R35 Audio Install

[misters3]

This is the write up on my audio install by Audio Advice in Glasgow.

How it all started was, I was looking for a good installer near Glasgow to put in my ‘parking sensors, anti-hijack and at the time install CC’s non-nav front and rear camera solution. If you read CC’s threads, you’ll know he’s done quite a lot for the gtr.co.uk guys by pioneering a lot of these mods. And I’ve shamelessly copied his car in many ways.

So I did the usual Google search and read up on some ICE forums and the best guys in and around Glasgow as far as my limited search took me was Audio Advice.

So I called the guys and then decided to pay them a visit. After discussing the install I wanted I brought my car down again and had them work on it. Iain who runs the Glasgow branch gave me lift back to main train station after dropping my car off. I remember it clearly because I’d never heard sound like it when Prince’s Raspberry Beret played. I actually stopped talking mid-sentence and asked him what was in his car. I won’t detail his full set up, but the Focal Beryllium speakers were amazing. So it got me thinking about upgrading the sound. But to this date (early/mid Oct) I’d been driving everywhere with the windows down listening to the Y-pipe. And I hadn’t listened to the Bose system in the car much. So I just thanked him for the lift.

Having gotten my car back I drove down to Southport to play at Formby golf course and meet up with CC to test some things on my car. My other car is a 335D and this sort of journey should have been quite easy to do in a day (I’ve done it a few times). But when I came back up home, I felt that irritable/tired way and put it down in part of (the main) reason to the Bose sound system. No mid base at all and very harsh on my ears. BTW the drone from the Y-pipe was nothing compared to how tiring the stereo was for me to listen to.
(as a bit of background I have played in bands and dabbled in music production including with Paolo Nutini, so I do have a particular appreciation for good sounds even if my ears aren’t as good as they used to be)
I know for others the system sounds great and I wouldn’t ever pick them up on that. We all have our ‘things’ that we focus on. So like some guys are really into quarter miling I’m into my sounds.

So I took the car back to Iain at Audio Advice and asked them to come up with some solutions for the car. The big part for me was to keep the MFD and leave it as OEM looking as possible. I didn’t want too much space taken from the boot either.

This is what they came up with: Good, Better, Best was the remit I set them.

I’ve included prices as this is one of the main questions I’ve been asked by PM and I know if I don’t post the prices I’ll be asked.
BTW steer clear of the Bit 1 thing. JL Cleansweep is much better and less prone to errors (YouTube will show you lots of issues)

I’ve nicked the next bit from a report as I’m too lazy to type it all up in my own words (apologies)


[Written by Audio Advice]

I broke down 3 systems in a GOOD, BETTER, BEST
These 3 systems would be totally OE in appearance and would be totally invisible to anyone who looked around the car - the amp would be hidden and the subwoofer would reside in the factory sub box. The components would again be in factory locations.

All 3 systems will require the same materials and cabling etc; (as follows) so all 3 prices will have this included. Also included is the labour to install all parts and fabricate box etc; as required to ensure optimal audio reproduction from given kit.


Celsus 4 gauge power kit
Stinger RCA leads x2
Dynamat Extreme bulk pack for doors and around sub enclosure
Dynaliner 1/8" door kit (x2) for front doors and sub trim surround
MDF collars for mid bass drivers in door
2 days labour

With the benefit of JL's new XD amps (pic attached) we could 'hide' the amp virtually anywhere. System 1 & 2 will have the XD amp and system 3 the more powerful and slightly bigger HD amp. All 3 suggestions can be adapted and could have certain elements changed or upgraded but if I covered every combination I would have 10 suggested kits!!

Good - app £1900.00

MTX Re-Q 5
Focal Access 1 components
Focal Polyglass 8" subwoofer
JL Audio XD 4 channel amp
JL Audio XD subwoofer controller

Better - app £2200.00

MTX Re-Q 5
Focal Polyglass components
Focal Polyglass 8" subwoofer
JL Audio XD 6 channel amp
JL Audio XD subwoofer controller

Best - app £2700.00

MTX Re-Q 5
Focal Krx2 components
JL Audio 8" W3 subwoofer
JL Audio HD 5 channel amp
JL Audio HD subwoofer controller

[/written by Audio Advice]

For those that have seen my car you’ll notice that I don’t have any of those kits because I then decided to give Iain and Stuart more of a free reign and I ended up with what I’ll call Bestest system ***61514;
eg Iain has posted elsewhere that he would recommend A pillar builds to house tweeters as we found they worked very well here in the GTR especially when using Focal components - the A pillar tweeter mounts trimmed in Nissan grade black vinyl would be approximately £100 (extra if charcoal alcantara required)

I’ll now copy and paste his report on my system. Note that I was quoted for the system including some coach work at the beginning and didn’t pay a penny more. I paid £6k for my system. They had my car for a number of weeks partly because I was in no hurry with the snow and partly because of the problematic install due to the way the Bose system is installed. I can’t imagine how many hours the guys put into my car. And their attention to detail etc was 2nd to none. Nothing like I’ve ever experience to be honest.

Note that Iain is an International Sound Quality judge for ICE installs. I only found this out after I’d commissioned my install. And it makes sense because the attention to detail is definitely OCD. ***61514;

Note that I was advised against the more expensive Beryllium Focal speakers as they would be too much for the stock HU. They’d only be worth installing if I changed the HU for something better.

Also I have had the floor of my boot raised by about 3-4inches to accommodate the Dual Monitor amp.

[Written by Audio Advice]


Report

We had set out to provide the optimum audio experience in your car which involved a few factors that a fellow GTR owner may not either require or want but I am very happy on our final choice of kit etc; for your particular car.

The most fun we had (fun - interesting use of the word here!) was with the factory source / head unit. It just didn’t want to play ball when we tried to clean up the signal via JL Audio Clean Sweep. It took us countless hours to get to the bottom of its wee issues but on the 'next one' we do at least we have done the ground work on yours. Is it possible to add great audio to a GTR while still retaining factory source and usability etc;? - Absolutely it is - but just needs to be treated with respect and wired properly. We knew we were getting close when we (as a test) by-passed the factory source and used a cheap Pioneer head unit as a source and my goodness the car came to life. That gave us some hope while we were in the 'what’s going on here' phase of the job

We opted for the Focal Dual Monitor amp as it provided us with not only a true high end stereo amplifier but also a fairly unique built in 40 band EQ (adjustable via PC) and also the ability to fine tune the image and stage set up with its superb adjustment capability. The second amp is purely for sub bass duties for the 8" sub in factory location behind rear bench.

Front speaker wise we opted for the 3 way KRX Focals as they allowed us to mount the mid range and tweeter up in the A pillar in our bespoke mid range and tweeter build. Again this may seem unnecessary to some people who 'just' require an audio upgrade and that would be true but in your instance the mid range and tweeter was very important given the impression my 3 way Berylliums gave you. They are slightly more difficult to set up correctly when compared to 2 ways but the results do pay dividends.

Sub bass wise we opted for one 8" sub in a heavily modified version of the OE subwoofer enclosure. The OE box was strengthened and braced and one of the original 8" holes was sealed up to allow us to get tight punchy bass from the one 8. We also had to use some wadding to increase the volume (air space) of the enclosure. As the original Bose box face and surrounding area is all ABS plastic so a lot of sound deadening and Dynaliner was applied to reduce / eradicate any rattles.

Going back to the front speakers - just to say we fitted the mids to the doors would not do the 'behind the scenes' work any justice. The door cards were removed and all the outer door skin was treated to Dynamat Extreme Superlite sound deadening as was the inner metal skin. We sealed up and unnecessary holes to try and improve mid bass response from the superb KRx mids. The mids themselves were mounted to two birch ply rings which had been treated to two coats of yacht varnish to not only bolster their rigidity but also make them more water / damp proof. The rings were carefully constructed to exactly meet the original door card creating a sandwiched seal between rings and door cards. We opted for mounting the mids actually on the door card (after verifying with you) but again could have hidden them behind original grilles if the customer had wished. Before mounting the door cards we treated the rear of the card to a sheet of 1/8" Dynaliner material which aids the seal between plastics and metal.

Cabling was fairly straight forward with a JL Audio 2 gauge / 2 amp power kit and we utilised 2 Stinger Level 3 Pro RCA leads. Power wise though we had to think outside the box again. The factory GTR battery is fairly small physically and power wise and would not be able to cope with the draw from the Dual Monitor and the 500w mono amp. So we opted to add two very compact Jap spec batteries into the floor under driver’s side carpet. They are totally invisible and do not cause any sort of 'ruffle' (technical eh??) in the original carpet etc;

Internally the only small additions that a fellow GTR owner would see would be the charcoal alcantara trimmed gear lever surround and the dedicated subwoofer controller.

Thanks again for allowing us to work on your superb car and I hope you are still enjoying the audio experience and I will be in touch soon to arrange your 'tweak and tune' session.

Best regards

[/written by Audio Advice]

I hope this write up is of some worth to the guys who have PM’d me asking about my install.

Please note I do not work for Audio Advice. I paid in full for my system. I’m just an extremely happy customer in the same way I have lots of praise for Nobles, Matty and Miguel from Newera, Colin and Jo at CATDT etc, and if anyone wants to hear the car in person, drop me a PM


As evidence of the quality of customer service , Iain has ordered in a 2 ohm sub to replace the 4 ohm one in their currently because he things it might be even better as it will drive the amp harder– at no cost to me. This is a month after i've paid for my system!

Apologies to Peter and Andy for not dropping by on my recent trip to London. But hopefully there will be another time.

My thoughts on the system in the bedding in period, pre tweak and tune (the dual monitor has 5 presets that will be set up for me using an RTA )are that it’s now a proper GT. It was really easy to drive over a 1000 miles in a long weekend including at Millbrook with Colin. I can listen to music at motorway cruising speeds and it sounds amazing.
Obviously I’m still at the bedding in stage and in Iain’s words – the best is yet to come. But I was listening to Madeline Peyroux for the first time and have started to hear things in songs I’ve only ever heard on my old home studio. And it’s got me back into thinking about setting it up again. It’s a bit like people watching Avatar over and over, I’m getting into my car and listening to music again because of the experience. In the world of compressed MP3’s i’d forgotten what music should sound like. Eg I played Leftfield’s Leftism from CD for the first time in about 10 years and compared it to the ripped version on the Musicbox and on my system, you’ll see why I have only 1 cd ripped to the Music box. I’m reripping music at 320kbps, not because I’m able to tell the difference without back to back listening. But just that I know that if there’s something in the music, my system will let me hear it. And as I used to love hiding details in my mixes back in the day, it’s good to know that if they are there I’m not going to be missing them for any other reason than I wasn’t paying attention or my ears are failing me ***61514; BTW I suffer from tinnitus so it’s also a bonus that I can listen to music at lower levels and still get the full detail.

But don’t take my word for it. Get your fav CD and come round for a listen

[Robbie J]

interesting :-)

I don't want to go as far as you just need to get rud of those pathetic speakers

[misters3]

Originally Posted by Robbie J

interesting :-)

I don't want to go as far as you just need to get rud of those pathetic speakers

I don't **think** (i've got no practical experience - but would interested to hear if what you think if you do just replace just the speakers) replacing the speakers alone would be worth the effort because the HU (like nearly all factory HU's) doesn't send a flat signal as you turn up the volume. It affects the EQ. i.e the midbass doesn't go up linearly. Usually done to protect the pathetic OE speakers. The amps in the GT-R don't help either or that was the experience of the guys fitting my system.
Also note the positioning of the mid and tweeter in the door. They are behind you and too low.

[P1toR35]

Ian,

Top class write up - I wouldn't have the patience, hearing or indeed the wallet for such an install but it's great to see someone so passionate about their GTR.

We need another Scottish get together to listen to the stereo as well as the "tunes" coming from the black beast from Aberdeen (sorry John!).

Mark.

[misters3]

Originally Posted by P1toR35

Ian,

Top class write up - I wouldn't have the patience, hearing or indeed the wallet for such an install but it's great to see someone so passionate about their GTR.

We need another Scottish get together to listen to the stereo as well as the "tunes" coming from the black beast from Aberdeen (sorry John!).

Mark.

Thanks for the kind words Mark.

To be honest reading it back i wish i'd spent a wee bit more time on it. But i guess it serves it purpose. It's not an entry for any literary award (clearly).

I must admit i have had a lot done - but i guess i don't know when to say stop
Even just getting the good option with the A-pillars will make a world of difference i'm sure. As with all audio stuff it's the law of diminishing returns

Definitely do a meet up / drive soon.
Let me get my tweak and tune done, and i'll get something sorted. Hopefully that will give you an excuse to drive your car I know Need4Speed had a few ideas for route for us. He's abroad at the mo too, but soon hopefully now that the weather is threatening to turn!

[markyboy.1967]

Nice work and a good read. I had MF2K do my car several years ago and it made a big difference to the sound.

[eustache]

Originally Posted by misters3

Sub bass wise we opted for one 8" sub in a heavily modified version of the OE subwoofer enclosure. The OE box was strengthened and braced and one of the original 8" holes was sealed up to allow us to get tight punchy bass from the one 8. We also had to use some wadding to increase the volume (air space) of the enclosure.

Hi Ian,

Just looking through your "composition" once more, along with the pictures and was thinking about the sub (idle curiosity!). Mine is a base model and just has a grill in the boot where the air hole goes through into the back of the car - a "fee air" setup. I see yours has a solid looking box sticking a little way into the boot.

Was wondering if that was how it looked prior to the work being done, or whether it used to have the grill. Also is the sub now in a sealed enclosure, or does it use the air in the boot?

Cheers,

[misters3]

Hi Peter

The 3rd photo shows the amp cover tilted against the boot of the car. The guys made it up after i explained i put golf clubs in the back and the amp would get scratched by the bags.

The 'free air' set up is the same as stock (or at least looks the same). The enclosure is just reinforced a lot
I'll get out later and take some photos to show you.

Cheers

Ian

[eustache]

Originally Posted by misters3

Hi Peter

The 3rd photo shows the amp cover tilted against the boot of the car. The guys made it up after i explained i put golf clubs in the back and the amp would get scratched by the bags.

The 'free air' set up is the same as stock (or at least looks the same). The enclosure is just reinforced a lot
I'll get out later and take some photos to show you.

Cheers

Ian

-Ah - all is clear now! I misunderstood the picture - thought the amp cover was the rear of a new box. Mixture of optical illusion and senility!

My thoughts are turning towards having 2 smaller subs in a sealed enclosure, probably based on existing box, which in theory should give fast controlled base. The other big benefit is that the hole into the boot could be shut off, which has to make a big difference in terms of noise levels.

Cheers,

Peter

[misters3]

Originally Posted by eustache

-Ah - all is clear now! I misunderstood the picture - thought the amp cover was the rear of a new box. Mixture of optical illusion and senility!

My thoughts are turning towards having 2 smaller subs in a sealed enclosure, probably based on existing box, which in theory should give fast controlled base. The other big benefit is that the hole into the boot could be shut off, which has to make a big difference in terms of noise levels.

Cheers,

Peter

No it does look that like that.

I think you're idea of a closed box would be a good one. I ask Iain about that next time i'm in

[misters3]

Wee update:

Got a call from Iain from Audio Advice this afternoon.

He's just back from the US having JL amongst other places with the owner of Audio Advice Philip who runs the Irish branch.

Apparently while at JL, they were discussing various new products etc, kicking the breeze and having taken over some top notch whisky for one of the JL head honchos, Iain was asked if they could help out with anything.
Iain being Iain (OCD to the rest of us) mentions that he'd like something for my car. (NB i am very happy with my car but Iain is a perfectionist) Something 2ohm (or dual voice 4 Ohm) but the JL sub he wanted has been discontinued (JL 8W3 IIRC) so JL dude said he'd have a think. He then disappears for a bit and manages to get the last one from their R&D stock and gives it to Iain!!!
So Iain brings it back from the US in his hand luggage!!

Car goes in tomorrow to have it fitted while i'm down in Leeds playing golf

Can't wait to hear it when i come back!

[eustache]

Originally Posted by misters3

Wee update:
Something 2ohm (or dual voice 4 Ohm)

Sounds like you're getting the full 'personal service' ....

Is the theory that 2 ohms = half the resistance therefore twice the current and twice the power? - Or is my o'level physics totally shot now?

I was wondering how that would differ from turning up the volume on the controller for the original sub?

[misters3]

Originally Posted by eustache

Sounds like you're getting the full 'personal service' ....

Is the theory that 2 ohms = half the resistance therefore twice the current and twice the power? - Or is my o'level physics totally shot now?

I was wondering how that would differ from turning up the volume on the controller for the original sub?

If you do a google, you'll see that Iain is just like that. That's why i went there because i'm a bit precious about my car (not including the splitter!)
He's one of those guys who loves his job and can't stop thinking about the little details long after people like me have paid and driven off happy

Also my car always comes out of that place in far better condition than i put it in as he does a mini-detail too!

I can't remember the physics either to be honest but it's a JL 500.1 driving the 4 Ohm Sub at the moment and according to Iain it's not working hard enough for his liking. So the theory is to work the amp a little harder to improve the sound quality with a 2Ohm Sub.

FWIW - the other systems use the JL HD amps so don't have the problem of having a sub amp so powerful that it rivals the engine in the car

[misters3]

Peter

Dropped my car off to have the sub changed to JL8W3-2 and asked Iain about the sub install.
It's completely blanked off / sealed from the boot as you thought.

In my words there is a 'gasket' behind the seats of Dynamat to sound proof the boot from the inside of the car.

My sub enclosure is reinforced but Iain said they (or JL as L of JL has just picked up a GTR) will do a mould of the enclosure which will be more solid in the future.

Cheers

[eustache]

Yeah - A sealed enclosure does seem to make sense, both in terms of tight base, and keeping out all of the rear end noise. Certainly a weight saving compared with doing lots of sound proofing in the boot.

Depending on what I find when I get the rear out think I may just go for a mdf (or ply) custom-made enclosure.

So anyway Ian how does the new sub sound - presumably still running it in?