Yo everyone,

After lurking for so long on this board and learning from all of you, I thought I'd send some pictures of my recently installed system.

A local member, Nsxnext1 helped me out a lot in sourcing and recommending the products.

This thread is useless without the pics so here they are.

Dynamat Xtreme (both inner and outer (skin) parts of the doors)




Dynamat Rear Quarter Panels


Head Unit - Kenwood Excelon KDC-X889




iPod Adapter - Kenwood KCA-IP500




Speakers - MBQuart PCE-164 Premiums (these are the crossovers in the spare tire well)


Amp - JL Audio 500/5 (5 channel amp, bi-amped with the MB Quarts (pair for woofer and pair for tweeters) and dedicated channel to sub) (Note I wanted easy access to my Tein Flex coilover system and the shelf made has an opening to allow easy access)


Sub - JL Audio W6v2 10" in a custom fiberglass enclosure (tool well area)


Powering everything....


This thing kicks like crazy and the sound is just unbelievable!

 

Nice

I have a few questions:

the 500/5, is that enough to push the sub and the components?

Where did you get the box and sub from? How much they go for?

Lastly, I love that head unit. I am considering it. Do you have a pic of it in the dark, when it is lit up.

 

Thanks s2khondaimport!

Your questions.... The 500/5 amp is plenty for my needs. I've got 200 watts for the woofers, 50 watts for the tweeters and 250 watts for the W6v2.

According to JL Audio, 250 is between the minimum and optimum power specs for a W6v2 10" sub. I have the gain level at 12 o'clock for the sub and with my head unit have to keep my level at -3 -- the top being +15. It booms that much! When I listen at speed on the freeway I typically raise it to -1 or 0 and that's plenty of punch.

Putting it another way... I need to add more Dynamat... particularly the trunk lid because the sub vibrates the back end so much. Then again groups like The Prodigy, Nine Inch Nails, Orbital, etc. have a tendency to use rolling lower frequencies in their songs and that doesn't help the vibrations.

I purchased the box from another local member. I don't know how much he paid exactly but it uses 12 layers of fiberglass and has a 1" MDF top. The whole box is carpeted and the top of the MDF is a foam-like substance similar to the padding on the 04/05 center consoles. He originally used a W7 10" on it! He had this box spec'ed for the W7 which requires the most volume out of the JL Audio lineup. I would estimate though that a custom box would run at least $500.

Re: the head unit.... don't have a camera right now to take shots but I'll get some and post it up in the next day or so. Some of the "features" it has includes: 5v preamps, native iPod interface, motorized plate, customized downloadable graphics, a G Meter, etc...

Hope this helps....

 

the install looks nice. very clean and well organized. did you install it yourself?



and not trying to be a weenie, but JL's published figures for the 500/5 are:

[QUOTE]
Specifications:

 

[QUOTE=PJK3,May 11 2005, 07:46 AM] the install looks nice.

 

Very nice set-up. Been planning a similar setup. Just bought an Eclipse 3434 deck. For speakers i'm planning JL XR series speakers, either a 10W6V2 or 8W7 sub and matching JL Amps.

 

I have the W6v2 10" and I can say that it's plenty powerful for my style of music. Don't know what you gain by going W7 but both my installer and parts guy (from the board) swayed me away from the W7 and it's power requirements. Unless you really want that boom, I say a W6 is a better value. My .02

 

Great set up, esp. the Bi-Amp choice of the front separates with the 500/5.

Couple of questions:

Was it hard to tune the tweeters and mid/basses to get them to match up?

And does the sub-controller work well?

And the 500/5 in a tri-amp configuration is 50w total to tweeters, 200w to mid/basses and 250 to the sub like you said, you are correct.

 

The JL Stealthbox uses the W3v2 if you didn't already know. It really becomes a matter of volume that you'll be giving the box and power. Good luck and share your install pics when done!

 

Oh and why did you use the crossovers from the separates at all when you can crossover the separates in the amp and get the full power output out of each channel?