squadfer's carputer setup

[Squadfer]

Hello all, Well I started this project about 8 months ago and am now deciding to post my progress on here. door speakersJBL GTO627's http://www.sonicelectronix.com....htmlCarputer details:Intel D945GCLF 1.6ghz atom. I got this a week before the dual core version came out...M2-ATXonboard sound1ghz ramBU-353Iguidance 2009Roadrunner with Digital FX 4.0Xenarc 700ts500gb sata HDD divided into three partitions, boot drive, media drive and test drive for other OS'sSub:Boston 12inHere is how it sits right now in my car. I still need to cover the enclosure in black felt and put polyfill inside it. It is sealed inside and outside. Routing all the wires through everything to get them to be hidden was a really big pain in the (removed) and I couldn't get my ground wire where I wanted it...there was a nut that I couldn't get off....even with a 3 foot breaker bar...so my ground is in an awkward place but I put the voltage meter to it and it is a perfectly good ground.Here is where the ground is. BTW, I don't use that tie down hook for anything. The amp for the door speakers (under front passenger seat) held down by velcroI still need a CD/DVD rom and Internet and to cover the sub enclosure with black felt/carpet

[Sublimewind]

NICE... Didn't you post pics of the radio bezel a long time ago when you were working on it? EDIT: guess not, cinsidering this is your first post.. lol.. I sooooooooooooooo should have cone carPC rather than my modded xBox.. How does the system work with the onboard sound.. you must use the amps for crossovers... Man I could show you things.. people building sound quality specific capPCs.. have you ever had a skip out of your HDD?

[Squadfer]

You probably saw those pictures of the building phase over on mp3car. That is the only place i posted them. At first I used a PCI soundcard but that made my CPU run at 25% at idle... onboard sound is a lot better then what i thought it would be and it runs at 6-7% idle now. Right now I have everything going to the alpine amp and giving the door speakers the full range and then i'm daisy chaining to the kenwood amp and running the low pass filter on that (this way i can still independently control the front and rear speakers). My next buy is going to be a kicker KX3 so that I can change the crossovers with that. The only thing i'm doing software based right now, is the EQ and the "stage" effect (hallway/open lot/small room) those effects, I think i'm using the parking garage effect. Some people say having a desktop HDD above 400gbs is bad because the way the data is stored on the disk but I havent had a single problem with my 500gb yet. No messed up sectors or cd "skip".As time goes on I will be getting really picky with software crossovers and stuff but I need to invest in some good components before hand and do a front stage setup. Right now, my sound is like a pair of headphones, really nice headphones . I have a random track on the HDD where it pretty much does a 360 around you along with other effects and sitting in either front seat you can tell exactly where that "dot" is The ONLY alternator whine I have coming from any speakers is from my rear door speakers and that is only from the time when the alpine amp turns on and the computer is resuming from hibernation. Once windows is loaded (20 seconds max) the whine stops. I don't really understand why it is doing that because when I switch the jacks at the computer end, it still goes to the rear speakers and when I also switch the speaker connectors at the amp it will still go to the rear speakers... I have given up on trying to find a solution to it because frankly.... the whine stops by the time I pull out of the parking spot and its not a loud whine either. It is just loud enough to be noticed for those few seconds.

[Sublimewind]

Yeah, maybe that is where I saw it, I can't remember.. You know if you went with a full sound card you would get much better control.. I'm not going to claim I have a clue about carPC's but car audio, I'm 100% on.. I sure would like to see you crossing the front speakers at like a 80hz high pass or something... Yeah, those audio test tracks can play a good one on you, but you only have 2ch stereo sound with the onboard audio, correct? So with that you can see, fun in the studio with panning can psychoacusticlaly trick you, even on a basic stereo set-up.. AFA the noise, have you tried switching speaker leads at the amp? does it stay on a channel? Usually whine is a ground loop, when you grounded the Alpine, how did you attach it? did you sand away any of the paint around the ground location? Also, how is the amp mounted?, is it screwed into the metal? All of this can effect ground performance.. I word that, that way, because not all grounds are the same..

[Kamikaze]

Quote, originally posted by Sublimewind »Also, how is the amp mounted?, is it screwed into the metal? Sublime... since I know you... you'll love this, as posted in the pics above, the amp under the seat :The amp for the door speakers (under front passenger seat) held down by velcro

[Squadfer]

My onboard sound is up to 6channels however, I'm only using 4 channels because if i want the 6 channels then I will have to sacrifice the line in which will get filled in with something in the future. Most of the time it sounds like a normal 2 channel output just cause a good 95% of my songs are only left/right. But I do have some songs that are specific to 4 channel output. I dont remember how I got it to work but when I was messing around with the settings I got the 2 channel songs to play in all 4 channels, at first some weren't. I also know all about the studio tricks you can do, I'm currently employed as a recording engineer . The noise, yea I switched the leads at the speaker terminals on the amp so that the front speakers would be the rear and the rear speakers would be the fronts. However, the noise stayed at the rear speakers. Yes i know the velcro idea might not be best, its just that I really dont want to make holes in the body of the car. Reason for this is because I cant really make those holes look like they weren't there whenever I sell the car (very very distant future). All the holes I've done to the plastic stuff I already have spares for (radio bezel, glovebox, the black tire cover piece that goes under the false floor and the left rear panel piece)The ground for the amp might not be ideal, I didnt check it with the voltage meter, It is connected between the seat bracket and the body of the car with the bodies paint scratched off. In my eyes though, if it was a ground problem on the amp itself, wouldn't the noise go to the speakers that the terminals effect? Instead of always being in the rear speakers even though the wires are switched at the amp? Also the noise doesnt really bother me since its only happening for like 15 seconds max. The way I have the stuff turn on is the computer will get power then 5 seconds after that, the computer's PSU sends the signal to the amps for them to turn on. So the noise only has a window of like 7-15 seconds. Once windows has the desktop loaded the noise goes away.

[Sublimewind]

Hmm... so, even after you switched the speaker wires at the amp.... the REAR channels of the amp still had the noise (which would now be the front speakers) or the noise stayed with the rear speakers... ? If it stayed with the rear speakers, something is wrong between the amp and speakers, or the speakers themselves.. AFA the amps gorund, if you sanded the paint, you should be good..You may want to apply some dielectric grease to that to help with corrosion... Mounting it with velcro isn't ideal, but many do it.. If you really want to do it right, get some pressure treated plywood, construction adhesive it to the floor, under the carpet... THEN screw it down.. I asked about how you mounted it, because I must have missed it, and sometimes amps find a chassis ground through the mounting screws... of the ground potential is different in that area, boom, ground loop... A recording engineer, sweet... I hate you guys.. lol.. Maybe it's the producers, I don't know... but so much coming out of studios these days is udder CRAP... Overly compressed, thinned out crap... It's like already MP3 ready.. Things just don't sound natural anymore... I'm sorry, you are just one of the people, more able to understand mtylittle rant here... it's nothing personal..

[Sublimewind]

Quote, originally posted by Kamikaze »Sublime... since I know you... you'll love this, as posted in the pics above, the amp under the seat :The amp for the door speakers (under front passenger seat) held down by velcroand you know, I read over that earlier, and the mind just didn't pick it up... lol..

[Squadfer]

I know what you mean by the crap coming out of the studio's but it is 80% the managers of the bands fault. The way I see it is, the band is paying me to make there CD. So they are my boss and I always give them my personal opinions on how I would do it, but its the band/manager that gets the last word on that subject. However, I mostly deal with local bands so they don't have a manager to add to the trouble and they trust my opinions on how I should do it. Yes, when I say the rear speakers I mean the speakers in the rear doors. Even though I switch the front and rear speaker wires at the amp, the speakers inside the rear doors still have the noise. I can deal with the noise for now because later on I wont be having those rear speakers. I will be going to a 2 channel setup with component speakers (in like a year). My plans are to have the tweeters and the woofer of each pair independently controlled through the computer so that I can adjust everything through software.