how to step your system up a notch

well fellow sound enthusiasts, i decided the other day that it was time to go all out and as my first step beyond good sound and ever closer to ridiculous sound i tried out something i havent ever used yet, closed cell foam. i bought some cheap stuff off of ebay so dont hate on me because this was really just an experiment, but it was sooo worth it.

i was having a really bad door panel flex and rattle issue that basically wrecked the sound quality at high volume with music that has a decent amount of bass, even with my high pass set around 50Hz.

this is what i did:

my front doors started out like this



only a single layer of sound dampening material, this seemed to be great at first, it stopped a ton of road noise but i guess over the two years of driving and vibration from sound it may have loosened things up a bit.

i wanted to do just the door panel itself but when it came time to do it i decided to go hard or go home.

did the door panel:

before


after


and decided to go ahead and go over the door skin itself too.




i thought it would be a good idea to wrap the plastic speaker pod/mount to deaden it up a bit



now if you want to do this i should warn anyone that using a thick mat like this can cause a fit problem with your door panels if you use too much or use it in the wrong spot. i took a gamble with using basically 2 layers of 1/4" mat, a 1/2" total of extra clearance and honestly if my door panels were not already so weak and flexible i would have had a big problem when i went to put the doors back together. and it still took a little brute force to get the bottoms to snap in.

the results are nothing short of awesome, bass is tighter, mid is cleaner with less peaks and resonance, i can turn the sound up a little more without feeling like its too much or sounding like the mids are about to explode. its nice, best $60 i ever spent. i highly recommend it

my other plans for leveling up my system will be:

step 1: new speaker wire. i originally i only ran a new 18 gauge speaker wire into my doors, and i had to cut and extend them to install a different amp. i hate having chopped up wiring so its getting all new 14 gauge direct to each speaker.

step 2: re-upgrade my big 3 to 0 gauge wire. i originally did this with a nice 4 gauge but i will need more when i install the bass amp.

step 3: sound dampen the rest of my truck including but not limited to the floor, roof, fire wall, back wall, and the A and B pillars. ill be using some sort of normal "mat" and more close cell foam on top. if i could dampen my windows i would... although i think window tint has some acoustic properties and ive got plenty of that already

step 4: build a custom box, buy and install a currently unknown amp, and finally install my original RE XXX 12.

step 5: install my old diamond hex components as rear fill, in a way it hurts my heart to use these nice speakers for rear fill but i already have them and they are just collecting dust so why not use them.

step 6: new RCA's, not sure which kind and im open to suggestions.

step 7: new active crossover, my kicker KX3 works fine for now but i will want a better one, also open to any suggestions on this.

well thats about the size of it my friends, time to overhaul my system. if you guys can think of something that i havent thought of doing yet i would appreciate it. im open to any wild ideas

money isnt that big of an issue, im not rich but i dont mind waiting and saving up for something that is worth the money.