edtbjon

Well, at least I've started with making some MDF baffles for the rear doors and got to mounting them in the car.
The first picture shows the three parts of the baffle. The two to the left are 16mm (5/8") and the one to the right is 12mm (i.e. 1/2"). The cutouts are necessary for the crossover (and the ashtray), which is shown in place on picture two.
In picture three the two rings are in their position but not yet glued/screwed. In picture four I've mounted the speaker. The only thing left was really to drill the holes in the mounting ears.
In the last picture (five) the whole baffle is in place in the door. I made one mistake here. The cutout on the top of the baffle just above the crossover should extend further up along the edge of the speaker, about 6-7cm (2½"), else the ashtray will not go back into its place.
There is no picture of the hole in the door, but the shape and volume is dictated by a piece of rail (for the window) which runs very close to the back of the speaker box/baffle. Hence the placement of the crossover. (You will see the difference in my next part project, i.e. the front baffles, where I can sink the crossovers into the baffle.)
One thing which is nice to know is that the speaker boxes/baffles are made as mirror images. I.e. you only need to copy the shape of one to make both sides.
I know that I have to dampen the doors as well with some good sound deadening material. That will come too.
I know that these baffles are not sealed to the door. I would have to place the crossover somewhere else then, as it's very hard to seal that area given my current construction. My thinking about this is that I want the speakers to sit very firm in the first place. Most speaker installments (at least in the back doors) in doors uses the whole door as a box anyhow.
I also still have some decisions to make about the tweeters in these back door speakers. They are connected at the moment, but as the original system doesn't have any tweeters in the back doors, I suspect I will disconnect the tweeters in the future, which is easily done. It's just a matter of disconnecting the red wire from the crossover. Anyhow, that decision will be taken when the whole system is in place so that I can tune it up.

I will continue as soon as there is time with the front speakers in a similar fashion.
Apart from that there will be a new head unit and a 4 channel amplifier for the door speakers. I plan to take out the CD changer and put the amplifier there.
To make the system complete there is already a Rockford Fosgate 12" phase 3 shallow sub in the back, mounted in a thin 21 litre (~5 gallons) closed box. I had serious plans to build something like that myself, but it's a ready made solution (for pickup trucks etc.) which I could pick from the shelf. I often need my trunk space, so a small box was important. The sub has its own amplifier and capacitator mounted in the back (in the side pockets on either side of the spare wheel).
There will be pictures of everything as soon as I get the different things in place.
Btw, thank you to cnewman402 for his excellent write up on wiring etc. That thread has helped me a lot.

//Björn

Schnitz

iTrader: (5)

Good start! Keep us posted.

PK_Celsior

iTrader: (18)

thats clean !!!!!!!!!! i wish i did something like that i just rammed my cross over into the door :x

Twix

Jeeee, now that's neat

If you ever start making these, please sell them on ebay so I can get some!

BLKonBLK98

dls 426? whats your impressions of them? what will you be running for front stage?

edtbjon

In the front I'm using the component version DLS RS6A, which costs some $30-50 more. I'm about to make the left (and last) front door tonight (and possibly tomorrow night) with some pictures along the way shot in a similar way as with the back door.
As for impressions, I havn't been able to listen to much to the speakers yet, but so far they sound very good without having all of the speakers installed. When I had the front right door speaker installed and played some music, the first thing I said was "Wow, this is really gonna sound good once I've installed the left side too." Nice "rich" midrange with a clear crisp high-range, without being to harsh.
(I havn't changed the HU, nor installed the new amplifiers yet. Hence no subwoofer at the moment. As I havn't got that much time I can only spend a few hours at a time and I don't want to sacrifice whatever kind of sound for e.g. a month or so, but I'm slowly getting there.) I mentioned in the first post that I'll probably disconnect the tweeter from the back door speakers, as I don't like having the top range coming from the back. (I.e. the same configuration as the original Pioneer system, with only midrange speakers in the back doors.) If I'd knew that when I started I would have ordered the RS6A speakers without tweeters from the beginning. (But I don't feel I'm sacrificing anything as these speakers are in the same class, i.e. good enough.)

//Björn

BLKonBLK98

cool. i scooped up some dls ref amps and decided to go with an oa8 also. only question is comps. i was looking at the ms6a in the budget class or iridiums (little more than i want to spend on this one) to keep it all dls, but may end up going with rainbow slc's since they are supposed to be better bang for the buck vs. the entry level dls.

i've also been considering a coaxial front stage and the 426/428 were the obvious choices. just not sure if it's something i'll regret doing or not.

edtbjon

I got to assembling and mounting the last front speaker today. (Outdoors, in the dark and while soldering some connections it started to rain heavily. ) Anyhow, some pictures of the different parts used to get the baffle together.
Picture 1: I had to consider the depth of the two crossovers, some 40mm, but the original plastic boxes goes quite deep into the door, so I used an 3/4" MDF behind the main 16mm MDF baffle board. There's also a 1/4" plywood board on the "bottom" of the baffle, so that I could get the crossovers properly set with screws. On top there's a 1/2" ring for the 6.5" speaker.
On picture 2 you'll see the baffle with the two crossovers and on picture 3 the woofer is mounted as well. (OK, that was not the "sharp" mounting, where I used PVC glue and a load of screws. But it came out the same.)
On picture four you see the modifications made to the tweeter, where the plastic casing was protruding below the speaker base, so I cut off some 5mm (3/16") from the bottom of the plastic ring. I also took out some plastic from the door tweeter cover so that the 1" DLS tweeter would fit. (The original tweeter is about 3/4".)
Because of the way I mounted the crossovers, I had to mount the baffle into the door without the woofer in place. I then connected all the wires to finally mount the woofer.

Now, when all four doors are done and there are DLS 6.5" speakers in all four corners I must say it was worth the effort. Even without any subwoofer the sound is soo much better than with the old 4" speakers.
As the wife was off to a exhibition with the camera, there are no pictures of how it looks in the door. I'll see if I can add them later.
Also, there's more to come, like my attempt to put an amplifier where the CD changer is located at the moment.

One more link: the info on LexLs audio section is invaluable. If you plan to do any audio work, start with checking those pages and the sticky audio thread in this forum.

//Björn

lexondubs

I like ur work nice n clean !

avalon42

iTrader: (1)

Now I know why IKEA has such great furniture...you Swedes are natural at woodwork!

Seriously, do you work for any audio shop or what?

edtbjon

No, I'm a truck driver. I do live in my own house though and I don't mind doing ... well not furniture, but rather timberwork. I do like good sound quality and while not playing instruments etc. myself, I've had a lot of friends who were poor musicians, so I became a budget roadie, building speaker boxes, soldering wires etc. every now and then.
Most of the inspiration for this project was found in the "Lexus Audio, Video..." forum on this site. There's a sticky "FAQ... " thread where some similar projects/solutions for other Lexus models are found.

Next is to rip out the CD player (above the glove department) and replace it with an amplifier. I havn't found anything on that being done before, so maybe I'm first with something, at least here among the people who posts on these forums.
While I really enjoy the smooth and silent ride, I don't want to be without a working audio system for too long. I.e. I have to plan everything so that I can replace the HU with something modern, install the door speakers amp, route the speaker wires, power wire from the battery etc.,all in one day. It shouldn't be too difficult though.

//Björn

fourthmeal

The only thing I think is a mistake is to run your crossovers in the door. As an installer, I always (ALWAYS) always install crossovers in the cabin, where moisture, extreme heat and cold, and other elements will not be an issue. Crossovers are electrical items, influenced heavily by all sorts of environmental variables which drastically affects the sound quality. Also anytime I'm creating something in the doors, I use HDPE (cutting board) plastic for baffles OR coat the wood in resin or other waterproof materials (like bedliner spray) to avoid degradation over time from exposure of the wood to the elements as well.

By running the woofer and tweeter in those front spots you may wish for an active arrangement with time alignment capabilities. Passive systems have no such compensation built into the design (exception: component speakers like the Alpine SPX-17PRO have a jumper system designed to compensate), so you might find the acoustic image smeared a bit and shifted to the left more than what feels natural.

Otherwise great brand choice, and skillful construction techniques.

edtbjon

Good points all of them. I must also admit that I would expect much higher quality from a professional compared to the prototypes I've built. (But they sound good though. )
About the quote above: First, it mimics the original setup, i.e. the same type of speakers (tweeters and woofers) are in their original spots. But I've choosen an Alpine HU (CDA105RI in Europe.) where I can plug in an "Imprint" module, which I recon can take care of the possible problem you're pointing at. Btw, is there someone who have experience with the Imprint system? Is it as good as advertized or is it a waste of money?

//Björn

BLKonBLK98

imprint was fairly popular last year, but has kind of been pushed to the side by more advanced hu/processors. you do get basics (time alignment and eq) so it should do what you need. from what i understand the multi-eq is not that great so you probably want to stick to manual tuning vs. auto.