Gummie

Yes, this means that I'm the owner of the set that he just posted pictures of in his thread

I haven't installed them yet, so I can't tell you how they sound. Look for a follow up post with that info tomorrow. It's way too cold to do it tonight and I need to make a trip to the hardware store for some spade terminals for the tweeters anyway.

To make things somewhat simple (and to prevent me from rambling for hours) I'm going to try to break this into categories.

Turnaround time: it took a little over a month to get the kicks here, but most of that time is because of problems along the way. I kept Jim waiting a week while I drove around listening to speakers. UPS kept both of us waiting another week and a half when they messed up typing in Jim's address for the shipping label. There was a vacation in there somewhere. If someone else were to order kicks today I'm sure that it would take less time. Jim also mentioned trying to get some made ahead of time (up to the point of cutting holes) to further reduce future wait time.

Total cost: $250. Jim charges $200 for his kicks. Additional costs include shipping my factory kicks to him (about $5), shipping my tweeters/woofer grills/etc to him (another $5), having him paint my kicks black ($20), and then having everything shipped back to me (another $20). I don't blame Jim for his pricing because he has about $60 worth of materials in these things and spent a pretty good amount of time working on them. Labor wise, I don't know how he keeps his prices so low.

Final product: I'm sure that most of you saw Jim's thread. If not, here are the two money shots (check out his thread to see the rest of his pictures). I will post more pictures of my own once it's day light out and I have one of my friends over with a camera (sometime this weekend).





As you can see, the kicks look amazing. Their fit to the plastic kick panel is flawless and it looks like they're made for my components. They also look factory Jim cuts the woofer/tweeter hole to be an exact fit instead of popping out some generic size like Q-logic. Everything is siliconed shut so there isn’t a single air leak. The carpet is a perfect match to my factory carpet/plastic interior. Craftsmanship is amazing. I really can’t say enough about how good these things look and feel. They feel very sturdy. If you knock on them it doesn’t sound hollow at all; it produces a nice solid sound.

Communication: As well all know, it’s always nice to have a seller respond promptly to e-mail (or in this case PMs). Jim always had a reply back to me within a day (usually less) and was available most of the time on IM. His replies were always informative and he did a good job keeping me up to date.

How they sound: Will post that one tomorrow once I get them installed

Feel free to ask whatever questions you want to ask and I will try to follow up promptly.

Brisk

iTrader: (25)

once again they look amazing.., I'll almost certinally be ordering a pair for myself.!!

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

Thanks man. I'm glad you like them.

I'm doing this because I like it, not to make money. I wind up making somewhere between $5-8 dollars an hour on these. I'm still managing to learn an awful lot about designing, building and using these as I go from one to the next. I'm really enjoying it, and it's giving me just enough money to spend it on more supplies and equipment to help me take my skills and my learning to the next step.

CaysE

Damn those are sweet. Droolfest '05.

Gummie, you should get a laser cut aluminum "G" put on the grill like in your avatar.

Gummie

Haha. That thing is a photoshop from I don't know how long ago.

I haven't been able to find the right size spade terminals for the tweeter so the kicks are not installed yet. I tried the local hardware store and they only had wide spades, not crazy narrow ones. I'm going to make a trip to radio shack either today or tomorrow to try to pick up what I need. If they don’t have it I will just cut the MB spades off and solder/heat shrink directly wire to wire or install a more standard spade size or maybe even crimp them together. Choices, choices.

The kicks are sitting next to me taunting me because they're not installed yet

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

Buy the wide spades and use a pair of pliers to gently tighten up the gap on the curled part. Then just push 1 side of the spade onto the tweeter pins.

I use the 1/4" spade terminals on those small tweeter pins all the time without problems.

Gummie

I walked into radio shack and the guy gave me a face when I asked if they carried anything that small. I walked out with two distributor blocks for 16-18 gauge wire, but I decided to check this thread before I did anything permanent (like cutting the spades off). I to give the plier method a shot for the heck of it and it worked like a charm.

Hopefully I will get everything screwed down tomorrow. Look for a sound review tomorrow.

1meanGTA

why are tweeter wires like that anyway? i just took mine off, stripped it and used a regular crimp connector. is that a no no?

Gummie

No, it's not a no-no. I just don't want to cut into brand new wiring. Call it obsessive compulsive or something

The reason they're that way is because the tweeters don’t need to have 16 gauge (or smaller numerically) run to them. Since they're only receiving about 20 watts of power (if that) they don't need such a large wire. I bought myself a 50 foot spool of monster 16 gauge though, so...

Believe it or not, I have now used that whole spool up exclusively for wiring the components.

1meanGTA

i believe it, i used 50 ft of stinger 12 gauge for my components, and still only had enough to run the components to the xovers under the passenger seat, and one pair of wires back to the amps from there. need more to do bi-amping. i think im just going to keep it this way until i get a 2 channel amp for my components, the xover tweet attenuate works well enough to run a lot of power to the mids. thinking about a 150x2 memphis mclass. then i'd have enough space for an orion 2500d for my 12's

Gummie

I just got em in

Install: I have one possible clearance issue in my GTA. The passenger’s side kick might be too tall to fit under the plastic piece that goes right under the dash. I say might because I cut the wires too short for the driver's side kick by about a foot. I got the passenger’s side kick in after I moved the wires around and pulled the under dash cover off. I'll splice another foot into the line (don't feel like buying another 50 foot of speaker wire) and report back.

Sound: I fired the system up with the IC (internal amp in the headunit) on and the gain all the way down on the amp. I smacked myself and dug through the menus on the head to get the 4x6's and 6x9's to stop playing. Even with the gain set to nothing and the volume pretty low there was still some audible sound coming from the components. Even at that extremely low volume level I was amazed by the image it presented. Left and right are extremely well defined now and the sound is a lot more enveloping. After I set the gains correctly and turned it up I heard something I had forgot existed all together: the lower harmonics of guitars - that magical sound stuck in the gap between 4x6/6x9 and the sub. The new tweeters sound amazing too

I’m going to be ordering my next amp later today so that I can swap my Infinity back to my subs. How many here would sacrifice their subs to run better speakers for a week?

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

I'd absolutely sacrifice my subs to run my speakers for a week. I can enjoy tunes without subs, but I sure can't enjoy them without speakers!

Your passenger kick should fit snug, but it should definately fit. While I never specifically tried it in my GTA, my GTA and my IROC use the exact same under-dash panel. If you look at the passenger kick, you can see how the top is angled compared to the stock plastic piece. This is specifically to provide the necessary clearance for the under-dash panel.

Installing the passenger kick can be a bit challenging though. You've got to hook the top part of the door trim area under the other door trim piece, then swing the kick almost sideways, position the top, then slide the bottom into place while you lift on the top. It's a pain until you figure out the puzzle, but once you do, it should fit well.

I'm glad you like how it images. That's absolutely the best part of having kick panel speakers!

Gummie

The driver's side popped in easy as pie. The reason why I was having problems with the passenger’s side was because of the wires being too short on the driver's side (they run under the dash then down the passenger’s side of the car then both sets run to the hump). Since the wire was too short it wouldn't let me install the passenger’s side kick (the wire was trying to cut the corner at a diagonal while the kick tried to make it take it at a right angle, which requires more cord).

I have another problem that I discovered when I started the car for the first time with everything installed today. Noise It’s either ground noise on the head or the RCAs are picking up some interference when the car is on. I’m going to pull the head later and hook my mp3 player up to the rca’s to pinpoint what it is.

Also, amp #2 ordered tonight

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

Let me know how the noise issue goes. I'm on IM if you need any help.

SteelTownMadDog

iTrader: (2)

Damn those are cool!!

Now, what does someone have to do to get some, and can we get them with a different config? For example, if I just wanted a 6-1/2" speaker in there, could it be accomodated?

Gummie

I don’t mean to speak for Jim, but I think I can accurately answer your question. Jim's kicks can hold up to an almost 7" speaker, so a single 6.5" (what's mounted in my set) shouldn't be a problem. Why would you want just a midrange mounted down there though? You should do the tweeter while you're at it if you want any kind of decent imaging.

Picture update: I’m going to finally get off my lazy butt and get me some pictures I can post. It just won’t happen until Friday or Saturday They are coming by the end of the weak, I swear.

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

I make the kick panels from a mold that I created. In order for me to provide a different style, I'd have to start from scratch, which is considerably more work. I could do it, but the cost would be at least double.

If you're interested in a custom set or even in my regular set, feel free to PM me and we can chat.

Gummie

Well, I finally took some pictures




(click the second picture to get a crazy high res version)

Pardon the messy car. Between the ground noise, work, school, and the gf I haven't had much time to clean it recently. The reason for black kicks is because I’m going to be converting over to black carpet soon. All my plastic interior trim is already black

I tried taking pictures with me sitting like I normally do to show that it doesn't interfere with sitting comfortably, but the angle didn’t work out very well. I have a completely unobstructed view of both tweeters through the steering wheel and across the car.

No pictures of the passenger’s side because it’s a rat’s nest of wires right now with all the things I’ve done to troubleshoot my amp’s ground noise.

Brisk

iTrader: (25)

very nice, I'll definatly put in an order for a set by next spring!

Gummie

I realized that I posted a fairly half assed review in my last post of this thread do to noise issues I was having with an amp and about 5 minutes of actual listening time. I'm now running a NINe.2x on the comps and my noise issue is completely gone I also have several hours of listening time in including a 300 mile road trip under my belt.

All in all I must say that I am extremely impressed. The image is a little to the center of the car, but it’s hardly noticeable. If I’m not paying much attention or just rocking out to a great song I don’t notice the shift. For more technical pieces I’m far too enveloped in the sound to care about the image being to my right by a few inches. The sound stage sounds like it originates out in front of the windshield and there’s excellent stereo separation. Left and right are both clearly defined where as before with the 4x6s and 6x9s it was more like left all of the time if the left and right channels were playing different sounds.

Something that I found pretty cool is that having a passenger in the car didn’t screw up the image very much, if at all. It’s hardly noticeable and it blew my mind especially considering that my view of the passenger’s side tweet was completely obscured. I’m not sure whether this is due to Jim’s kicks, the comps, or the highly reflective nature of everything under the dash but either way it’s cool thing to have.

Finally, in terms of driving comfort it did take a day or two for me to get use to no longer having the dead pedal, but I usually drove around with my left foot on the floor and my knee on the door so it’s not a very large incontinence to me. Regardless it’s defiantly worth it. I’ve only kicked the kick once by accident and that was because someone else was harassing me from the passenger’s seat. All in all they don’t get in the way.

To get slightly more speaker dependent, here’s the rest of the setup: MB Quart QSD-216 comps powered by a NINe.2x (the good part of the system) and two 10” Alpine Type-Es powered by a 340 watt Infinity (the bad part of the system). The subs defiantly can’t keep up with the comps in terms of both SQ and output. Sub/comp integration is very good although I attribute this more to Jim’s kicks and the comps than to the subs. The high’s are amazing and don’t get harsh even at extreme volume levels, mids are great, and the lows are fine as long as they can keep up. I have a slightly hole in frequency response around the 100-200 hz range, but I’m working on fixing that. It’s generally not noticeable with most of the music I listen to but the occasional song will sound slightly hollow.

Two thumbs up

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

Thanks for the review. I'm glad that you're so happy with everything.

One thing I wanted to mention was with respect to the stereo image. It sounds like your setup is doing exactly what I intended. My goal was not to get the stereo image directly in front of the listener, but to be centered in the car. I did this because by having it directly in front of the listener, you have a severely compressed soundstage on one side (the side you're on) and an exerated soundstage on the other side. By positioning the image in the center of the car, your soundstage is preserved. What you wind up with is a more accurate image and soundstage, but you've just got to get used to being to the side of the soundstage instead of directly in the center of it.

I'm also glad to have you confirm that your highs don't change much with a person's feet blocking the tweeter. This is something that I was well aware of, but was the hardest to convince people of until they witness it for themselves. I've had a few different kick panel styles in my car now, some with tweeters positioned completely out of sight, and every time I found that the highs really didn't change much. The biggest criticism of kick panels from people who don't know any better is that the sound will be muffled or diffused when people's legs block the drivers, and while this is true, it is a very minor issue and well worth the trade off when you consider all of the benefits from kicks.

I personally consider the bloated lower midrange to be the biggest problem facing kick panel locations, but this can be minimized through careful equalization, or hopefully in the case of my custom components, through response shaping in the crossover network.

1meanGTA

fade your front stage a couple notches to the left. sounds funny for your passengers, but who cares, they didnt pay for it, right?

Gummie

It's not really a problem of one side sounding louder than the other. It just sounds like you're sitting slightly off center. Again, it's not noticeable unless you're really listening for it. It's very easy to forget about.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Quarts are not 100% perfect. While auditioning speakers they had the weakest low end response that I heard in upper level speakers (JL's, CDT, Boston Acoustic, etc – they’re defiantly better than Polks/etc). That's not to say that they can't get down and play low, I just don't think that they were designed to stand in for a sub like some comps are. I guess that MB Quart figures that if you can afford a pair of their speakers you can afford a sub to go along with them I bought them for two reasons: first I already have subs (to be upgraded to much better stuff when it’s warm again so I can lay resin) and because they were hands down the best sounding speaker I listened to. Sure, JL's ZR650-CSi sound great if you're just listening to them but switch over to the Quarts and it's a pretty striking difference. The high end really comes alive in a nice clean way. No harshness at all.

That said, I had no problem with a 100-200 Hz spike. At first there was a slight exaggeration down there but then I realized that I had about 60 Hz of overlap between the subs/comps. As soon as I readjusted the crossovers that problem went away.

NEEDAZ

I so like it when an engineer takes the time for the details. Doesn't happen much. 10% Development/Manufacturing, 90% Gimmicks/Marketing. (and 90% of the 10%development/manufacturing is in keep the cost down.)

Jim85IROC

iTrader: (2)

That's just because I can't afford a marketing department yet, so I have no choice.

Gummie

You've always got me

jcurrieirocz

also just a q. for jim or you.... why are they not sealed where the speaker goes?? wouldnt a sealed enclosure be better??
and how far do they stick out comapred to before...does your foot ever hit them or do they compromise leg comfort any??

Gummie

They're not sealed for two reasons: first it gives more driver mounting depth (my comps stick out of the hole in the back by about a 1/4"). Everything that sticks out fits nicely into that hole in the metal of the car behind the kicks. Secondly, most comps are designed to be installed in doors or some other free air (non enclosed) environment (sail panels, dash, rear deck, etc). While you can seal off each of these areas you will still have a pretty high volume to work with. I believe Jim quoted his volume at around .2 cubic feet, which really isn't enough to seal them and still get decent midbass response. If you can find his original original kick thread he outlines the hole and his logic behind it.

As for driving comfort, I'm just going to quote myself. Let me know if you want anything clarified further and I will elaborate where needed.

crazymonkey88

is there any possible way to fit speakers into the door?

Gummie

Yes, but that question would probably get more replies (and a better answer) in its own thread. Speaker size and aiming becomes issues as does the power window motor if you have power windows.

1meanGTA

if you get a chance, audition some rainbow/arc/alumapro components with some good music you know well

Gummie

I'm 100% happy with the Quarts. Sure, they don't have crazy low end extension but I don't need it with my subs crossed @ 80. For kicks I burned a signal sweep and it sounded flat but who knows how off my hearing is. It’s not fair to compare them to my headphones (Pioneer HDJ 1000s) because the Quarts have such a more natural sound. The HDJ1000s get a little harsh sounding at higher volume levels but the Quarts don’t do this at all. I’m amazed every time I realize that it’s a titanium dome tweeter and not silk. Their mid/high response was the by far best I heard when I was auditioning speakers, even at punishing volumes, and I listened to quite a bit of stuff including CDT.

I've never heard any of those companies’ products (rainbow/arc/alumapro) but you probably remember me trying to find someone in the area that has them available for audition. You can’t said I didn’t try That said, have you heard the Q series?

Also, another bravo to Jim on the kicks. They got a pretty decent kick (imagine that) from a passenger a few days ago and survived unscathed. The passenger on the other hand… well that’s another story