Some great progress tonight. The Helix V Eight DSP is all hooked up and it works! I had to get the laptop in the car to make some adjustments and setup, but the intial configuration is done. I immediately noticed the sound coming out of the stock speakers is improved and clearer.. and can get louder. I plugged in a UMM-1 microphone into the laptop and did some quick real-time analysis. I'm made some minor tweaks to the EQ to bring up and down a few frequencies just to try it all out. I haven't figured out the automatic tuning quite yet.
This DSP is crazy powerful and all the tools are amazing! I can't wait to get the new speakers in, and also get the subwoofer running.
The subwoofer however, is another problem at this point. If I leave my M One subwoofer amp attached to the power, I still keep getting that error message about the electrical system. At this point, I've talked with other installers about how they are doing the model 3/Y. It seems like most avoid the penthouse and run straight off the battery in the front. I figured at this point, no harm in trying it. I'm going to get some more 4ga wire and make a run up there.
If that doesn't work, then the backup plan is either to buy a subwoofer amp with less capacitance (like the NVX VADM1), or just run the sub off the V Eight's last 2 channels. I originally was going to do that, but decided I wanted the rear speakers in the doors to work still. With the V Eight and the amount of speakers I'm running, you'd need another 2 channels to do it. I suppose in hindsight, going with the V Twelve would let you run the whole show off one box! I could also run the sub off those two channels and then use the line outs to drive a small 2-channel amp to run the rears.. or heck, I could just run the rears off the stock headunits... but it's a lot harder to match volumes without using the DSP.
