I tradded in my Z about a month ago, but I trust the opinions on this board, and was hoping to get some input on what to put in my replacement vehicle for a sound system.

New car is a 2007 Audi RS4, so I have to deal with the whole 4 door / trunk thing (very different from the system I had in the Z which was simpler).

Thoughts:

(1) DLS A5 - fronts and sub in the trunk
(1) DLS UR6i or better (2-way) - front
(1) sub in a small sealed enclosure

Now, the questions that's been bugging me is:

Everyone says that rear-fill is evil, and I tend to agree, but like a little sound from the rear.

Should I run any amplification on the rears? Should I just change the speakers out in the rear and leave them powered by the stock HU? Going this route would let me focus more money on quality front components.

Any sub recommendations for a small volume sealed enclosure?

Thanks.

 

I wouldn't say rear fill is evil, just not as much of a priority as your front stage.

At a concert you face the performer, the sound is coming at you from the front. The only sound coming from behind is reflected off the back wall of the arena or theater. In a proper setup in a car you try to emulate this as much as possible. At least thats what I remember from my IASCA days. Powering the rears off the headunit should be fine

In my new setup I'm using mid drivers in the rear and I'm amplifying them, but

I'm going a little buck nutty on this install.

How many cubic air space do you have in that small enclosure?

 

Wow, this will be a completely different set-up. Again, I will leave this one up to Bing.....

But, my opinion,,,being a sedan, I would amp both front and rear's and do a sub enclosure. Depending on how much money and modification you want to do,,,you can do a simple sealed enclosure, or a good ported enclosure ported though the rear deck of the car.

I had an Honda Accord years ago,,,Freeman's Car stereo in Charlotte did my whole set up. It sounded amazing. All of my friends that have known me all this time still tell me, my Accord was the best sounding system I ever had...LOL

 

PS....My Accord was a sedan,,,,totally custom rear deck with 8's mounted in the rear fill with the ports for the trunk enclosure ported through in the middle. I was running 4 Fosgate 12's,,,,front and rear were powered by old school, Power 300 and the 12's were powered by a Power 650,,,(which I still have.

It sounded so warm and clear,,,yet would pound car's sitting around you....It was a great all around system.

I know you dont care to hear about my old stuff,,,but it just brought back memories,,,,thank's for reading....(hug) LOL

 

in a sedan, i think you will be fine with stock rears off headunit, you wont hear much of it if you ahve a good front stage nor do you really want to IMO...just fade it forward and play the rears lightly, focus your money and energy to the fronts.

with an RS4 i would assume you have bose AND navi? if thats hte case, i am nots ure if you can do an aftermarket headunit and still keep stock navi...i also dont know if the 9102 kit works on an 07, anyway, if you dont have navi and you can use the 9102 kit, then you are good to go...

but if you have cannot do an aftermarket headunit, you may need a cleanswwep with a summing device to properly interface with the stock bose system.

on the UR6, i have been using the UX26 high end component coaxial lately in place of hte UR, its a little hceaper, and IMO sounds better and easier mounting www.dls.se and look it up

for small box requirements, to me, the Image Dynamics IDQ is hard to beat, i have put IDQ10s in .4 cub feet sealed enclosures and they do very well, extends to below 20hz with ease

 

Thanks.

You are right, I have both the Bose and Navi. One of the nice things about the RNS-E (factory head unit) is that it does everything (CD, Nav, Sat Radio, Bluetooth Phone) all in one package. I would definately NEVER change it out.

The other nice thing about the unit is that, despite being Bose, it does no signal processing internally. It sends a sandard line-level output to the Bose amps that work their "magic" . You can just tap into those and run straight to the amp.

I had a cleansweep in my Z (had one system stolen without it and decided I wanted the entire car to look stock again for theft deterence). It did a great job, but the seperate volume control and the loss of steering wheel controls would be a deal breaker for me in this car.

You're really suggesting a coaxial for the fronts? hmm... what do you think the advantages are? Better imaging? I would never have thought to go in that direction. If you were to go up from the UR6's to something more expensive in the lineup, do you think it would be worth it? Are the Iridium 6.2i's that much better?

Thanks for the sub recommendation. 0.4-0.5 cu.ft. is about what I will have. Do you think that sub powered by the DLS A5 sub channel will give enough output for it to be effective back in the trunk?

Thanks, again.

 

I'm not 100% sure, but I would guess about 0.4 - 0.5 cu.ft. based upon my quick measurements and calcs.

 

Looking into another sub location it appears I may have up to 0.7 cu.ft. for the enclosure.

Would that change any sub recomendations?

 

well, i am partial to coaxials, to me they are a better design, so if at all possible, i will always run a pointsource speaker. easier to tune, easier to install, and as long as its a high end design to me it works great

a lot of people seem to think coaxial = cheap, wchi is simply not true...the coaxial design is in some ways superior to the component design, but its becuae manufactuers CHOOSE to do coaxials as their CHEAP line that people tend to think they are cheap, those that make high end coaxials differ from this rule...

but...its just my opinion, to me, the UX26 is a better sounding speaker overall than the UR

for DLS stuff, i normally start people off with UPs and the UX26, and generally skip over the UR, beucase i believe the Iridium 6.2 is a much better sounding speaker than the UR for aboutr 200 bucks more... the UR is by no means a bad sounding spekaer of course, but the Iridium is just much better to my ears

b

 

It appears that the UR and above have trouble fitting in my new car without some significant modifications. The UP doesn't seem to have the same problem. Are they THAT much below the Iridiums in terms of SQ?

The coax's will probably have similar fitment issues, it appears.

 

what do you mean interms of fitment issues. the DLS speakeres are some of hte easist speakers to fit into any location, becuase of hteir hybrid neodymium motor structure that are TINY compared to normal ferrite speaker, heck, its one of hte fea speakres i can acutally fit in the stock Z location without ANY spacer not tha ti ever do that

What are hte major issues? depths? or?

the UX has the same motor structure shape as the UP

b

 

I mounted my Polk SR as coaxials and comps. and noticed zero if any difference at any volume. I also installed two sets, and really can't tell a huge difference from my previous setup that was only front comps. Well, not in terms of sound staging, but in terms of clarity and SQ the polks rock, but overall I cannot say I can really justify the added expense of installing the rears (the speakers themselves, install costs, and a four channel amp versus a two or three channel amp only). My advise is to listen to Bing. lol

 

I have noticed that a DLS distributor on an Audi board typically doesn't suggest using anything more than the UP's because he claims that anything above that has a large, cast basket that causes fitment issues. He also says that the tweeters in the higher end series are deeper, which makes it difficult to get them to fit into the stock locations (which are apparently, and suprisingly, good for imaging).

He doesn't post much any more over there, so it is difficult to get further answers.

I would certainly rather use the Iridiums if possible.

 

OK. I thought it would be appropriate to give an update on this project now that I have moved forward with it. Thanks to everyone for their advice / input in this thread.

All the equipment (with the exception of the AudioControl) was purchased through Bing. He is awesome to work with and was extremely helpful when a shipment went missing. (Did that sub ever make its way back to DLS?)

Installation was done by the Exotic Auto Boutique in Brooklyn. They were great in putting up with me. haha and do really nice work.

This is still a work in progress. An enclosure is being made to conceal the amp. I will add photos of that once its done.

The system sounds great allready, but still needs to be tuned. This will happen when the car goes back to have the amp rack facia installed. The logic was that since it had to go back anyway, I should tune the system once its had a little break in time.

Equipment:

Audi RNS-E factory nav / HU
DLS Ultimate A7 5-channel Amp
DLS Ultimate Iridium 6i Midbass in stock locations
Seas Performance Tweeters PT27f in stock locations
DLS Ultimate Iridium 10i subwoofer
Audiocontrol DQT Processor with DDC remote display

Fronts are running active crossover.

DLS A7 under rear deck (to be enclosed).


DLS Iridium 10" in enclosure buried in corner of trunk.




All adjustments and wiring can be accessed by folding the rear seats down. Otherwise, they are hidden.




All connections are install-specific labeled.


AudioControl DQT under trunk floor.


More labels.


AudioControl remote interface in armrest so that adjustments can be made from the driver's seat.

 

Wow,,that is really looking nice. I bet it sounds great. Prop's.

 

Thanks. They did a really clean job on the installation.

Sounds good so far. I can't wait to hear it properly tuned.

 

i have iridiums 6.2 mids and tweets in my custom kicks from bing. He is awesome. Looks very nice man. How do you like the audio control unit so far? i Just ordered the dqx with the ddc remote for my Z cant wait to get it and get my system actually tuned the way i want.

 

So far the AudioControl is a nice unit. I haven't had a whole lot of use for it yet since the system has yet to be tuned. So far its basically a glorified line driver. haha.

Once everything is complete I will have a better sense of how it does.

Being able to adjust the sound from the driver's seat with the DDC is going to be really useful.

I hope you like the DQX. I went with the DQT because I didn't need crossovers since the DLS A7 has all the crossovers needed for an active front stage.