Ok this is what I now have in my possession awaiting installation at the end of this month.

JL 500/5 amp
MB Quart 218.61 comps 6 1/2 inch
Infiniti Kappa 63.5i coax's 6 1/2 inch
Polk/Momo 10 inch sub sealed enclosure

I checked exotic auto boutique here in my neighborhood. They are notorious for some really wicked sound system jobs and have had several of their works showcased in different auto audio mags. They were very friendly, courtieous and best of all...the person behind the counter did NOT act like a know it all. I hate know it alls.

He was very frank and polite. Quoted me 300 for the job.

I questioned him regarding dynamatting the car. He said for the system Im having done it doesnt seem necessary but its hard to tell until the system gets installed. He informed that after the system is installed they can better judge if the sytem will require anything additional. What do you think Al?

I am pretty much mentally set on dynamatting the friggin ride even without a system just to kill alot of that harsh road noise. I live in NYC. The roads here suck like old stink boiled eggs. The darned car rattles everywhere...and I dont even have a sound system installed. I only have 3500 miles on it. Surely dynamatting will help kill a noticeable percentage fo this road noise and rattles. Will it?

'04 G coupe TB Graph 5A (all options except NAV and SAT).
No Mods.....yet

"Hello Everybody...My name is Black and I am a G-oholic."

 

hey BB,
300 sounds like a fair deal.

Dynamatting: I actually agree with the guy about putting the system in and then hitting the trouble spots. Most of the rattles that you (and I ) have are from the actual plastic finishers (panels) either rubbing/vibrating against each other or the metal or where they snap into the metal itself.

By dynamatting the metal, you lessen or reduce outside road noise and keep the panels themselves from vibrating as much.

In terms of the road noise, I was getting this really high pitched noise from the back seat area. Turns out it was the fuel pump. I laid down a layer of dynamat directly over the rear seats and the noise went away enough so that it's not noticeable. While I was at it, I dynamatted the the rear wheel wells. The factory already has some sort of deadener on them but the extra layer of dynamat helped out a lot in terms of road noise. Another way to get rid of road noise is to get a spray type deadener that you can spray on the inside of your wheel well liners. This is much easier and much more inexpensive than dynamat.

With that said, it's not that bad of an idea to dynamat everywhere anyway. It's time consuming if you do it yourself and very expensive if you pay someone to do it. Again, I would do the install and then look for the trouble spots to save time and $.

Sounds like you're getting close. All of this trouble will be well worth it.

 

I have a question, I have a set of MB quarts PSC 216 that I want to install into a sedan however Im debating as to just install the speakers using the bose amp or install my amp (Xtant X604) that I have, feeling a little funny taking apart a new car to run all the wires. Im curious as to how you guys are bringing in the power wire? Anyway if I do put in the amp I was thinking of running the quarts in biamp mode off the xtant and the rear speakers off the bose amp. Tell me what you guys think.

 

I brought the power wire in through the driver's side of the firewall. It's about 8 inches down from the cowl and a little to the right of the steering column if you're facing the car from the front.

My digi cam is on the fritz but I'll try to take some pics if you want.

Not familiar with the x604. How much power does it put out per channel? I think the recommended power for the p series is 60-130 watts rms. If your amp doesn't put out a lot of power per channel, you may consider bridging the channels, which will usually more than double the output of the 2 separate channels. IE Lets say we have a 4 channel amp that puts out 25 watts rms per channel. If the channels were bridged so you now have a total of 2 channels (one for each set of components) you might be able to get 75 watts and perhaps more going to each set. If this is you situation, I would recommend bridging the channels instead of bi-amping. If your 4 channel amp is putting out 50 or more watts per channel unbridged, bi-amp it.

Hope I've made sense.

 

Some pictures would be a great help. The xtant is rated at 75watts rms x4 and 300watts rms x2. The sound quality from this amp is amazing. I do have one concern, how well does the mbquarts fill the lowerend of the spectrum and would the sub fromt the bose be enough? I don't want anything booming just something that has enough fill.

Also people with sedans where did you mount your crossovers for the seperates and where did you mount your amplifiers?
Thanks

 

Ok Al, I am having the system installed as I type this. Anyway I was quoted "around 300" a few days ago by the guy whose name appears on the business card. Today he wasnt there.

Another person was handling operations and he said that the G35 is a pain in the *** to work with and that 350 is the best he could do. I told him I was disappointed because I was already quoted 300 by the other man. Anyway to make it short, I went along with 350 just to get this over with. I was there at 9am b4 they even opened shop today. He said my car and one other car are the only cars they have to work on today and they have two guys on hand. I hope this comes out right.

'04 G coupe TB Graph 5A (all options except NAV and SAT).
No Mods.....yet

"Hello Everybody...My name is Black and I am a G-oholic."

 

yo blackbuzzard...good choice on the amp man...i got the same one, it f*ck'n jams man...but i havent had a chance to replace all my speakers yet, i've only did my front door speakers...anyways, good luck with the install, let us know how it turns out...

John H.
2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe 5AT-Ivory Pearl-Premium Pkg-Performance Pkg.

 

Nismo, thanks. I am glad to hear some feedback on that amp. My car wasnt ready for me to pickup yesterday and today that shop is closed. I am not sure if I will have a chance to pick up my ride tomorrow.

'04 G coupe TB Graph 5A (all options except NAV and SAT).
No Mods.....yet

"Hello Everybody...My name is Black and I am a G-oholic."

 

Ok..system is in. Work seems to be really clean and also very thorough throughout the vehicle for the most part. I love the system. Its loud, clear and the bass is certainly tight and just right for my tastes. I love it.

However.....With the car started and the "power" button OFF...theres a hissing coming from the tweeters or speakers in front (MB Quarts). Is this normal?

Also the car seems to be driving more aggressively. I have a hunch this may be due to the fact my car was with them Sat-Mon so perhaps they had the battery disconnected and it may have resetted the ECU.

'04 G coupe TB Graph 5A (all options except NAV and SAT).
No Mods.....yet

"Hello Everybody...My name is Black and I am a G-oholic."

 

congrats on getting your stuff installed.

The static/hiss noise: It's not an uncommon thing for this to happen. Your installer probably hooked up the remote turn on wire to the same 'switch' as your cigarette lighter or anything that turns on when you have the ignition switched to acc or when the engine is on. Even though you have the stereo switched off, the amps are on as long as you have it in acc or with the engine on.

Possible fix: turn down the input sensitivity/gain very slightly until you don't hear the hiss anymore. I don't know if your installer set the gains correctly or not but it shouldn't take that much to get rid of the noise.

 

Black Buzz - Did you end up going with the Polk/MOMO sub enclosure? Wondering first how it sounds, and second, how it fits. I'm almost @ 10,000 miles on my 6MT Coupe, and I've decided that now is the time to get going on an aftermarket system. The Bose system, as we all know, is just crap.

I want to stick with the stock look, as well, so I'm not looking to go with the Nismo double-din. I think for now I just want to throw in a 10 or 12" sub in a small-ish enclosure (gotta be able to fit two sets of golf clubs in the trunk), and replace all the speakers. I'm in Santa Monica, CA and looking for a good shop. I was told by my Infiniti Service Manager to check out a place called Extreme Audio in N. Hollywood, but anyone here able to recommend a place, as well?

 

JGreene,

I am very happy with the 10" Polk Momo sub enclosure combined with the JL 500/5 amp and the other speakers in my setup. The bass is clean and tight. The mids are defineable and the highs are crisp.

The sub encosure fits pretty decent on either side or standing up right in the center but is not able to be pushed all the way back to the seat back(i hope this made sense).

If the sub enclosure is placed on its side it can fit anywhere pretty nice. I let my brother borrow my digi camera a year ago and havent gotten it back. I would have posted pics for you to see. The sub enclosure has a nice clean see-thru "hi-tech" appeal.

I will not change to the double din because I enjoy the steering wheel controls.

If you want a recommendation for installers in your area, I suggest posting the westcoast forums.

'04 G coupe TB Graph 5A (all options except NAV and SAT).
No Mods.....yet

"Hello Everybody...My name is Black and I am a G-oholic."

 

Al,

I need some assistance again...I dont feel my system is crystal clear. The music sound is noticeably distorted.

I tested it with some Hans Zimmer orchestra music from some favorite soundtracks. 2 tracks..1 from Gladiator movie...and 1 from Mission Impossible. The orchestral soundtracks sound absolutely stunning here on my PC with my Klipsh 2.1 pc speaker system.

In my coupe, I have toyed with the settings in almost every possible configuration from the radio controls of bass, treble, fade...etc... and I cannot reproduce this music in my car to the same clarity of my PC speakers here at home.

Oh yeah and I still have the hissing from my speakers and I noticed today there is a faint snap/crackle/pop sound when adjusting the volume.

I tend to play my music loud at about volume level 24-27.

I took it to the place I had my sytem done and the installer told me if he lowered the gains as you suggested that there would not be sufficient power to the front speakers.

Do you think maybe I should take my car to another "professional" and pay them the 20-50 bucks they might ask for just to correctly tune my system.

Please help.


'04 G coupe TB Graph 5A (all options except NAV and SAT).
No Mods.....yet

"Hello Everybody...My name is Black and I am a G-oholic."

 

hey black,
can you hear me? :-) J/K. 24 to 27 is freakin loud.

This is what I would do. Any install place worth anything will have a test tone CD which contains test tones ranging from probably 25 to 5000 hz. They will also have a multimeter that can accurately measure the output of your amp. JL recommends that the gains be set by this method where you turn any type of processing (0 out everything including bass, tweets, fade, etc) play a test tone cd with a continous 50-80 hz tone for the sub and adjust the gains electronically. Look here: http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/index.html#

You then repeat the process for the other channels as described. I think the problem is that you have the gains set too high but I can't be too sure. If the gains were set correctly, 24-27 would probably do some serious damage. If you're using a ven4, I would turn all of those adjustments to the lowest position as well as the ones on the amp. (This is my guess right now as to where the problem might be) Put the cd in and check the output via the multimeter. Slowly turn up the gains on the amp until you reach the optimum output. Then put in a real cd and see how that works. You'll have to do this will the fronts, rears, and the sub output because they will all have different recommendations.

It is really hard to compare the system you have on your PC and the one in your car. First of all, the stock location of the speakers in your car are usually less than optimal due to cost, aesthetics, etc. I'm sure you can position the satellites just perfectly on your PC. You can't do that in your car unless you build custom kickpods, etc. Second, the acoustics of a typical room is much different than the acoustic properties of a car for obvious reasons.

I think doing the above will most likely get rid of your problems. Even though you listen to you music at 24-27, set the volume at 21 or 22 to get the right output. I think that when you have the gains set properly, you won't have to go nearly as high as you are right now. I can't get much past 20 without hurting in my system.

 

I dont know if the guy used a Ven4 or what he used. He has my amp drilled into the back of the back seat back rest. The amp did not hold there and is now lying sliding around the trunk of my car along with the sub. I haven't had time yet to take it in to get it tuned and have the stuff secured again. Perhaps next week I will get it done. Where do you recommend they secure the amp?

Right now my G is getting Basic Service done. Hopefully they wont try to void my warranty for installing a sound system in my car.

'04 G coupe TB Graph 5A (all options except NAV and SAT).
No Mods.....yet

"Hello Everybody...My name is Black and I am a G-oholic."