Open-Top Jeep and Orchestral Music

[Fat Man]

Okay, I *know* this is a tall order, and I will probably either be unable or unwilling to install much of what is recommended here, but I thought joining up and tossing this question out there would net me some interesting stuff to consider. That being said...

I have a 2003 Jeep Wrangler with a soft top. I do not own the $1,500 hard top. I do not want the $1,500 hard top. I *like* my soft top. I will be working on this system for an environment of NO top.

The stock system in this vehicle was listed as a premium seven speaker one, but of course, Daimler-Chrysler overstated this grossly unless the buyer is nearly deaf and devoid of aural taste. ;-)

I have pulled everything but the wiring harness and am considering making one of my own from scratch at some later date.

I just want clean sound with lots of clarity that is also loud enough to hear fairly well while rolling on the Interstate with the TOP and DOORS off the Jeep. I run with the top down and doors off about six months of the year. The jeep has a stamped steel tub on frame with zero insulation in the cab. It has removable carpets and rubber drain plugs so you can hose it out. My carpets abandoned me years ago and the rubber plugs are frequently misplaced for months at a time. It is all very Hungry Jack-ish. ;-)

My point? This is very similar to rolling along at high speeds in an adult-sized, red Radio Flyer wagon. It is absolutely not conducive to quality sounds, so the stock stereo (premium or not) is super lame.

I have sitting here, either brand new or still under a year old the following bits...

• Alpine UTE-52BT mechless head unit

• Alpine KTP-445A 4 channel "Power Pack" amp

• Alpine MRV-M250 - mono sub amp

• Polk db521 - 5.25" marine grade coaxial speakers (pair)

• Polk db5251 - 5.25"/2" marine grade component speakers (pair)

• Kicker 40CWRT672 CompRT 6.75" - marine grade dual voice coil 2 Ohm sub (single)

• Belva BAK82 500W sub install kit (8 AWG)

• Nalin 5.25" TJ dash adapter brackets

• Nalin 2" TJ tweeter brackets

• Homemade sub enclosure

• Homemade amp bracket

The components that I have purchased for this project are all of fairly decent make and of moderate power. I do not twerk. I do not rave. I do not listen to dub-step. I do not need a booty-slapping power monster with multiple 12" subs and with tweeters that cause nosebleeds.

What I am looking to get is a system that will be clearly audible on the Interstate (@ 75 mph) for most of the type of classic rock and Motown that I generally listen to as well as fairly decent playback of orchestral music at about 60 mph. I know from a lifetime of being a classical musician that in-car quality of my orchestral favorites will **** unless the files are highly compressed. I know that the softs will be inaudible with the top off unless I am not going too fast and the files have been heavily compressed so the highs and lows of dynamics are much closer together than in live performance. I am just hoping that what I am assembling here will make the rotten situation better for me. I supposed I could just continue to exist on a diet of the Blues Brothers, Dire Straits, Aretha Franklin, Def Leppard and James Brown when I am in the Jeep with the top down. But sometimes I am in the country for hours and the scenery demands music with a lot more depth.

Further, I do not want a power hog system. I do not want a super pricy system as it will get muddy and wet at times. I ford streams and creeks and drive in mud pits. It is a jeep, you know...

Finally, it needs to be as stealthy as possible because I go to the mall with the top down and doors off. Mall parking lot thieves around here seem to understand that a faceplate-free head unit is junk to them and that speakers that are securely bolted in place are not worth trying to steal in broad daylight.

Here is what I am doing...

I will mount the head and use the oft-neglected retainer bolt that is, thankfully, very hard to get to on a jeep, so it would take a thief some time to get the faceless head out if he were too dim to know that you cannot use it without the faceplate.

The two small amps will be mounted to a homemade base that will bolt to some gear under the steering wheel. This will tuck up under the dash so that you have to actually get down by the pedals to even see it. It is a plastic base that is heat rated for well over what these two small amps will put out. I am planning on using Krylon Fusion for Plastics to repaint all my interior plastics and will paint this base to match. (Both this location and this paint are commonly used by Wrangler owners and work quite well.) This will give my amp base, on first glance, a factory appearance. It will also keep water and mud out of that area, which is an added plus.

The factory sub location is not good and many simply drop a box in the back. Generally these are jeepers who do not do much off road driving and keep their carpets installed all the time. Frequently they also have the much more secure hardtop with glass windows. I beat the hell out of my jeep and also like good music, so I need to not use a box. Also, I use this to haul stuff in the tiny back, so I need all the space I can get for, well, junk that I haul around. ;-)

The factory sub is a joke and the enclosure is in the center console. It is a 6.75" dial voice coil setup with some weird, proprietary wiring scheme that is just terrible. I want to pull all the factory wiring at some point. Anyway, it has a pathetic 20W "amp" to power the weak sub. The amp is a part of the enclosure, which is very small (something like -.18 cu ft!) so it requires a sub with low cubic air space needs.

I have a plan for a homemade box that fits inside the weirdly shaped center console and, with modifications to the console itself, increases the space to something like .25 cu ft and my small Kicker needs .18 cu ft, so that is a slight improvement. The stock enclosure is also made of something like milk jug plastic, double-walled and very hard, but still not really rigid. I will make the box to spec with white birch plywood (if I can find some around here). I will then seal it and fiberglass the exterior, paint it and fill with poly-fill.

This is a very small and shallow sub but is fairly powerful and has a great sound. I think this box will help it along. I can always trim it later for a larger one if I am unhappy with it. It is very dry, however - thumpy. Would I would want it to be more boomy for orchestral music? If so, what do I need to do to the gain and such to get that effect?

Also, the TJ Wrangler (1997-2006) used either 4x6" speakers in the dash, pointed slightly downwards. They are at knee height. These are 100% useless. The so-called 7 speaker system that my TJ came with used a 4" and a 2" on one mounting plate. These are also just about useless due to the location and the stock system power output. The only *real* sound you get is from the silly 20W sub by your leg and the two 5.25" speakers in the plastic pods overhead on the roll bar. These are not too bad, stock.

I got the Polks first for use with the stock head with no external amp. I really like these rugged speakers. They have been wet and splashed with mud several times. (Very minimal, but still worse than you would want.) They sound great with no amp, but have room for a little bit of amplification.

The "Nalin" brackets I have listed above are some custom things to fit this specific Wrangler body type (again, the TJ series). They allow the use of 5.25" round speakers in the dash and component tweeters in the tub in a location that looks scary, but in practice works really well.

So I now have the db521s overhead and the db5251s in the dash and on the tub walls. These sound GREAT with the Alpine head and the little 45W RMS Alpine amp. The sub sounded great with the stock head and the tiny stock amp, but it was just not very powerful. With the improved box and the Alpine mono amp I am thinking that this, too will end up being very usable for me.

So, with all that run-on information (sorry!) what I would like to know is where can I improve on this, keeping any additions relatively inexpensive and small enough to make it stealthy?

Will this setup work adequately, regarding clarity and not losing the low end while moving along down the highway? Or will I *have* to boost power and bet a larger sub? I really like the components I have but am not married to them. However, they *are* paid for...

Thanks for any advice or comments. Keep in mind that this vehicle has zero security and is frequently exposed to the elements. (The under-dash area is pretty good with rain incursion. The tub is simply a big, steel tub. No soundproofing, no carpeting, no nothing.

EDIT: Also - I had this head and mini amp in my 1990 Volvo before. It worked great as a set. Can anyone tell whether I will need to add an in-line fuse to the yellow wire at some point or perhaps use a higher amp fuse in the fuse box of the jeep? I had not thought of these questions when I typed this up earlier. The Alpine instructions that I got mentioned nothing about adding an in-line fuse or upping the vehicle fuse. Sorry...

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[Mitch86 5,000+ posts]

If you've already bought the equipment, it's pretty pointless to come here and ask for suggestions. No one can tell you if you will like the equipment you bought or if it will fit your needs...

The only thing I can think of to suggest is if you want loud, PA speakers and tweeters are known to get really loud. Your main problem will be protecting your equipment from the elements.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Cheap small loud and good sounding doesn't sound like a combination you'll get all at once. Most likely you're sacrificing somewhere. Hopefully you post a build log as you go since I am interested to see how this turns out and that style Jeep is quite popular so someone else may use it for ideas down the road.

 

[Fat Man]

If you've already bought the equipment, it's pretty pointless to come here and ask for suggestions.

I really like the components I have but am not married to them.

Thanks! ;-)

 

[Mitch86 5,000+ posts]

Thanks! ;-)

Sorry. I meant no offense. I actually read it as you had ordered equipment and now were second guessing it, I guess.

 

[Fat Man]

Cheap small loud and good sounding doesn't sound like a combination you'll get all at once. Most likely you're sacrificing somewhere. Hopefully you post a build log as you go since I am interested to see how this turns out and that style Jeep is quite popular so someone else may use it for ideas down the road.

Nah, I know that it will take me some time. This is my starting point. I don't want to spend much more *right now* but am willing to do so in the future. My main concerns are will all my components play well with one another, power-wise? I think the Polks are rather low-powered speakers but handle the smaller 45W RMS that the amp and head combine to create. I may even have had some more headroom for a larger amp but did not want the size and heat, and am not really all that interested in some massive system that many here advocate. I don't need that. Just enough to get by with the top off on the highway.

Anyway, I am happy for someone to look up my choices and comment on why they will not work out as a system. I have a lot to learn, just not all at once, heh, heh, heh...

I am hoping to come up with a really decent system that is powerful enough (read: not what others here would call powerful, but better than stock or an un-amped aftermarket head and no sub at all) and that can be hidden or locked down pretty well.

Further, I originally had a marine grade head and amp but decided against them in lieu of these Alpine bits that I already owned. I can improve on the weather resistance over time, either through better gear or some sort of other improvements, though I do not know what my choices are.

I hope to come up with a system that I can do a full writeup on for several online Jeep communities I frequent. Some of those guys are great with this stuff, but they tend to be much younger and very insistent that you get what they use and that it be 5 million Watts and all that. Not interested in that. So I came here to seek out guys who were older and more sober (and experienced) in their approach to car audio questions.

Thanks for the response, man!

 

[Fat Man]

Sorry. I meant no offense. I actually read it as you had ordered equipment and now were second guessing it, I guess.

Not a problem, Mitch. I read your response as being due to how damned long my post was! (Seriously, sorry for that.)

I was simply showing that I am perfectly willing to replace certain items, though not necessarily right away. I am hoping someone here has already figured out how to efficiently and economically outfit a Wrangler with a good system that can get sort of trashed on occasion like the stock unit, which keeps on playing despite the elements, but it never really plays at a quality level that is worth much.

A I said, all this stuff is sitting here, some already used in this vehicle or in my old 1990 Volvo 740. Much of it is still never been installed.

For instance, I really was shocked by how decent the little Kicker sub sounds. This and the fact that it can be wired to work with the bizarre stock system and fits almost perfectly must be why it is so heavily recommended in the Jeep world for a drop-in replacement/upgrade. However, after installing the Kenwood marine head the sub stopped turning on. I had not connected the blue/white wire to the harness. DOH!

I am sure that if it is amped up some and in a much better enclosure I will get more sound from it. I can always move to a 10" sub if I really *need* my butt to vibrate all the time. HAHAHA!!!

If you can think of ways to improve water resistance that will allow for heat dissipation please tell me; I need some ideas!

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Assuming you expand your budget, take a look at this amp: MIKRO IV - ZED Audio 4-Channel 440W RMS Advanced Class D Design Amplifier There's another (same size) that's 350W mono. Going with high efficient and tiny amps would allow you to tuck them away in a tight and small space, eliminating risk of elements, thievery, and overheating. There may be others on the market but Zed is a good name and comes with top notch customer service, great reliability, and resale value. Arc Audio makes a couple good compact amps but they're even more expensive. Some of the Brazilian brands make small amps, but they generally aren't the best sounding and are known to have noisy fans.

For components, location is key. Kickpanels are probably the best you can do (q-logic makes them for many vehicles... they start at around 200$ a pair but are worth it if you don't have the skill to build your own). Kickpanel locations image well and without doors you don't have many choices. Of course they're plainly visible and that location will offer little to no protection from the elements. Reinforcing your factory "sub" location with just a few layers of fiberglass should help a lot and would be a good "stealth" option. Not terribly expensive if you DIY but messy and potential for things to get ugly if you aren't comfortable working with composites.

I really don't know much about "marine grade" and whether it performs as advertised, but these days you can get a decent head unit for peanuts and they're built to be disposable so even under good conditions I only plan on 2-3 years out of them (budget accordingly).

So if you have all the stuff work with it and when it fails figure out how you can get more reliable or better replacements.