The reason for the previous post is I have been hearing something from the front passenger side that had me worried. At higher volumes it would start to buzz like something was loose in the door. I had the fronts high passed at 100Hz, set with test tones and a DMM.

Today I took the door skin off and had a better look at the door and that Focal 165VR speaker. Everything inside the door was tight and nothing loose. I played a little music, about 3/4 volume, and the buzzing was from the speaker. I unmounted it and played it free air and it did the same thing. I pressed in on the cone and it wasn't rubbing or anything. I haven't smelled anything that would indicate it was burning up.

I guess this means I damaged it in some way. Probably from trying to get to much from it to keep up with the two MKIIIs.

I have changed the high pass to 125Hz

I will be calling Focal to see if there is anything they can do for me for the time being.

Anyone have any dealings with Focal and warranty replacements?

Any recommendation for some killer midrange speakers?

 

So many choices but I think I have it narrowed down to three.

Problem with all three choices is I will be trying to run them at 100W through the Focal passive crossovers with seperation of mid tweet at 4200kHz.

If I decided to not use the passive crossover I could use the 1/2 channel of the Clarion amp to push just the tweets. That amp has a x10 on the crossover.

I would then have to get a dedicated 2 channel for the mids. This would mean changing over to 1/0 for the main run and getting new distro and ground blocks. Seems like more work than it is worth right now.

Here are the midbass/midrange I have been looking at today.

Massive CK6
Inexpensive but fairly new on market. Have to buy a full component set. Would try and sell everything but midrange speakers to recoupe a bit of the cost.

Image Dynamics CX64 V.2
About same price as Massive CK6 but only for midrange speakers.

HAT Legatia L6
Most expensive and I don't have anything to compare them with.
Seems people either love or hate them with not much middle ground. Same way with Focal.

 

Talked to a few people over on diyma.com and I think I am going to go with the Massive Ck6. Probably the best bang for the buck and I can recoup some of the, albeit minor, cost by reselling the tweets and crossovers.

The person I am going to get them from will have some in end of this week so I have to wait a few days.

 

Sounds like you're definitely doing your homework!! Really nice install!

 

Had to take the car seats out so I snapped a few updated pics. The Massive Ck6 midranges sound good to me. I had a comparison going and the Focals were a little brighter but the Massives were not far behind in clarity but they have more umpfh, if that is a word.

Forgive the carpeting job. My friend and I did it in a hurry and it has decided to start coming away a little. I fixed it after the pics were snapped.

 

Finally got the subs broken in and tuned. Man they rock.

I don't listen to a lot of hip-hop but I found some mix tracks "Decaf" and those songs make everything shake.

I made a few videos on the way to work over the last few days just to give an idea on what kind of output the SI BM MKIIIs truely have.

Not bad for two shallow mount 12s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwYk17DMBeY

 

Good vid, but man that is so not my kind of thing. All I'm hearing is "DISTORTION.... DISTORTION DISTORTION.... DISTORTION.... DISTORTION DISTORTION." That's some impressive power though, good job Lang. I just got my rear speakers in the mail today. Got a shipping update on the MegaMat, and it looks like it won't be here till Wednesday, which sucks because I fly out Thursday night for a week to take care of some family matters in Idaho. It's supposed to be semi-relaxing, but I know the whole time I'll be thinking about tearing off my door panels and how good it's going to sound when it's done.

 

While I'm waiting, I've got some questions for you:

Do you think putting the tweets in the door sails is worth the hassle? I'm split on mounting them their like yours, or in the little triangle in front of the door handles, like they were on the 04-08 line. It's going to be tricky either way, but it seems like the ductwork in the sails made things more so. You've had time to live with it, so I'm just wondering what you think.

Also, how did you power your signal processor? I was thinking about using the unused wire in the second 9 wire bundle (the first being used to send the remote trigger signal to the back) because it's going to be there anyway and not doing anything, but I'm not sure which 12v source is best to tap from. I've seen some people run a piggyback off the fusebox, but that involves cutting up the cover panel, and I'd rather not. I've been through this thread twice, and looked at your pics, but I'm not seeing where you drew your power from for that. Thanks.

 

#1
Thank you. I promise it sounds much better than my Blackberry could record. I will try and get a better sounding video, featuring real music, with my camcorder. It is a little harder to run while driving.

#2
Tweets in the sail vs A pillar. Man that is a tough call. I didn't even experiment with different locations. I had made up my mind where they were going and that was it.

As to mounting in the sail it was a little tricky. Just had to make sure that the vents weren't in the way.

I actually got really lucky with the Focal tweets. After the fact I found they really need to be mounted off-axis or they are very bright and can be harsh to some. I think in the sail it really makes them sound good.

Other tweeters might need the reflection from the windshield. If you are going to move them around you could always just temporarily tape them in place just to see how they sound to you.


#3
Power to signal proc. I cheated really bad.

Because it was so low volt I ran a power and ground directly from input and gound of the 4 channel amp. I planned on going back and making it right but it hasn't given me any problem yet. I didn't run these power and ground leads from the distribution blocks because I didn't think it would look very good.

Here are a few better pics.

 

Interesting. I'd considered doing that too, but I was worried about getting signal noise in the line. If it worked for you though, I might just give it a try. If it works it works, if not then I can run it some other way.

I abandoned the idea of putting the tweeters in the A Pillars, because they are just too big and would look goofy unless I found a pair of OEM pillars that have the spaces for the tweeters already, and the price I was quoted was damn near 300 bucks for the set if I order them from Ford. What I was thinking was putting them in that triangle space in front of the door handle, in what used to be the factory tweeter location in the 04-08 line:



I've seen a few others do this, and while it still requires drilling, it seems easier because I won't have to worry about the ductwork.

 

I was going to put them in that space also but I didn't want to cut into the finished plastic insert.

In my FX2 that piece has a design on it and is a shiny finish.

My location in the sail was the only place I felt comfortable cutting. I think I got lucky in that it sounds as good as it does.

 

Man I can't leave well enough alone.

I have been itching to try and go quasi active but I don't want to deal with replacing the stock head unit. I can't do any type of time alignment or advanced level controls but we will see how it goes.

Yesterday I ended up buying a Sundown SAx-125.2. I know mSall but the price was right and it has what I need.

By utilizing the subsonic filter and x10 HPF I can run it in bandpass for my Massive Ck6 mids. I am going to use channels 1 and 2 of the Clarion XH5410 for the Focal TNB tweeters. I know what the Focal crossover points are so I will be using that as my starting point.

I am looking to get a little more dynamic range from the mids while still maintaining that really nice balance that I think I have.

Now the worst part. I knew I should have used 1/0 power from the start. I get to rerun all power and make another new amp board.

This is going to take a month or so the get all the parts and time to complete.

 

Well after much reading and planning I think I got what I wanted... The system sounds great. Still playing with the gains on the amps and thinking of adding an Eq. the only complaint is the factory radio don't kick in until I'm up to 10 bars... Will post a thread sometime this week... Sure wish I had taken more pictures...

 

Thats a really clean set up on ur back wall.

 

Got all the parts and pieces gathered for the next incarnation of my system.

I am taking a few days off next week just to relax and work on this.

Plan is to add a third amp, Sundown SAX-125.2, to power the Massive Audio Ck6 6.5 midwoofers in the doors.
I know Sundown isn't considered a SQ amp but it does more than rated power and has the ability to run bandpass.
I also really like the Sundown SAZ-1000D that is powering my two SI BM MKIII subs.

I will be using the front channels on the Clarion XH5410 to power just the Focal TNB tweeters, with no passive crossover.

Will also be replacing the main power cable and ground with 1/0. Knukoncepts was out of gray 1/0 OFC and their
eta was 3 weeks. Against my better judgement I bought a few feet of CCA until I can order the real stuff.

I am still kicking myself for not going with 1/0 in the first place. I kept telling myself that what I first got
was what I was going to stay with. I knew I was kidding myself.

With the 1/0 I am having to also replace the inline fuse and fused and non fused distro blocks.

Got all the wire management and snap bushing to have a completely hidden install as my previous amp rack.

I am planning on having all three amps stacked horizontal on the passenger side.
The LC6i will be under the seat belt mechanism.
All power and ground distribution will be on the drivers side of the amp rack.

I think it will turn out nice.

Here are the new parts pics. I love Darvex.com.