CoastieRon's Progression of Idiocy journal & BS

Yay my amp is coming home!!!!

 

Now waiting for muh boom boom

 

Still waiting.......

 

This may or may not be long winded - and I didn't want to post anything when it happened, because I was pretty pissed off.

Thursday (9/10) we had some significant rain. I had my truck parked in the driveway, as me and the old lady were sitting in the garage, watching the rain because we hadn't gotten any in like a month.



I recalled there was something in my truck I needed to get, and when I got out there, I found that the third brake light failed, pooled up in the headliner right above the amp, and then dumped.


Right into the amp I had just gotten back.



Son of a bitch. Anyway. I disconnected power and pulled truck in garage. Took the amp out and called Toyota of Nashua to make an appointment to get the issue fixed. I called AudioControl and talked to Josh (we're on a first name basis now) - he stated that because the amp never powered up while wet, to just let it dry out a few days, then reconnect. So I set the amp to just dry out, with a fan pointing straight into it.

On 9/11 I brought my truck in to have the third brake light repaired. I was charged the full amount - the reasons given?

1. There is no recall for this item
2. My truck is out of warranty
3. There is no TSB extending the warranty for this issue
4. My truck had vinyl done by a third party.

Well, to make sure this doesn't happen AGAIN, I think I'll put some silicone sealant around the third brake light.

So yesterday, after allowing the amp to dry with a fan on it for about 3 days, I hooked it back up in the truck, and low and behold, it flipped on like nothing happened.



No warnings, no blinking, no smoke. Just good clean power to the speakers, like nothing happened. At least 1 thing went my way......

 

Prepping for my sub box to come in! Took down the Molle on the back wall



Repurposed a left over piece of molle I had from a while back and did this

 

What happens when you have time on your hands? You get ideas. I'm getting a DSP, and gonna run the front stage active. That amp rack is going to change..... Get bigger.

 

Built the new amp rack. This weekend I will probably remove the amp, rear speakers, the passive cross-overs, then re-run wires.

 

More tomorrow.....

 

Tonight's progress. Tomorrow I'm going to put power to it


Getting ready to tune....

 

Will do. I just put power to it all and it all works (power wise). The speakers are not hooked up until I can get my head wrapped around setting the gains properly with the dsp in the middle.....

 

Well, here is my first DSP foray, and I don't think it went well.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/dayton-audio-dsp408.686277/

 

I have discovered techflex. Holy crap shit getting real lol.

Anyway, I ordered a miniDSP C-DSP 6x8 and am reevaluating my wiring.

 

If I had done more research, I probably would have stayed the course

 

Well the miniDSP came in today. No annoying whining noise. All the games and levels have been set correctly. I haven't even gotten to eq-ing each of the channels and it already sounds great.



Initial throw together crossovers-

Widebands - 1200hz - 20000hz 24dB slope
Woofers - 90hz - 1200hz 24dB slope
Subwoofer - 20hz - 90hz 24dB slope

This is the initial tune, just to get me rolling. I'm going to be using Andy's tuning guide and Room EQ to.eq the channels.

 

All right, here we go:

A bunch of things happened on Friday. First I received my new sub and box:




Then I had to carpet it:



I'm getting better at it, but I always end up with a damn wrinkle near the sub opening...



So I installed and plugged it in. I need to relocate the power wire to the amp, it takes up over a half inch of room, and blocks the sub box from scooching in snug to the rear wall, making it impossible to install the rear seat back without damaging the sub.



With the seat on:



Next I needed to find a place to put the remote for the DSP. I wasn't going to use it, but I like the idea of switching tunes based on listening position, etc. I wanted to find a way to put it in the overhead console here:



but the control itself is too deep, and would require more cutting than I was comfortable with. So I decided to use my un-utilized sunglass holder:



But I had to get rid of the rubber stuff in it. In order to get the remote to hold in their without issues, I carpeted the inside of the cubby in order to velcro the remote in:



What a pain in the ass this was, and it was not my best work.



I also time aligned my speakers and holy crap did it change everything! I used this calculator:

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/timedelaycalc/

It's like audio witchcraft! I also my crossovers, setting my widebands high pass a little lower. So now I am at:

Morel CCWR254 Widebands (as tweeters) - 900hz up @ 24dB slope
Morel Tempo Ultra 6x9 drivers - 90 - 1200hz @ 24dB slope
JL 12TW3-D8 - 10 - 70hz @ 24dB slope

I still have a lot to do, but right now the staging is one inch to the left of the rear view mirror, and just beyond the windshield. I'm going to have my settings set up as follows:

1. Driver Seat
2. Passenger Seat
3. In Between the Seats
4. Experiment

 

Re-did my time alignments as well as crossovers. Settings are:

1. Driver: widebands crossed at 900hz @ 24dB, 6x9s Crossed at 90hz & 1200hz @ 24dB, sub LP 70hz @ 24dB
2. Passenger: widebands crossed at 900hz @ 24dB, 6x9s Crossed at 90hz & 1200hz @ 24dB, sub LP 70hz @ 24dB
3. Center: widebands crossed at 900hz @ 24dB, 6x9s Crossed at 90hz & 1200hz @ 24dB, sub LP 70hz @ 24dB
4. Experiment driver: widebands crossed at 900hz @ 24dB, 6x9s Crossed at 90hz & 900hz @ 24dB, sub LP 70hz @ 24dB

I'm make a bluetooth boom box with speakers I have leftover from early in this project/other systems:



Also, an update on my tires:



Roughly 46k miles on them.

 

Swapped back to the Morel Tweeters. I was missing that very detailed high end they gave me over the widebands. I have them crossed at 1800 (the lowest recommended) and they sound much better than they did on the passive crossover.

 

Finished my boombox!

 

I bought a drone.