Sandy Lirag is a Southern California resident who traces his enthusiasm for car audio to his dad's 1968 Mercedes Benz 280S sedan. It came equipped with a Becker AM/FM/Mono car stereo, but dad was not satisfied with that so he added an under-dash Pioneer 8-track unit with a pair of speakers in the rear deck. Sandy caught the bug and decided to work on mom's 1974 Toyota Corona, installing a a Sanyo AM/FM cassette player. He even tried a little custom installation in mom's car, putting in a pair of whizzer cone tweeters (which he snatched out of an old pair of Pioneer home speakers) in the front left and right air vents. His mission was to emulate stereo reproduction for the front passengers. Pretty unique, especially in 1974! As more and more innovative products started to surface from companies like Pioneer, Clarion, and Jensen, Lirag's interest in car audio grew. "Those early products provided more opportunities for me to explore car audio," recalls Lirag.
Lirag's career started in telecommunication sales for a construction company and car audio was in the background as a hobby. The wrath of car audio (the products, the technology and most of all the fun) was finally too much for Lirag to overlook so he got into the business in 1985 working for a retailer. Through the years, he worked in all different aspects of the business, from retailer, to sales rep, to manufacturers sales rep. He even involved himself with IASCA as a judge from 1990-1995 to further broaden his knowledge.
In June of 2000, Lirag purchased a brand new black Volkswagen Jetta. His plans for it were quite simple, to build a project vehicle. Some of the factors that contributed to him building this vehicle are his passion in building project vehicles; the fact that he works for Boston Acoustics; and lastly, since he is a sales manager that spends lots of time on the road, he wanted some tunes to help him pass the long miles.
Currently, Lirag shares driving duties with his sixteen-year-old son Jacques and, because of that, he listens to a wide variety of music. At home, he has a high-end home system so he loves to reference recordings in the vehicle. These two factors are reasons why Lirag set up the system for sound quality vehicle with a slightly weighted bass output for Jacques.
He considered doing the installation himself, but he knew that his installation skills aren't up to the standards of today's master installers. So instead, he left it to a professional, Steven Yiu, a freelance installer out of Arizona who is credited with producing some of the most fascinating installations on manufacturers demo vehicles. Another upside to Yiu is that he understood what Lirag wanted in his installation. "I am a bit [fastidious] when it comes to setting up systems. I am a perfectionist and Steven knows that. All I had to do was convey what I had in mind once, and Steven did his magic," states Lirag.
Sourced with SONY
The Jetta utilizes all SONY ES sources. A Sony CDX-M650ES CD receiver occupies the dash. The OEM location of the radio was positioned in a fashion where it is difficult to see, so Yiu completely modified and re-positioned the radio to enhance visibility and ease of use. The spare pocket was ditched and replaced with a more appealing fascia. To spice up the rather anemic looking dash, a hand polished aluminum trim ring (which matches the shifter housing), surrounds the radio and is flushed with the fascia.
A portion of the glove box has a non-functional pocket that could barely fit a pair of sunglasses. This space was utilized to install A Sony DVP-F5 portable DVD player. A custom slide out tray, texturized to match the interior of the glove box was manufactured to help easily access the unit. This location not only keeps the unit out of sight when not in use, but it also keeps it out of the way. A 500-watt DC to AC converter was installed to provide an auxiliary power source for the DVD player. A Xantech IR repeater and remote eye, installed inside the glove box, allows Lirag to use the DVD remote from any seating position. The last source is a Sony CDX-838 10-Disc changer mounted in its own rack (along side a signal processor) in the trunk. The 10 discs allow him and Jacques to keep their favorite tunes loaded in the changer at all times.
Look!
The Jetta uses four monitors for viewing. There are two MSR 6.8" monitors up front in custom fabricated visors and two Accele Electronics 5.5" monitors in each front headrest. All the monitors share the same theme as the radio with hand cut polished aluminum surrounding them. The driver's side video monitor is dedicated strictly for navigation purposes. An Alpine NVE-N851 DVD based navigation system ensures that Lirag gets to all of his accounts without getting lost. The main unit is mounted on another custom-made rack behind the spare tire. The Xantech IR repeater helps Lirag use all the functions of the navigation system with ease.
Boston Public
One of the guidelines of the installation was to utilize the factory speaker locations. Lirag is in no mood to deal with protruding kick panels, and/or door panels. The Jetta comes equipped with components in both the front and rear doors which is the perfect configuration for two sets of Boston Acoustics new Rally RC 620. The component set is comprised of NEO3t Kortec(R) dome tweeters, midrange/woofers and dedicated crossover networks. This component set has innovative technology such as a device called AMD(TM) (Amplitude Modification Device). Basically, this metal device, which protrudes from where the dust cap should be, helps smooth the frequency response. It does this by canceling response anomalies during operation. A smoother frequency response limits excessive equalization, providing a more natural response.
To further enhance sound quality, Dynamat Extreme lines the inner and outer door skins as well as the door panel. The drivers are flush-mounted on MDF baffles bolted directly onto the factory speaker openings. The baffles were built to fill the gap between the door panel and factory speaker locations to achieve a better acoustical seal. Plus, with the speaker flush to the door panel, unnecessary sound reflections that you gain when a speaker is installed in the factory location (a few inches behind the door panel) are eliminated. As an added touch, Yiu replaced the factory grills on the door panel with color matched Boston RC grills. To realize an exact fit, Yiu used a router jig to cut a perfectly aligned hole for the Boston grill.
The stock tweeter locations were also modified. The Boston flush mount cup was used to improve sound quality and serviceability. In the rear doors, the same installation techniques were used as in the front doors. The only difference is that Lirag wanted a separate switch to allow them to be turned on or off.
Choosing a subwoofer wasn't difficult at all. Choosing the type of enclosure to be used for the woofer and its location was another story. Several tests were performed using a Boston Acoustics C110 subwoofer system. It consists of one 10-inch subwoofer and a 10-inch passive radiator installed in a prefabricated enclosure. The system was tested in several areas of the trunk compartment as well as the passenger compartment. The criterion for the enclosure required the use of "dead space" in the trunk while achieving optimum sound quality. Yiu found space behind the stock CD Changer. The C110 subwoofer system was taken apart and a new enclosure was built and massaged it into the dead space. It just turned out that this wound up being the most ideal location for the subwoofer as well as a perfect spot when in came to weight distribution. Several enclosure types were fitted into the area and Lirag decided to use a custom version of the C110 enclosure originally tested, a recommendation from his co-worker Al Patel. The passive radiator channeled its energy through a series of passages in the fender well that exited into the trunk while the subwoofer fired straight into the trunk area. When all was done, all parameters were met and the enclosure looked as if Volkswagen meant for it to be there.
Heart of the Matter
According to Lirag, the "heart of the system" lies with the Sony XDP-4000X Digital Processor. It has a wide variety of capabilities such as crossover filtering, level matching, and time alignment between the tweeter, midrange, and subwoofer. The flexibility of the piece is endless with crossover slopes from 24, 36, or 72 dB steps, left and right channel parametric equalization with 250 positions for equalization (Q-Factor), and ten EQ and crossover seat alignment settings. Whew!
Powering the system is a Sony XM-7557 5-channel amplifier. The front two channels power the front tweeters while the rear two channels power the drivers. The rear speakers are powered via a switching relay. When turned on, the relay creates a parallel connection to the front speakers. The last channel, producing 220 watts powers the 10-inch subwoofer. The amplifier rack is mounted upside down on the rear deck along with Monster Cable M Series fuse blocks. A removable trim panel for the amplifier was constructed to match the rest of the panels in the trunk.
To ensure that all the components received/transferred power and audio signals correctly, only Monster Cable products were used. From speaker cable to interconnect, to distribution blocks, this vehicle is connected. Although the factory 105-amp alternator would have probably been sufficient, it was scrapped anyway. It was replaced with a Bosch 140-amp alternator courtesy of GreedSpeed Performance.
Blacked Out
After approximately 260 hours of installation time, Lirag is extremely pleased with the installation and sound quality of his system. The project didn't end there. The exterior needed some enhancements to keep up with the unique style of the stereo installation. First, he enlisted Doug Starbuck of Riverside, California to integrate the Caractere seven-piece body kit onto the vehicle. All the emblems on the vehicle were removed excluding the VW badges. They were replaced with black chrome emblems. To further enhance the appearance of the exterior, AXIS Speed-Six 19" wheels dressed with Yokohama AVS Sports (235/35-19) replaced the rather simple looking OEM wheels. Suspension modifications include a Bilstein coil-over kit, Neuspeed front and rear sway bars, and a Neuspeed upper stress bar. Engine modifications consist of a Neuspeed air intake, exhaust w/ DTM style tips, and chip.
"This project was from the heart and was treated as such by everyone who had a hand in it. Achieving this level of fit and finish would not have been possible without some help," says Lirag. So here is the long but distinguished list of shout outs. Steven Yiu, Bob Spaner of Boston Acoustics, Stephanie Parker of Bilstein, Mark Richter of Yokohama Tires, Pete Priebe of Caractere USA, Linda Palmer of Accele Electronics, Mike Quan & Howard of HKS, Rusty Everett of Monster Cable, Doug Starbuck, Greg Woo and Aaron Neumann of Neuspeed, Bob Lee and Steve Ruiz of Stop Tech Brakes, James Chen & Tavis Tan of Axis Wheels, Robert Wilson of Modern Image, Mike Anderson of Alpine Electronics, Rick Stevenson of Sony, Jon Yorkis of the Good Guys, Femi Adegoke of MSR, Anthony Gellnas of GreedSpeed, and finally Al Patel of Boston Acoustics.
The Jetta will spend most of its time at many VW and Boston Acoustic dealer events in Southern California and is sure to be a hit with the import enthusiast. Other than that, Lirag has not concocted a long-term plan for the vehicle. For now, its primary use will be for work and play. Luckily for him, he has a long commute every day.