Building a system for my own personal enjoyment

toodamtall

CarAudio.com Newbie
New guy from NE. Hi all!

I played with some installs in days gone by in my own commuter cars/trucks. Dabbling only. For a number of years I haven't done it. Too busy with everything else, and frankly, didn't have fun cars either, lol. Two years ago I bought a slightly used CPO Ram 1500 quad cab 4x4, and plan on keeping it for a number of years, so... Its time to upgrade!

I'm building this system with a budget in mind. I'm also building it for my own musical enjoyment. No SPL competitions, just fairly accurate sound with enough power to give me the dynamic range I'm looking for. Here is my plan so far:

Head unit - Pioneer AVH-1440NEX DVD, Apple car play, Bluetooth, 3 sets of 4v preamps. Pretty much anything I need.

Speakers: JBL GX-302's in the dash corners. These will have bass blockers and run off of HU power. Mostly there for forward soundstage fill as midrange/tweeter. Infinity REF6520CX 6.5" components in front. Thinking of mounting the tweets on the sail panels of the doors and try to put the X-overs behind the kick panels. Rear door speakers - Infinity REF-9623ix 6x9 3 way.

Amp is a Pioneer GM-D96905 5 channel. Sub is an Alpine Type S dual voice coil 12" which will be located under the seat in sealed enclosure (I prefer tight accurate bass over boom). Sub should get all 600w of RMS since I'm running it in parallel as a 2 ohm load. The Infinity speakers are 3 ohm, so I expect the 4 channel output to be in the upper 80's, maybe 90w RMS per channel.

That's all for now. When I start the install, I'll see about maybe doing a full log with some pics. Have fun all!

 
First step, these came in today. Already sounds much better, even with the RAM head unit.

JBL 3.5 in dash.jpg

 
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I'm a big fan of Harmon International lineup JBL/Infinity/Crown.   If you haven't bought the sub yet, might I suggest upgrading into the Type R (if you like Alpine).   Generally it's good practice to avoid the absolute entry level from any brand, the Type R is a very nice speaker lineup for a big box store brand, type S, not so much, I've found you get a noticeable improvement in sound quality with the upgrade from S to R, and when and if you ever want to sell out of it it should hold better resale value.

Also, conventional wisdom these days is that proper sound deadening/sealing of midrange locations is worth every bit of the time and money spent in performance in the end results.  If it's a vehicle you plan to keep a while and you can spare a little extra time and money you won't regret it.

 
Hey, thanks for stopping in. Love Harman’s Stuff. My home theater is an older Yamaha receiver (7.1) with Hartman Kardon mains, center, surrounds and a JBL powered sub.

i get the difference between the type S vs R, but I also have to work with limited depth. The enclosure can handle 6” of depth, the R is over that. I could whip up a spacer ring pretty easily, but then I’d be sitting the rear jump seat almost onto the surface of the woofer. I’m good with the S type. It’s going to be light years better than the stock system, regardless.

 
Also, conventional wisdom these days is that proper sound deadening/sealing of midrange locations is worth every bit of the time and money spent in performance in the end results.  If it's a vehicle you plan to keep a while and you can spare a little extra time and money you won't regret it.
After doing a little bit of research, I've decided to do this. I'm going to grab some of the Noico 80 mil stuff from Amazon and hit the inside surface of all 4 doors, then reinstall the dash mounts after lining the pockets there with the same material. I don't feel like spending $$$ and tearing out the carpet and redoing, but the door panels alone should net me some improvement.  Thanks for the suggestion.

 
After doing a little bit of research, I've decided to do this. I'm going to grab some of the Noico 80 mil stuff from Amazon and hit the inside surface of all 4 doors, then reinstall the dash mounts after lining the pockets there with the same material. I don't feel like spending $$$ and tearing out the carpet and redoing, but the door panels alone should net me some improvement.  Thanks for the suggestion.
I love Noico 80. Perfect thickness. 1 layer in some areas 4 layers in other areas.  I dropped 144 sq ft in my commuter. 

 
I love Noico 80. Perfect thickness. 1 layer in some areas 4 layers in other areas.  I dropped 144 sq ft in my commuter. 
I just did some quick math. That came out to about $220 for the material alone and god knows how many hours it took to install, given the amount of disassembly/reassembly involved... I will not be going that far in my truck.

Now, someday when I get to that stage on my '33 dodge cabriolet, we may have a different story... I have a bunch more fabricating to do before I get there on my hot rod project.

 
I just did some quick math. That came out to about $220 for the material alone and god knows how many hours it took to install, given the amount of disassembly/reassembly involved... I will not be going that far in my truck.

Now, someday when I get to that stage on my '33 dodge cabriolet, we may have a different story... I have a bunch more fabricating to do before I get there on my hot rod project.
You absolutely do not need multiple layers or even full coverage.   In fact most of the dramatic improvements happen at only 50% coverage or so and then you get only marginal gains for going too crazy.   The NOICO stuff on Amazon is pretty good and an 80$ package is plenty to do a car.   I did the doors in my Camry, a door I had to replace in my Jeep, the floor of the Jeep, and the trunk of my brother's Civic with one of those.   Definitely worth the money and effort for that much, beyond that you definitely hit diminishing returns and you'll probably find more improvements/gains with other fixes anyway. 

Do the stuff you're going to have to disassemble anyway and it's not that much extra time.  You'll have the doors, dash, and seat(s) out anyway to do a 5 channel amp and speakers all around and it won't amount to that much more time to strategically deaden the thin panels and seal up the doors.  Keep reading deadening threads.  Don't get hung up on the guys who put 1500$ and 100 hours into "reference" tier sound, a fraction of that time and money will absolutely be noticeable and worth your effort.

 
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toodamtall

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