Motobuddy's perpetual audio build thread

I have been working on this for a little while, had to take some time off to move and work OT but we are back on track and I wanted to share it with the forum. A little background my long term friend and I have always played with care entertainment systems at first for us and our friends, then our kids, now back to us and now we can afford to do it right. I will be updating as I go. I'm happy to answer any questions about what or why we did something a certain way, and if you have done anything the way we have and it went bad long term let me know. I rather correct it now.

* WARNING: if you have Brand OCD the following images may be traumatic*

Stage one, component selection. Before this project I had a 08 suburban we ran through with kicker everything. great sound, but I felt like the power I had was too much. for the mids and highs, so I checked out some big brand names, JL, Focal, Rockford, even got talked in to checking out the new pioneer components. If you want to talk about biggest change in expectation to performance the pioneer stuff has came leaps and bounds in their components.

I heard about these newer series QS components pair of the QS Series 6.75" Components and a matching amp to drive them.



Then I invested in a second set of QS Series 6.75" Components for the rear and made a 'OEM: fit center channel.


These things are gorgeous and sound amazing. I got them in hooked them up to a home audio receiver to get a break in started and to help set expectations on what to expect Then it was time to find them a amp. Kicker power has always outperformed my expectations so we went with a kicker IQ500.4 Q-Class Amplifier I like the fact that with the built-in EQ I would be able to correct the odd Sony curve

Next up was the bench test.
Just enough overstuffed garage junk to make it all work and test them for a couple hours.
FAB starts in the next chapter.
[edit: Friends don't let friends drink and post.]

Next lets be greedy and try to keep all the sound inside to our selves.
Stinger Road Kill was used in the making of this VLOG but only humans were hurt in its creation. Careful with the foil it gave no ***** about thin cloth cloves and earned me a finger full of stitches.
Here is some info on one door you guys will get the jist of it.


Door prep, in case you ever need a clean reference



Product Installation


More on doors and fab. to come

I tried using some prefabbed parts to make 6.75 component adapters but nothing fit right, so I we made them over.

Speaker Fab we started with a black design pre made frame and quickly abandoned it in favor of making our own.
View attachment 129704 View attachment 129705

I will be cleaning up the image lay outs and adding for information about the step to step instructions as I go along.
That Twin Q gauge though, always a good choice.

Amp Rack Build

Nice!

Very nice!

Buddy works at a Stereo shop so i have heard a few different setups in the F150’s. My favorite is they build a box under the backseat with 4 Audio Mobile 10’s GTS. The subs aren’t “shallow mount” they just aren’t that deep of a sub and sound unbelievable. Really clean bass and SQ and they hit hard. They had them ran off 3000 Watts. I would run those before the SA8’s or 6.5’s, my buddy has 4 6.5’s and they sound ok but don’t hit that hard.