GeNNiX

After waiting a little over a month due to stock issues, I finally received my RE Audio SE12 subs this past week. These things are dead sexy if you ask me! Sorry for the dog hair on the subs, that beast of a dog sheds all over the place.








They're being pushed by a Kicker ZX1000.1 amp for now. Even with the gain basically off and a Die Hard Platinum deep cycle battery, my headlights still dim like crazy. Now that the weather is starting to get warmer, I'll be crawling under the hood and doing the big 3 upgrade to see if I can help ease the pain.

These things sound awesome. They're so much tighter and cleaner sounding than my L5's. They also play much lower. While the low notes aren't as loud as some of the higher frequency ones (to be expected), you can certainly hear/feel them, unlike with the L5's which seemed to just putter out. They sound great with rap and rock music, and are very responsive. They seem to keep up with quick kick drum beats quite nicely, IMEHO. (In My Ear's Humble Opinion) Overall I'm very pleased.

Next on the list is some nice components for the doors. Something that has a nice midbass to it, and a smooth tweeter. I'll deaden the doors when I find what I want to put in there. I'm also going to find the source of the most annoying phantom rattle in my trunk. Well, it seems like there may be two of them. One sounds like it's coming from the floor of the trunk, so I'm wondering if it's that bolt that hold the spare tire in. I may just rip that thing out and see how it sounds. The other sounds like it's almost coming from the rear deck/back window area. You can only hear it when higher frequency notes play. Even with the deck lid ripped off and second skin on there, it's still extremely audible. Any ideas anyone?

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

go with the re door speakers too... the coaxes are real nice

GeNNiX

How about the components? I was looking at the 6.5C's since they're 4ohm. I know they're about 50rms, but do you have a rough idea how much power they can handle? For now, I'd like a speaker that can fill the midbass/midrange pretty well. I have dreams of eventually adding some dedicated midbass to the doors, but we'll see where that goes. That'll require a new high amp purchase, which I plan on doing eventually since mine is a little on the underpowered side.

dman090

Re Ftw!!!

stinkyfisherman

nice man. Now you just need them in a custom box

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

never heard them actually. sry

WVsuperSS

my buddy has one 15 and it is sooooo loud.... those should sound sweet....

Spun

iTrader: (1)

As for your rattles, the one thats sounds like its coming from the floor could be the bolt for the spare tire or if you look on the passenger side in the trunk, directly below the antenna, under the carpet there is a plastic-rubber piece built into the side of the car, its a vent ment to let air out when close the doors, I riped it right out, it rattles more on the outside than on the inside though.

The decklid...is a nightmare, the reason it still rattles after you riped the top part out is because it is actually 2 pieces of metal, there not welded in all contact spots so there vibrating against each other, invest in a lot of sound dampner, and try to fill the gaps in the metal with something (foam or even towels will help)

The big 3 should help but IMO you will need a better battery somewhere down the line

Nice setup, don't let the rattles get to you, there are many of them and they take a while to track down

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

speaking of rattles how all did u get rid of the ones in the rear bumper again?

stinkyfisherman

pull the bumper off? lol

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

lol ya im going to need to do so eventually (ill put it back dont worry) but i dont want to.

stinkyfisherman

I need to do the back bumper too in something. Im also thinking about sludging all my wheel wells too so I can cut down on road noise more.

GeNNiX

I've taped open the vent in the back already to stop a couple of those rattles. I've also put second skin on a few of the areas on the bottom side of the lid where some of the metal was rubbing together also. It cut down on a few of the rattles, but I must be missing some areas since it's still noisy as hell back there. I haven't gotten around to messing with it much more since I just got back from a business trip. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to rip out the stuff in the trunk and try to get to some more of the rattles back there.

GeNNiX

Bringing this one back from the semi-dead. :P

I decided to put part of my tax refund to good use and just pull the trigger on all the audio stuff I wanted.

RE XXX 6.5c components - http://reaudio.com/components.html

Kicker ZX650.4 Amp to run them - http://www.kicker.com/zx_amplifiers

30' of KnuKonceptz 0 gauge for big 3 upgrade along with some new battery terminals.

Kinetic HC2000 battery - http://www.kinetikaudio.com/hc2000.asp

And of course the RE SE12's and Kicker zx1000.1 mentioned at the top of this thread.

I'm leaving the pioneer 6x9's I have in the back for now, but I'm pretty sure I'll replace them with some RE 6x9's eventually.

I think I should have enough Second Skin left to dampen the doors pretty well. If not, add that to the list also.

I'm really pumped for the XXX's to get here next week. Those things are monsters! 4" mounting depth. Hope they fit. If not, I think I have a couple of 1" 6.5" speaker spacers that should fit the bill nicely.

After giving a quick listen to some of the rattles in my trunk, I think one is coming from one of the sub terminals on the back of the box. I'll replace the terminals with some beefier terminals this weekend from another box of mine. I don't like the plastic spring loaded clip action that those have going on. They seem kind of flimsy. I decided I'm going to take out everything in the trunk and just start tapping to see if I can find some loose points, then patch them up with second skin. I found a few a while back which helped, but we'll see what I can accomplish with a completely empty trunk.

I'll be sure to take some more pics when I get everything.

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

what knu wire did you go with btw?

GeNNiX

I went with the KLMX Kable 1/0 gauge. This should work alright, shouldn't it?

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

ya but the Kolossus is so much better. i have a vendeta for copper clad wire.

too bad ur so far away id really like to hear ur system. oh and get some second skin or dynamat extreme to put in the doors. you dont have to go crazy (although u can) but even something like the second skin speaker kit with 2 small sheets for both doors would help out alot

GeNNiX

I *almost* went with the Kolossus wire. I have no idea why I didn't.

I've still got a little more than 25 feet of Second Skin Damplifier sitting in the garage from my last install. I've touched up a few spots with this system, but I never went into it very much because I knew I'd just want to slap it on everything, and funds were low at the time.

Hopefully that'll be enough to do the doors and takle some more of the trunk noise. I've already got a layer on the top and bottom of the rear deck. It was horrid before, now it's semi tolerable. :P

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

ya hit the wheel well too. the doors dont need to much but it helps. outer door skin is what makes the biggest difference

GeNNiX

So I did some poking around in the trunk this evening. I put second skin in a few places to quiet down some spots. I took out the spare tire completely and took out the bolt in the bottom which helped too. I found two major rattle points, which were just as I had suspected: The speaker terminals on the back of the box. I tried putting a few pieces of second skin on the backs of them but they're still rattling like crazy. Any thoughts on how to kill off those rattles? With the terminals out of the box and the holes plugged with my hands it sounds really nice.


Once I got everything back in, I turned the car on and had TERRIBLE alternator whine. I got it on my last pioneer head unit (current is a Avic F700BT), so I pretty much knew how to fix it. I stripped a long piece of speaker wire, grounded all of the rca's together, then hooked the wire under a screw on the back of the head unit. Pioneers are notorious for that problem, and it sucks that such a new head unit (got it for Christmas) is already giving me problems, but it was a simple fix.

Power wire and battery terminals arrived yesterday. The Kicker ZX650.4 and Kinetik HC2000 will be here tomorrow, and the RE XXX 6.5c's will arrive on Monday. I'll probably hook up the 650 and battery this weekend sometime, then dampen the doors and install the 6.5c's next week. I'm starting to get really excited.

GeNNiX

So I got my Kinetik HC2000 and Kicker ZX650.4 today. I nearly threw my back out carrying the Kinetik up the stairs. This thing is a beast!



All I can say is goodbye dimming! Hopefully...


The theme of the day must be HUGE cause... DAMN this amp is big. It dwarfs my 1000.1 by at least 4-5 inches. I guess that's to be expected since it's AB. Here's a few pics:





Here it is sitting on top of a large pizza box for a kind of lame size comparison. Ignore my sister's bottle of JD in the background.



The Amp's birth certificate.



Now there's no way in hell that amp is fitting on the back of the seat like it's 200.4 little brother. The other seat already has the 1000.1 on it, so it looks like I'll be building an amp rack, or mounting it to the floor, or something. My trunk is already ghetto looking, and the floor is already flimsy enough that I shouldn't be drilling holes into it, so I was thinking about tracing the whole carpet, and cutting out the pattern on some 1/4" or 1/2" MDF, then hinging it in the front so you could get to the battery. Then mounting some angled shelves on one side, or both sides to hold the amps and cap. That would give me something to hide the rat's nest of wires behind that's already going on in my trunk. Anyone know where I can get some carpet that at least comes close to the stock carpet color?

I'll start attempting to sketch up a design this weekend, then hopefully have something that's workable by next weekend when I'll have the chance to purchase materials and get some actual work done. For this weekend, I'm going to try to stop the speaker terminal buzzing that's going on with my box. I'm going to go grab a tube of clear silicone caulking and see if I can't stop the air that's escaping back there. I'll probably go ahead and fit the HC2000 in also, and try to wish away my dimming headlights.

brickloaf

you should get new speaker wire inside the box, it looks like a pre-fab. i had the same thing and i switched it out with some 12 gauge and it got ALOT louder

GeNNiX

It's not prefab. By that I mean it didn't come with the box. That being said, I agree with you, and have already made some steps to fix that. I've got about 25 feet of KnuKonceptz 10 gauge speaker wire sitting here that's going into the box before I seal up the speaker terminals with silicone. I basically used that wire to make sure that the subs actually worked, and it's just been in there ever since.

EmperorJJ1

iTrader: (5)

how big are the holes for the terminals? and are they those stupid push in style? i could get you a pair of the nice screw in terminals along with some carpet if u needed it

brickloaf

i forreal just pulled out the terminals and i run wires straight from amp to sub, i put some sealant around the holes to make it airtight