THansenite

Last Thursday, I went over to Newton, IA and met up with Ben (nebster) at the Elemental Designs shop to get some DLS components put in his car. I needed to get the gains set for my sub so I made the drive over there to hang out with him and the other guys at eD. Once Ben's car was done, I got in and listened to it and was completely blown away. I had been planning on getting some components for some time now and hearing Ben's car pushed me over the edge. I ended up leaving eD with a fesh set of eD eDi 6000s v.2



I was going up to my parents' over the weekend so I decided to take advantage of my dad's shop and get these installed. I started by pretty much gutting my car behind the front seats. My mom walked out after about 20 minutes and was like "what are you doing to your car!?" Don't worry mom, I know what I am doing (kinda).















Then, the wire taps and wire strippers/cutters/crimpers came out. Since I am still running the stock headunit (which I love), I had to add another line out converter for the other channel on my eD NINe 4 amp. I already had one for my sub, but needed to add another LOC for the fronts. I could have just added a RCA splitter, but then I wouldn't have been able to control the fade from front to back. As you can see in the picture below, I have a lot of stuff hiding behind my headunit. The silver thing is my LOC for the rear/sub channel. Below that is my line in converter to play my Sirius through the headunit. The black box to the right of that is the newly installed front LOC for my new components.



Then the fun began running RCA's to the back of the car, then running speaker wire from the amp to the front doors. I bought 30 feet of speaker wire thinking I would have some to spare. If I would have bought 29 feet, I would have been S.O.L. After going around all the curves getting from the hatch to the doors, there wasn't much left.


Next, I did some wiring on my crossovers to get those ready to mount on the door panels. Since the woofer and tweeter would be covered by the door panel, I wanted at least some eye candy to show that I had something there. I decided to mount the crossovers above the "map pocket" on each door panel. Snice I forgot to pick up some screws to mount the crossovers, I have them held on temporarily with some wire. I fastened about 6-8 inches of wire to the crossovers, then drilled holes through the panel inside the map pocket to feed the wires though. You'll see why kept the wires short in a moment.






After I got the crossovers mounted, I figured it was about time to get the speakers mounted. When I bought my components, I also purchased a set of baffels from eD to make the install easier. They went on pretty easily and the woofers were screwed into the MDF. To mount the tweeters, I removed the stock ones and pried the tweeters off the mount with a screwdriver. I bent the "wings" outward and put 4 layers of 3M gray foam tape on it and stuck the new tweeter to it.



I take my door panels off fairly frequently because I am still trying to figure out the best adhesive to get the leather on my door panels to stick to the plastic. Because of this, I wanted to be able to easily remove my door panels if need be. I found my dad's secret stash of electrical connectors and decided he had way too many spade connectors. I attached the connectors to both the door and panel sides of the wiring using a male end for the positive lead coming from the crossover and a female end for the negative lead. I did this so that when hooking the wiring back up, I would be sure to have the polarity correct.






Finally, it was time to put the panel back on and see how it sounded. I turn on my car and hear nothing. Come to find out, when I was at eD getting my amp set, Chris had turned the gain on my front channel down to 0. After turning it up a bit, I began to experience the euphoria brought about by Elemental Designs components. They sounded amazing. When I bought them, I wondered "how different can these sound from the stock speakers?" The answer turned out to be "a lot." These components sound so much clearer and more precise. The only bad thing about these components is now, I can hear my alternator whine much more clearly. haha


I still have a little "tweaking" to do to the system, but overall, I am extremely happy. I finally finished my quest of having an all Elemental Designs system. The set of eD eDi 6000s v.2s, a NINe.4 amp, and an SQ-10 subwoofer sound great together.


In my opinion, you can't beat the prices and service of Elemental Designs. This company is the most customer oriented company I have ever worked with. When it comes to audio (both mobile and home), these guys will be getting all of my business.

blazeplacid

looks nice. Are you going to apply any deadner to the doors?

THansenite

Eventually I might. Now that I have my system, my primary focus will be on performance.

magnetic

Nice install, man. Still have my 6500s sitting right next to me in their box. Weather hasn't been good since like, forever. Can't wait to put mine in when the weather gets better. =D

dmyers03

You said you have alternator whine now. If yours is like mine it could be from your auxillary input. I ran a ground loop isolator into my aux input and it eliminated the alternator whine. Yea, its weird but it even had the alternator whine when i was playing a cd and wasn't even getting any input from an aux device. I don't understnad why it worked, but it did. You may want to try it.

Zebman

Looks good. The only thing I would have done different (and did ) was the crossover spot. Drilling didn't appeal to me, so I bought some extra wire, and made two runs into the doors.


mandos, if you ever read this: I regret not getting the 6500s.

rolloutrs1

good job on the install and pics! cant wait to order my system.

THansenite

I had the whine before, but now, I hear it more clearly with the better speakers. I will have to check out a ground loop isolator and see if that helps. Part of my problem may be that I have my Sirius tapped into my cigarette lighter circuit. When I get some time, I want to rewire it to a better circuit and see if that helps. Thanks for the tip.

Viola000

I'm planning on picking up one of these component systems for my xB...mounting the tweets in the dash and the mids in the door. So everyone is happy with this purchase? I'm sure the more expensive components (6500?) sound better, but there's quite a price difference.

THansenite

I actually chatted with Chris about the 6000's vs. the 6500's when I was thinking about buying. I just wanted better sound, but am not an audiophile. Because the 6500's were so much more expensive, Chris thought the 6000's would be fine for what I was looking for.

Regarding the whine. I haven't tried solving it yet, but I did notice that I still have the whine even when the power is off to the headunit. This makes me wonder if I have my RCA's too close to a power cable somewhere.

blazeplacid

What kidna head unit is it??? if its a pioneer I can help you out with thwe whine

Neothin

i've never heard the 6000's thus far, but if your in the market for comps, i'm very happy with my 6500s's. With 2 10w6v2's in the back fed by a NINe.1, i needed something that could keep up with the bass (143 dB's before sound deadening). the 6500s's fed with a NINe.2 do it superbly... like... to the point where the vocals almost drown out the low end.

it's the stock headunit ^

THansenite

I am using the stock Scion Pioneer headunit.

dmyers03

You said you had a whine when the HU was off. I'm guessing that is while the engine is running. Is your amp wired to turn on whenever your HU is turned on? That does sound weird if it is wired like that because you'd think with the power off the speakers couldn't make any sound to whine with. If the amp is on even when the HU is off then it makes more a lot more sense.

rolloutrs1

i might run the same set up as yours. did you put sound deadening on the whole car or just the trunk area? how much did everything run you if you dont mind? sorry for the thread jack but its kinda related to this thread.

Neothin

whole car

about 2300 bucks

rolloutrs1

^^^holly guacamole!

Neothin

figure...

2 10w6v2's subs
MDF, Screws, glue, circle jig, router, bits to make the box/hatch floor/amp rack
carpet for the box/hatch floor
suede for the hatch floor/amp rack
Edi6500s components
Baffles for the comps
speaker/power/ground/big3 wire
ground terminal/lineout converter/distribution blocks/fuse holder/ring terminals
NINe.1
NINe.2
150 sq ft of V1se^2


it adds up haha

nebster

yeah i'm about at 3k with everything i'm on

Zebman

$1600 here. Nobody here can believe I dropped that much money into audio. What am I going to do, make my car fast with bolt ons?

Hmm, I guess I should have went with Audiobahn. They're good!