My Ridge Stereo - Work in Progress

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Looks good, nice clean work. Keep the updates coming. Must be nice to have the tools and fascility to do the work. :D

Mugen1,

Way cool. Forwarded your cardomain link to my audiophile brother. His kids are young enough that he is "training" them to love his music... :D
Thanks for posting the photos, impressive!

All I can say is "Wow". I could only imagine what your home stereo system is like! (Unless you live out of your RL)!:p

What Kevin said. WOW.
And when can I schedule my appointment for you to do that to Ridgena?? :D
Good luck on Ridge of the month. ;)

Mugen beautiful work. You need to check your thermosat though 21 degrees brrrr. :eek: ;)

Amazing! You have some set taking it apart like that. Inspiring to the rest of us. Thanks for sharing .

This summer when I head up to Whistler (usually mid-July early August) we have to hook up so I can see your install.

I wish I had the guts to tear apart my RL. :( I was nervous about popping the 2 dash plates needed to install the relays for the hitch.

Very nice, just spectacular... looks great and I bet it sounds like a concert in there or a movie theater... Where in Canada are you...

mugen, great install. you are really getting the details right.

How soon until you finish with the install and the rest of the mods you plan on doing to your RL? Get finished then we can talk about RL of the Month. :)

BTW, who has the RL of the month title right now?

We will be announcing the first ever RL of the Month this week. :)

Get your RL finished and we'll see if you're worthy of consideration. ;)

Very Very nice.

Mugen, that setup is killa. The separates on the a-pillar are about the cleanest I've seen. I checked this thread cuz I've been toying around with the idea of upgrading my RL's sound system. No matter how much I tweak the SOUND settings of mine it just sounds like avg pickup truck system. The RL is NOT your avg pickup truck. My S2000 has better sound than my RL and thats saying alot (100% factory in the S):( OK, the sub makes a difference below 400Hz.
My home setup is pretty outrageous and my PC setup is up-to-par but when I jump in my brand-spanking new truck I get boomy bass and horrible imaging. Thanks for the encouragement...I might just take the plunge.

:cool: very nice. wanna do that to my ridgeline too? :p

Mugen, that setup is killa. The separates on the a-pillar are about the cleanest I've seen. I checked this thread cuz I've been toying around with the idea of upgrading my RL's sound system. No matter how much I tweak the SOUND settings of mine it just sounds like avg pickup truck system. The RL is NOT your avg pickup truck. My S2000 has better sound than my RL and thats saying alot (100% factory in the S):( OK, the sub makes a difference below 400Hz.
My home setup is pretty outrageous and my PC setup is up-to-par but when I jump in my brand-spanking new truck I get boomy bass and horrible imaging. Thanks for the encouragement...I might just take the plunge.

I concur SgtSaunders, Mugen's system is show quality. Unreal skills my friend you have outdone your old floor mounted system by a whole bunch. I've sent your door sills to the powder coaters today so they will be processed and mailed soon. I certainly hope the water leak is fixed this time for your systems sake.

I'd love to see an 07' Ridge in Suzuka Blue with large chromes.....

that is one killer set up cant wait to see what else u can come up with

I guess I missed the mark altogether. I thought it was for mods and stuff. It didn't even occur to me it was for shots of the RL in neat places. Makes perfect sense to me now.

Yes, we are trying to change how we do the {insert vehicle name here} of the month. We want at least some of the pictures to be of the vehicle and with a nice background. Sometimes people don't have those and we will go with it. Interior shots of the stereo are important as are other stand out features.

January E of the Month (http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/eotm0106.php) Check this one out, also this weekend look for a recap of the entire 2005 E's of the Month.

We will feature your R once you feel it is finished, but the more things you have done and the better pictures you can get of it out and about the nicer to show it off. :)

mugen1, you do very nice work. You have good taste in gear, too. :)

Larry posted progress on your install over on the Element board a while ago and I checked out your CarDomain site. Again, nice work. Isn't car stereo fun? Just when you think you are nearing completion, everything gets torn apart and you start again. I'm going to be stripping down my Element over the next few months to install two more amps, a second sub and an Alpine piece you're familiar with, the PXA-H701, along with their RUX-C701 controller since I didn't use one of their decks. Of course, because I'm going from two amps to four, I get to rip out and throw away my entire power distribution, replacing the 4 and 8 gauge runs with 1/0 and 4 gauge ones. :) Here's (http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?p=213770#post213770) a more detailed explanation of the changes I have planned, along with the post on my install (http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15950) so far and pictures (http://outpost42004lementtereonstall.fotopic.net/).

There is one piece of info I can add to your install. I called Ohio Generator this week to find out if there was a high output alternator for the Element. It turns out there isn't and I'd imagine the same is true for the Ridgeline. I also found out we own better alternators than we think we do. In the discussion over on the Element board about this, out came information on a dynamite relay for multiple battery installations. You might be interested. Here's the thread. (http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20261)

You can help me. You're the second person I've heard that has talked about a huge learning curve using SEM products. I'm going to be heading into that Valley of Death shortly with a number of fiberglass buildouts I'll be doing and I don't think prayer will be enough. I plan on using SEM products but I'd like to shorten the learning curve. Any chance I can get you to give us the Clift Notes version of of what you learned? I have heard that the direction you apply the paint is all important. Any other hints you'd care to share or will I be a better person if I have to suffer, too? ;) :D

Thanks for the kind remarks. I, too, am an old timer. My first deck was an 8-track. I also used an SWR meter to align CB antennas more often than I'm proud to admit :)

Thin coats. Let dry well. Sounds like spray paint to me. I do appreciate the advice.

The relay I ended up buying was not the Stinger but the Kilovac relay made by Tyco that is mentioned near the end of that thread. It is expensive - $152 - but should be well worth it. If it's good enough to use in outer space on the ISS then it's good enough for my car.

:cool: :D

Mugen1 - what are you thinking about for your sub? You are probably aiming higher than I am, but I'm interested in your thinking. I have built several subs - but more for home theater than auto. I use BassBox software to design mine.

I am most likely to build one for under the rear seat, around .7 cu. ft. A single 10 or 12 will probably do it for me. I will not spend $200+ on an "autosound" sub. I will probably build a closed box but have not ruled out a vented box completely. I favor clean bass where I can hear pitch changes in the music. I place zero value on the looks of the dust cap, trim ring, or the color of the surround.

The primary benefit of isobariks is that the configuration halves VAS, which can reduce the size of the box required. But some of that advantage is lost by the extra space required for the second woofer.

The directionality of harmonics should not be a big factor. The second harmonic of 50hz is 100hz - which depending on your crossover frequency will be reproduced by your door speakers, not the sub. Even if 100hz is reproduced by the sub - 100hz is probably not at all directional. Look at the dispersion curves of small woofers or midranges. They don't become directional until 1000-2000hz depending on the size of the driver.

My home theater sub is built with this: http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?cart_id=3284572.29128&pid=830 and its matching passive radiator.

I think the bass of this single sub is amazingly powerful in my 20 x 16 room. It is very clean too. Although not commonly used in cars - I think a PR system would be an interesting choice.

What i want to try is playing around with phase. Most prcessors give you 0 and 180 degree choice. What would happen if you go in between or beyond 360. How does this affect time alignment? How is time alignment and phasing related? or are they? Then there's placement of the driver. Bass in non-directional the lower you go, but does the harmonics not come into play?

You want the phases to match, the 0/180 choice will allow a simple correction of a wire reversal (or a driver mounted backwards, ie with the basket and magnet out of the enclosure). If you go beyond 360, you are back at 0 (it is like a circle). Time alignment and phasing can be considered the same thing in this application. Placement shouldn't matter too much, the midrange and tweeters will take care of the harmonics and your ears' localization of them.

Placement of bass driver does matter in the confines of a vehicle -- unlike the properties of a larger area such as rooms in a house. In any case, achieving good sound in an RL is turning out to be more of a challenge than I first thought. My Civic was easy. All I had to overcome was the typical dip in the 200 - 250 Hz range due to cancellation.


I'm not sure I agree with you. Bass driver placement in a home matters a great deal. The wavelengths of bass notes are long. A 40hz note has a wavelength of 28 ft. In a room the waves reflect and combine at unique spots based on the contribution of sound from different locations. The dimensions of a car are so small and the reflections so numerous you shouldn't see great differences in bass driver placement. A cancellation at 200 hz shouldn't have anything to do with your sub unless you have a crossover that high (or a slope too shallow) and you have overlap between the sub and mids. I assume you have a high pass on BOTH front and rear door speakers. If not - you could be getting weird cancellations, not to mention overdriving 6 inch woofers.

mugen - one of my best systems also was in a Civic. It was 1981 and we put an 10" a/d/s/ sub in a sealed box in the hatch. It was very unusual to add a sub to a car stereo back then. I remember having to justify having it to people again and again. I used the best speaker available in '81, a pair of a/d/s/ 320i components, up front. But what made me think about this system was that you had Nakamichi electronics. My Civic had a Nakamichi TD-700 cassette deck in the dash and one of their PA amps. I loved that system. It sounded so kickass. I also don't know if I've ever had a richer, warmer system. It was good. :)

I agree that phase is as important in the home as in the car. It's easier to hear incorrect phase in a car.

What I really want to mention, though, is I've been thinking about your phase/time alignment question. Are they related? I don't think so. This is strictly a thought experment so I'm looking for someone to pull it apart.

In a component two-way, when you use a second order (12dB per octave) crossover, the tweeter is wired out of phase with woofer. They cross over will have a big suck-out if you hook the tweeter and woofer up in phase. Wiring them out of phase gives you a smooth crossover. If you were to switch to a fourth order (24dB) crossover, you'd have the suckout if you hooked them up out of phase. You have to change the system so that the drivers are now back in phase with each other.

And yet, all this time, would the drivers have moved? The woofer and tweeter would be the same distance away from you ears. Time alignment is a function of the fact that it takes sound about a millisecond to go a foot. That is what we are compensating for.

I can see where, because they both deal with time, you might think they'd be related but I think they are two separate issues.

I'm 52...and not a year older, thank you. At least not until April. :)

Phase and time alignment are related in that they both depend on time. Let's get more basic. There are only three things you can do with a sound wave (or any wave for that matter):

You can raise or lower its amplitude - volume
You can raise or lower its frequency - tone
You can change when it starts - phase

Frequency and phase both involve time. That phase involves time is obvious by definition. That frequency involves time is as basic. Frequency is the number of cycles per second, right? It also is a measurement of distance. A 80 Hz wave is 14.10 feet long (1128 feet/second divided by 80 cycles/second equals 14.10 feet/cycle). Sound travels 1.128 feet per millisecond. Which means that two 80 Hz waves that are 180° out of phase with each other are either 7.05 feet or 6.25 milliseconds out of sync. It's your choice how you'd like to measure their relationship. Time, distance, frequency and phase are all interrelated.*

All of this doesn't affect time alignment, though. It's natural to think since we are using the same measurements - feet and milliseconds - that they should be correlated. But they aren't. Remember the purpose of time alignment: to get all the sounds from all the drivers in the car to hit your ear at the same millisecond. By their nature, traveling different distances, they will never be in phase with each other. But getting the attack of a drum hit or the pluck of a string bass, sounds whose fundimentals are put out by a woofer but have harmonics that are made by midranges and tweeters, to get all of those leading edge moments from all the drivers to hit the listener's ears at the same instant, that is the function of time alignment.

I don't understand why you don't like time alignment. Yes, it fine tunes the sound for just one seat, but you already admitted you are the only person in your Ridgeline most of the time. That is exactly the situation time alignment is meant to enhance. Who cares if it sounds good in the empty passenger's seat? Come up with a comprised setting for when you have a passenger.

* You do know one of the handiest formulas around, don't you? Take the speed of sound at sea level - 1128 feet/second - and divide it by a frequency to get the wave length of that frequency. A 60 Hz wave is 18.8 feet long (1128 ÷ 60). The formula also works backwards. Do you want to figure out the frequency of a given wave length? Divide 1128 by the distance. A wave 4½ feet long has a frequency of 250 Hz (1128 ÷ 4.5). Do you want to know why cars almost always have a boom at around 250-300 Hz? It's because the distance from side to side in a car, not to mention the floor to the ceiling, is around 4 to 4.5 feet, which causes a 250-300 Hz wave to be reinforced.

Wow you have way too much time on your hands. What is the total cost of your system? With the labor it probably costs more then the truck. Goes to show you love your Ridgeline.

Naw, just 29 years of selling home and car stereos (I own a store) with too many sales meetings and factory trainings. I'm actually the mobile electronics moderator over on the Element board. My name is Gregg.

At retail, the stereo in my Element would go for $9K. I am going to be making some improvements to it over the winter and spring that will probably add another $3-4K to that.

Here is the Element thread (http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15950) on my system and the pictures (http://outpost42004lementtereonstall.fotopic.net/).

We use the word wave when talking about sound -- how accurate is that? Is compression a better word to describe it?
Yes, definitely in the bass we are compressing air as well as exciting it inside of a car. In powerful SPL systems, compression is the major factor. But whether it be a compression wave or normal sound wave, it's still a wave. Sound propagates via waves.

For those of you playing along at home, this is why when a good stereo is playing and you roll down a car window, the deep bass disappears. :)

i'm just starting to do a system in my ridgeline. i just an Eclipse avn 5495 and going to dynamat everything before i get started with speakers. Any suggestions for me ...i'll probably use all JL audio for speaker and Amps considering I get them at good cost .. i'll most likely do 2 ten's or 3 eight's I like sound quality over voulme but still like to listen to it loud when I want to ..

Really I'm going to take it slow and do everything the right way alarm first ,headunit ,etc....

Mugen,
i really like the A pillars that you had built , how do you like them?

i'll dynamat the cabin area only ..unless needed some other places..

Power Distribution ?...you talking extra battery,Larger alternator, Cap's.. in that case probably just a stinger expert series cap since the system will only have around 1,000 watts . Which I believe that the factory charging system and battery can handle that pretty well.

oh ya, i'll also use stinger expert series cables,wiring, and accessories when I dynamat the vehicle