1996 Honda Accord - Love Stealth And Happiness
For processing Jeff employs Phoenix Gold's 1/3-octave equalizer, the EQ30 TI. Aside from the great features the unit has, it was an easy fit for the install. It's bolted to the car with aluminum brackets attached to an MDF panel. It's covered with a piece of acrylic to protect the sliders from being moved. Finally a fiberglass trim panel painted black highlights the EQ30. As for crossovers Jeff has two Xtant CM24X's. They are set up for high pass at 50Hz and low pass at 70Hz at 24dB per octave. Power comes from Xtant as well, the X603 3-channel amp. It runs all ten of the car's speakers. The amp was chosen for its high performance and flexibility. It has two passive channels that parallel off of the front channels; and it also doubles its power into 2 ohms. Other features include a built-in noisegate, cooling fan, and line drivers, all in a single chassis. The amp is mounted on a rack made of MDF and fiberglass and is mounted to the car behind the sub enclosure.
The ten speakers consist partially of MB Quart's PSD 316 3-way set for the front. They have wet powder coated cones to reduce unwanted distortion; the tweeters are made of pure titanium for extended and linear frequency response. The 6" midbasses are mounted in the factory location in the doors (which were taken off the car so that Jeff could access all of the space inside to apply over 25 square feet of Dynamat Original and Extreme per door.) To go along with the car's factory look Jeff and Doug used the factory plastic kick panels as a template for the new fabs that would hold MB Quart 4" midranges and 1" tweeters. Two MDF baffles were made in a similar shape as the factory kickpanels; then they were positioned for the best possible sound stage and secured to fiberglass molds on the floor area. Fleece was wrapped around the baffles and molds and fiberglassed together. After being sanded smooth the kickpanels were covered in factory matching heat-formable vinyl. The speakers disappear into the car when the custom fabricated grilles are inserted.
The rear speakers are also from MB Quart. Jeff included the RKC113 for his wife's sake. She enjoys rear speaker sound and requested that. The guys took the factory 6 x 9 holes and made baffles, positioning the coaxial speaker at each end, leaving enough room to put a three-inch fan on each side. They can be activated by a switch in the center console and blow cool air into the amp rack while pulling out the hot air. All of this is hidden behind the rear factory grilles.
Xtant's 10" "A" series subwoofers take care of the low frequencies. They are behind the rear seat, facing forward in an enclosure that Doug made from MDF and fiberglass. The box is about 1.5 cubic feet. The system was designed for sound quality and Jeff says it meets all of his needs (except for reaching the 130dB SPL requirement for competition)!
In keeping with the stealth theme, Jeff kept the wiring tidy by doing what a car maker would do if they were to build superior audio systems. Every wire is secured every three to sixes inches and also color-coded for service. He used all the same factory colors, contours, materials and textures throughout the car.
When all the panels are in place you really can't see a thing. But for added security Jeff installed the Avital 6501 alarm system. It protects all entry points on the car and features a remote start function. Jeff plans to add XM Satellite radio, a new sub box for higher SPL numbers, and maybe video ("if she's a good girl," he says). For now Bridget is happy with what she has, enjoying her favorite tunes by various artists from Jill Scott to Staind.
Thanks go out to Doug Potter, Chris Shipley, Tim Woolston, Scott Coons and Jason Plank, as well as reps of the car audio manufacturers. And Jeff would like to thank Bridget of course for letting him work on her car.