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ICE adventure ....

jackal2513

Well-known member
Joined
21 Jan 2009
Messages
4,520
This is going to run and run .. one of those never ending projects so I'll post up my journey so far for anyone interested and for the archives. Will put everything up more fully in my website too.

Went and bought some direct 130cm component replacements for the front door speakers and some straight 4x6 replacements for the rears. At the front there's plenty of depth, easily up to 60cm so you can accomodate some fairly beefy speakers. I settled on Hertz, an Italian brand which seemed well regarded. about what i wanted to spend (£50 for rears, £80 for fronts) and sounded good in the shop, not too bright and quite weighty.

IMG_4665.JPG


My preferred head unit was the Parrot Asteroid. It seemed to be quicker than any other mech-less units I tried at moving through large amounts of tracks on iphone/usb/SD. The interface is very intuitive and looks very elegant and simplistic and the screen quality is pretty stuninng. This is a dinstincly non-jap design more in the apple mode and is actually an adroid based app. It fits almost completely flush and it seemed to be much more in keeping with the 993 interior than any other modern head unit ive seen.

Although it boasts iphone, sd card, usb and aux in, its biggest USP being a Parrot is its bluetooth and high call quality. The mic is a dual affair, not sure if there is any noise cancelling going on but call quality seemed very good. Its also all voice controlled, not just the phonebook but also selecting and finding music can be voice ocntrolled. The suprising thing is it actually works very well and creates a playlist of all the tracks that fit your command. I've managed to pair the thing up with my iphone with hotspot enabled and now the built in apps work as well ... maps with POI's, fuel finder service, worldwide internet radio stations, weather app and other such stuff. This functionality of course is all a bit geeky and it remains to be seen how useful it is if at all but its nice to have it there than not. I guess the downside could be that its supposedly supposed to be a bit buggy and can crash on ocassion needing to be reset ... we'll have to judge that in time to come.


_MG_9416.jpg


_MG_9410.jpg


_MG_9417.jpg


_MG_9421.jpg


_MG_9428.jpg




Speakers all look oem, The hertz tweeters fit into the pods with some light modding.

_MG_9424.jpg


IMG_4704.JPG




I cut the rings off the old nokia units and bolted the drivers firmly to this to make for a very secure fit.

IMG_4708.JPG


IMG_4706.JPG


The crossovers were stowed in the door in a small padded enclosure.

IMG_4711.JPG



The Asteroid has a GPS and I routed this up the side of the dash. Had to take off the upper dash and drop the lower dash a little.

IMG_4682.JPG


The mic I brought up through the steering cowling which was very simple.

_MG_9425.jpg


rears were a doddle

IMG_4718.JPG


IMG_4721.JPG


IMG_4725.JPG
 
Now we get to the interesting bit. :grin:


First of all, it all sounds a million times better than it used to as you would expect and I can now play all my music rather than a selection of 10 tapes from the old acid house dayz.

BUT, if I am being honest its not as good as I expected and certainly not close to my Cayenne which has some sort of sound package with lots of speakers and a huge sub in the boot. The last car upgraded the stereo in was my old Elan in the Mid 1990's with an amp driving some huge kenwood door speakers and a bazooka tube in the rear. That was very good as I remember it. The sound in my 993 is a vast improvement but it could be a lot better.

I think the 993 esp, with some of the sound deadening removed as my car has is pretty hard car to get right - something like a cayenne has so much more in terms of soft objects, carpet, padding etc.. so the 993 tends to sound like you're inside a giant baked bean can. I have made an equaliser preset which helps to nullfiy this effect a little but I reckon to get real punch, a decent lower end and hence smooth and balance out the highs a little, you have to go for an amp and sub and also perhaps pay more attention to deadening around the speaker sites, possibly also bolting the things to the door skins.

So that's where I am at at the moment. I have been looking at amps carefully. Either under the drivers seat which gives you a limited choice dimension-wise, or in the front boot on top of the spare wheel bolted to a carpeted piece of mdf or possiblly high up in the drivers footwell although thats a last resort probably.

For subwoofer its either a very shallow affair under the seat (amp will then have to go elsewhere) or a chap in the US makes some custom boxes that are very popular on rennlist:

xencl.jpg


You lose rear footwells but I was planning on taking out my seats in any case. The seat loses some travel by about an inch though and that worries me a little. Maybe the sub could go in a box in the front boot .. I am not sure you'd hear it though ?

I would like to stick with Hertz gear as much as possible but at the moment none of their amps fit under the seat. There is 185x230x61mm of space there so you are limited in choice a little. So far my reserach tells me that this Jl audio 4 channel would fit and these are very cheap from the states:

http://www.jlaudio.co.uk/xd400-4-car-audio-xd-amplifiers-98261

t499_eb6c799d23e2540b46bfc5bd149b655a.jpg


If mounting in the boot then this hertz seems ideal

HERTZ-EP4X.jpg
 
I've got parrot in the van it really is very good :thumb:
 
Hi jackal
I hope your enjoying your new kit. I have fitted a lot of hertz equipment and can't fault them for the money you pay, there high end speakers are awesome too.
You won't find a sub that will fit under the seat. The pics you have of the sub behind the seat seams to be the most practical place to have the sub, but I found when I put my sub there it felt like someone was kicking the back of the seat. So I felt more of the bass and did not blend well with the front end.
I found the best place was in the front passenger kick well. I know this is not an idel place for the sub (for the passenger) but sounds the best.
I will be fitting my sub in place of my glove compartment that I never use.
The plan is to make an enclosure that will replace the rear section of the glove compartment and be reversible if you every want to remove it.
I'm currently running a jl audio 8w3 and sound great and goes well with the focals up front.
Once I get around to finishing my box I will take a mould of it so I can make more of them if any one is interested.

The original 993 speakers are attached to the door card. They sound much better if you fix them to the metal of the door. That's why most upgrade to the 6.5 speakers which would then screw to the metal.

Also there are not many amps that will fit under the seat. Most of the installs I done in 993s I put the amp on a panel above the spare wheel as you mentioned.

I saw you fitted the cross overs in the doors. when it rains or you wash the car the bottom of the door fills with water and drains out. Make sure your cross overs are not resting at the bottom of the door

If your not to far come have a listen before you decide on what to go for. :thumb:
 
Hi Baj, thanks for the advice. Would love to come over for alisten when I am back from the highlands. Thatks for the tip about the water as well I did wonder whether it would be best to seal the crossovers up in some sort of weatherprrof enclosure.

Looking ahead, I can see that its inevitable that I will upgrade to the better hertz HSKs one the front and change to 6.5" as well as I will be fitting RS door cards soon in any case so may as well go to the bigger size. The DSK's I have can be migrated to the rear.

Thanks for the advice on the sub as well. TBH I rarely have anyone in my car so I can fit stuff wherever I want. I am planning to remove the rear seats and go for RS rear carpet and possibly a half cage as well at soem point. I would be very interested in your glovebox enclosure, whats your sort of timescale on this ? If you have a box in the pass footwell how much does it have to stick out ?
 
seeing as i plan to remove the rear seats anyway, another option would be to purchase the rear seat delete and then mount x2 8" subs there

993_rear_seat_delete.jpg



or maybe fit the RS carpet set and then just flush one or both seat buckets with some mdf:

IMG_42411269262806.jpg
 
Jackal - there is a place called auto acoustics which sell those rear footwell sub boxes. I was going to get a pair when I wanted to run a pair of 10" aliante phase linear subs (old school, like the 993) but there were a bit shallow.

Bang for buck just get an active sub and through a foot mat over it. Very easy to remove if need be. You would never know its there. End result is a much improved sound for very little outlay and car still looks stock.
 
I hear what you are saying but the fun is in the modding for me ... gives me a new project to keep me out of trouble :D

This from a porsche owner down under:

1620180008_large.jpg



carpet is all wrong but its a 10" sub and max depth of his enclosure was apparently 6" without compromising pass leg space
 
I have focal components in the doors running through an amp. However, the speakers are small and can't do bass. I would have been happy with the sort of bass response achievable from 6x9s however they don't fit.

The best response for bass is a bazooka tube which companies like Ian bannings in Guildford cut down to a compact ( rear footwell filling) space. The tube is self amplified and ties in reasonably well with the rest of my system. It doesn't lack bass anymore. Albeit some songs sound far better than others.

The boxes look inelegant and are too obtrusive.
 
if something like this was carpeted it could be nice

sub.jpg


I hear what you are saying about the tubes .. i used to have a bazooka back in 1992 ! It got nicked once when I parked in some estate near teh southbank. :grin:

TBH, i would rather make something and have it fashioned really neatly and seamlessley into the car. For me the art of doing it is part of the fun. I don't just want to plonk something down somewhere although I accept that that route os far easier, cheaper and probably sounds just as good as well.
 
jackal2513 said:
I hear what you are saying but the fun is in the modding for me ... gives me a new project to keep me out of trouble :D

This from a porsche owner down under:

1620180008_large.jpg



carpet is all wrong but its a 10" sub and max depth of his enclosure was apparently 6" without compromising pass leg space

Fair enough :thumb:

There is a 964 with some hertz Mille comps and a sub had been built in the space of the glovebox!! It belongs to one of the guys from four masters. Got some pics of you want but can't send till next month as I'm away on holiday at the moment.
 
jackal2513 said:
seeing as i plan to remove the rear seats anyway, another option would be to purchase the rear seat delete and then mount x2 8" subs there

993_rear_seat_delete.jpg

I love the storage offered with the factory rear seat delete and it opens up all sorts of options for ICE however I heard that the rear seat delete stowage cost a fecken fortune!
 
i thinks its not too bad but the postage is a killer as it comes from the USA (there arent ever any kits for sale in the UK)

tbh, i would like the proper RS look eventually (without the "RS" stitching of course) so would rather do a number on the footwell

will probably get to work making a mould when im back from scotland
 
You may want to bag those crossovers up Rich. It gets pretty wet inside the doors.
 

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