ChopsGS

As I have been sitting here daydreaming about all of the different mods I want to do to this car, one I've really been focusing on is the stereo system.

When it comes to my music and audio systems (both home and car audio), I'm all about sound quality, not sound quantity. That also means I like to have plenty of clean amplifier power on tap for excellent headroom for dynamic swings, as well as more subwoofers if possible as well as larger if possible. I want my subs to be able to just loaf along, not stressing at all, likewise for the amps.

I know the stock system(s) in these older GS' came with a 10" sub in the rear deck whether it be the Pioneer or Levinson unit. I've seen people upgrade that driver to a decent aftermarket 10, or make a small adapter plate/baffle to up-size to a 12" driver. I however want to go in a different route. I'm going to keep it an infinite baffle design, but run either a pair of 12's or a more preferably, a pair of 15's.

From the pictures that I've been able to find online, it doesn't look like there's a whole lot of room to mount a baffle up against the back of the rear seat. There's a hump in the trunk floor right behind the seat. I'm assuming that's all part of the fuel tank, so not much that can be done about that. If I were to mount a baffle up against the back of the seat, I'm not sure I would even be able to mount a pair of 12's there. So...

Me thinks I'm going to have to go with a larger baffle that extends out near the base of the rear window with the bottom of it angled back towards the bottom of the rear seat, so the cones of the drivers face backwards into the trunk and facing down slightly towards the trunk floor (if that all makes sense). Doing it that way, I should be able to fit a pair of 15's somewhat easily as well as still maintain 90% of the trunk space.

Of course, I will use plenty of damping material on the rear deck to minimize and/or eliminate any rattles and vibrations, but the good thing about having the subs on an angled baffle this way, I can actually utilize the stock sub opening to vent all of that bass directly into the cabin of the car instead of it just getting pumped through the back seat.

Just imagine the setup similar to this, except that the drivers cones will be facing into the trunk...

firelizard

iTrader: (1)

This doesn't add up. Good luck though, let us know how it goes.

ChopsGS

Apparently, you don't know much about high end audio then...

sbagdon

Not sure that hump in the back of the trunk is the gas tank, believe the tank is level. Believe that is just trim, to get over all the wiring from the pump/sender, etc.

It's great that you can totally lock out the trunk (for valets, give them the valet key, and lock out the trunk release by the left knee), yet that means that almost no consideration had to be paid to the space between the rear of the seat-back, and the trunk.

natman

Mounting the subwoofer in the trunk is like putting your home subwoofer in the closet and closing the door. A single good 10" will produce all the bass you could want if it's mounted where it gets a clean shot at the interior. You will want to treat the shelf so it doesn't rattle.

ChopsGS

Luckily, the GS doesn't have the fuel tank mounted like the LS. That would suck. When I finally take delivery of the GS, I'll dig around in the trunk and see what that hump is about. If it's just cabling, maybe I can re-route it. If it's cabling AND the sending unit, then I'll just have to work around it and have the subs in such a way that I can still access that area easily. I kind of find it a little odd how difficult it is to find any decent pics of the trunk interior on the internet, with and/or without the linings and carpet.

It is nice that the trunk can be locked out. With that said, I am my own mechanic, and no one drives my vehicles except my brothers and my girlfriend. No valet or other schmucks.

I'm a little lost about what you mean when you said "yet that means that almost no consideration had to be paid to the space between the rear of the seat-back, and the trunk".

ChopsGS

You must not have seen this second to last sentence in my original post... "Of course, I will use plenty of damping material on the rear deck to minimize and/or eliminate any rattles and vibrations, but the good thing about having the subs on an angled baffle this way, I can actually utilize the stock sub opening to vent all of that bass directly into the cabin of the car instead of it just getting pumped through the back seat."

A single "good" 10" driver will not cut it. It will not provide the efficiency, impact, depth, dynamics, accuracy and un-distorted headroom or a pair of properly mounted IB 15" drivers. And that rear deck will be well damped while still utilizing that stock 10" hole as the perfect vent into the cabin area.

natman

Oops, I did miss that. Mea culpa.

While this is undeniably true, I have to question how relevant it is. You're dealing with a car interior, not Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Two 15's may have more of all those things but one GOOD 10 with some power behind it will have more than enough. Are you planning on listening to music or setting off car alarms in the next block?

At the end of the day, it's your project. I'll follow it with interest. Nothing succeeds like excess, I guess.

ChopsGS

It's not a matter of ultimate output, it's a matter of getting the lowest frequencies effortlessly, more so at low volumes than at high volumes. Not only that, it doesn't matter what kind of 10" or 12" subwoofer you have and the amount of power you've got behind it, it simply doesn't have the same kind of effortless depth and clarity of a pair of 15's properly dialed in in an infinite baffle setup. No two ways about it.

As an example, I have a pair of JL Audio e110 home audio subs, a 10" driver and 1200 watts each. They are excellent for music and are also great for movies, are super clean and detailed, and dig down deep. However, they still don't reproduce those low notes the same way a pair of top notch 15's would. I know, I've had 15's before in my home systems, and car systems as well in the past.

Alphaman19

I’ve got a five channel Kenwood amp using the factory sub. Nothing special and sounds good enough for me. But last night while in the trunk I’d never paid attention to how much the shelf rattles when the driver is doing it’s thing.

Noobie sub question: What’s the best way to minimize the rattling?

sbagdon

On our '00 Camry, the rear seat-back is split 40/60, and they can both come down, to make a pass-through from the interior to the trunk. On the Lexus, I presume they used all that space, to build out as much structure as they could, not worrying about leaving a gap to pass things through. Great for rigidity, not so great for leaving gaps in the panels.

sbagdon

I can understand the OP's working to minimize effort of the components, and get the results with as little stress as possible. Knew someone with a first-gen Camry, that he built his own woofer boxes for the trunk from scratch... a math exercise, using the speaker's specs, to build the sealed boxes to a specific size, to see how big of a pair of boxes he could fit in to the trunk... and it was a ballet to get them in to the trunk, around the edges/corners, and rear bump... they filled the trunk, made it a useless space. Think they were 12s or 15s... and they produced freqs we had never heard before, effortlessly, at highway speeds. The things you remember...

ChopsGS

That's a good thing. I don't want gaps in the panels. That's just room for rattles and resonances to plague the sound. With everything being nice and rigid, that'll male the damping material that much more effective.

ChopsGS

Keep in mind, I'm not a young kid that's just wanting to throw woofers and watts into the car just to make it go "boom" that can be heard five blocks down the road.

I've designed and built plenty of systems over the years for both myself and others, typically stealth installs, typically for SQ only, and typically on the lower end of the power range. Granted, I'm no fabricator of any kind, so these systems weren't show stoppers as far as visuals are concerned. Don't get me wrong, they looked good, just not sculpted works of art like some of these systems in shows and such. But as far as sound is concerned, they were right up there with the best of them... Almost. A lot of those guys entered in local events, and typically, they won their class with much less amplifier power than the other guys. So I apparently knew what I was doing then.

This system I'm going to be designing isn't going to have heaps of power either, even on the subs. It's just going to have enough so that the amps are in their comfort zone at MY max listening volumes. At MY version of "full tilt", I want my amps to be right in the meat of their power band, so they are just loafing along and still have plenty of headroom when it's needed for those transients. That means that the drivers I choose will also be in their comfort zone the entire time. High efficiency, high-ish power handling, proper crossover points, and minimum EQ adjustments. I prefer doing as much of the tuning as I can via gains, crossover points, slopes and TA (time alignment). After I get as flat of a curve as I can doing those adjustments, then and only then do I look into EQ'ing each individual driver for the "house curve" I'm shooting for, all of which will be done through the Helix DSP.2 that I'm currently using, which is also the only item I'm saving from my current system.

As of right now, I'm not even sure what amps and drivers I'm even going to go with. I just might go with the latest version of Stereo Integrity TM65 drivers for my mids, the MkIII's. I have the MkII's currently in my Z and those things are amazing. Fairly efficient and are crystal clear and very neutral. Plus they have a huge amount of Xmax so no worries of every running them to their limits. As much as I'd love to use the same M25 tweeters, but those things are huge and deep, and I'm not certain that they'll fit in the stock locations on the sail panels.

As for the subs, who knows at the moment. I've looked at a couple but nothing really tickles my fancy yet, especially for an IB setup. I may end up going with drivers for home audio or pro audio use to get me where I want to be with those.

sbagdon

Gotta say, regardless of this conversation, the 2nd-gen GS4 feels solid... really solid... for it's age.

Anyway, to each their own. Will always say if it seems ridiculous, yet will also give respect and regard for skill-level.