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2007 Ford Sport Trac Limited - Aftermarket Audio System Install

22K views 79 replies 5 participants last post by  AndyInOC 
#1 ·
Ughhh... here I go again!

Reluctantly I am going to do this, although I am having a hard time getting motivated to do it.

I am replacing the factory head unit, door speakers and adding a sub to my recently acquired 07 ST Limited.

Headunit Parts

Pioneer AVH-P3300BT 5.8-Inch DVD Receiver - $339 shipped.


Pioneer GEX-P920XM XM Satellite Tuner - $90.99 shipped.


Metra 95-5812 Double DIN Installation Kit - $10.52 shipped.

Scosche FDK11B Wiring Harness - $14.94 shipped.

PAC SWI-PS Pioneer and Sony Universal Steering Wheel Radio Interface - $38.99 shipped.


Door Speakers

Infinity Reference 6832cf 5 x 7 - $51.95/pair shipped.



Subwoofer

MTX Audio Thunderform FEXST01BK10A-T45 (Black, Amplified) - $467.99 shipped.


or...

MTX Audio Thunderform FEXST01BK10A-FPR - $549.00 shipped.


The T45 Thunderform includes the older model Thunder4500 10" sub at 225 watts RMS, while the FPR Thunderform includes a newer shallow mount FPR 10" sub at 300 watts RMS... if I am getting it right.

I am not really up to building my own box, finishing it, installing the driver and amp. I think one of the MTX Thunderforms will serve me plenty well enough.

What I am really more undecided about is the door speakers and whether or not to use the factory amp or go ahead and install an aftermarket amp. I am thinking an aftermarket amp might be worth it. I am going to have to run a power wire to the battery anyway, so mounting an amp on the rear wall behind the seat and using a power distributor for powering it and the sub amp would be fairly easy to do.

One option would be to get the non-amplified version of the Thunderform, saving about $200 and applying that money towards a 5-channel amp, powering the sub and door speakers.

XD700/5 - JL Audio 5-Channel 700W Class D Amplifier - $400 shipped.


or...

Alpine PDX-5 Class D Amp - $375 shipped.


Ideas, suggestions and comments are appreciated.
 
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#59 ·
I am not sure about the mid-bass to tweeter crossover point of the CK6 crossovers... probably 2500k. I am using 80Hz on the mid-bass to sub.

I did use Dynamat Extreme on the inside of the doors and completely sealed the door with it on the door skin as well. I wished I had take some pics, but forgot to do so before putting the door back on. I also put the factory skin back on over the Dynamat as well. I installed DE and Dynapad in the back... back wall, back corners, sealed around the back window... back floor up to behind the back seats. The rear is where most of the road noise was coming from, but she is super quiet now.

I am not sure why, but the Massive's actually sound a little better using the single front channel at 100 wrms vs the bridged at 150 wrms. They seem to harshen up a bit when bridged. I tried the -3db tweeter connection on the crossover, but that did not seem to help. When I first hooked up the speakers to the amp, I did not have the appropriate Y-adapters required for the RCA inputs to bridge the channels, so I just used the front channel at the normal 100 wrms. When I got the adapters in and connected it up in the bridged mode... set the input sensitivity of each channel with my DMM, they were way too loud at 3/4 volume, so I backed them down appropriately, but never could seem to get that harshness out of the high end. Swapped it back to just the front channel input and they sounds fine. Go figure!


As far as the comparison on the Alpine vs the Soundsplinter... it ends up that there is really no comparison. I got the Alpine in the appropriate sized box with a new volume at about .27ft³. I tested both in the same location... swapping them out at the factory sub location (firing forward).



The Orphan blows away the Alpine in nearly every way possible. It can handle much more abuse... does not disappear at lower volumes... and has excellent frequency range. It is incredible to say the least. I am still astounded at what that little sub can do. So... the Orphan it will be.

Here are pics of the install...















 
#60 ·
Nice write up and nice install! I've never been a huge fan of alpine (may have said so before) and honestly I'm not suprised that the orphan performs better than the type argh. Great choice on songs to take a pic of the headunit with too, loves me some Floyd. Those massive components have been intriguing me for quite some time now, and so are the aura comps that PE is blowing out for $56.

For the time being I will just stick with my ID OEM / seas neo combo and pick up different drivers to try here n there. Funny enough the combo I mentioned was my first active setup a few years back, and now I will be running it again just with much more processing power thanks to the MS8.
 
#61 ·
I think I may want to do some eq'ing. I wonder is there an EQ out there that has a built in x-over? Maybe I can use the other 100 wrms in the rear channel and go active.

This is three 1/6 octave measurement averages each for the left ear, nose and right ear...

Text Green Line Plot Font


This is the average of those three (all nine measurements)...

Text Line Green Pattern Plot
 
#62 ·
Aaaahhhhh active... The best and worst decision of my life all rolled up into one Lol. Audio Control makes a piece that will do eq and crossover in one package, I believe its the EQX but it may be one of their smaller units. Essentially you open it up and there are chips inside, you can either buy chips from them for the freq you want or get sockets and resistors and build your own. That was actually my first foray into active and it was extremely simple, cost effective and it worked. Only drawback was that i had to dial the eq from the back of the car.

In this day and age there are processors like the JBL ms8, Audison bit.one or the discard threesixty.two that sort of do it all, but are spendy. The ms8 I own, its still a trial and error process to get right but works pretty well. The Audison is a tad buggy but incredible when it works proper. The Discard should be avoided in my opinion because of noise issues and tempermental behavior. Also there's the alpine imprint system which takes user friendly to a new low Lol.

Let me think and peek around and see any other ideas that strike me
 
#65 ·
Those units are suuuuhhhhwwweeeeet for sure, not sure of price or availability. I suggested the other just because I'm cheap LOL. Depending on cost and brand preference you may as well look into the ms8. Get it all dialed in how you want it, set the volume control to about -5 and then just use your headunit for everything after that
 
#64 ·
Ahh... the DQXS allows input of Front, Rear and Sub from the head unit, whilst the DQX only allows one input, so the sub controls on the head unit would not be usable... not that you would necessarily need them. The S also has 30 bands of EQ + 2 parametric bands for the Front output (and again for the Rear - which I would not be using)... then another 16 bands + 2 parametric for the Sub output. A bit more flexible for what looks like would only be about another 30-40 bucks.
 
#66 ·
Gotcha! I believe the DQXS also does 5.1 if you do movies in car. Personally I prefer a sub control on the amp itself, but that's all strictly preference. And you are absolutely correct that for such a negligible price difference you may as well get the big fella
 
#67 ·
There are about 50 dealers within 300 miles of me that sell AudioControl mobile audio. I will start calling them tomorrow until I find someone who has had one in stock for a while and willing to deal to get rid of it... or someone just willing to deal period.

The MS8 looks pretty nifty, but doesn't offer the extra PEQ bands for each channel.

How about a 3Sixty.3 with 248 PEQ bands... :unbelievable:
 
#68 ·
Nice! I'll never say anything but good about AC products. I like my ms8, it works quite well for a set it and forget it solution (which is what I was after this time around) Has a 31 band parametric only so after your auto tune runs you can still fiddle with it. I'll know how it works with a 2way front stage in the next couple weeks since I got a new 4ch, new mids and may even throw some new tweets in the mix as well.

The RF unit keeps getting delayed, dunno what the holdup is this time...
 
#70 ·
Nice! Active is just so much fun! How do you like the SD10? In my opinion some of the Sundown subs are absolutely phenomenal drivers for daily use that sound good & will get down when asked to. Since you're going active are you making any changes to your front stage as well?

Out of sheer craziness I am making a few changes as well. Have some SB Acoustics tweets on the way, tested some Dayton RS28a tweets (up high on the dash) fell in love with some Seas H1212/H1499 hybrids up on the dash (but weren't for sale) and am tucking away my nickles & dimes for a pair of JBL W10GTI MKII subs.
 
#71 ·
I believe I will keep my front stage as is... the Massives have some ridiculous mid-bass that I have not heard in any other mids. The key with this setup is being able to control the level of the highs. While -3db on the supplied crossover did help, being able to further reduce it works better, along with being able to set the crossover at about 2.2kHz.

The SD10 is as you say, phenomenal. I thought the little Orphan 8 was incredible... and it is for an 8, but this SD10 is shallower and pounds even harder in about .3ft³. Truly amazing!
 
#72 ·
Wow 2.2? I would have guessed that a higher crossover point & possibly underlapping the crossover would have been the ticket, but I am not too friendly with the volume control (or my lack of taste in music) either haha. In my previous setup when I was tuning manually I believe my crossovers were set @ 2 or 2.2k on the mids & 3k on the tweets with 12db slopes and everything rolled together real nice & had a real nice readout on an RTA, but that's subjective and differs wildly from car to car.

Glad to hear about the Sundown, Jacob does a very nice job designing subs that fit well into real world applications
 
#74 ·
Me too, but if I keep it up there will be a big sell off of audio equipment in So Cal after my wife strangles me in my sleep. She just about had a heart attack when she left on a Friday to visit her parents with a lil Dayton sub 100 in the living room & returned home Monday to see a 6.25 net enclosure with a single 15 in it haha. WAF was not high.
 
#76 ·
Lol yeah, my theater room is the living room. When I asked for the third time how much space I was allowed to use for the sub the reply was (edited) just build it, I'm tired of hearing about it. So I built it LOL. She knew she was marrying an audio psychopath when she said "I do" and has actually come to really appreciate that sub & my car build.

How easy is it to change crossover points etc in your setup? If its easy try a preset with underlaps on your points, and maybe give em a touch more gain on everything just to see if your tonality increases while using less eq. Just for giggles. I like to get other opinions on my tuning methods.... But mine normally include alcohol & 15 min eq sessions with 15 min breaks between & a different band & song each time. Tuned for real world music in real world conditions, if it fits into a nice rta graph then lady luck was on my side lol
 
#77 ·
I haven't even done any eq'ing at this point. I had to send the control unit back to AudioControl for repair. It did not want to act right. My intentions were to use the RTA and make live adjustments with the control unit. It is aggravating to have to get out of the vehicle, let the back seat down, make the adjustments, then go back and look at the RTA and listen for changes. It is much easier if I can make real time changes and hear the differences as I make the changes. As soon as I get the control unit back I plan to do some more experimenting. It sounds pretty good on the high end right now, but I know I have a nasty 50Hz peak in the low end... I have seen it on the RTA already, but did not bother with it since the control unit malfunctioned.
 
#78 ·
Yeah, having a bad control unit is no good & all the in/out in/out back & forth to make adjustments would definitely take all the fun out of the tuning process.
 
#79 ·
Nice build! I found a cheap, used JL 12w3v3 for my car and put it in a sealed box, but haven't been terribly impressed with it. I was considering a Sundown to replace it, but read a lot about them being better suited for SPL and ported boxes. Nice to know they are good performers! My car system 2.0 may see one.
 
#80 ·
Since Sundown kind of started out / got popular in the spl world first there are a lot of people who still think that's what they build. I can say from my own experience that the SA series subs sound excellent and get loud, its a nice blend.
 
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