My audio build...

Definitely made some progress tonight. She's about ready to be put in the truck finally.





The zip ties are temporary until I sort out exact routing when installed. I'm going to get the tape on it soon enough. I want to make sure everything works as needed first.

I finished up the amp board tonight. Looks a little crowded, but it flows nicely. I had to make some subtle changes to the layout for ease of maintenance (fuse changing, etc.) I'm going to swap it in the truck tomorrow. More pics coming. For those that are wondering about the harness above, I am taking all signal OUT of the Bose amp and routing it into the Helix DSP. From there it goes INTO the Focal and JL amps for amplification, and then the outlets of the amps go back into the OEM speaker wires. Essentially, I made a giant "T-harness" for all signal coming out of the Bose amp and in between put in the DSP and amplifiers. Technically, we will be amplifying an amplified signal. That's why we need the Helix. We'll be able to modify/cut/shape that Bose signal into a usable, tuned, full, flat signal. I'm really excited to get going with the tuning!

Spent the majority of the day installing all this mamma-jamma. Good news is everything appears to be working as needed. Even the door chimes. We're going to get tuning tomorrow morning at 0900.








Keep in mind, most of the stuff is not 100% permanently mounted yet because we need to verify that everything functions as it should. I did just now play some pink noise through it, and I did hear the speakers playing it, so I think once everything is programmed, setup, and tuned, everything will be great! Then i can button everything up, tape all the harnesses up, and secure everything. Put the back seats back in, and we're jamming!

Very cool!

Well after a day of tuning, the results are in.


The red trace is the original Bose. The yellow trace is the new tuned setup. We did some real nice work flattening out harshness and providing a great sound. It sounds pretty darn good, but I think we can use some more filter adjustments. The tweeters are still really bright on certain songs and it suffers from a resonance at around 2500 Hz that we just can't get rid of. With some drivers, it just happens. So, our initial solution is to move the 8" Dayton's up to that range, and move the tweets up into a range where they're happier. Those subs sound fantastic though. Very impressed by them.

Also, we were able to confirm that you do NOT need any augmenting devices (Wavtech, Epicenter, etc.) to get a full signal from Bose. There IS a full signal in there, you just have to have a DSP to get to all of it. Also, we did NOT do time alignment because of Bose. It took some time to figure out the wonkiness. The impulse response "moves." This should NOT happen. Something within Bose makes the IR shift left ever so gradually which makes accurate time alignment impossible. The fix is to eliminate the Bose out of the equation. Use the RCA input from your source into the input of the DSP and then do all your time alignment. Once done, you can let Bose live again. This method corrected the Bose wonkiness by bypassing it completely, then we dialed in the time alignment, phase alignment, etc. and after everything is good, the Bose wonkiness no longer has an effect on the output since the DSP has accounted for the deficiencies.

Thanks for sticking around this far. Still more to come.

Put in some more work. Finished the complete install now. I have very little left to do. Deaden rear doors and such...





Sorry the last pic is out of focus, but you get the idea. It "floats" above the console, and I still have full access to the charging pad. It's easily reached, and more cool, is that the Helix background almost perfectly matches the OEM screen background. The "Director" holder is the first prototype, and now that it's mounted, we can print out a much more "refined" piece. This one will do for now though as I'm very happy with the fit and finish.

Side note...I lost some knuckle skin on the drivers side center console bottom panel. Whoever at GM designed that piece, you better steer clear of me bruh...because I'm going to punch you right in the damn neck. STUPID DESIGN!

I'm just going to jam out for now, maybe do some small tweaks to the tune. Next pics will be the 3D printed subwoofer box mounts.

Pb82 Ronin said:

Put in some more work. Finished the complete install now. I have very little left to do. Deaden rear doors and such...
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Sorry the last pic is out of focus, but you get the idea. It "floats" above the console, and I still have full access to the charging pad. It's easily reached, and more cool, is that the Helix background almost perfectly matches the OEM screen background. The "Director" holder is the first prototype, and now that it's mounted, we can print out a much more "refined" piece. This one will do for now though as I'm very happy with the fit and finish.

Side note...I lost some knuckle skin on the drivers side center console bottom panel. Whoever at GM designed that piece, you better steer clear of me bruh...because I'm going to punch you right in the damn neck. STUPID DESIGN!

I'm just going to jam out for now, maybe do some small tweaks to the tune. Next pics will be the 3D printed subwoofer box mounts.

Click to expand...

Wow.. im tired reading all that!! Im not willing or able to do all that you think deadening the doors and new woofers would be bighest bang for your buck?

Streetdaddy said:

Wow.. im tired reading all that!! Im not willing or able to do all that you think deadening the doors and new woofers would be bighest bang for your buck?

Click to expand...

"Best" bang for the buck is subwoofers. Deadening and going full retard like I did is honestly just habit for me. I don't do stock stereos...ever. But these trucks are very quiet as delivered. I was quite surprised by that actually. What the Bose system really lacks is bass...and I mean REAL bass. Not mid-bass. An aftermarket sub (or multiple) is the only way to really add what's missing.

If I had to do with without a DSP and everything else I did, I would replace the drivers in the doors (front and rear) and add subs. Looking back, I probably would've left the stock twiddlers in there as most people can't hear over 16K anyway. If you do go this route, get the MOST SUB you can get in there. Even with two great 10's and plenty of power, I actually think they would be better with two TW5s and 1200W.

Don't buy RCA cables from Amazon. EVER.

UPDATE: JL amp(s) kept cutting out. Turns out that the pin setup inside my DSP (that I freaking changed like a dummy) was wrong...at least for the JL amps. I was running it on the 10-20V pins when I should've had it on the other setting from 5-10V. Upon investigating, JL amps don't like anything over 8V input. So when I was letting it eat, the door woofers would cut out because they were on the JL amp. Focal had no issues with the higher voltage loads.

I took this opportunity to install my old 5 channel XD that I had laying around. I bridged my 8" drivers so now each is getting 150W RMS instead of 75W. I set the gains by ear, and we'll do a final tuning session sometime this weekend. I'm excited because this already sounds really really good...and after a final tune, I'm sure she'll sound next level fantastic! More pics to follow.

Your way over my head now!

Here's the updated version of the Director mount. The "door" on the left pulls out of the housing so we can insert the tuning cable easily. It's a really tight fit, so adding the tab makes removal much easier.

I apologize...we tuned it again, and we forgot to take screen shots. Let me just say, she is competition ready now.

My friend Forrest is a genius. He figured out a long shot for setting the time alignment, and I'll be damned...IT WORKED! System absolutely RIPS now. Proper time alignment, EQ, and gains. Super clean and downright elegant. Very very little to complain about anymore. The system is happy, I'm happy listening to it...everything functions as it should, door chimes, phone calls on the hands free, bluetooth music from phones, all of it. I think after I finish deadening the back and swapping the director holder over to the new version, my rig will be done! I'll get some more mic readouts and post them up later. Thanks for reading!

Pb82 Ronin said:

My friend Forrest is a genius. He figured out a long shot for setting the time alignment, and I'll be damned...IT WORKED! System absolutely RIPS now. Proper time alignment, EQ, and gains. Super clean and downright elegant. Very very little to complain about anymore. The system is happy, I'm happy listening to it...everything functions as it should, door chimes, phone calls on the hands free, bluetooth music from phones, all of it. I think after I finish deadening the back and swapping the director holder over to the new version, my rig will be done! I'll get some more mic readouts and post them up later. Thanks for reading!

Click to expand...

Sounds unbelievable!!!!

Someone had asked at a different spot, so I figured why not post it here as well. So this is a direct comparison between my ZO6 and my AT4. The truck is on the bottom. The biggest difference between the two, the truck is a 2-way front stage, whereas my Z is a 3 way. But I use the same 8" driver for my mid-bass. With these two plots, you can actually see the difference in processing power, as well as environmental factors. Also, you can clearly see the difference in subwoofer performance.