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8 minute(s) of a 15 minute read
8-6-2016
Well guys, I made a pretty major change for me. Those who know my know I have run the Dynaudio Esotar2 1200 in my cars for several years now. I decided on making a change......3 AudioFrog GB10's!!!!
Before......
After......
All buttoned up!
Start removing the covers!
That's it. How do they sound??? Absolutely awesome. I love it. Great sound quality and lots of impact. They dig real deep too. Couldn't be happier.
A few more updates since this thread was posted......
My wife was less than thrilled about floor mounted speakers and the grills were getting kicked by everyone that entered my car, even though I warned them.
Also, as this is my demo car and the kicks showed off something interesting and different, I could see some people getting the wrong idea (that this was needed for the car to sound good).
So, I decided to go back to a 2-way.
First of all was the tweeters. I bought new said panels, and after testing, I found the Sinfoni Tempo 10 tweeters sound really good off-axis. When I popped the factory grill off, they fit almost perfectly.
I then received a pair of the new Sinfoni Tempo 65's for the doors. 
However, I ran into the issue that has plagued me ever since I bought this car, extremely shallow door locations. The Sinfoni Tempo 65's were just a tad too deep. Although they improved on the Sinfoni Maestoso T165W speakers they replaced, the Maestoso were contoured just enough to clear the window. So, Emilios sourced me the very last pair of Maestoso T165W's that were made and they now are at home in my doors.
(Pictured are a set I test fitted before receiving the new ones....they were from another dealer off their demo board and for some reason, dust caps are just meant to be pushed in
)
I also found that the factory head unit was introducing some very odd noises into my system. For instance, if someone sat in the passenger front seat and it cause the airbag circuit to engage, then I would hear a transformer like sound through my speakers. This was something constant from day 1 with this car and no matter how the RCA's were run, this issue would never go away. I also had a fair amount of noise floor with the factory head unit. So, after finally giving up on the factory head unit, I decided to install a Pioneer P99 as purely the source. I also installed a PS8 (with upgraded Op Amps) as my processor.
The factory radio has the air vents intergraded into it and they have a slight indent for the vent "open" and "closed" circles. I found that these were just stickers. The CARAV dash kit I ordered (from the Ukraine) had the indentions molded into the plastic for this, something the Metra kit didn't have. It also has the factory indented lines that separate the head unit area from the vents, just like the factory head unit. I was able to use a small razor blade and pry off the "open" and "closed" stickers and transplant them to the CARAV dash kit to look more factory.
Here are the white circles (open and closed) on the factory head unit:
Here are the indentions in the plastic on the CARAV kit:
Here is the kit all ready for the P99
I then cut a piece of plexi to fill in the dap around the P99 and painted the backside black. Here is the finished result:
The P99 seems to match the dash lights perfectly!!!!
More to come......
Like I said, I went with a PS8 as my processor and it was mounted where the 3rd Sinfoni amp had been, behind my back seat. I used the same look there as the trunk has for the amps.
I also had quite a bit of vibrations in my rear package shelf when the 3-10's hit. I decided to finally tackle fixing this. The rear package shelf had been throughly deadened, but the problem seems to be the shelf rattling against the metal, so I applied a thick piece of mass loaded vinyl/closed cell foam to decouple it.
This absolutely did the trick. Zero Rattles in the rear deck now
Most recently, the car needed some new brakes.....
And I bought some new wheels/tires.....
I would also like to take a moment to comment about the Sinfoni 2-way setup now that I have a couple months on them. Honestly, this is my favorite 2-way to date. Every day they impress me more and more. As a long time Dynaudio fan (and I still am), I didn't think I'd find a speaker that I liked better. And it is a real testament to these that they do this in factory locations with no custom work involved. They are easy to tune and very detailed but without any harshness. I really enjoy their sound. I know the tune/install makes or breaks any set of speakers, but these with a good tune seem to come alive. The midbass has great impact (I have mine down to 80hz, although I've also have them at 63hz with zero problems) and they can get stupid loud without losing their composure. I love these speakers!!!!