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You guys won't believe this. My stereo install.

So I am getting the best bass and deepest response from try custom door enclosure using an aperiodic membrane in the back of the woofer. What I have done is broken down the factory Bose box in two, and attached the back half to my SOS spekaer plate which is very stiff. Works very well. Looks like the original Bose enclosure, but with my high end 6.5" woofer in it. The factory connector is still there, it bolts up just like the factory box because it is the back half of the box, and it plugs right in using factory harnesses. I have essentially a very small sealed enclosure with a heavy solid baffle now. Problem is that the airspace is too small so the lows are falling off around 130 Hz.

So I made an aperiodic membrane behind the woofer, allowing it to "breathe" into the door cavity while most of the bass frequencies are damped inside the enclosure. What I have is a small enclosure that has a larger air space now. The bass response wasn't that deep outside the car in my testing but in the door it is very smooth and goes 2-3 octaves lower than anything else I've tried. It's really cool. Here is a pic of the back half of the enclosure in the door before the membrane:

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Woofer wires connected INSIDE the Bose box, so stock connector can be used just the same.

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Here is what cavity looks like prior to aperiodic membrane in the rear:

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I'm keeping tweeters inside the car (not in the door). The factory wires are 18 gauge for signal. There is no real speaker wire in the doors of the NSX as the amps are in the enclosures. To run all this power for two drivers is even worse, so I am limiting it to just the woofer. The setup I have here is POWER HUNGRY. With the targa off and my exhaust, I need all the power I can have. Using a 6 channel JL XD600/6 right now. Class D, pretty small amp.

BTW my 6.5" woofer is lighter than the 3" Bose driver.
 
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Here are two small aluminum knobs, these are the same size ad the ones on the factory radio bass and treble controls. One will do volume, one will do subwoofer level. I plan to mount these where the old radio's balance and tone controls were. In the "upper" cutout of the factory radio where the cassette deck was. I don't plan on altering or cutting the. Factory console:

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Here is a free app for my iPad helping me with testing and tuning. It's called just "tone generator". Cool app. Works well.

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great work so far
 
Are you trying to eliminate a woofer in the footwell by improving the airflow/response of your door speakers?
 
I'm a big fan of aperiodic membrane systems. I never thought about trying it on a mid woofer though. Good job.
 
Are you trying to eliminate a woofer in the footwell by improving the airflow/response of your door speakers?

I am trying to get some level of bass reproduction, yes... But more importantly I am trying to get a smooth response out of the door woofer. Without any sort of enclosure the woofer in the NSX door has an extremely erratic response in the midrange, and almost nothing lower down. The door is not flat. The speaker plates that we have to install on them do not work well at all. There are huge gaps between the plate and the door right next to the woofer. To create any sort of proper cavity you would have to Dynamat the crap out of the door. That adds a lot of weight, and it still does not give you very good response down low. Clearly an enclosure is best, and that is why the Bose system has one. The back half of this enclosure molds perfectly to the door. It creates an airtight seal and creates a decent baffle.

I have other woofers coming, that I am going to experiment with. These are smaller units that can fit where the Bose used to be, around 4 1/2 inches. They are high excursion, and also have a very wide frequency response. I am going to simply replace the Bose Woofer with some of these, remove the amplifier, install some more proper damping material inside the cabinet, and test to see how they sound within that enclosure, with the Bose port. I have one woofer in particular which should work very well. I am going to do sort of a head-to-head on all of these and see which design and which woofer sounds best.

The way everyone is just sticking 6.5 inch speakers in the doors right now, to me, is completely wrong. It just does not produce good results. Perhaps passable, but definitely not good.

I'm a big fan of aperiodic membrane systems. I never thought about trying it on a mid woofer though. Good job.

It should work just as well for a mid-bass driver, as it would for a subwoofer. It is really the only way to get a lot of airspace, while keeping the properties of an enclosure. I am experimenting with different thicknesses right now.

I am making my own membranes from roxul insulation, at different thicknesses.
 
Dave, am i reading that you are using the oem signal wires as speaker wire for the doors? The oem signal wires are shielded and the shield is grounded. Using them for speaker wires may produce a capacitive effect of the shield to the conductors which could make you lose bass response.


Mike
 
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Looks good. So beside the doors, what is your plans other plans to complete the sound system. Amp etc...? :smile:
 
Dave, am i reading that you are using the oem signal wires as speaker wire for the doors? The oem signal wires are shielded and the shield is grounded. Using them for speaker wires may produce a capacitive effect of the shield to the conductors which could make you lose bass response.


Mike

Mike I did not know this. I actually used your info on the oter thread, using the orange and white wires at the connector. I thought the other two (yellow, red stripe and another) are power. Is this not correct? I don't see a shield on these wires. What are the two correct wires to use?

If you are judging by the picture, don't. The orange and white go to yellow and purple on the other side of the connector.
 
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Mike I did not know this. I actually used your info on the oter thread, using the orange and white wires at the connector. I thought the other two (yellow, red stripe and another) are power. Is this not correct? I don't see a shield on these wires. What are the two correct wires to use?

If you are judging by the picture, don't. The orange and white go to yellow and purple on the other side of the connector.

I didn't know you were going speaker level on them. Give me a minute.

Mike
 
Looks good. So beside the doors, what is your plans other plans to complete the sound system. Amp etc...? :smile:

Well that is why I reserved to posts up top, to explain all of that. I haven't looked at the sub yet but from what learned from the doors, it's best to not order parts until I've investigated it thoroughly. Basically my source is my iPhone, going to a JBL processor, from there to a 6 channel amp. Then off to two speakers, the sub, and possibly the center, I haven't determined that yet. I am just removing the radio and making a blank plate, installing my two volume knobs in there, and possibly the display from a JBL MS-8 which fits well in the radio slot with no cuts to the dash.

I have a magnetic mount for my phone and came up with a one connector harness that charges the phone and gives me audio and video out. I don't want t make multiple connections to the bottom jack to charge and headphone jack to get audio out. Too messy, too ugly, too much work. Here is a photo of my mount. It consists of 3 pieces. A base flat piece of metal that is 1/2" by 1/2", and attaches to the blank radio plate. The second piece is the small arm, that magnetically clicks onto the base plate. Then third piece is a case for the phone with a small round dimple on it, that too attaches magnetically to the arm. So you have base, arm, and case. You pull and they come apart. When you remove your phone, there is nothing left on the dash. Clean and nice. But I may also just make a mount for the coin slot. Will have to evaluate.

This mount allows rotation of the phone, allows it to angle any direction (you can see the ball joint), and is tiny.

Warning: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE A RANDOM MAGNETIC MOUNT. It will damage your phone. This is actually a 5 magnet structure, 4 magnets in the feet of the X neutralize the magnetic field of the center gold one.

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Dave here is the circuit and you can see the shields. I believe the ground on the shield would be the thing that might effect the sound, not the fact that there is a shield. Without the ground there probably would be no effect. All systems are different so you may see no effect by ungrounding it or a big one.

Try running some temporary, normal speaker wire from amp to speaker and see if the sound changes. It's temp so don't worry about routing, just drape it over the seat. Do just one door with the temp so you can hear the difference between the two.

Mike


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Mike what has everyone been using for speaker level? The signal wire, right? Getting new wires into the door will be an absolute nightmare, I was really hoping not to do that. Plus I like keeping the Xovers inside the car and out of the elements.
 
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I don't keep up with the stereo mods on here but i would think that's what they would do. It will work you may just lose some low end response. I think most install subs so it would be hard to notice especially on a new system with no benchmark. I would do the temp suggestion first to see if there is a audible difference. Like i said it's temp so don't worry about running it through the door.

Just because a kit allows you to do something doesn't mean that's the best thing to do. It's the easiest way to build the kit.


Mike
 
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I don't keep up with the stereo mods on here but i would think that's what they would do. It will work you may just lose some low end response. I think most install subs so it would be hard to notice especially on a new system with no benchmark. I would do the temp suggestion first to see if there is a audible difference. Like i said it's temp so don't worry about running it through the door.

Just because a kit allows you to do something doesn't mean that's the best thing to do. It's the easiest way to build the kit.


Mike

Thanks will experiment with this. God I'd so like to just run a new wire but is have to remove the entire boot for both the car and the door to do it. Or you can hack it like you work at best buy. LOL.
 
Thanks will experiment with this. God I'd so like to just run a new wire but is have to remove the entire boot for both the car and the door to do it. Or you can hack it like you work at best buy. LOL.

I haven't done that so i don't know the amount of space you have. Normally when i have to do that sort of thing, i snake a piece of 12ga ac wire through without removing anything. Once it's hanging out both sides, i tape the cables to one end and use it to pull the new cables into place like a pull string.

Mike
 
Awesome thread so far. Really looking forward to the completed door speaker, tweeter build and setup. Keep it going!
 
Problem with my rockford woofer is that I don't have any technical specs. I think the Qts of this woofer is a bit high now for my membrane. I get better response but I lose some on the very low end. So that is the question... Do I go for the slightly tighter smoother response and give up the bottom end...

This has certainly been fun but it's a guessing game. When my other woofers come in, I have all the mechanical specs. That wil be a lot easier. Here is a photo of my AP membrane. It's 3.5" in dismeter. This sits behind the woofer allowing it to breathe but controls cone motion. Like a large sealed box.

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Good work, truly inspiring for those in search of better sound in their NSX.

I wanted to mention that running wires into the NSX doors is not at all difficult compared to some cars, might take you 15-30 min per side max. I have run 12Ga. into a few NSX doors.
 
Good work, truly inspiring for those in search of better sound in their NSX.

I wanted to mention that running wires into the NSX doors is not at all difficult compared to some cars, might take you 15-30 min per side max. I have run 12Ga. into a few NSX doors.

Can you tell me how you did it? I noticed a factory hole that is grommeted and seems to find ts way into the car that is not used. Anyone know off this?

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