Mulling over the plans in my head I thought I would put them out there for others to think about as well. At the time I was using a 1998 Jetta GT. It was a generic car that until you opened it up, you would have never have known there was a competition caliber system in there other than the upgraded headunit. I am going to continue with the stealth theme I had in the Jetta with the Tahoe.
Installation:
My days in IASCA and USAC forced me to follow "safety" and what I will call "physics" rules for installations and builds. I'll be applying a few of these to help those who have not seen a install of super-high calibur understand what was/is involved.
Wiring / Fusing - proper fusing, wire sizing, running wire safely.
Terminations - some general guidlines
Separation of Power & Audio Signal - a key component is avoiding Alt whine
Ease of maintenance - ability to get to fuses and connections. Ease of getting to tuning items on amps, X-overs etc
Custom features - lights, plexi, theme integration etc
Sound Quality:
The SQ side of competition is fierce. I was lucky that I did well right from the beginning, but I talked with many that spent years perfecting the tuning that balance of their systems and never got good scores. Technical CD's help in understanding how to best Tune the system, as well as tune it for overall listening ability. I have a very large range of listening tastes, and I play guitar. Some mentioned that this was a huge advantage because system tuning to one Genre or for specific styles of music hurt my systems in performance. Not sure if this is true, but it seems to work for me.
- Proper sound stage height (our trucks have horribly low sound stage's) Raising the sound stage is critical to really hearing the music and helping create a environment that makes you really want to listen more frequently.
SPL:
Everyone LOVES bass. the lower octaves of the music spectrum are critical to rounding out nearly every song. Bass, kick drum, paino, sythensyzer etc all work in these lower octaves. Miss this, and you are doomed to a system that is nothing but super-bright tweeters! I did pull 134db in the Jetta. I currently only pull about 120 in the Tahoe. Bass was never really a huge importance to me though. What I did crave though was a bass-hit that literally kicked your gut and didn't BOOM! Boominess was the evil side of SQ comp. The Jetta had that gut-hit. I really want that back. It's gonna take some finesse to get this seeing as the interior of the Tahoe is a giant box.
X-Overs:
Perhaps one of the most important components in a SQ system is the Crossover. It's the component that divides the frequencies that best match a particular speaker. The db/Octave roll-off frequency is such a simple piece of physics that I am surprised it's not talked about more(maybe it's just me). I was a HUGE tweaker in this area, and quickly found a combination that was killer for the equipment I was using(that is key because this varies depending on the system design and speaker combination). This aspect of design and tuning CAN be done right from the beginning -OR- after the system is already installed and tuned. The choice is yours. But I did find over the course of a few installs that setting setting the db/Octave roll-off was best done BEFORE the first FULL Tune. I'll discuss more as I get to this point.
Equipment decisions:
I will be re-using a lot of what I already have, so I need to review all of the specs of each and determine the best way to apply them to what I am doing. You DON'T need the best equip to have a great system. I went middle-of-the-road quality purchases when I built the current system(6years ago). Money is tight now so I don't have the ability to just replace items, so
I have to just work within their parameters. All in all though I DO have features that I want with the current equipment.
That's all for now...
