Hey guys and gals, let's do an update!
So this time around, I pulled out the good camera, hopefully this will help present what's happening in these doors better than the phone camera.
Over the last few days, I've taken my time and worked on each door. I took the JBL Power 8662 6x8 coaxials that I had in the front doors before I started this (re)build), and I installed those to the rear doors with some strategic, mild deadening. I used about 2 sheets of RAAMmat per door in the rear.
The front doors were really shaking up with the bass these RS225-4 drivers can put out. This was annoying and it was screwing up the presentation. So the front doors and door panels were heavily reinforced with extra sheets as well, and I tediously went through the door's small bits that rub or vibrate together to quiet them down. I added deadener to small parts to prevent them from shaking and making noise, and added Ensolite closed-cell foam to parts to hold them tight together and reduce squeaking. I went through about 3 sheets more per door in the front.
I started with the rear doors. Now these won't be playing super-low frequencies like the front doors do, in fact the crossover point is higher than you would typically think (120Hz) and this is so the front stage absolutely anchors as dominant...and the MS-8 processor makes the rear speakers work out of phase with the front because they only play the out of phase material in the original source. If they were crossed lower, the out of phase data would destructively interfere with the in-phase data from the front speakers, and cancel out some of the output. Crossing higher than 100hz is highly recommended for a surround processed-system like the MS-8 creates.
I began by temporarily peeling back the rear door's vapor barrier
And I installed the deadener where the door seemed to resonate the most, after being given the "rapp" test. These are pics of both rear doors at work.
I then cut the connector off the speaker wire, and direct-connected it to the JBL external crossover box which ended up making the short stock wire a non-issue. Yay!
Those were then installed without any issues, and the factory door panel put right back on. EASY!
I then moved on to the front doors. My son "helped"
Here's the final look of the passenger door, which is what I started with
Note the foam by the spring clip holes
Deadener everywhere
And the driver's door
The front doors went back together without a hitch. Final results of this effort are positive, and the insane rattles are gone. I can't stop a few rattles, at high volume though. The darn metal belt trim all around the car makes rattling noises on certain notes when its turned way up. The rear bumper foam vibrates a bit, and the driver and passenger mirror's internal bits do too. At sane volumes none of this happens so I'm OK with this.
So what remains of this project is possibly an amp upgrade (need more channels of power and possibly more total power), and a re-covering of the pillars after I touch up the filler and such underneath. Also I'm contemplating trying a new set of pillars with an even better speaker combo, but that's just on the back-burner. I suppose also I'll need to consider upgrading my subs at some point, as they are now having a bit of difficulty keeping up. It is all a process of continual advancement and experience.
Anybody local is welcome to audition it, pretty much any time. Any constructive critiquing is welcome as well, as that's what it will take to get it to the next level. I'm damn happy with it though, and it serves as my before and after-work decompression chamber very well.
