Audio system nearly complete - with Pics

My audio upgrade is about complete. I included a few pictures – but they are not intended to show a disassembled RL interior. Those pictures have been posted already by others and were very helpful. My system is not as elaborate as mugen1’s, djdj’s or a few others here on ROC. For example there is no DVD/video or NAV capability. My goal was to dramatically improve the clarity and range of the sound in the RL. I originally planned to keep the factory 6-disc HU and integrate to the rest of the system with an Audiocontrol LC6 line output converter. But I changed my mind because I was uncertain whether the outputs of the Honda HU were equalized or not. I considered a JL Audio Cleansweep but it cost more than a new head unit and I didn’t want a separate volume control. I also wanted MP3 playback and the Honda MP3 player is ridiculously priced. So I decided to replace the factory 6-disc changer headunit with an Alpine unit.

One thing I did differently than most ROCers: I used full active crossovers instead of passive. I prefer component speakers over coaxes, and I prefer the flexibility provided by active crossovers. Active crossovers often offer steeper crossover slopes than passive, and they also put nothing but wire between the amplifier and speaker. The cost isn’t as high as some might think – because 4 way amps are widely available and by comparison good passive crossovers are not cheap. A 24 db/octave passive crossover could be expensive if you use good coils and capacitors. Active crossovers should be accessible for adjustments – not behind the rear seat.

I’m kind of anti-bling and somewhat frugal. So I didn’t buy speakers from normal autosound brands. I’m not impressed with many of them – especially the emphasis on cosmetics and gimmicks (like 4-way coaxes). Just my two cents. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money so some of my components were purchased used on ebay.

My component list:


Alpine CDA-9853 headunit, bought from Crutchfield for $269 including dash kit, wiring harness, and antenna adapter. I picked this HU because it has a fully programmable crossover, time compensation, parametric EQ, and MP3/WMA capability. It supports steering wheel controls. It is also a closeout right now which explains the great price.
Alpine MRV-F307 4x50W amplifier; drives front tweeters and rear speakers; amp mounted behind the rear seat
Alpine MRV-F340 4x55W amplifier; drives front mid-bass and subwoofer (bridged); amp mounted behind the rear seat
Audiocontrol 3XS crossover, used to crossover between tweeters and mid-bass; mounted under the passenger seat so I can adjust it without removing the rear seat
Vifa P17WJ 6½ inch mid-bass – 4 ohm version of highly regarded home audio drivers; I have previous experience with this driver in another vehicle, very smooth midrange
Vifa D26NC05 soft dome autosound tweeter – I used it before in another vehicle; mounted on the door frames exactly where you’d expect it.
Parts Express Reference Series 10 inch High Output subwoofer – described already in another thread; in a sealed box mounted under the rear seat
Rear speakers are factory; maybe I’ll replace them someday with good coaxes
Stinger Helix (mostly) interconnects, directional twisted pair
Stinger 4 ga. and 8 ga. power/ground wiring; 16 ga. speaker cable (nothing special)
PAC SWI-ALP – steering wheel control adapter (not hooked up yet)
Cascade Audio Engineering VG2 sound dampening material on front doors


The Alpine HU is used in 2-way crossover mode, not 3-way, because I wanted fader control of the rear. The Alpine HU crossover feeds signals below 100hz to the sub amp, rear signals above 100hz to the rear amp, and front signals above 100hz to the Audiocontrol crossover, which splits the signal at 2.66Khz to the tweeters and mid-bass. One common design point for a tweeter crossover frequency is at least one octave above its free air resonance – which provides some power handling capacity. For this tweeter that frequency would be about 3500hz. Because the 3XS uses 24 db/octave crossovers I pushed the crossover down slightly in frequency. Pushing it down makes the sound a bit less dependent on direct sound from the mid-bass drivers.

A couple of installation notes and general comments on results:

There is a good deal of room behind the rear seat but the depth shrinks considerably as you move up from the bottom. The picture below of the amp board shows the MRV-F340 (right amp) mounted in “portrait” style – chosen to face the wiring to the left. I learned later that it was too thick at the top and I couldn’t reinstall the rear seat. So I had to re-mount the amp “landscape” style – not shown in the picture.
Interconnnects from the HU to the center of the rear seat need to be 14-15 ft. long, not 12 ft – if you plan to run wires the long way around. I carefully (so I thought!) estimated 12 ft, planning to route the wire under the door sills. I was forced to “cut the corner” and run the wires under the rear floor from the door pillars to the amps. Oh well.
I ran 4ga power through the grommet above+right of the gas pedal. Worked great.
When I removed the door panels no more than 1/3 of the white snaps stayed on the door. I used curved electronics forceps to pop them out.
I ran new speaker wire into the driver’s door by cutting a slot in the door frame right next to the white wiring connector. I cut the slot with my Dremel. The wire goes through the factory rubber boot. Thanks mugen1 for the advice on running wire through the boot.
The front mid-bass speakers are mounted in place of the factory speakers with spacers I made from ¾ inch MDF. The spacers are painted for protection from moisture and are screwed directly to the door frame. The speakers are screwed to the spacers with 8x3/4 inch stainless screws. I use rope putty as gasket material because it is a bit sticky and seals very well.
Even with ¾ inch MDF spacers my mid-bass drivers were a bit too wide a relaxed fit with the existing door holes. I had to carefully rotate the mid-bass drivers to align their narrowest part to align with the factory cutout.
My tweeter mounts needed more depth than available in the plastic door pieces so I had to create 1/8 inch thick ring spacers. It looks better than I thought it would.
I have not yet hooked up the rear speakers. I plan to use the factory wiring. Anyone know the polarity of the factory wiring? I plan to tap in at the door pillars.
The front doors vibrate much less than before. I don’t think it is as much about sound dampening as it is not running low bass to those speakers.
With no special effort the system has no noise or grounding problems. Perhaps those twisted pair interconnects really are better. Thanks to eshuerger for pointing out the fuzzy directional indicators.


I’m still tuning/tweaking, but the sound is dramatically better. I thought the factory system had schizophrenic bass – sometimes sounded reasonably balanced, other times thick and slow. I think the factory sub is OK, but the door speakers were run full range, which overlapped the sub, causing the thick sound. The treble always sounded soft or distant, even with the treble turned up. My system is not designed to boom. I listen to blues, jazz, and a variety of rock. The bass is very clean and has good pitch definition. One mark of a good system is that it encourages you to play lots of music, and loud. I’ve been doing that constantly…..

Sorry for the long post. Thanks to mugen1, djdj, and others for their posts and pictures.

A few more pics:

Doing your thing against the norm impresses me. You keep it up there big fellow. You got my attention by doing things your way. Yes sir,that's the way to do it.

My audio upgrade is about complete. I included a few pictures – but they are not intended to show a disassembled RL interior. Those pictures have been posted already by others and were very helpful. My system is not as elaborate as mugen1’s, djdj’s or a few others here on ROC. For example there is no DVD/video or NAV capability. My goal was to dramatically improve the clarity and range of the sound in the RL. I originally planned to keep the factory 6-disc HU and integrate to the rest of the system with an Audiocontrol LC6 line output converter. But I changed my mind because I was uncertain whether the outputs of the Honda HU were equalized or not. I considered a JL Audio Cleansweep but it cost more than a new head unit and I didn’t want a separate volume control. I also wanted MP3 playback and the Honda MP3 player is ridiculously priced. So I decided to replace the factory 6-disc changer headunit with an Alpine unit.

One thing I did differently than most ROCers: I used full active crossovers instead of passive. I prefer component speakers over coaxes, and I prefer the flexibility provided by active crossovers. Active crossovers often offer steeper crossover slopes than passive, and they also put nothing but wire between the amplifier and speaker. The cost isn’t as high as some might think – because 4 way amps are widely available and by comparison good passive crossovers are not cheap. A 24 db/octave passive crossover could be expensive if you use good coils and capacitors. Active crossovers should be accessible for adjustments – not behind the rear seat.

I’m kind of anti-bling and somewhat frugal. So I didn’t buy speakers from normal autosound brands. I’m not impressed with many of them – especially the emphasis on cosmetics and gimmicks (like 4-way coaxes). Just my two cents. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money so some of my components were purchased used on ebay.

My component list:


Alpine CDA-9853 headunit, bought from Crutchfield for $269 including dash kit, wiring harness, and antenna adapter. I picked this HU because it has a fully programmable crossover, time compensation, parametric EQ, and MP3/WMA capability. It supports steering wheel controls. It is also a closeout right now which explains the great price.
Alpine MRV-F307 4x50W amplifier; drives front tweeters and rear speakers; amp mounted behind the rear seat
Alpine MRV-F340 4x55W amplifier; drives front mid-bass and subwoofer (bridged); amp mounted behind the rear seat
Audiocontrol 3XS crossover, used to crossover between tweeters and mid-bass; mounted under the passenger seat so I can adjust it without removing the rear seat
Vifa P17WJ 6½ inch mid-bass – 4 ohm version of highly regarded home audio drivers; I have previous experience with this driver in another vehicle, very smooth midrange
Vifa D26NC05 soft dome autosound tweeter – I used it before in another vehicle; mounted on the door frames exactly where you’d expect it.
Parts Express Reference Series 10 inch High Output subwoofer – described already in another thread; in a sealed box mounted under the rear seat
Rear speakers are factory; maybe I’ll replace them someday with good coaxes
Stinger Helix (mostly) interconnects, directional twisted pair
Stinger 4 ga. and 8 ga. power/ground wiring; 16 ga. speaker cable (nothing special)
PAC SWI-ALP – steering wheel control adapter (not hooked up yet)
Cascade Audio Engineering VG2 sound dampening material on front doors


The Alpine HU is used in 2-way crossover mode, not 3-way, because I wanted fader control of the rear. The Alpine HU crossover feeds signals below 100hz to the sub amp, rear signals above 100hz to the rear amp, and front signals above 100hz to the Audiocontrol crossover, which splits the signal at 2.66Khz to the tweeters and mid-bass. One common design point for a tweeter crossover frequency is at least one octave above its free air resonance – which provides some power handling capacity. For this tweeter that frequency would be about 3500hz. Because the 3XS uses 24 db/octave crossovers I pushed the crossover down slightly in frequency. Pushing it down makes the sound a bit less dependent on direct sound from the mid-bass drivers.

A couple of installation notes and general comments on results:

There is a good deal of room behind the rear seat but the depth shrinks considerably as you move up from the bottom. The picture below of the amp board shows the MRV-F340 (right amp) mounted in “portrait” style – chosen to face the wiring to the left. I learned later that it was too thick at the top and I couldn’t reinstall the rear seat. So I had to re-mount the amp “landscape” style – not shown in the picture.
Interconnnects from the HU to the center of the rear seat need to be 14-15 ft. long, not 12 ft – if you plan to run wires the long way around. I carefully (so I thought!) estimated 12 ft, planning to route the wire under the door sills. I was forced to “cut the corner” and run the wires under the rear floor from the door pillars to the amps. Oh well.
I ran 4ga power through the grommet above+right of the gas pedal. Worked great.
When I removed the door panels no more than 1/3 of the white snaps stayed on the door. I used curved electronics forceps to pop them out.
I ran new speaker wire into the driver’s door by cutting a slot in the door frame right next to the white wiring connector. I cut the slot with my Dremel. The wire goes through the factory rubber boot. Thanks mugen1 for the advice on running wire through the boot.
The front mid-bass speakers are mounted in place of the factory speakers with spacers I made from ¾ inch MDF. The spacers are painted for protection from moisture and are screwed directly to the door frame. The speakers are screwed to the spacers with 8x3/4 inch stainless screws. I use rope putty as gasket material because it is a bit sticky and seals very well.
Even with ¾ inch MDF spacers my mid-bass drivers were a bit too wide a relaxed fit with the existing door holes. I had to carefully rotate the mid-bass drivers to align their narrowest part to align with the factory cutout.
My tweeter mounts needed more depth than available in the plastic door pieces so I had to create 1/8 inch thick ring spacers. It looks better than I thought it would.
I have not yet hooked up the rear speakers. I plan to use the factory wiring. Anyone know the polarity of the factory wiring? I plan to tap in at the door pillars.
The front doors vibrate much less than before. I don’t think it is as much about sound dampening as it is not running low bass to those speakers.
With no special effort the system has no noise or grounding problems. Perhaps those twisted pair interconnects really are better. Thanks to eshuerger for pointing out the fuzzy directional indicators.


I’m still tuning/tweaking, but the sound is dramatically better. I thought the factory system had schizophrenic bass – sometimes sounded reasonably balanced, other times thick and slow. I think the factory sub is OK, but the door speakers were run full range, which overlapped the sub, causing the thick sound. The treble always sounded soft or distant, even with the treble turned up. My system is not designed to boom. I listen to blues, jazz, and a variety of rock. The bass is very clean and has good pitch definition. One mark of a good system is that it encourages you to play lots of music, and loud. I’ve been doing that constantly…..

Sorry for the long post. Thanks to mugen1, djdj, and others for their posts and pictures.
For polarity just use a battery + to + and - to - will cause the speaker to move away from the magnet. This is the correct wiring. If it moves backwards then the polarity is reversed. Easy!

For polarity just use a battery + to + and - to - will cause the speaker to move away from the magnet. This is the correct wiring. If it moves backwards then the polarity is reversed. Easy!

I know....but I have to remove the door panel to watch the cone. I was hoping to avoid that. I'm tired of popping panels off for awhile!

what are you using for midrange?

The midrange is the Vifa P17WJ. It is really a mid-bass. It operates from 100 hz to 2.67 Khz. The Vifa tweeter operates above 2.67Khz. The sub operates below 100 hz.

The rather exact crossover frequency between the midbass and the tweeter is determined by the resistor modules used by the Audiocontrol 3XS crossover.

You're welcome.

Just noticed this - nice work, well thought out...were you a carpenter in another life, this one, or just have lots of experience? (I saw the box building thread too ;) ). Thats nice work :)

edit: I see you went with the Alpine and the Crutchfield wiring kit - did you hook the blue antenna hook-up wire to the blue lead on the actual antenna jack?

Thanks for the nice words. I am an off and on woodworker and have done several speakers over the years. It helps to have a good table saw. Biggest problem is lack of time....

As for the antenna - Yes - you have to connect the antenna power on lead to the blue wire on the Honda antenna connector. I didn't do that at first - and had almost no radio reception. The blue lead carries 12V to the antenna amplifier. Once I did that my radio reception became acceptable. I think this is a weak spot in the RL. The antenna shouldn't need an amplifier, but Honda chose to put the factory antenna in a very crappy location. Too much metal around it. I think Alpine radios are normally pretty good, but mine is a little less sensitive than the factory HU. Still very happy with the Alpine. The Bass Engine Pro (Xover, parametric EQ, and time compensation) is very good.

My audio upgrade is about complete. I included a few pictures – but they are not intended to show a disassembled RL interior. Those pictures have been posted already by others and were very helpful. My system is not as elaborate as mugen1’s, djdj’s or a few others here on ROC. For example there is no DVD/video or NAV capability. My goal was to dramatically improve the clarity and range of the sound in the RL. I originally planned to keep the factory 6-disc HU and integrate to the rest of the system with an Audiocontrol LC6 line output converter. But I changed my mind because I was uncertain whether the outputs of the Honda HU were equalized or not. I considered a JL Audio Cleansweep but it cost more than a new head unit and I didn’t want a separate volume control. I also wanted MP3 playback and the Honda MP3 player is ridiculously priced. So I decided to replace the factory 6-disc changer headunit with an Alpine unit.

One thing I did differently than most ROCers: I used full active crossovers instead of passive. I prefer component speakers over coaxes, and I prefer the flexibility provided by active crossovers. Active crossovers often offer steeper crossover slopes than passive, and they also put nothing but wire between the amplifier and speaker. The cost isn’t as high as some might think – because 4 way amps are widely available and by comparison good passive crossovers are not cheap. A 24 db/octave passive crossover could be expensive if you use good coils and capacitors. Active crossovers should be accessible for adjustments – not behind the rear seat.

I’m kind of anti-bling and somewhat frugal. So I didn’t buy speakers from normal autosound brands. I’m not impressed with many of them – especially the emphasis on cosmetics and gimmicks (like 4-way coaxes). Just my two cents. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money so some of my components were purchased used on ebay.

My component list:


Alpine CDA-9853 headunit, bought from Crutchfield for $269 including dash kit, wiring harness, and antenna adapter. I picked this HU because it has a fully programmable crossover, time compensation, parametric EQ, and MP3/WMA capability. It supports steering wheel controls. It is also a closeout right now which explains the great price.
Alpine MRV-F307 4x50W amplifier; drives front tweeters and rear speakers; amp mounted behind the rear seat
Alpine MRV-F340 4x55W amplifier; drives front mid-bass and subwoofer (bridged); amp mounted behind the rear seat
Audiocontrol 3XS crossover, used to crossover between tweeters and mid-bass; mounted under the passenger seat so I can adjust it without removing the rear seat
Vifa P17WJ 6½ inch mid-bass – 4 ohm version of highly regarded home audio drivers; I have previous experience with this driver in another vehicle, very smooth midrange
Vifa D26NC05 soft dome autosound tweeter – I used it before in another vehicle; mounted on the door frames exactly where you’d expect it.
Parts Express Reference Series 10 inch High Output subwoofer – described already in another thread; in a sealed box mounted under the rear seat
Rear speakers are factory; maybe I’ll replace them someday with good coaxes
Stinger Helix (mostly) interconnects, directional twisted pair
Stinger 4 ga. and 8 ga. power/ground wiring; 16 ga. speaker cable (nothing special)
PAC SWI-ALP – steering wheel control adapter (not hooked up yet)
Cascade Audio Engineering VG2 sound dampening material on front doors


The Alpine HU is used in 2-way crossover mode, not 3-way, because I wanted fader control of the rear. The Alpine HU crossover feeds signals below 100hz to the sub amp, rear signals above 100hz to the rear amp, and front signals above 100hz to the Audiocontrol crossover, which splits the signal at 2.66Khz to the tweeters and mid-bass. One common design point for a tweeter crossover frequency is at least one octave above its free air resonance – which provides some power handling capacity. For this tweeter that frequency would be about 3500hz. Because the 3XS uses 24 db/octave crossovers I pushed the crossover down slightly in frequency. Pushing it down makes the sound a bit less dependent on direct sound from the mid-bass drivers.

A couple of installation notes and general comments on results:

There is a good deal of room behind the rear seat but the depth shrinks considerably as you move up from the bottom. The picture below of the amp board shows the MRV-F340 (right amp) mounted in “portrait” style – chosen to face the wiring to the left. I learned later that it was too thick at the top and I couldn’t reinstall the rear seat. So I had to re-mount the amp “landscape” style – not shown in the picture.
Interconnnects from the HU to the center of the rear seat need to be 14-15 ft. long, not 12 ft – if you plan to run wires the long way around. I carefully (so I thought!) estimated 12 ft, planning to route the wire under the door sills. I was forced to “cut the corner” and run the wires under the rear floor from the door pillars to the amps. Oh well.
I ran 4ga power through the grommet above+right of the gas pedal. Worked great.
When I removed the door panels no more than 1/3 of the white snaps stayed on the door. I used curved electronics forceps to pop them out.
I ran new speaker wire into the driver’s door by cutting a slot in the door frame right next to the white wiring connector. I cut the slot with my Dremel. The wire goes through the factory rubber boot. Thanks mugen1 for the advice on running wire through the boot.
The front mid-bass speakers are mounted in place of the factory speakers with spacers I made from ¾ inch MDF. The spacers are painted for protection from moisture and are screwed directly to the door frame. The speakers are screwed to the spacers with 8x3/4 inch stainless screws. I use rope putty as gasket material because it is a bit sticky and seals very well.
Even with ¾ inch MDF spacers my mid-bass drivers were a bit too wide a relaxed fit with the existing door holes. I had to carefully rotate the mid-bass drivers to align their narrowest part to align with the factory cutout.
My tweeter mounts needed more depth than available in the plastic door pieces so I had to create 1/8 inch thick ring spacers. It looks better than I thought it would.
I have not yet hooked up the rear speakers. I plan to use the factory wiring. Anyone know the polarity of the factory wiring? I plan to tap in at the door pillars.
The front doors vibrate much less than before. I don’t think it is as much about sound dampening as it is not running low bass to those speakers.
With no special effort the system has no noise or grounding problems. Perhaps those twisted pair interconnects really are better. Thanks to eshuerger for pointing out the fuzzy directional indicators.


I’m still tuning/tweaking, but the sound is dramatically better. I thought the factory system had schizophrenic bass – sometimes sounded reasonably balanced, other times thick and slow. I think the factory sub is OK, but the door speakers were run full range, which overlapped the sub, causing the thick sound. The treble always sounded soft or distant, even with the treble turned up. My system is not designed to boom. I listen to blues, jazz, and a variety of rock. The bass is very clean and has good pitch definition. One mark of a good system is that it encourages you to play lots of music, and loud. I’ve been doing that constantly…..

Sorry for the long post. Thanks to mugen1, djdj, and others for their posts and pictures.

One thought here,,, Why didn't you cover the entire door skin with the sound damping material while you had the door panels off? The expense compared to your overall cost would be very minimal. The more you cover, the less vibration you have, the bettter your audio quality... Maybe on your next trip into the door would be the time to do that??

One thought here,,, Why didn't you cover the entire door skin with the sound damping material while you had the door panels off? The expense compared to your overall cost would be very minimal. The more you cover, the less vibration you have, the bettter your audio quality... Maybe on your next trip into the door would be the time to do that??


I know absolutely nothing about car audio. Never changed out the factory stuff in my life. But this comment arroused my curiousity. What type of
"sound dampening" material do car guys use? What are the goals exactly? I'm guessing better frequency response and reducing flutter (less vibration)? Just curious. In buildings we use foam made by companies like Auralex or Sonex in small applications. In big rooms Owens Corning 703 insulation does a fantastic job and it's cheap! I wonder if it would work in a car if you were so inclined?

eshuerger - the photos were taken before the entire door was treated. I agree that they should have treatment of the entire door (and I did treat the entire door).

radiobiz - people use a number of commercial products for sound dampening. The key word is "dampening." Sonex or fiberglass-like substances are effective at absorbing sound, but are not effective at reducing vibration. The primary purpose of treating car surfaces is to reduce the tendency of metal panels to vibrate. Steel sheet metal flexes and in some cases can act like a drum. So most commercial products have a bit of mass to them and are flexible, not soft and fluffy.

hoffam,

Thanks for satisfying my curiousity. I'm in the process of building a vocal booth in my home office now. It's all about mass, mass, mass. Somehow I think it would be hard to put two pieces of 5/8 sheetrock in a car door so I figured there must be something different. Thanks.