Got my new system installed on 5/4, and it is AWESOME. Didn't want to be one of those people that ask for all the help and don't ever respond with the result. I don't have a ton of experience with car audio, so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but this surpassed all my expectations (and then some). I have the bass turned down so low most of the time because I feel embarassed by how powerful it is. I sometimes turn it up and crank a hard hitting song to put a smile across my face. When I have it turned up, I can feel the air from the subs all the way in the back of my durango (my friends can't stop laughing when I do this because they can't keep their lips from vibrating). The focals sound great, I have yet to hear any distortion, or loss of quality, no matter how loud I have it. I have had the H/U unit up to 30 on volume (maybe 75% from max) and it still sounds great. I am afraid to go much louder than that for fear of hurting something. I have a dB meter from work, and it is over 130 (This is as loud as the meter I have goes) when I turn it up. Not sure how that scales to a "loud" system, but it sure is a lot louder then I will really ever listen to it (this is a dangerous level and can cause permanent ear damage by OSHA standards). The H/U is awesome, again not a lot to compare it to though. The bluetooth integration was smooth, almost complete PnP. I just went to the pairing section, made a call, it paired and downloaded all my contacts. The iPod controls work well, better then what I have read about a lot of iPod H/U's. I can make selections by artist's, genre, albums, playlists and a bunch of other selections. It seems to save the selection I have made, so when I turn the car off, then turn it back on, it is playing from the same selection I had. From what I had read, a lot of H/U's do not save your listening selection. I got the steering wheel control adapter, it works but not as well as it did with my stock system. It lags compared to controlling from the deck or from the remote. Want to thank everyone on the forums, all of my selections were based in part by what I read on these forums. I had never even heard of Focal before coming here. I know I didn't go with what a lot of people thought was the best to go with, and I may of overpaid for the brands, but to me it was money well spent. I decided to have a shop install the system, and it was under $800 for the entire installation and custom sub box. To me that was a steal, considering the amount of time, headache, and problems I would most likely have to deal with if I did it all myself. I am not 100% happy with the install, but not because they didn anything wrong, but because of small details that I would of preferred to be done differently. These things I will just adjust myself. From all of this I only have 3 complaints: 1 - The H/U has too many options for me. I would guess a lot of users on this forum would love that about the H/U though. This is more a matter of me learning what I like and don't like and learning about sound. The EQ has tons of adjustment, which I have played with and got it all messed up. Fortunately I can just set it all back to default, or a preset EQ setup, and it plays normal again. There is still a ton of stuff I haven't even messed with on the H/U. 2 - I don't get to listen to this as much as I would like. I don't get to drive in my durango very often, we always take the wifes car when we go anywhere because it has a DVD player in it and our son loves that. So I am seeing a lot of cruising around in my future just so I can listen to this bad boy! 3 - TOO MUCH BASS!! I am sure there are a lot of people that would argue there is no such thing as too much bass, but if I was to push the subs all the time I would have a constant headache. Its fun for once in a while, or when you aren't driving around, but I can't listen to it that loud for long driving around. I put the system components in my signature. Thanks again!
There isn't a lot to see, since most of the components went in their stock locations, but here are the images anyway. Kenwood KDC-X994 Head Unit Focal 165VR Component (woofer in lower stock location, tweeter in upper stock location) Focal 165CA1 (lower stock location only, upper stock tweeter location empty) JL Audio 300/4 and 1000/1 AMP (the black 300/4 is a loaner amp until my new 300/4 gets in, they are swapping it out for free. It will be silver like the 1000/1) Amps are in my back cubby hole, gotta find a new spot for jumper cables, window scraper, and stock jack. With subs in their correct position and 3rd row seats up. 3rd row attached cover lays on top of box perfectly. I haven't tried listening to the subs with them further away from the back hatch. There is about 2" of clearance with them in this location. Anything I should do differently? Haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet.
looks great! too much bass? turn it down!!! i'm like that too, do you have a bass knob for the JL amp? how do you have the amp set up? LP filter? bass boost? gain? the trick with subs is that you want to blend it into your system. you don't want to have the bass overpowering the comps up front. with the HU, that's a very nice deck... I'm gonna get one of those, you just have to play around with it, use the time alignment, it really helps a lot.. going through the menus, it looks pretty easy to use.
Thanks everyone for the comments. The head unit has a bass level control built in. I can control the bass level from +0 dB to +15 dB. It has 7 or 8 EQ presets, when I set it to the rock preset, it does make the rock music sound better. I had the the highs frequencies too high and the low frequencies too high so all I could hear was the high frequencies with pounding bass. But the preset did the job just fine for me. I do plan on playing with it more, as my wife and son give me time to do so. Still haven't even looked at the manual. There is a quick start manual that doesn't tell you much, the actual manual is on a CD. I am not sure how the amp is setup, the installer did all that. I don't know what any of that means that you asked for....yet. I will take a look at it tonight and see if I can tell those things. As I am playing with it, it I learn more. It is easy to use, very intuitive interface, I just am not familiar with a lot of the sound adjustments and what kind of effects each adjustment has.
so the only bass control is thru the deck? no bass knob? if you want better faster control for the subs look into a remote bass knob. they sell for 16 bucks and run inline from the sub out on the radio to the sub amp. its super simple to install too.
ok, cool. I will look into getting that. Wanting to run an aux input adapter anyway so I can plug in my phone for pandora. Aux is on the back of the unit so I will need to pull the H/U out to add that.
to much bass, i can believe it. change to a sealed box, and you'll hit the sweet spot, and your hits will be tigher and cleaner, especily with those JL's in a ported box they act very much like a comp sub, but in a sealed box they act very much like a SQ sub. wish i had the bucks for such subs, i had to go with some polk SR series, havn't heard it yet, but ive read it's compromble with the JL's of 2x the price.
if I wanted to see what they would sound like sealed, could I just put a cover over the port? Or does it not work that way, and I have to build a whole new box?
well..you could get an idea. but honestly...sealed boxes are genraly half the size of ported enclosures so you wouldn't really get an idea. build a box probobly would take you a sheet and a half of 3\4" MDF to do 2 12" sub enclousure. their about 30$ a board i think for 3\4" biggest expenss in the building of a box..the rest is screws, bits, glue, carbet. so on google some calbration sites and figuire out the size of your box and shape and what not. looks like a square box will be easy enough to fit. so calculating should be super easy
I think if you make some adjustments with your eq and amp adjustments you WILL get the bass you are looking for. I really don't see a need to switch over to a sealed box. The SQ champ here from where i'm from is ported. it's all in the tuning my friend. For your EQ i would stay away from your preset EQ's. go to a user EQ and start from FLAT. adust accordingly. that's how i would do it. When i had my 2 12's in, i got really sick of having so much bass, it would give me a headache at times. Once i put in my Focal K2P's, i adjusted for more SQ. My bass was REALLY mild, very nicely blended and it was very pleasant to listen to. I had a HUGE ported box for my set up before.
i've never heard that I'd try and tune it first...but i think a new box will be an easy change...I never liked ported boxes..but than again i grew up around the gheto rides, and i can't stand some of that stuff i hear as i drive around.
a properly ported and tuned box is like heaven. tuned low will sound good with various music styles. altho sealed is good to. its user preference i guess. ive heard ported and sealed SQ systems at SBN and WOW. now if the box is all wrong then even proper EQ and xover setting cant help much.
khayman if the bass is overpowering then turn the gain on the amp down a bit until its at an even level with your mids/highs. make note of where it was set too if you want to put it back to how you got it. to be honest, my bass on my head is set to -5 and the eq bands @ 20hz 31hz and 50hz are set to - 3, -2, -1. in that order. and my bass is still able to shake windows when needed. i just use my bass knob.
Thanks Pedro, I will look at that as well. As I understand it, which probably isn't at all, the gain is an adjustment you make to the amp to adjust the power to the subs at different sound levels? I see everyone saying it isn't a volume knob, but it does somehow effect the volume or output. If I am going to set it to the mids/highs, at what level would I set it? Would I put the volume on the head unit to the level I like to listen it at, then adjust the gain until I get the output from the subs that I like? Is that the procedure? I can't go negative on my HU for the subwoofer level, I can go from +0d to +15dB, or are you talking on the EQ? I really haven't messed with the EQ settings, just the once where I messed it all up. I have a pretty good idea on how I need to set those, at least I think I do. Just set them all to 0, then adjust each one until its at the level I like. Only issue I have with that, is that as I adjust one, it kind of changes the sound of the other, at least how they sound together. Also, on different types of music, there is a HUGE difference on the levels of the bands. Rap/Hip-Hop (Wyclef Jean) has a lot more lows in general then Rock (Breaking Benjamin/Tool) does. Rock seems to utilize all the bands a lot more then rap/hip-hop, that seem to use mainly the highs and lows. At least that is what it sounds like to me so far. So is it feasible to adjust the EQ bands to a level that would be satisfactory for both, or will I need multiple settings that I use? Also, as for the box, it was custome built specifically for those subs and my vehicle. How do I know if it was built well, just to make sure to rule that out as an issue. Even with all this, its amazing what I had been missing. In my old system I never even would of realized all these different bands and the unique sounds of each of them. Still pretty awesome just on the preset EQ, there isn't really a problem with the system, just trying to get it set to the best possible sounding system I can with these adjustments. Everyone I have had listen to it says its the best sounding system they have ever heard. Of course a lot of them probably haven't heard high quality systems before and/or they are just being nice. Thanks again!
hey im thinking of getting the focal 165vr component for the front, do they sound good and clear with some bass, or do you recommend another set??
I like them a lot. My tweeters are higher up then the 6 1/2", they are at my feet. I do hear some bass from the focals, but not much, as most of my bass comes from subs. There are some songs (Chamilliionar Ridin' Dirty) that have mid bass that comes mostly from the focals and not the subs and those frequencies sound real good, just not that common of a sound from most music I hear. A lot of the music I listen to is rock, which doesn't have as much bass, and the music sounds like its just in the vehicle, I can't really tell where it is coming from but it all sounds good. I like the focal 165VR, but I have not listened to a lot of different speakers except what I heard at the stores. I am happy with them and would buy them again. HTH
