Project 'BOSE BE GONE!' audio upgrade completed

[Ckynus]

So can I hire you to do mine?

 

[SavedByFaith_]

Outside the car for music consumption you can usually find me sitting with a big smile in the sweet spot of my 2-channel setup on main floor at home which consists of a pair of Klipsch La Scala AL5s paired with dual stacks of SVS SB-3000s. It's otherworldly, and pretty much my personal sonic nirvana where I regularly enjoy listening sessions that last for hours on end.

Amazing home setup too!

I have 3.1 home theater
2x KEF LS Meta II
KEF Center 250 (I think K250c?)
1x SVS PB 1000 (looking to upgrade to the 2x pb 1000 or 2000 pros)

 

[Mud]

Thanks! Not following on "..shame it's in a Nismo" though. What's wrong with NISMO?

Nothing wrong at all with the Nismo, it's the best of the Zs.
Adding the extra weight seems to go against the Nismo sprit to me.
Top notch install regardless.

 

[Mr. Mac]

So can I hire you to do mine?

Appreciate the vote of confidence and offer, but unfortunately don't have the extra bandwidth to take on other projects. Did however provide all the gear/specs/dimensions in OP for system should anyone else want to tackle the project for themselves, or have a competent shop do it with the already tested/proven plans.

 

[Mr. Mac]

Amazing home setup too!

I have 3.1 home theater
2x KEF LS Meta II
KEF Center 250 (I think K250c?)
1x SVS PB 1000 (looking to upgrade to the 2x pb 1000 or 2000 pros)

Nice! Kef makes some great stuff.

Regarding SVS; If you can possibly bump up to the 3000 series I recommend that you do. They're quite a bit ballsier for not that much more dough.

 

[Mr. Mac]

Nothing wrong at all with the Nismo, it's the best of the Zs.
Adding the extra weight seems to go against the Nismo sprit to me.
Top notch install regardless.

Ah, yeah, I understand what you mean. Adding weight is certainly a contradiction for what the NISMO is intended to be, but the reality is I'll never track the car, and the experience of proper music reproduction while driving is much more important to me than the fractions of a second that might be gained with slightly less weight. The NISMO's performance level already exceeds my comfort level for pushing things while driving. FWIW, total additional weight for everything I've done is under 50 pounds, which is about the weight of a spare tire, and since I don't carry one (AAA all the way!) I figure it's about a wash lol.

 

[Mrdeep]

Working on getting my audio up to par, and appreciate the details. I seriously can't believe how bad the stock premium sound is. I thought people were exaggerating, but wow is it bad.

I have a 10W7 and a slash amp I pulled out of my 370 that I'll be putting in the new Z along with an alpine power pack I had for the front speakers.

A few questions for you

1. Is there a reason you went with the 6.5s vs the 6x9 speaker for the door speaker? I had 2 JL audio c2650s in my old Z and loved them, but didn't know if going with a 6x9 would provide any advantages this time around.

2. Did you do anything to help get better quality out of the rears? Everything I've read, seen, and experienced says that it's incredibly hard to make any speaker sound good back there.

3. Did the stock head unit suffice for everything you needed? I'd love to keep the OEM unit If it makes sense.

4. Has the sound deadening helped with road noise? I'd love a quieter cabin. I don't mind exhaust and engine sounds, but the road noise is a bit much.

 

[Mr. Mac]

Working on getting my audio up to par, and appreciate the details. I seriously can't believe how bad the stock premium sound is. I thought people were exaggerating, but wow is it bad.

I have a 10W7 and a slash amp I pulled out of my 370 that I'll be putting in the new Z along with an alpine power pack I had for the front speakers.

A few questions for you

1. Is there a reason you went with the 6.5s vs the 6x9 speaker for the door speaker? I had 2 JL audio c2650s in my old Z and loved them, but didn't know if going with a 6x9 would provide any advantages this time around.

2. Did you do anything to help get better quality out of the rears? Everything I've read, seen, and experienced says that it's incredibly hard to make any speaker sound good back there.

3. Did the stock head unit suffice for everything you needed? I'd love to keep the OEM unit If it makes sense.

4. Has the sound deadening helped with road noise? I'd love a quieter cabin. I don't mind exhaust and engine sounds, but the road noise is a bit much.

Hi

1. – Yes, I wanted Focal's upper end components for front stage and they do not offer a 6"x9" component midbass/range driver. Besides, there's very little performance differences between 6"x9" and 6.5" drivers when executed properly in this type of setup.

2. – Yes, I upgraded the rear drivers, sound damping treatment applied all around them behind their panels, properly processed them via VXi's DSP, and applied substantially cleaner and more power to them than factory had with VXi amplifier. Keep in mind though that I build my systems with priority of a very solid front stage, because after all that's how music is normally listened to, so the rears are setup to only act as fill to widen the sound stage, not overpower it. When rear fill is done correctly you don't really hear the rear speakers, rather they should melt into the front stage by simply broadening it, and that's exactly what this setup does.

3. – Yes, stock head unit works just fine when tapping the unadulterated, low-level signal from it before the factory amplifier. No DSP correction needed of factory signal from head, only signal level matching into VXi amplifiers.

4. – Yes, sound damping does two things; reduces road noise and eliminates any unwanted/annoying resonance of metal and plastic panels.

 

[ohmyfairladyz]

Thanks! Not following on "..shame it's in a Nismo" though. What's wrong with NISMO?

I think he means shame you had to upgrade the Nismo system because its a weak set up and doesn't have good quality sound.

 

[JonnyG]

Beautiful and very clean unstall - props. I just glad I hardly have my systrm on - sounds of the car are it for me. Again, impressive work

 

[Ckynus]

Have you considered replaicing the "BOSE" branded grills with the generic unbranded grills from the sport trim? I feel like after you put so much effort into this that Bose should not be able to take the credit.

 

[Mr. Mac]

Have you considered replaicing the "BOSE" branded grills with the generic unbranded grills from the sport trim? I feel like after you put so much effort into this that Bose should not be able to take the credit.

Hi - Yep, had considered that, but if memory serves correct from when I was doing the install, the door speaker grilles are integral with the door panels themselves, which is an entirely different task/expense than simply swapping grilles. May take another look sometime if the urge ever happens to hit and looking for something to fiddle with. Doubtful though because the reality is nobody ever looks down there anyway. It's just visible here in pictures.

 

[Ckynus]

I never liked the audio in the car but didn't have the motivation to do something about it till I came across this thread hear, so thank you.

As I have started looking into an audio upgrade I noticed much of the "bad sound" is coming from the rear speakers. Furthermore I suspect it isn't just the speaker but the plastic housing that they mount within. How did you remedy this issue?

 

[Mr. Mac]

I never liked the audio in the car but didn't have the motivation to do something about it till I came across this thread hear, so thank you.

As I have started looking into an audio upgrade I noticed much of the "bad sound" is coming from the rear speakers. Furthermore I suspect it isn't just the speaker but the plastic housing that they mount within. How did you remedy this issue?

No sweat.

The rear speakers, which factory ones are 3.5-inch full-range, aren't installed an actual housings, rather secured to the backside of their respective plastic interior panels. What I did was simply upgrade the factory rear speakers with aftermarket 3.5-inch coaxial speakers and mounted them to the exact locations as the factory ones that were removed. I then applied sound damping material to the backside their interior panels to seal up any air gaps between speakers and panels, as well as eliminate unwanted resonance. Because I value a very solid front stage when listening to music, IMO rear speakers really shouldn't be heard so much as used as just a bit of fill to create ambiance and broaden the front stage. I do this by processing the rear fills entirely differently than the front stage (bandpass filtering, EQing, time delay, etc.). End result is fantastic where all the music sounds as if it's coming from beyond the windshield out on the hood and feels a lot bigger space in cabin with rear fills doing their job without detracting from the front stage.

 

[zermatt]

Hello Sir;

Your post has motivated me to get this project rolling on my end.
I have a couple of questions.

A: I was thinking about using Audison or Hertz speakers? Any experience with them or reliability?
B: For the rear speakers, Is there 2 to 3 inch clearance in the back of the speaker? I was thinking about using a Audison Foce 3 inch there. Would adding a four inch be feasible.
C: Was the pioneer 3.5 Coax a better sounding then the Bose unit.
D: I was thinking about using a coax on the doors - I see you went with 6.5-inch midbass/midrange in that area. Any sence of HF missing in your system?
E: I see the FRAK tweeter has unique freq responce (600 Hz - 32 kHz). Is it a warm sounding?
D: Did you replace all of the speaker cable and interconnects?
E: Does the JL Audio amps allow for individual crossover modifications on each speaker and which would eliminate the passive crossover boxes.
F: Is your source a phone or a DAP.

Thks in advance:

Joseph