--- Disclaimer ---
I am also posting this to the Accord forums, which is why some of the content is a bit "dummied" down.
I am not a professional. I am doing this in my spare time for fun. I'm glad to answer any questions you have. Please keep the haterade to a minimum.
This is going to be my worklog for my 2008 coupe. I will be updating it regularly.
My goal is to achieve the best SQ I can without getting ridiculously expensive. I saved money by purchasing cheap amps and sub. I don't care about SPL, so I don't need a ridiculous sub setup. My interior speakers are much more important to me, which is why I spent the cash for the Polyglasses and the Pioneer HU. From my experience, the quality and care of the install is much more important than the gear used. You can make 2 grand components sound like crap if you don't install them properly.
I mostly listen to punk, dance, and hip hop, with a good amount of 80s. So I need a system that is flexible and able to reproduce those genres well. I know the car is a very imperfect listening arena, but I set out to try and emulate my studio monitors at home.
I will be updating this post/thread as I go along with my install.
Head Unit - Pioneer deh880prs
Front Stage - Focal Polyglass 165cv1
Rear Stage - Phoenix Gold RSD65
Sub - Alpine Type E 12
Amps - 1 Power Acoustik 150x4 /// 1 Power Acoustik 90x2 Bridged @ 240x1
Deadening - Raammat and Ensolite
Rear Deck -
The first thing I decided to tackle was deadening the rear of the car. Just because... not in any particular order. Took out the rear deck, and applied deadening to the underside of the plastic cover. The Raamat is designed to add mass, and stop rattles and reverberation, not to absorb sound. Ensolite is designed to absorb soundwaves, and I will be installing that later onto the rear deck.
Rear Grills + Speakers -
Usually, for SQ applications, you do not want to have a rear soundstage, as it can mess up imaging. I actually like having a bit of detail coming from the rear, and decided to keep a rear soundstage. However, you do NOT want to have too bright of a setup, since the human ear can pick up high frequencies much more directionally than the low. I did not set out to buy a comp set, as there are no locations to put the tweeters, but the Phoenix Gold RSD's were a fantastic value, and give great midbass response.
I had to decide where to mount the tweeters, and decided it'd be safest to just modify the stock grills. The grills are actually only "grills" directly over the 6.5 speaker, the rest of the grill is solid plastic, and wouldn't let any sound through. I figured if I totally messed up, I could just buy another set from the parts department. I cut a hole in them for the tweeters to be mounted to. I added two layers of speaker grill fabric over the tweeters firstly because they were too ugly to be mounted naked, and secondly to help attenuate them a bit to avoid having too bright of a rear soundstage.
I am also posting this to the Accord forums, which is why some of the content is a bit "dummied" down.
I am not a professional. I am doing this in my spare time for fun. I'm glad to answer any questions you have. Please keep the haterade to a minimum.
This is going to be my worklog for my 2008 coupe. I will be updating it regularly.
My goal is to achieve the best SQ I can without getting ridiculously expensive. I saved money by purchasing cheap amps and sub. I don't care about SPL, so I don't need a ridiculous sub setup. My interior speakers are much more important to me, which is why I spent the cash for the Polyglasses and the Pioneer HU. From my experience, the quality and care of the install is much more important than the gear used. You can make 2 grand components sound like crap if you don't install them properly.
I mostly listen to punk, dance, and hip hop, with a good amount of 80s. So I need a system that is flexible and able to reproduce those genres well. I know the car is a very imperfect listening arena, but I set out to try and emulate my studio monitors at home.
I will be updating this post/thread as I go along with my install.
Head Unit - Pioneer deh880prs
Front Stage - Focal Polyglass 165cv1
Rear Stage - Phoenix Gold RSD65
Sub - Alpine Type E 12
Amps - 1 Power Acoustik 150x4 /// 1 Power Acoustik 90x2 Bridged @ 240x1
Deadening - Raammat and Ensolite
Rear Deck -
The first thing I decided to tackle was deadening the rear of the car. Just because... not in any particular order. Took out the rear deck, and applied deadening to the underside of the plastic cover. The Raamat is designed to add mass, and stop rattles and reverberation, not to absorb sound. Ensolite is designed to absorb soundwaves, and I will be installing that later onto the rear deck.
Rear Grills + Speakers -
Usually, for SQ applications, you do not want to have a rear soundstage, as it can mess up imaging. I actually like having a bit of detail coming from the rear, and decided to keep a rear soundstage. However, you do NOT want to have too bright of a setup, since the human ear can pick up high frequencies much more directionally than the low. I did not set out to buy a comp set, as there are no locations to put the tweeters, but the Phoenix Gold RSD's were a fantastic value, and give great midbass response.
I had to decide where to mount the tweeters, and decided it'd be safest to just modify the stock grills. The grills are actually only "grills" directly over the 6.5 speaker, the rest of the grill is solid plastic, and wouldn't let any sound through. I figured if I totally messed up, I could just buy another set from the parts department. I cut a hole in them for the tweeters to be mounted to. I added two layers of speaker grill fabric over the tweeters firstly because they were too ugly to be mounted naked, and secondly to help attenuate them a bit to avoid having too bright of a rear soundstage.
