I totally understand building on a budget. I went with Fatmat as it was as cheap as peel-n-seal but without the smell. it's very thin, and while it is better than nothing, i won't use it again. I'll use Damplifier Lite next time budget is tight.

I figure, to do my whole car the way I want, will run about $800 in foams, barriers, and deadener. That's Second Skin Damplifier Pro, Luxury Liner Pro, and Overkill

 

^$800 is definitely a large sum of money to spend on sound deadening alone. I completely understand you could spend above and beyond that to get great sound quality and quietness, but what about the people who just want to get rid of nasty vibrations? what would you advise doing.

trouble spots in my car are the trunk lid itself, the door panels and i think even the flooring, can i hit specific spots with some damplifier to stop these vibrations?

 

my $800 budget includes MLV and deadener and foams. buzzes and rattles can be addressed with fabric and foam. both are cheap and available at fabric stores.

you can buy felt (any cooler since it's hidden, but i prefer a matching color or black) and glue it to the back of your interior panels.

if you just went through, removed all of the plastic panels, glued felt to the back (cut as accurate as possible to the edges, and put the panels back - that would eliminate a TON of buzzes.

trunk latches can be covered with electrical tape or something thin and soft - the latch rattles on the clasp a lot.

Damplifier doesn't need to be 100% coverage to help with vibrations - though nothing will eliminate vibrations, just reduce them relative to how much product you use. but 100% coverage is a good idea in/on the doors.

my biggest issue with the floor is noise, a MLV layer will take care of that (decoupled with a thin layer of foam or padding).

 

So now that the weather is gorgeous here in iowa, I decided to go ahead and try using felt to reduce some of my door panel vibrations. Be it coincidence, placebo effect or reality the "felting" of my doors did seem to decrease the rattles. I still can hear the plastic parts resonating on certain bass "notes" (or whatever they are) but it has improved some. Thanks for the help keep_hope_alive, if you have any other tips please share!

 

i hear ya. it was 75 here in the Quad Cities. my daughter is sick so we stayed inside this evening.

rattles caused by two panels vibrating against each other can be resolved by putting something soft between them - i.e. felt or foam. adding deadening to the back sides of panels adds mass and helps absorb some of those vibrations.

vehicles are noisy. and the more you dissemble, the noisier they get.

i've used very dense and heavy vinyl fabric on the floor of a truck to reduce road noise. not as good a true MLV, but better than nothing. resilient vinyl flooring remnants can be had for $1 sq/ft at local shops - and they can also reduce road noise if you get a foam layer between it and the floor (under factory carpet).

weatherstripping foam is your friend. third brake lights against the rear window - license plates - between speakers and baffles and metal, etc.

on the doors - removing the factory plastic sheet and sealing up the holes does wonders for road noise and door noises.


on topic - i'm doing a fairly expensive ($4k) build in a buddy's tC. he just placed an order of Rammatt BXT-II (200 sq. ft.) and adhesive backed Ensolite (140 sq. ft.). the adhesive backed ensolite is very cool - 1/8" thick closed cell foam sheets. we'll deaden and seal up the doors - then do a layer of ensolite on the door. we'll also make sure that any places where panels touch metal or plastic has a layer of foam between it. the Rammatt is good quality, fairly thick, and very sticky. the package was a lot cheaper than the Second Skin route.

 

When you say the more you disassemble, the noisier they get, do you mean the way the car was made by the manufacturer or by me taking parts off to sound deaden?

You also wrote about the holes in the doors, is that in the metal side of the door? what would i use to seal up these holes?

 

Hey austinman3214,
I see you have the PA Stax 1600/4 amp. How do you like it? Do yoiu think the 150 watt rms x 4 is a legit power rating? I just picked up one of them to power my front and rear speaks and an 1800/2 for my JBL GT-515 sub. I have read some mixed reviews on the PA amps, mostly that their power ratings are exaggerated but the specs on most of the PA amps are very specific with rms/distortion ratings so I don't see how they could get away with grossly overrating their stuff. I have also read many rave reviews about the amps.
I have heard that it's pretty hard to beat their stuff for the money.

 

Power Acoustik does overrate their products and there are plenty of ways to do that, Boss Audio, Lanzar, etc. have all been overrating their products for years. It's easy to do - you can publish THD with the amp output low, then measure clipped output for max power ratings. If it's not published as a CEA-2006 Power Rating, they can do whatever they want to determine it. CEA was created to give consumers something they could use to actually compare amplifiers. Anyone on here remember Orion's HCCA 225 amplifier? Rated 2x25W that could actually do >400W of clean RMS power. Back in the day, manufacturers would grossly underrate amps so you could compete with them in lower power classes. Now the times have changed and people want to see a large number with little understanding of how it's achieved.

Now, that is not saying that they don't make a good amp. PA has been in the business a long time, they make amps that are worth the price they sell them for. If you like their features and price point, then enjoy them. And anyone is welcome to grab an oscilloscope, load up the amp, and measure the unclipped RMS output for themselves.

In my opinion, the best amps for the least amount of money are made by Powerbass. Knowing their product engineers - that company is poised to make some great stuff, and all Powerbass amps will make rated power.

The Stax amps follow the hugely popular Alpine PDX and JL HD/Slash series amps - offering compact size, high THD, and flexible mounting options. They are great for hiding them away, out of sight. They are also efficient, typically, a hybrid Class-D configuration for low heat.

Grab your DMM, and measure the RMS voltage output at your preferred listening volume, then do the math to determine power output. And enjoy whatever power level you're at.

 

Thanx. keep_hope_alive,

I will check out Powerbass. Sounds good.
CC the Stax, the 1600/4(rated @ 150x4, 4ohm .o5 THD) is fused at 50amps & the 1800/2(300 watts rms x2, 4ohms .05 THD) is fused at 60amps. Bear in mind I bought both of these amps new for under $300 shipped. What would you guess the real world usable power to be on these amps?
Their top of the line amp is the BAMF 5500d mono amp which has been benched at 1900 watts rms. I would say that's very good power for an amp that can be had for $300 new online. You?

 

fusing is a good way to estimate usable RMS power.

a 50A fuse will allow for <700W of input power at 14V. Assuming amplifier efficiency of 80% (probably less than that), that means output power to speakers is less than 560W RMS all channels combined. Further assuming that is attainable with the channels bridged, that's about 280W RMS x2 bridged @4ohms and 70W RMS x4 stereo @4ohms . None of which is at .05% THD, more like .5-1% THD (knowing PA). At the published 0.05% THD you're probably around 40W RMS x 4 @4ohms.

the 60A fuse will result in limiting power to 160W RMS x2 @4ohms and probably .5% THD.

The above estimates are based on amplifier fusing since at those power levels, the fuse will just start to blow. Those also assume the Stax are very efficient - 80% is typical of Class D. Class A/B are typically 60% efficient - meaning your power ratings are even lower. Since PA doesn't publish efficiency (that i saw) i gave you best case.

If a manufacturer lists THD on a separate line in their specs, that is VERY different than the CEA power ratings. Example, this is the CEA ratings for the
Alpine PDX-F4
CEA-2006 Power Rating
100W RMS x 4 (4Ω,<0.05% THD+N, 14.4V)
S/N:95dBA (ref: 1W into 4Ω)

If they don't state the impedance load, THD, and supply voltage with each power rating, you don't know how they numbers actually relate. That is why CEA-2006 was created.