rogan

Sort out the wiring. I'm not too concerned where it's running along, but make sure all joints / terminations are tidy and secure.

But why bother sticking Kappa components in the back? Subwoofer frequencies are generally 20-80hz. Your Kappa would be lucky to get down below say 120hz (yes they will play lower but you'd need to put them in decent enclsoures). A pair of components is wasted in the rear IMHO.

Budget? What type of components and what sub?

I'll drop in tuesday avo and have a look.

Have 235/45/17 all round on an e39. Wanting to get a bit more boot space to install stereo amplifiers. Does anyone know if there is a spacesaver tyre that would be suitable??

9887=$580 inc ipod lead

There's been alot of arguement about oval v round. I was anti 6x9 but got talked into a pair by a speaker designer. Now have 6x9 in my front doors playing 70-1000hz and they're superb. Will be even better once they get some grunty amplification. I'd flag the rears (stick with 5.25s) and get a sub and amp instead

Meant to add: am getting rid of my stock of the IDQv2 which is now a discontinued model. Going out the door below landed cost. $160, $180 and $200 for the 10, 12 and 15 respectively. Very limited stock of the 12 dual 2ohm and the 15 inch. No idea on 9887 pricing, but I did see them in the sale pile. If I get time tomorrow morning I'll post up the 9887 price

IDQ10 v3. RRP $479 Sale $340 IDQ12 v3. RRP $529 Sale $360 Both available in D2 or D4 I'm running the IDQ12v3 at the mo in my car. Stonking thing. Completely different to the v2. Heaps more low end and major output increase. IDQ12v3 will do up to about 800rms. Has 19mm xmax and just slightly smaller cone area than the Max12. There's nothing much that matches it at RRP pricepoint let alone 30% off. Might sound like a sales pitch but it ain't: RRP on these are going to go up after the next order. Costs have gone up a bit. Note NZ is more than 20% cheaper than Aus at current RRP (IDQ12v3 is AU$549 http://www.fastfoursforumscarclub.com/temp..._pricelist.pdf)

Pretty sure they don't sell Soundstream. You fixed on SS. If not let me know the following and I'll try and recommend something: budget, amp power, sub size, music taste, and loud vs quality.

Quick heads up: This saturday 20 Sept, 9am - 4pm Sale at the new Car Stereo Specialists premises: 155 Sunnybrae Rd Glenfield North Shore opposite entrance to Glenfield On Road vehicle testing (from the Harbour Bridge: Take Esmonde Rd off ramp, turn left at lights. Keep going straight ahead for about 3-4km. Building is on your right. If you get to traffic lights where you have to turn right or left then you've wasted 200metres of petrol.) I'll be there all day pushing the Image Dynamics subs. Expect Alpine, Fusion, Sony, Pioneer etc to be seriously discounted too.

When you pull that Kenwood thing out, expect there to be some cutting of the airbox behind it. What's the problem with your a/c, maybe this has something to do with it. I'd replace it with something decent. The factory headunit is a piece of junk (opens can of worms). Have a look at Panasonic, they tend to be a bit cheaper than the other big brands and have some good features.

Just for information, Karl at SLAP in Wellington managed to fit the midrange from the DLS UP36 components in there. The surround had to be trimmed to get it in the hole.

Not a neccessity but good practice. I reckon you need to get into the habit of disconnecting the battery. The front door pods are pretty flimsy. If you can, do some deadening on them which should help improve midbass. The cheap Bostik type basic sound deadening is probably worth doing. A few guys overseas have tried replacing the 5.25 speaker and keeping the pod. They've found that the enclosure is a little bit small. I'd look at the DLS B5. I had the DLS B6 in a very small sealed enclosure in my old Suzuki and it worked well in the small space - in fact it worked better than the DLS UP6 (way more expensive) I tried first. I agree with 5 star. The factory e39 stereo (think I had 8 speakers, haven't looked in the rear doors yet) is sadly lacking. To the OP. If the speaker doesn't crackle all the time then the problem could well be elsewhere.

http://www.janus-design.net/english/e46doubledin/index.php You realise you'd need to do some decent work to the airbox to fit a double din?

Thanks for all the help. Triggered off the LKM (white/yellow wire). All working well. Hardest part was running the RCA and trigger from the back seat to the headunit.

Swapping out the midbass drivers won't achieve that much. The lack of midbass is more likely to be install related. IIRC, the E30 front factory positions are absolutely useless so without a decent enclosure there's not gonna be any improvement by simply swapping speakers.

thanks

Right, have reversing camera above the numberplate. Double sided sticky to the metal between the boot release and the plate light, hole drilled through corner of the plate light lens and wires into the boot through that. Ran cable across boot and through grommet into cabin. Will get onto the rest in the next couple of days hopefully. PS: carbon powder worked brilliantly for running the cable through the grommet. Bit messy but very easy.

duh, what was I thinking? Yep, have the manual and it's a +ve feed not an earth trigger. The fuse on the loom gives it away as well. Got no intention of blowing up the headie so there's a double check before connecting any wires. Have got tow bar, so there goes the connection to the reversing lights. Guessing the same occurs for the reversing sensors?. I've got to take the centre console out to run the wiring so can get to the gear shift if that gives me a 12v feed as opposed to the 6v from the LKM. Is there's a 12V+ somewhere regardless of trailer connection. Can I hook to the trailer socket or does that fool the electronics and shut down the reversing lights?

Good thought Aftermarket headie with an RCA feed so no problems hooking camera to headunit. Need a powered reversing signal. So guess I'll need a relay to sense the earthing of the cable going to the rear lights. Up front need a hook up at the gear lever to trigger the headie to camera mode. Guessing that wire needs to ground when in reverse similar to the headunit handbrake sensor. Is it easy to hook up to the reverse trigger on the gear shift or should I run a cable to the lights in the boot (cos I'm gonna have to run the camera RCA cable and DVD stacker video cables so it'd be easy to do it all at once).

Thanks, has given me some ideas - bumper mount is interesting.

e39 sedan Have just got a reversing camera that interfaces with my stereo system. Wondering if anyone has hooked one up and if so where did they mount the camera and how did you run the wiring through the body. Thinking above the numberplate then carve out a bit of the numberplate light for the cable to go through. Haven't looked closely but maybe the boot spoiler is an option.

A pretty fair assessment I think. One of the problems in car is getting low midbass with authority. You've got to do a hell of alot of work to get frequency response below about 80hz with authority and alot of cars are nowhere near that (ie 120+hz). This leaves a gap in the frequency range output and alot of people try to compensate by boosting the sub or the midbass which then dulls the midrange. IMO, front low midbass is the key to a good system. Get down to 70hz and below and getting the whole system to start sounding good gets alot easier. There was a post on nzice from Ablomech (aka Dean) who'd probably be one of this country's most knowledgeable car audio people. I understand he's now working for Arvus doing R&D. Basically he was talking about trying to get low midbass (100hz from memory) from a 6.5" driver and the limitations of cone area in relation to db output for dynamic range. He theoretically demonstarted that you need drivers over 6" to get these frequencies at sufficient output. Auditioning speakers is very difficult. There's substantial difference between components in a shop comparator and those same components in car. Subs can also sound markedly different in the 2 enviroments. Unfortunately you can only really listen to big brand name speakers in most shops in NZ so I've found it's easier to do research and then take a leap of faith. It's worked for me but I'm sure one day I'll buy something that sounds cr@p. Realistically the enclosure you make in car will do as much if not more for your sound than your selection of speakers once you get to a certain quality point in speakers

Don't know if you're considering 2nd hand but this sub is worth a good look: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/C...n-170774647.htm The guy who's selling it had it running off a DLS amp and was only giving it about 200rms. It'll happily handle 400rms so it hasn't been thrashed at all. Box is 0.9ft3 gross. He's bought a pair of IDQ10 v3 for his new car so it's a genuine reason for sale. Guessing he'd take $220 outside trademe (have contact details if needed). The subs are ugly - pressed steel basket in a turquoise colour but damn do they make up for their ugliness in sound quality. Anyway you don't see the basket once it's boxed. Apart from the new IDQv3, this is the best sounding sub I have ever heard. Made my old Focal Utopia seem boomy! I'll be using the IDQv3 when I finally get round to my sub install. Also some brand new amps on sale: DC Audio opening sale Sale ends 17 Aug http://forums.nzicemag.co.nz/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=20306 Sundown brand. US brand with a good international reputation. Product - RRP - Sale - One Off Price SAX 100.2 - 549 - 439 - 360 SAX 100.4 - 799 - 639 - 530 SAX-100.2 CLASS A/B 2 CHANNEL SPECIFICATIONS: * 100 x 2 watts @ 4 ohms * 200 x 2 watts @ 2 ohms * 400 x 1 watts @ 4 ohms bridged * Damping Factor > 200 @ 4 Ohms * 0.2v - 6v adjustable input sensitivity * 10 Hz - 40,000 Hz Frequency Response * Channel Separations: 75 dB * > 90 dB S/N Ratio * 4-Way Protection Circuit (Thermal, Overload, Speaker Short, and Over Current) * Selectable HP / LP / FULL crossover * 50 Hz - 500 Hz adjustable 18dB Low-Pass Crossover * 50 Hz - 500 Hz adjustable 18dB High-Pass Crossover * 0 - 18 dB adjustable bass boost with 45 Hz center frequency * Wired Remote Control unit included * 3x 20 Amp Internal Fuses * 13.375" L x 9.9" W x 2" H SAX-100.4 CLASS A/B 4 CHANNEL SPECIFICATIONS: * 100 x 4 watts @ 4 ohms * 160 x 4 watts @ 2 ohms * 320 x 2 watts @ 4 ohms bridged * Damping Factor > 200 @ 4 Ohms * 0.2v - 6v adjustable input sensitivity * 10 Hz - 40,000 Hz Frequency Response * Channel Separations: 75 dB * > 90 dB S/N Ratio * 4-Way Protection Circuit (Thermal, Overload, Speaker Short, and Over Current) * Selectable HP / LP / FULL crossover * CH 1 & 2 Variable HP crossover 50 - 5000 Hz @ 12 dB * CH 1 & 2 Variable LP crossover 50 - 500 Hz @ 12 dB * CH 3 & 4 Variable HP crossover 50 - 500 Hz @ 12 dB * CH 3 & 4 Variable LP crossover 50 - 5000 Hz @ 12 dB * 10 Hz - 500 Hz variable subsonic filter (CH 1&2 and CH 3&4) * Subsonic filter allows for band-passed crossover configuration * 0 - 18 dB adjustable bass boost * 35 - 120 Hz Variable Bass Boost Center Frequency * Wired Remote Control unit included * 3x 30 Amp Internal Fuses * 16.5" L x 9.9" W x 2" H