TallTexan

My wife drives our Black '08 SS with the "premium" Pioneer system. But she has been complaining about road noise and lack of bass. So what is a good husband to do on a gorgeous spring day here in Texas: Upgrade the speakers, deaden the doors. Evaluate for amp/sub afterward.

For deadener, I like http://www.raamaudio.com His 37.5ft2 pack runs $110 compared to Dynamat at over $150 for the same amount. I also like his Esolite which is a peal and stick closed foam. I probably used four squares of the deadener in one layer per door, toped by layer of Esolite. I cut the 1 foot squares down in halves or thirds depending. HHR's access panels holes are pretty big and mostly easy to work in. Now when you rap your knuckles on the outside of the door is a dull thud instead of a thud, twang ringing sound of stock.

I replaced the door speakers with Image Dynamics CX62 V2 2 ohm Mids that I got on a Christmas sale for half off the current price. Carbon Fiber cone, heavy magnet, nitrile rubber surround, phase plug, able to handle north of 125W each are all features of a high quality speaker. Its only weak spot is the frame which is composite material, aka: plastic. I would have preferred heaver cast aluminum. I went with the 2 ohm to match the existing 2 ohm load on the factory amp.

For tweeters: I had some now discontinued,Blaupunkt Velocity Vc100s left over from a component set. These were the high end for Blaupunkt and rumored to have been designed by the same guys that did the Rainbow CAL which is a highly regarded European tweeter. The tweets with crossover by themselves listed for almost $200, discount store price was around $100 and were on clearance several years ago for less than $40. Nice smooth cloth dome tweeters and able to handle upwards of 100W each.

Using the Dremel, on each tweeter I cut away the outer sliver plastic layer including the grill to make them smaller. Then used small strips of deadener as tape to fasten each tweet in the stock location with stock grill. I did raise each tweeter a layer or two of deadener up from the grill since the VC100 has a big dome and I did not want it touching the grill.

I also noticed that each stock tweeter had a small capacitor on a circuit board attached to the + lead. I was hoping that the stock pioneer system amp was a true bi-amp (actively splitting the highs and lows to their respective speakers). But my guess is not, so I put a 12db/octave filter I had hanging around onto each tweeter. But none on the door woofers.

For the rear doors, I also deadened them including Esolite. I had bought a set of 2-way Alpine speakers used off Ebay to put in that are 4 ohm. Which sound a bit softer than the stock, but I want all the sound up front and rears as only fill.

How does it sound: wonderful and plenty loud enough to seriously not consider additional amplification. I'm assuming that have separate amps for each speaker. Thus, I'm guessing the stock amp could potentially put 25-30W into the 2ohm woofers, and 15-20W to the tweeters running 4 ohms. I'd have to get an amp that would put 50W or more per channel to equal it unless I went biamp active.

Also, between the vastly improved bass of the Image Dynamics in the doors with the stock sub, the bass really sounds good up to a fairly high volume. The tweeters are a little bright, and I'm thinking about putting real crossovers (I can build) with 24 db/octave on the tweets and 12db on the woofers and putting the crossover down to around 2,750 hz and perhaps a resistor attenuation on the tweeter. So I'm off to madisound or parts express as well as the free crossover online calculators.

FYI: If you are really into car audio and a DIY, like I am, http://www.diymobileaudio.com is a great site for information. What I've done to my car ('04 Impala SS), is to buy used high end equipment as guys are always swapping out or upgrading. Usually for half the lowest discounted price. You can also find old school equipment there that, like me, you only dreamed about when you were younger and could not afford.

07azhhr

The factory amp is a tiny little 6 channel amp that powers the whole system at 2ohms per channel. It most likely is barely putting out 15w per channel to each of the six channels even at that 2ohms. The front door speakers and tweeter share 1 set of amp channels. Like you found, there is only that little capacitor on the tweeter with the mid rolling off naturally.

IMHO you could find a 15w @ 4ohms six channel amp that would get you a little louder since it would put out 25w-30w x 6 @ 2ohms. Going with something that puts out 30w @ 4ohms (60w @ 2ohms) would give you a good amount of better and louder sound.

Something you may not have noticed yet is that the factory HU has a built in eq curve that attenuates the bass at higher volumes. It also will attenuate the bass if you fade to the rear.

Just changing the HU will also net you more volume.

07azhhr

Here is the factory amp and sub/sub box

TallTexan

Thanks for the info 07azhhr. I figured a "normal" low power amp, the kind without a DC/DC converter to up the voltage, can theoretically put around 15W into 4 ohm load using 12-14 volts. Having the load to 2 ohms, the power doubles (but of course, so does the current).

I hate factory head units that: a) required for chimes, other controls, i.e. oil change reset. b) that play with eq curves based upon volume (or I've seen car speed). What I did with my Impala was to buy a power/control extension for the radio and move it to the trunk and put a small speaker there for chimes, etc. For the HHR, I really didn't want to change out the head unit if I could help it.

I've got several 4 channel amps around that I bought specifically for active biamping (crossover up to 4Khz): an old JL 300/4 v1, a Polk Momo C400.4, and a Cerwin-Vega EXL400.4. But I'd like something smaller to hide away, like under one of the back seats. But the shelf above the spare and under the rear would fit almost any amp (or two) and still look stock from the outside. You wouldn't even notice it unless you had to get to the spare. There is also a small space next to the battery. But unless I went with a multichannel class D amp, Finding a true out of the way place is kind of hard. Other Suggestions?

Edit: Did do some reading. The area I'm first thinking about is called the self and is very commonly used for amps. But in this soon to be hot Texas sun, I worry about any amp closed up like that w/o air flow. In this article: Truck In Web they put the amp under the front seat. The amp they used measured in at 12 1/2" X 9 X 2 and my amps aren't much bigger. (Of course, I'd never use MTX like they did).

I guess I'll keep looking and thinking. But heck, that's half the fun of this hobby is planning and scheming. Once its done and installed, there is nothing to do (but enjoy listening to it).

TallTexan

I just finished the job on the SS. Went with the Cerwin Vega EXL400.4 4channel with rear bridged to a ebay/used 8" JL Audio 8w3v2 sub (made for .5 cu ft). I took out the second lower removable shelf, the one that holds the spare. Then I cut out a mounting board with a curved corner to fit to the very right of the spare with the amp slightly hanging over the spare. But there is room to spare to take out the spare... sorry bad pun... Of course I love having the battery and a good ground right where you need them. Thank you GM!

I cut into the stock amp for front speakers into a RF 360.2 processor I had prior to an upgrade on my car. I also went on line and figured out what inductors and capacitors for the front tweeter/woofer. Most cheap setups get away with one capacitor on the tweet (providing a 6db/oct cutoff) and maybe an inductor for the woofer. Better component speaker sets with separate cross overs do 12db/oct by having an inductor and a capacitor for both tweeter and woofer. The next big step up is what I did for 24bd/oct using two inductors and two capacitors per speaker. This way I crossed over a little low at 2750, but very sharply allowing the tweets to get loud without distortion.
And I need to take into account my front woofers are 2 ohm and the tweeters are 4 ohm. I placed the crossovers in the small cubby holes either side of the dash"
Here is the stock sub with JL Audio left and Stock Pioneer on the right: Honestly I thought the Pioneer didn't look as wimpy as I expected). The JL only needed a single 1/2" MDF ring to give it enough depth. Again, the stock Pioneer has some depth so adapting other sub should not require a shallow mount sub.


I added some deadener to the inside of the sub and later stuffed it with loose insulation.



I also braced the stock sub a little more with a couple of angle iron corner brackets. I put a layer of MLV between the metal bracket and the car body. I also put mult layers of deadening behind the cross support bar piece that goes horizontally across the face of the sub, I also cut out from the backside, the Pioneer grill since the JL is a bit bigger.


Your probably wondering what that white (soon to dry clear) sealant is doing on my sub. Well previous ebay owner did a crappy job with a recone, I think that's why I got it a less than $20 (plus another $25 ship). I was going into distort when slightly pushed, I was also wondering where the stuffing came from in front it. I thought I'd done a poor seal or something. It was coming out a couple of crescent shaped sections of where the poly cone meats the foam surround. Needless to say it all sounded much better after some silicon caulking.

I didn't like about running aftermarket speaker wire is there is no easy way to get thru to the door. My car ('04 Impala ss) just has a fat cable bundle with room for another. The HHR has big fat connectors either side of the rubber accordion feed. So I ended up cutting into the big big bundle under the drivers foot area running back. The tan/grey was not hard to find because they were slightly bigger gauge than the other wire plus they where twisted pair. Passenger side also has a bundle of wires, but hardly a third to the other one. Finding the twisted pair of light/dark green was easy.

I also took out the front speakers and bought a $10 three piece plastic cutting boards from Target. Then, using the stock piece I drew out two pairs, stacked per side bringing the total thickness closer to 1/2" rather than a single layer ring. Use the existing top screw and put two more in the bottom. I also covered both front doors with something the audio dudes have been using the last several years: MLV mass loaded vinyl which is like a heavy mat that keeps sound from traveling thru it. Deadening helps with vibrations and their transmission. MLV blocks noise. Available in rolls from acoustic places.

TallTexan

Couple additional pics:

Amp in truck with room to spare:


Crossovers as I was building them, mounted on plexiglass and point to point wiring.

miltonfisher

Hey TallTexan does the 360.2 not have active cross overs built in? You did a nice job on the build and what a job to build the cross overs your self. I am in the final stages of tunning on my 09 SS, stock Pioneer head unit, RF 360.3, and kicker amps and components, using active cross overs the whole stage is on 24db slope. enough about mine i hope with all that work that it turned out close to what you were looking for or better just what you were looking for, nice job.
Milton

TallTexan

Milton: Thanks for the comments. The 360.2 only does front, rear, and sub. Technically I could do something like EQ the front speakers to be the tweets and the rears to be the woofer since I'm not currently running the rears thru it (they are still being powered by the stock amp), But I want to stay with just one four channel amp to handle front and sub.

I like doing active crossover and that's what I have in my '04 Impala SS. First I used 4 channel amps that could crossover as high as 4K @ 24 db/oct, like the JL 300//4 (soon to be in my son's Impala) and the Polk Momo 400.4, as well as the Cerwin Vega amp I put in the HHR. But of course, in the HHR I used the 2nd set of channels bridged for the sub and let the 360,2 handle the sub crossovering,

In my Impala, I bought the JBL MS-8 (used) which was a great piece of equipment and how easy it is to auto tune. But recently I've had left then alternating left and right side go out and come back. I've broken into it to see if it something like a loose RCA to no avail. I've now decided on going 3 way (plus sub, I guess that's 4 way) and going to replace the MS-8 with these miniDSP boards that are like $80 each (need two) that have 2 in and 4 out each and are completely PC programmable via USB cable for crossover, parametric EQ, and time delay. But much more manual tune then the MS-8.

My Impala has Dynaudio woofers and tweeters (not the Esoteric) used from DIYMoible audio forum members with a Image Dynamics 10" sub running from a big 'ole McIntosh 6 channel amp I got used with a broken glass faceplate and slightly faded heat sinks for about 1/2 of what I've seen them usually run. I've since replaced the glass at some expense from the factory. Almost my entire system in the Impala is yesterday's great equipment used at bargain prices when other people get the upgrade fever.

I need to go back to the 360.2 and run the initial setup where it EQs the factory deck and do a little more tuning since, like I mentioned the tweets are a little bright, But the wife is very happy with her new system. But dam those chimes can get loud when amped up! :)

miltonfisher

Ya I'm running tweets, front, rear, and sub, and with the 360.3 i can adjust each driver independently, its really a sweet piece of equipment. I did the initial setup to flatten the signal from the stock head unit and so far it is working out great. I also had a problem with the tweets being a little to bright had to turn the fronts up a little and the tweets down, still working on the tune to get it just right. going to a show next weekend to have some other people listen and give me a little input.

Milton