resq911 10+ year member]

I posted earlier for opinions on a Mac head unit I eventually purchased........thanks for the great info.

I think I may need some help/opinions on designing a sound system for my car. I would like to stay in the middle of the price range. I have to overcome considerable engine/exhaust noise. I have already covered ALL interior surfaces with 1-2 layers Raamat and 1-2 layers Ensolite foam. Carpet has a pretty hefty jute backing as well. I think I have soundproofed as much as reasonably possible.

I have a Dodge Challenger with 4 speed and dual exhaust, it's pretty loud. The car car has just gone through a COMPLETE restoration and is quite valuable. Cutting holes in doors or anywhere else visable would hurt the value of the car and is unfortunately not possible.

There are places for speakers as follows:

Rear Deck 2) 6X9"

Dash 2) 3.5" on opposite ends of dash

Dash 1) 4X10" in center of dash

Might consider speakers in kick panels as they are being reproduced but parking brake pedal is mounted right up against drivers side panel. (Would really rather not cut speakers into there)

I have a McIntosh MX401 H/U with a Nak PA300II and a A/D/S 425X (Haven't gotten A/D/S yet but ready to buy. By the way, anyone know where to get the 9 pin speaker/etc. connector for the back of this A/D/S amp?)

I am looking for clean powerful sound. I listen mostly to CD's. Loud thumping bass is not that important to me. Mainly clean accurate reproduction.

How would you set this car up. I need a system in here so what's the best I can expect?

Thanks,

ResQ911

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[CaliforniabOY5 10+ year member]

I would suggest adding a ton of deadener for your application however there are pro's and con's. Before I get into that let me explain a few things:

You have a muscle car and I can relate very well, i have a Boss 302 sitting in my garage (father's) and well, your car is loud as far as road noise and exhaust, motor, ect. With these factors it will be very hard to get a great SQ system so I would just forget this all together, possibly a LSQ (Loud Sound Quality) setup ? Deadening can give you great results in lowering road noise inside the car, helping tempurature control, more accurate mids and bass. This will help out your system a lot because it will help kill conflicting noise that will deter the sound. In my own personal experiance I was at first dissapointed with the results but then after a while i realized the huge results. My volume before deadening my car I could not be happy below "25" and after the deadening "15" sounded like "25" because of less road noise/exterior noise.

Pro's have been stated. But since you are restoring a muscle car. . .

Con's: Expensive for good stuff, Secondskinaudio.com is where i got all my stuff, its the most expensive by far but its worth it IMO. you can do some reading on different materials it at http://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/ . Another CON is weight, it is heavy and will add a lot of weight thus making your muscle car slower in theory. One other thing i can think of is TIME. It's not rocket science, pretty straight forward and I found it fun but its very tedious and takes a LOT of time.

Any more questions about deadening, send me a PM or ask here.

 

[regal8r 5,000+ posts]

id just do some nice coax's MAYBE comps and have them amped. that pedal under your right foot is all the sound you need IMO

 

[CaliforniabOY5 10+ year member]

I have to overcome considerable engine/exhaust noise. I have already covered ALL interior surfaces with 1-2 layers Raamat and 1-2 layers Ensolite foam. Carpet has a pretty hefty jute backing as well. I think I have soundproofed as much as reasonably possible.

Edit. . . . . sorry I didnt read it completely.....................did you glue down the ensolite or just lay it ontop? If you just layed it uptop maybe you can add spectrum spray ontop of the rammatt? I am sure it can only help your noisy application............

 

[resq911 10+ year member]

I glued Ensolite foam to the top of the Raam Mat. (Butyl rubber sheet w/aluminum facing) I figure windows will be down when I wanna hear that 440 Six-pack, up when I would like to hear some LOUD CLEAR music.

What to do with center 4X10" (Twin 4" mid drivers or ?)

What is a GOOD 3.5" co-ax for the dash sides?

Thanks

 

[Imtjnotu 5,000+ posts]

holy shit post pics of the car right now

 

[regal8r 5,000+ posts]

sexy *** car //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/yumyum.gif.0556df42231b304b9c995aefd13928a8.gif

 

[CaliforniabOY5 10+ year member]

ZOMG that cars the ***

 

[resq911 10+ year member]

Thanks!

Kinda like 'er myself.

Hoping to get system sounding as nice as she looks............lotta hours on the outside done, now I get to do the fun stuff inside!

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/toast.gif.bc0657bf54b9ee653b6438524461341e.gif

Thanks for any help you can give me.

ResQ911

 

[Anthony Collova 10+ year member]

Edit. . . . . sorry I didnt read it completely.....................did you glue down the ensolite or just lay it ontop? If you just layed it uptop maybe you can add spectrum spray ontop of the rammatt? I am sure it can only help your noisy application............

Yes,

Second Skin Spectrum can get applied on top of the Raamat foil. No problem.

ANT

 

[resq911 10+ year member]

Sound deadening is all done.

What about mounting two 3.5" or 4" together in the 4X10" dash location?

I have also heard about "Dual Voice Coil" 4X10" speakers for this?

Thanks for the help!

 

[troy_audi0 10+ year member]

Get a shot of the kicks..

Your best bet would be a set of kick panels

You would get the better sound to match that Sick HU you have & it would not need cutting.. Just fiberglass a set

That way you can remove them later if need be..

Get more PiX!!

Peace Troy

 

[pilyin 10+ year member]

I did a fiero a while back and it had 4x10's in the dash. I made a custom plate out of MDF and put 5.25's in it. They fit just fine and sounded good. It also had 3.5's in the head rest. I used JL audio 3.5's (can't remember the model) but they sounded pretty nice.

 

[resq911 10+ year member]

How about putting 3" or 4" mids in the two side dash speaker locations and use the center 4X10 location to mount two tweeters next to each other? Maybe facing away from each other?

 

[troy_audi0 10+ year member]

if you just want sound thats fine but for sound quality I cant see the staging being very good..