Quick report on my install of the Amped Garage brackets, Focal woofers/tweeters, and Faital midranges. I replaced all 3 dash speakers with the Faitals, as well as the rear doors. The center tweeter was replaced with a Dayton ND25FN-4. The Focal tweeters went into the front door brackets. The brackets made it pretty easy, although a little trimming of some of the glue was needed to make sure the speakers seated properly on the Focal brackets.
I was going from a stock premium sound system to this. Honestly, I was pretty good with the overall tone of the stock system, although it seemed lacking to me in the midrange clarity (around 1.2 - 1.8kHz) and the very high end above 12kHz or so. But more problematic to me was the lack of impact. It felt to me like the amplifiers ran out of power early, or that there was a good deal of speaker compression happening. I measured pink noise from my listening position with the volume maxed at about 86.7dB peak, A-weighted and with a slow response. Honestly, I’m not sure that the SPL meter was working quite right in a closed car, since that seemed louder to me than my studio monitors at 90dB. Measurements were made with everything centered, EQ flat.
But I do feel I lack the ability to “crank it” on a good song when on the road. The system just seems to run out of steam. I should say that I’m not a person interested in being able to rattle windows in my car or those near me with absurd bass. I want to hear a balanced set of frequencies with good separation of instruments, just like I get with studio monitors. Or close, anyway.
With the Faitals and the Focals installed, I am running a pretty similar EQ curve to before, surprisingly. (NOTE: Elon, please give us a 4-5 band parametric instead of this poor graphic EQ?) Before setting the EQ away from flat, though, I re-did the SPL test. It seems I have gained almost 5dB in potential volume, which is pretty substantial. It also feels even louder than that number would imply, since those mids that I was missing are there now and the impact/dynamic response is better than it was previously. I’ll need to spend some more time with it on the road, but I’m pleased with the improvement relative to the cost.
I will be curious to see how the bracket plastic holds up over time. It is not very stiff, and particularly the cylinder for the 8” speakers seems flimsy to me. I added some ribs to it to support it a bit more. And in some brackets, the system relies on the stiffness of the plastic to clamp down the speaker, so the screw or bolt flexes the bracket down as it tries to clamp. I worry a bit that hot/cold cycles and time will make those fracture eventually.
I should also mention that support from Amped Garage was quick and helpful, in spite of the Holidays! Thanks to them for their eager help.
