Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 05:09:27 -0400
Reply-To: Phil Zimmerman <philzimm1@OBERON.ARK.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Phil Zimmerman <philzimm1@OBERON.ARK.COM>
Subject: Re: Front Door Speakers
On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:09:50 -0600, Jon Kanas <kanas@QADAS.COM> wrote:
>Reference: 1987 Syncro Westfalia
. I'd appreciate any hints
>about speaker and crossover selection and installation from those of you
>who have done something similar. Digital photos to my p-mail would be
>greatly appreciated.
Jon,
As you quote Dave Barry in your e-mail trailer, I will be extra nice and helpful.... Barry is a gas to
read...
I went "crazy" last year installing a system in my '87 Westie. Skies the limit if you have the time
and $$$. I had the time... a bit of $$$ and and passion (craziness really) to make a clean
sounding stealthy looking system. Went all Alpine; Head Unit, Amp and Speakers.... Many other
quality brands out there though. I have lusted, since my youth, for an Alpine system.... and their
operational menus are one of the easier ones to work with meaning: simple! You get what you
pay-for with speakers. I installed SPR's in front and SPS's in the rear. The "R's" are Alpine's mid-
level quality speakers. About twice the $$$ of the 'S's" but worth the money from my listening
perspective. Tighter, clear base, smoother sounding both at low and high listening levels. The
SPR's are components with separate higher-end crossovers. The SPS's are a coaxial with built-in
caps and coils..... call it a crossover if you will. The "S's" are Ok.... but do not deliver the punch
that the "R's" will. Mine, will resonate the floor of the Van during bass transients! Real cool... crazy
cool.... and no sub-woofer... yet. I am waiting for the technology to develop a sub woofer that can
be installed in the Sliding-Door... only about 3" deep in there..... darn!
If you want tight clear bass..... build a strong base! I utilized 1/2" thick PVC disks. Heavy, dense
(like me... or is that dunce?) and doesn't rot like MDF. With some trimming of the door's sheet
metal around the existing "power window motor" hole, I recess-mounted the 5 1/4" SPR 17 LS
speakers on their PVC discs. Focused the speakers to fire towards the middle of the front seating
area at ear level. Used stand-offs to get the discs seated at the appropriate angle. If your Van has
or you sometime-later want power windows, this will not work. The very lower part of the door....
often referred to as the kick-panel... will take a surface mounted speaker if the speaker is not too
deep. Real tight as the door is not very deep that far down... also, unless you angle the speaker Up
significantly.... most of your sound will be lost down at your feet and attenuated with the loud
road-noise in that area. And anyway, who wants to kick the crap out of their new $$$$ speakers?
The tweeters. Mounted them in the stock speaker location in a PVC parabolic half-dome. Really,
just a 2" floor drain-bell with flange for installing in a poured concrete floor. Look in the plumbing
department. Real slick for mounting the dome tweeters, fully-recessed but able to be focused to
fire into the middle of the Van at ear level again... Gosh, I am beginning to talk like Mr Bose, from
up on the Mountain.... wish I had his speakers in my Van? I have a Bose System in my house.... so
this is the standard I am shooting for...... not a chance in a noisy Vanagon! But, with enough
amps... anything is attainable.... Phasing is an issue, as already posted, when the tweeters are
mounted away from the mids-woofers. I messed with polarity on the crossovers, changed the
crossover slope and messed with the phasing available in the Head-unit..... Aaah, what phasing.....
my high hearing is pretty well gone already..... YMMV.
Worth dropping the glove-box out and take a look behind and above that puppy. Room in there
for Mr Squirrel to put another house battery in there to power his new Norcold Reefer? Anyway,
great place to stuff an Amp & Crossovers. Away from the heat of the heater-core that sits below
the stock radio-head-unit location. With a four channel Amp (MPR F240), my internal head-unit
amp is shut-off so the heat issue is kinda moot. Another benefit of the behind-the-glove-box
area is: three out of the four speaker leads are right there (Rt-door, Lt & Rt Rears).... ready to be
hooked-up to an amp and the crossovers. Had to use a bit of ingenuity to hang the Amp above
the glove box. "Well-Nuts" into the Amp's-feet, through the metal dash channel above the glove
box, again with a couple of stand-offs for clearance.... real slick. Made a two arm "V" bracket for
the other end of the Amp. Used UHMW (ultra-high-molecular-weight-polyethylene) Gads, this is
sounding like rocket science..... Great material. Cuts easily and heat-forms with a heat-gun. The
wide "V" attaches to the Amp's-feet, again with well-nuts, the narrow or small 'v' part of the
bracket attaches to an existing "boss" on the upper dash sheet metal. Perhaps difficult to
impossible to visualize my fuzzy mind-pictures here.... zzzzzzzz . Now I wasn't fibbing about the
amount of room back in there but with the amp installed..... no room for the camera! The Amp
hangs in there, disconnect the front feet and the Amps drops down and out so you can tweak the
gain settings and mess with the wiring.
Misc stuff. Take out the seats and remove the lower dash facade.... more room to work and mess-
up your Van. Sound insulate the doors well.... I used "trunk pads".... an auto-body product. Work
life a roofer! Start at the bottom of the door and work Up.... any overlapping of the pads will shed
the water that will eventually get in there. Respect the integrity of the vapour barrier..... Keep it
tight or it will vibrate and vuzzz your new sounds! Real messy to seal around the lower speakers
but necessary as, that is a wet area of the door. Another plug for the more expensive speakers,
their cones are made of some exotic material that is near impervious to H2O. You might use those
real slick foam-cans that mount behind the speaker and keep the water out.... but they also Kill
the speakers back resonance... muting the sound! I recess mounted all my speakers so made my
own speaker grills for that 'flush' look. Used a grey... gray .... whatever speaker cloth... kinda
matches the Vans interior. Used 1/8" Birch plywood for the grill-bases, covering them with the
speaker cloth and glued them onto the door panels. Finding a fast-set glue that also sticks to the
vinyl of the door panels is...... challenging.... but this whole friggen install was challenging for
this Vanagon idiot..... 8-)
Send me an autographed copy of a Dave Barry book and I will p-mail you photos of my stealth
audio installation. Reading what I just wrote.... you wouldn't be able to see a truly stealth
installation.... would you? Send the book anyway!
regards
Phil Z.
Campbell River, BC
--------------------
>
>
>"When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always
>one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command.
>Very Often, that individual is crazy."
>--Dave Barry
| 
