I had tacked onto another thread but I am going to move my "build" over to this thread.
I went ahead and took the plunge today. I have the 14 speaker system and ordered the 62.9i kappa and 1031t tweeters. The sound is much cleaner than the stock setup, comparable to my Lex GS stock system. Lacks some mid bass but I am pretty sure it will sound better as the speakers break in/loosen up. I used the stock mounts with the bose speaker guts removed. Dynamatted the door and sealed the speaker and mount together and to the door frame.
Not pretty but solid as hell (rigid mounts are the best when trying to seal off a speaker). Use epoxy to seal any potential gaps between the stock Bose speaker mount and the new Infinitys. The speakers are screwed to the mount which is the primary method of attachment.
The Dynamat is on the backside of the door panel, sorry no picture but not rocket science.
I am VERY pleased with the results. The new woofers give a good deal more bass (some is probably due to sealing the door up as well) than I thought but the real highlight is the tweeters on the upper doors. Much much better sound. On the co-axle woofers I have the tweeters at -3db and the imaging is really good.
I would like more "deep" bass so I pulled the trunk liners out and started looking around. Found out that I have a full size spare which was a cool find.
There is FAR more bass in the trunk than in the cabin (with the deck lid open) so that got me to thinking......there are NUMEROUS holes on the trunk skin, some of which must undoubtedly find their way into the cabin. In an infinite baffle (stock) system it is extremely important for the cabin to be sealed from the trunk.
Sealed up all the holes in the parcel shelf (the openings for the, I assume, base audio rear speakers were leaking badly. There is a cover on them from the top (much like Dynamat material) but it was not sealed well). Also pulled out the stock sub and used some weatherstripping to seal it better in the parcel shelf. Found a few more holes from the top that I could not reach from the trunk area. The rear seat "bulkhead" is pretty well sealed and did not need too much work. The ski pass through already has a pretty good weatherstrip type seal on it BUT you must seal around the plastic door flange. The ski pass through is on a "plate" that is bolted to the trunk bulkhead. Thinner sheet metal was used for some reason. I Dynamatted the plate and now it has a much more solid sound when hit with a mallet.
Pictures of the "sealed" trunk:
The sound output is now vastly improved from the stock sub and I mean vastly. I used about 1/2 a roll of Gorilla tape , Dynamat and two cans of "Great Stuff" expanding foam. LOTS of trimming and sanding makes the mods pretty much invisible. It is a bit harder to close the trunk now and you can see the sub move (from the top of course) when closing the trunk which leads me to believe that most of the air leaks have been sealed.
Also, Dynamatting the center of the spare wheel well really helped to quiet down road noise (and exhaust noise). Really thin metal there:
I went ahead and installed a Kenwood old school KAC 744 amp today to drive the door speakers. I used two Line Output Converters from PAC attached to the stock Bose amp outputs. Worked out REALLY well. Looking at the Bose amp in the car all of the door speaker outputs are on the far left connector. Pinouts are in the FSM. The remote for the Kenwood is on the far right connector, brown wire (only brown wire) on the far right.
The LOCs are on top of the factory Bose amp:
I ran the power wire (4 gauge) through the bulkhead connector under the windshield on the passenger side. Ran stiff wire around the factory grommet down behind the glovebox (pull the passenger under panel off and you'll see the wire. Attached the power cable and pulled it up. Drilled a small hole in the grommet and poked the power wire through. Then to a block fuse and then the batter terminal. Went back and sealed the wire to the grommet with silicone (don't want any water dripping inside the cabin):
Drilled a small hole in the lower trunk firewall , put a grommet in, and pulled the wire through:
Not pictured but I also ran speaker wires under the front seat for if and when I install Aura Bass Shakers to compliment the sub.
So far, really happy with the sound improvement. The Kenwood really woke up the Infinitys (no real surprise there going from maybe 20 watts to 50 watts/channel. They put out a LOT more bass now even with the 20hz subsonic filter on.
Let me know if you have any questions.
