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I’ve been through several iterations of stereo in my T/A. Hundreds of hours spent and honestly more money than I care to admit.
It’s been a frustrating process as I remember my good friend Brian’s Camaro sounding so good with much less effort back in the 90s. The difference of course being that the Camaro was an RS Coupe, and my T/A a T/Top.
Putting the tops on is a fairly common occurrence for me as my wife doesn’t like to have them off on cooler nights.
The coupe benefits greatly from horn effect off the hatch glass, the T/Top not as much.
The coupe had excellent front stage with custom kickpanel mounted speakers (5.25”), the T/Top has good stage as well, however it isn’t as deep (more on the dash than on the hood).
I’m going all in and adding a DSP to the system.
I’ll be able to have a tops on and topless tune with the press of a switch. I’ll be able to time align each speaker for the best stage and crossover each speaker individually as well as set individual slopes within each tune.
I chose Arc Audio PSM Pro as the DSP. It is a stand alone unit (no amp), is tiny (commonly used on motorcycle installs) and has all the tuning available of their flagship Blackbird units. In doing so I’ve immediately put the cart infringing horse as I have some install issues to address before the tuning can really progress.
Im abandoning my custom built fibreglass kicks and 6.5” components. I knew 6.5s in kicks was a mistake from the start but I was trying to work with what I had. I’ve purchased Qlogic QForms in the 5.25 size and selected a 5.25 component set with 90 dB sensitivity, which will help me to maximize output from my old school Alpine amps.
Im also removing the 10” sub and will be replacing it with a 12” in the “half well” 1 cu ft box from the sticky. Cone area is king for low frequency response and the existing 10” was not getting it done. I’ll pick up some dB as well on my smallish old school Alpine amp too.
Im still a week away from the beginning of the process, waiting at the curb for the brown truck to arrive.
Panel color match is good. Pull hush panels for simple install. Do not permanently mount mids until ready to install grill. Fit of the kick at sill plate leaves something to be desired.
Last edited by theraymondguy; Jul 9, 2025 at 05:46 PM.
I was thinking about q forms after seeing the other thread and how they are still being made. Have you put the left one in yet, how bad do they encroach into the foot well? That current setup looks ridiculous, where does your foot go?
Looks great. Do you have photos of the driver side?
I have them both in, but I feel like I should do a thread on these by themselves. I want to do them justice and make sure I maximize the install before judging their performance.
As it stands right now, the “Absurd” diy setup does sound better (keeping in mind diy was 6.25, everything on axis, I’ve not run the logic’s tops installed as yet.
Quite a bit of fitting required for the Q logic as well. I’ll grab pictures tomorrow.
The Alpine SWS 1043D sub had a huge bump at 50-70 Hz and a massive void below.
The solution appears to be an Alpine SWR 1223D, yes it fits just right into the trunk well box from the sticky (about 1.1 cu ft). Win ISD, 12” in red (flaaat) 10” in blue The 12” wastes no energy. The old battered 3554 is stil the best match to this setup. I’ll run my little 3503 for the tweeters when it goes active.
