Eclipse Audio Upgrade

Audio Upgrades

Page 2

Without the panels and seats, the interior is very disillusioning. There really isn't much to a car. Kind of sad to see her gutted really.

While sitting in my bare car, I decided where to run the wires and where damping would help most. Dynamat Xtreme would help keep the doors from sounding hollow and the body from rattling. Pads and carefully tied wires would keep the rattles and squeaks to a minimum.

The bare trunk should get a lot of damping to really reduce road noise, but seeing as how I wanted to keep the weight down, I'd have to go light.
The loose wires would need a lot of attention though.

Pulling the plastic rear speaker mounts off shows a lot of metal panels that will need just as much attention as the doors to keep the rear speakers from sounding hollow.
Plenty of loom was used to protect the wires from damage. Most important are areas that might be rubbed.

Dynamat Xtreme in small doses throughout the car's body panels is a great "sheet metal vibrational damper." Only about a third of a surface needs to be damped to make a huge difference.

Installing a good layer or two of damping behind speakers is critical, and most would consider the least effort for good sound. I know it helps even stock systems sound noticeably better.

While damping I turned up little details like this air outlet. To keep it from clacking during base hits, a little felt goes a long way toward keeping your sanity. Just be sure that it still lets out air or the windows will shatter when you close the doors.

Working on the doors was the most demanding. I had to rework my efforts three times before finally going all out. The first time I tried using lighter materials and using Dynamat Xtreme in small patches to keep the weight down. It worked, but the "lighter materials" quickly became brittle and started braking off and rattling around in the door...

The first step was to remove the factory speakers and plastic weather shield. Once bare, I pulled the new speaker wire in through the factory wire runs. Using the same tube that I pulled the power wire in with, the speaker wires were run along the passenger side door's wire run to keep it away from the power on the other side.

More Dynamat Xtreme was used on the inner and outer shell of the doors. Most of the sheets were put around and behind the speaker locations. The lighter material was then laid over the inner shell as a cover. But that didn't end up doing the job for long. When it fell apart and started rattling around in the bottom of the door, I replaced it with another plastic shield.

The DynAudio 240mkII 7-inch 2-Way Component System turned out to be a bit harder hitting than the minimal damping could cope with. So I finally went all out by adding even more mass loader damping, the RAAMmat60 V2. It was a lot cheaper than Dynamat so I could use more. With the added weight, the door was really solid. Imaging and vocals came out much clearer and with more authority.

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K r o n d o r

Copyright (c) 2005 Krondor's World. All rights reserved.
All other trademarks shown are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective owners.
Revised: Wednesday, September 23, 2009.

Audio Upgrades
Page 2

Without the panels and seats, the interior is very disillusioning. There really isn't much to a car. Kind of sad to see her gutted really.

	While sitting in my bare car, I decided where to run the wires and where damping would help most. Dynamat Xtreme would help keep the doors from sounding hollow and the body from rattling. Pads and carefully tied wires would keep the rattles and squeaks to a minimum.

	The bare trunk should get a lot of damping to really reduce road noise, but seeing as how I wanted to keep the weight down, I'd have to go light. The loose wires would need a lot of attention though.

	Pulling the plastic rear speaker mounts off shows a lot of metal panels that will need just as much attention as the doors to keep the rear speakers from sounding hollow. Plenty of loom was used to protect the wires from damage. Most important are areas that might be rubbed.

	Dynamat Xtreme in small doses throughout the car's body panels is a great "sheet metal vibrational damper." Only about a third of a surface needs to be damped to make a huge difference.

	Installing a good layer or two of damping behind speakers is critical, and most would consider the least effort for good sound. I know it helps even stock systems sound noticeably better.

	While damping I turned up little details like this air outlet. To keep it from clacking during base hits, a little felt goes a long way toward keeping your sanity. Just be sure that it still lets out air or the windows will shatter when you close the doors.

	Working on the doors was the most demanding. I had to rework my efforts three times before finally going all out. The first time I tried using lighter materials and using Dynamat Xtreme in small patches to keep the weight down. It worked, but the "lighter materials" quickly became brittle and started braking off and rattling around in the door...

	The first step was to remove the factory speakers and plastic weather shield. Once bare, I pulled the new speaker wire in through the factory wire runs. Using the same tube that I pulled the power wire in with, the speaker wires were run along the passenger side door's wire run to keep it away from the power on the other side.

	More Dynamat Xtreme was used on the inner and outer shell of the doors. Most of the sheets were put around and behind the speaker locations. The lighter material was then laid over the inner shell as a cover. But that didn't end up doing the job for long. When it fell apart and started rattling around in the bottom of the door, I replaced it with another plastic shield.

	The DynAudio 240mkII 7-inch 2-Way Component System turned out to be a bit harder hitting than the minimal damping could cope with. So I finally went all out by adding even more mass loader damping, the RAAMmat60 V2. It was a lot cheaper than Dynamat so I could use more. With the added weight, the door was really solid. Imaging and vocals came out much clearer and with more authority.



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K r o n d o r Copyright (c) 2005 Krondor's World. All rights reserved. All other trademarks shown are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Revised: Wednesday, September 23, 2009.