Hello !
Welcome to my Peugeot 406. The key word is HIFI in a car !
Let me show you what's up with 80 pictures !
Thanks for visiting !
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THE CAR

This my 2001 Peugeot 406. It's a nice car that drives very well and quite fast. It's very confortable and I drive it everyday. The engine is a 2.2L with 177HP.
I found some very cheap used 17' TSW : it's the same design as in the french movie TAXI, but smaller. I didn't look for them, but it happened !
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THE SOUND SYSTEM : OVERALL VIEW
As I love music, I modified the interior to listen to my favorite tunes as they should sound : loud, natural, as close as possible to reality. it's a pure pleasure and you don't want to get out of the car !
I built every special parts, myself. I am not a professionnal and my job has nothing to do with this. I let a friend of mine doing the final paintjob, that's all.
So, you can do the same !
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Set up : 6 loudspeakers, all front mounted :

SMALL AND HEAVY : SUBWOOFER IN A "SEATBOX"
Let's start with the most interesting part : these are so called " seat box". Mine are very unique because each weights 31Kg : They are fully dedicated to bass and use 20cm sub JL Audio 8w3v2. Remaining volume is 13L without the speaker. As you can see they don't take too much place.
They produce enough bass to listen loud ( 11mm Xmax for those babies )

They are screwed on 10mm stainless steel front plate, I added lots of fishing lead ( yeah, I didn't find more heavy and cheap ! ).
The aim was that only the subwoofer should move : nothing has to vibrate and when people are seating, they should not feel the subwoofer moving the seatrest. The goal is reached, you can not tell from where is coming the bass : well, almost, because sometime you can feel the air vibrating your pants !


They weight 31 KG each !

Notice that I built them for a daily use of the car. The seat can still be adjusted, and the boxes are not afraid of big shoes !
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NICE DOORS : rebuilding the lower part of the door

I oriented the speakers and - most important point - I let a lot of space behind the speaker so that they can " breath ". Size is 17 cm. I tested various speakers. I used the standard 4 bolts size with M4 treading.

ELECTRONIC SPECIAL DEVICE: Introducing Mr Carpentier

Mr Carpentier is a french engineer who is building since decades devices to improve the sound. It's a shame that he didn't make it big yet with the automobile majors.
The guy has got real innovative ideas. And they do work !!
Check out his website isophases.com

IMAGER 5 from Claude CARPENTIER

- would you like to get a correct tonal result by pushing only 1 button ?
- would you like to place the singer right in the center without touching the stereo effects ?
- would you like to balance the stereo effects without moving the center of the stage ?

Try out the imager V from claude Carpentier !

It's a phase-shifter : but it's going more far than only this : it's about shifting various phases, it's about controling stereo sounds and mono sounds : in this way , it is more effectiv than the standard time delay : I even turned the time delay off from my headunit and got a better results !
In the end : natural sound, more dynamic, less distorsion, no more phase problems and a sound-stage nicely placed.

I put 1x imager for the tweeters, 1x imager for the medium, 1x ISOB12 ( full manual phase shifter ) for the bass.

My conclusion is that thanks to those littles box, I'm discovering the best sound I ever get in my car : Not everything is perfect yet, but it's getting better for sure !
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SPEAKERS : BRANDS
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JL Audio 8w3v2 20cm : great speakers ! real subwoofers ! even built in front, I have enough deep low bass ; they play powerful and chest-hiting 60Hz - 80Hz. A real pleasure that I wish I could share with you !

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MIDBASS these are the best 165/170mm speakers I ever had: SEAS w17 ppi 17cm : they are not meant for bass but they got such a nice and not agressiv sound ; they also built a deep soundstage.

 

 
Fine and audiophil, but not enough power and dynamic compaired to the Hertz.
but don't ask those hertz to start @ 40hz : that's not their best point : mines start @ 80Hz : they hit upper bass very well and as my subwoofers are front, I don't need the doors to prodcue deep bass


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TWEETERS : what was suposed to be a joke, works actually SO WELL ! lol ! yes, you're seing right : I use logitech small largeband loudspeakers as tweeter. I cut them @ 1.6KHz and 6Db/oct : it works better than very expensive tweeter because those can handle so deep frequencies. The results is a dynamic, powerful, very very detailed sound. If you don't believe me, take 70 bucks and find out yourself !!! 

 

 

          

 
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I also use since 4 years the great Pioneer P9 and processor Q9

And since a few months, I'm using the "black" version : P90rs + Q90rs.

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AMPLIFIERS FOR THE SUBWOOFERS
This x-mas 06 , I made myself a nice present : 2 pcs of Pioneer CLASS D mono amplifiers : they will hit 500 Watts RMS on each subwoofer : of course, that's too much , but I like to think that there will be plenty of power !!!

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AMPLIFIER FOR MID + HIGH : HIGH END FROM THE US
I think it is THE high end product of my car : a fantastic american MC INTOSH amplifier : best amplifier I ever had !

----- I would like to thank Steven Sailer from www.steven-sailer.com
for selling some of those products. Check out his website - a great source of inspiration : he is THE MASTER !

BUILDING THE DOORS

It's not that difficult : check out how I choose the maximum angle ; I also thought about the volume behind the speaker. So the doorboard are slim ( 12mm at the speaker ) but strong. That's why I used metallic bond SN96.

I didn't built it very heavy because the 17cm I use don't provide powerfull bass.

BUILDING THE SUBWOOFER BOX

TRUNK
well, for sure not beautiful ! but I like to make changes easily on the amplifiers and cables. I got to admit that I never really made a nice trunk...
This was during the year 2006 :

This was nov/dec 2006 :

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this is today ( check out the nice Mc Intosh amplifier )

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Where the upper plate is in place, there is nothing left to see

Here some news : Juni 2008 : testing some front mounted very small fostex speakers in pepsi bottles !!!

MISCELANIOUS PICTURES

Yes, there is enough space ( my shoe size is 44 ) :

50mm² power cable

Safety test : two sandows hold each sub-box

Little trick to avoid this part from vibrating :

Here are some of my tribulations ! some stuff I tried :

I tested the HERTZ medium in various positions: but I couldn't get perfect highs : the 10Khz are just too loud, even if corrected. So, maybe as a mid-high help, they could be good, but they're also too big... so, i will not use them in the car. Hertz 165mm+28mm tweeters are OK...

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testing the HERTZ tweeters : they are ok, but the microprecision seem more dynamic to me. One point is sure : the microprecision can start to play at low freqs. So the hertz didn't convince me...

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testing new positions for the tweeters ( tweeters turned to the windshield ! )

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building in the "windschield" tweeter :

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testing my french speakers : 13cm high efficient SUPRAVOX 135 LB
Damn I love how they slam drums !
But the Hertz can handle softly more power.

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puting back the 17cm hertz mille ! the supravox hurt my ears ! I prefer the mille because I can put louder without distorsion and afterall, they got a nice dynamic too.
The other very important point is that the 17cm mille provide also a nice kickbass that helps a lot the subwoofers.
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a buddy just gave me a 46cm subwoofer for a few days : I will try this shit in my trunk. This is the biggest subwoofer I ever touched. Let's see if it can be as accurate as the smaller ( I don't care about power, this baby will be softly used in my case ! )

impressions : yes it can play fair high (100hz), fine deep bass but not as accurate and punchy as the seatbox. You got to keep in mind that the 20cm, phase-corrected provide a true deep bass and they act like real subwoofer : I mean they are not like kickbass or bass in the doors.
Conclusion : the 46cm doesn't give me the same enjoyable bass as the jl20cm front. I give it back to my mate
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Thanks for reading,

Keep in touch !

History : Old pics, other stuff I tested :

Dynamic Bass System: DBS from Claude CARPENTIER
The DBS is a great concept: it litteraly accelerates the bass ( better kick and it is adjustable ). It also corrects the PHASE between left and right speakers : the result is a bass that is coming 100% for the middle of the dashboard.