Old School High-End Meets New School High-Efficiency
 

So to start off, I've taken good care of my collection of mobile electronics over the many years since I started this hobby (and for a few years back in the day, this profession) and I decided to begin a new build for this '15 FR-S that will include two "veteran stars" from the old days, along with some new "supporting actors" from today.

In the dash on top, and in the leading role, I present my 18 year-old Pioneer Premier DEH-P940MP in 3-way network mode, and underneath that, in one of the spporting roles, my new Alpine CDE-172BT to add a host of modern features to the setup via the Pioneer's auxilliary inputs.

In the trunk, and co-star of this show, I have my 20 year-old, first generation Orion HCCA 12-inch, dual 2-ohm subwoofer wired in parallel, powered by another one of the new cast members in a supporting role, my new Cerwin Vega Stealth Bomber B51 mono-block amplifier.

To round out the rest of the cast is my new Stealth Bomber B54, 4-channel and B52, 2-channel amplifiers which are powering all Dayton Audio brand 1-inch tweeters, 3.5-inch midrange drivers, and 6.5-inch woofers all in the front factory locations.

I had to fire the factory rear speakers as they kept showing up to the set hung-over from the night before.

This setup is technically a 4-way network system with the high RCA outputs of the Pioneer head unit feeding the first two channels of the B54 at 80 watts RMS per channel at 4 ohms for the tweeters, the low RCA outputs feeding the B51 at 500 watts mono into a 1-ohm load for the sub, and the mid RCA outputs being split and feeding the second set of channels of the B54 for the 3.5-inch midrange drivers at 80 watts RMS per channel at 4 ohms, and the two channels of the B52 at 150 watts per channel into 4 ohms for the 6.5-inch door mid-bass drivers.

The combination of the built-in crossovers and time alignment of the Pioneer head unit, along with the on-board crossovers and sub-sonic filter of the Stealth Bomber amps makes this entire system so simple to adjust once you get all the gain and level settings correct. So far, except for some vibrations in the doors and rear deck, everything is sounding great.

The small size, light weight and features of these Cerwin Vega Stealth Bomber amplifiers along with the 250mV to 10V signal input sensitivity are what sold me on these new amps. I highly recommend them if space is a concern. The Pioneer head unit can put out a clean 6.5-volt signal on the RCA outputs which was very high for it's day, and still higher than most head units today which was an important factor for choosing amplification and it took me weeks to sift through all the specifications of several brands of amplifiers for me to finally choose the ones I did.

I'm still in the process of building everything which is the reason for the messy wiring, and right now the Orion sub is in a cheap Walmart enclosure until my custom enclosure is finished, but I promise to update this thread when I get everything in the trunk a bit more organized. Until then, thanks for taking the time to read this. If anybody has any questions about this build or suggestions, just let me know.

You know they make double din stereos now?

I like it, props. I admire a setup that's proven to work for you. All the huge touchscreen slabs are a huge turn off to me.

Nice amps too, I'll need to check those out

what brought on the 'switch' to an alpine unit for the updated media options?

personally, i've always loved pioneer simply because i've been able to make tweaks to 7/8's of everything without ever needing to look at the manual. every time i try an alpine, it's like pc vs. mac--it does all the same things, just in a completely different and more complicated way.

but those are not nearly as much fun as a double-stack setup!

my second DIN slot is currently on reservation for one of these
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/00...en_704x469.jpg

Of course they do. But the Premier brand is no longer made, which makes it that much more unlikely that anyone else will have the same setup. Nor can you even find a deck now in a double-din format that has 6.5-volt RCA outputs that this deck has along with internal crossovers and time alignment for less than $500. I don't need navigation and I've already got this head unit, why not use it?

Besides, old school is just cool.

One of the main reasons for the addition of Alpine, is that I've been reading that the newer Pioneer units are not as reliable as they once were, especially at the price point that I was looking at to simply add the modern features of Bluetooth and USB.

Another reason is that with this particular Alpine model, I was able to color match the display and keys to the Premier unit.

This is actually my first Alpine head unit and they have always been on the higher end of the quality and reliability scale, so I decided to try it out. And for about $130, it seems like a good deal to me.

I didn't have any issues learning how to use this new Alpine. The owners' manual does a pretty good job of explaining everything that I need to do with it. It's actually pretty intuitive, a whole lot more than my old lady's new RAV-4 infotainment system. Personally, I hate touchscreens. Give me an infrared remote or steering wheel controls instead.....and REAL buttons.

pioneer does make the 80prs now, which covers all of that except the 6.5v preouts. in fact, i can't think of any deck anymore that advertises higher voltage preouts anymore... i ran a 9v preamp for a few years once when i was convinced a distortion issue was in the signal level(turned out to be an issue with the design of a companies passive crossover units related to my usage). never really got into the marketing of the higher voltage preout stuff. i get the concept of a higher signal level creating a lower noise floor, but the reality is if you're getting a whine at 1v preout's, you're going to get the same whine at 6.5v...


i tried a $300 pioneer touchscreen for a little while. it was such a hit someone made off with it after 3 months! but no one touches single din radios. despite the fact that some of them are less replaceable and sometimes more expensive than the touchscreen models.

with the advent of cheap DSP's, i'm finding myself migrating away from deck-based tuning, and moving more towards the more specific options available in things like the dsp-408. i overkilled my truck install putting one in, and now regret that i didn't put on in on the car install. my favorite part is the individual output parametric eq settings. no deck can come close.

Yeah, I looked at that 80PRS, but it doesn't have the Premier name on it. If I WERE to ever upgrade this Premier deck to a regular Pioneer unit, there's only one model that I would ever consider stepping up to......the DEX-P99RS. 4-way network built into the unit with even better crossovers, more accurate time alignment, more than twice as many EQ set points, still not quite as high voltage on the RCA outputs and no on-board speaker outputs (I'm not using any of the deck's speaker outputs anyways.) But I'm not currently prepared to spend over $1000 on eBay for a used car stereo sight unseen, which is what they're going for right now.

I also looked at the Mosconi Aerospace DSP 8 to 12, but they're selling for $1500. Right now, my current setup is working perfectly fine for me. No whine, very low noise floor out of the Premier. I did notice a bit more noise at zero bits while using the Alpine as an AUX source, but I'm sure you know that the more components in your system, the more noise you'll have. It's just something that is inherent in any analog system.

One other benefit to have with a high voltage signal - your amplifiers don't have to work as hard.

I have one of those from Japan I still haven't installed into anything yet, nice to know they are still worth it, and there is a way to get bluetooth and usb functionality.



Your build is awesome and makes me happy we can still do awesome sound without touch screens.

Ah, the Japan-only Carrozzeria DEH-P01? I believe the Carrozzeria decks were the equivalent to the Premier line, and I think they’re still marketed there. Let me know if you ever want to sell or trade it, or even borrow it out for a while just to give it some “exercise”. I’d love to see that head unit running in my system since it’s already set up for 4-way.

And thanks for the compliment. Yeah, unfortunately none of the higher-end manufacturers seem to have an audiophile head unit available anymore that will focus only on music. Most top-of-the line head units now are double-din touch screen models and are navigation-focused. Over the past 20 years, sound quality has taken a back seat to other features. The manufacturers realize that MOST people are playing compressed media files on their head units and would rather be able to have more, low resolution songs packed into one place than high resolution CD quality sound. But as the price of digital storage decreases and the amount of storage on a single chip increases, we will probably see the eventual return of the audiophile head unit in a mech-less design.

Yes that's it, I had to go check the box. I bought it used off of a friend who used to compete in SQ competitions. I think he placed 4th or 5th nationally using it, then had some massive major drama in his team and quit and sold tons of his audio gear. I meant to install it in my last car but trying to figure out the Japanese and some other issues overwhelmed me at the time and I never did.



You'd think it has become cheap enough. I can store absurd amounts of high quality music on my iphone. Never mind you can now buy 2 terabyte flash drives.


I don't get expensive touchscreens with nav. We know it won't be better nav than what we get on our phones, so what is the point?

I predict Pioneer will eventually come out with a new mech-less double-din audiophile model with an internal solid state hard drive that is at least 1TB, in addition to USB and Bluetooth, and includes Wi-Fi so that you can download all the files you want straight to it. Not an android-based deck, but their own exclusive OS like they're known for now. Hopefully it will be 4-way network (or more?) ready with all the SQ features from the P99RS with additional adjustments.

Yeah, as for navigation, my 6 year-old near top-of-the-line Garmin still works perfectly and also has voice control. I find that it is not always a good thing to have all of your eggs in one basket.

I'll be willing to bet that if you look here,

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/S...Manual0428.pdf

you'll see that the head unit sold elsewhere around the world will be pretty close in operation to your Japan-only model. I'm sure you could probably compare pictures and figure everything out. Besides the language set up, the one major difference would be the AM/FM tuner frequencies. Everything else will probably be virtually identical. But if you add another deck as a source like I did, the tuner issue can easily be overcome. (If AM/FM is even a requirement for you.)

If you still can't figure it out, I'd be very willing to test it out and try to interpret Japanese for you. :D

When I read "old school" my head went way further back.


Wonder if I can get one of these to work since it would probably sound better than the 2020 piece of trash they used.


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KauGlmhoGyk/hqdefault.jpg

It looks almost double-din sized. I'm sure you can get it to fit with some custom-built brackets and a sheet of black ABS for a front trim piece. And you can probably find some of the media for it at a flea market. :lol:

Hmmmm.....a "Craig" Pioneer unit? I've owned several Pioneer stereos over the years and remember Craig as being a low budget manufacturer, but I never knew the two companies were ever affiliated with each other. I guess I need to read up on Pioneer's history a bit more.

I'll give you extra bonus points and two gold stars if you can get this to fit in the dash.

In our old Astro I had an OmniFi DMP1 MP3 player .

The removal cartridge gave me the idea for a retro version that was a direct double-din where the drive cart would plug into the front and look like an old 8 track.

Short update:

The basic construction of the subwoofer enclosure is complete. My Orion HCCA 12 fits perfectly.
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Now to choose some cover materials surrounding the sub and start building the front beauty cover panel. I also need to work on mounting the amplifiers and cleaning up and securing all of the wiring.

What do you think about those old-school tweeter protectors?

lol, i remember the time that people used to pay big money for floor standing speakers with light bulb 'protectors' in them!

Hey, they work. And they're real cheap at any auto parts store. These particular ones are 12-volt, 4-ohm, 4.9-watt license plate bulbs with matching sockets.

I have a set of MB Quart coxially-mounted separates that I have in my Solara with the Musicomp crossovers that utilize light bulb protection for the titanium tweeters. This particular set is older than my 2000 Solara and still work beautifully. I've never blown a tweeter nor one of the bulbs and they have been installed and have remained operational in two vehicles since I purchased them in the late 90's.

The science behind this is that when you start to drive your tweeters too hard, the bulbs begin to get brighter and brighter. As they do, they get hotter and hotter. What happens to a load in any electrical circuit as it gets hotter? It's resistance increases. Incandescent bulbs are designed to do that. There's your protection.

And it has the additional advantage of not affecting the tweeter phasing.

Don't try this with LED bulbs though, it won't work.

I am no audiophile, but I like my double din apple CarPlay HU from pioneer.

That said I always admire these custom setups and the knowledge and time put in to make them just right.

Update:

Things are slowly progressing with this audio system build. I got the studs installed where the factory holes for the plastic snap rivets would normally go to secure the factory trunk lid liner in place. This preps the trunk lid for my amp rack that I'm building.

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These 1-inch studs were not easy to fish down and over from the openings and holes in the internal trunk lid bracing. I had to use a combination of a spring claw tool, a magnet and a very thin but fairly stiff length of nickel coated copper capillary tube along with a lot of patience to get these studs in place.

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The three studs on top can be accessed from behind with an open-end wrench in order to tighten them down but the four studs on the bottom cannot be accessed with a wrench from behind at all, so I had to get the main securing nut in place on the bolt first, following the nylon washer, flat washer, and lock washer, then thread two more nuts onto the stud, tightening them together to use them to hold the bolt in place while I tightened the main securing nut down. Then I just loosened and removed the two nuts and did that for the remaining three studs.

I used the factory trunk liner as a template to cut the initial amp rack patterns which I am planning to build as lightweight and strong as possible incorporating a sketetal structure sandwiched between two 1/4" Birch plywood sheets.

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I'm also planning on building a beauty cover for the subwoofer enclosure. I've got a cardboard mock-up of it made already. This cover will allow people to view the subwoofer with a three-dimensional effect.

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Fun fact: I have this cardboard piece just friction fitted in place and forgot I had it there when I took the car on some twisty roads on a 150 mile round trip over the weekend, and when I got back, I popped the trunk to find that it was still in place and hadn't moved a bit! The subwoofer enclosure is strapped in place using an anchor system that I fabricated to attach to the rear seat securing bracket bolts and seat belt mechanism securing bolts. Apparently it works very well as the enclosure hasn't moved either. Tried and tested!

Note: I have not drilled a single hole in this car so far during this audio system build, nor during any other modifications to this car for that matter.

Here's a look at the strap set up for securing the enclosure in place.

nice!
i've always been leery of any builder who's first instinct is to grab a drill bit set!

i'm still a little irritated at myself that i had to run my door speaker cables on the outside of the door boot because 12/2 doesn't fit through it like my past vehicles...

Short update:

More work on the trunk lid-mounted amp rack last night.

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This thing should end up extremely lightweight yet very strong.

Amp placements.

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I've decided that I'm going to
mount them at an angle to make
it easier to make adjustments
on the ends, and also so that I
can have lighting underneath
each one.

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the part that's going to fascinate me the most is your wiring methods across the trunk lid!

Planning on flexible wire loom and clamps. Power wires on one side and signal wires on the other. I'll make it look good.

I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.......or something like that. :bonk:

Short update:

Strengthened the main amp rack board on the back side a few weeks ago,

Attachment 200111

and made the top and middle pieces to help support the rack, and mounted the three amps on the rack and got everything roughed in this evening/early this morning.

Attachment 200112

Progress.

How glow can you go?

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So after a few years of on and off searching for a Pioneer DEX-P99RS with no luck in finding one offered from a trusted source, and since Crutchfield has finally reduced their price by $2000 for the Pioneer DXT-P99RS-80 80th Anniversary sound package which includes a limited edition of this legendary 4-way network head unit, I broke down yesterday and decided to order the entire sound system so that I can finally install this special edition, only 80 ever produced, head units into the top din slot in my dash to replace my old Pioneer Premier 3-way network head unit.

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I needed a place to mount my main amplifier power wire fuse in the engine bay next to the battery, so I hand fabricated a cardboard shelf,

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and took that down to my local fabrication shop who made the piece out of aluminum, then took it over to get it powder coated so that it will look somewhat like a stock part,

Attachment 201210

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and set it into position.

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You can see the main fuse next to it that I have zip-tied temporarily in place so that it can't move around. That will mount on this new shelf. The edges toward the battery will be getting some matching edge trim as seen here.

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It has arrived!

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that's a whole lot of zero's for a limited run of 80...

It is. Someday I'll call up the nearest Pioneer rep and see if they can answer why that is, as I'm curious myself.

It's a whole lot of wiring underneath....

Attachment 201960

But it all stays where it is supposed to stay.....

Attachment 201961

Now that I know everything fits in there and I can close the trunk lid, I have to take it all back apart to cover all three rack pieces with some materials and do a little bit of sanding on the ends of the center brace piece so there is a visually smoother transition from the lower board to the upper board.

Then I need to figure out how I want to hide the fasteners. The wing nuts are just temporary to make it easier to work with until I find the permanent and best looking solution. I may incorporate some very strong magnets into a simple cover trim piece.

have you ever tried tech flex instead of split loom? split loom always tends to crack apart over time on me...


as far as the fasteners, you could do something with a pin spanner wrench, so it would use a threaded 'washer' type fastener like used on grinders and such to hold the discs on.

all of the other options i can think of would involve sinking the fastening device into the mounting board to allow for a flush type snap-on cover, and i'm not sure you have the thickness yet in the board for that.

come to think of it, there's the counter-sunk washers that might work:

https://ecklers.com.imgeng.in/media/...4/64-24462.jpg

this is called a 'Hinge Screw Washer'.. i know i've seen them in a variety of locations with different sizes what would still allow you to use a nut on the exposed bolts, might need to deep dive into a mcmaster carr to find the right size

after that, i believe they offer bolt covers that might work.

I have not used tech flex. The split loom that I'm using here is fairly soft. I know there is some more brittle loom out there that eventually cracks with heat, especially in the engine bay, but not in this build. I've gone and wrapped it with 3M electrical tape as well so cracking won't be an issue.

As for the hardware, I'll eventually find something to cover them that makes it look as if they aren't even there.

Got the edge trim put on and the fuse shelf installed and the fuse holder secured in place with some stainless steel machine screws and nuts. Connected the main 4-gauge power wire from the positive terminal to the rear lug and then ran the rest of the wire into the car through a grommet in the firewall.

Attachment 202117

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Here is a picture with the battery terminal cover in place and the fuse holder cover in place,

Attachment 202119

I think what I'll do next is drill a hole in the top of the shelf a few inches in front of the fuse holder and run the power wire straight down through a grommet. That should give it a cleaner look than having it routed over the edge of the shelf back towards the positive terminal.

Attachment 202120

This system build is coming along. I got all of my permanent power and speaker wiring, and RCA cables run over these past two weekends, some of the trunk lighting installed, and my old Pioneer Premier and Alpine head units out of the dash.

I temporarily reinstalled the factory tweeters after bypassing the capacitors so that I can run them fully active. I had blown both of the new Dayton silk some tweeters that I had installed because I overdrove them without any protection. I have since purchased some replacements, but they need to be slightly modified before I can insert them into the tweeter receptacles in each of the dash speaker grilles. The factory tweeters will serve the purpose for the time being, and they are now running in series with my home-made tweeter protectors. I found some red incandescent bulbs and mounted them in some generic housings I purchased at the local auto parts store,

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I was really wanting to hear this new Pioneer 80th Anniversary DEX-P99RS 4-way network head unit running the system, so I temporarily got it connected in the dash,

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so that I could get all my amplifier gain levels set to their initial settings, and run the Auto Time Alignment/Equalizer feature of the head unit in AUTO mode.

I had to run it several times to find out where the head unit wanted to set my levels at, make some gain adjustments on my amplifiers and re-run it each time. Between four separate gain controls, It took about 10 runs, but I finally got the amps set to right about where they need to be, which resulted in the levels of all eight outputs on the head units' display to be within 1 to 2 db from each other,

Attachment 202267

And as you can also see in the picture above, the unit automatically set my crossover slopes to 12db/octave.

I have now adjusted each slope to 24db/octave as you can see here,

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in order to keep all of my speakers in phase with each other, and I will save that as a custom crossover setting to use as I run the Auto TA/EQ process once more in CUSTOM mode this time to force the unit to use 24 db/oct crossovers instead.

Then I can add a shelf filter for the subwoofer, because everyone always likes a little more low end,

Attachment 202269

I'll have to run Auto TA/EQ again when I install the permanent replacement Dayton tweeters, but that's okay, it helps me learn how this deck operates.

From what I have heard so far, this system kicks ass! Everything is crystal clear up front, the test CD that I use for image placement uses voices in five different areas of the front stage which are perfectly placed. Ariana Grande's a capella song Raindrops (An Angel Cried) sounds perfectly clear, and I'm not even done yet.

Edit: Added the pictures.

New head unit installed permanently with a pocket-style drawer installed underneath.

Attachment 203639

The slide-out section of the drawer had some white writing on the face of it from the manufacturer that I didn't want, so I removed it with isopropyl alcohol. But due to how the ink smeared and gave the black plastic an uneven, chalky appearance, I shined it up with some 0000 steel wool, and gave it one coat of matte black Krylon Fusion All-In-One paint + primer (with a "No-Peel Guarantee"), then let that dry a day and rubbed the shiny spots off using the steel wool again, and laid another coat down, then after that dried one more day, laid the final coat down.

The drawer slides out,

Attachment 203641
but won't slide out on its own during acceleration. This means I can put whatever I want in there that will fit and not have to worry about anything flying out like you would with a normal pocket. I think I'll pull the drawer back out and line the inside with some non-slip drawer liner just to keep anything I place inside from making any noise.

And using a couple of adapter harnesses provided by https://autoharnesshouse.com/
I've also integrated the stock USB port and auxillary input receptacle to this new head unit for additional audio sources.

Attachment 203640

It has Bluetooth capabilities as well, but you have to have the accessory adapter to use it. Besides, using Bluetooth with it's relatively poor sound quality in comparison to what I'm trying to achieve with this build with a head unit like this is pretty much pointless anyway, and I have no desire to connect my phone through it either.

Nope, this is a system built for music and driving pleasure, not for me to be bothered by other people wanting to get a hold of me when going through the twisties.

I'm really liking this head unit, how it looks in the dash, how it sounds, how versatile the DSP is, the fact that each of the eight channel outputs has independently adjustable crossovers, and levels, the 31-band EQ per side. There is really no other head unit out there that can hold a candle to this Pioneer. It truly lives up to its legendary status. And only 80 of these 80th Anniversary Edition models were ever produced for the world.

It has now been three years since this head units' release with no current replacement. I hope at some point in the future, Pioneer will step back up and come out with something else for us audiophiles of equal or greater quality. But for now, this appears to be the last of its breed.