OEM Audio Reference Series Available Tomorrow for Preorder

[sparks]

Originally Posted by Iddoit2er

While I opened up the door to put the new speakers in, I took out the door control assemblies and wrapped the housing in foam before putting them back in. No more rattle from the door controls! I suggest anyone who needs to take the door card off do this while youre in there. Now to fix the rattle from the TBL...

I didn't do anything to mine and the rattles are GONE. Funny how removing low bass from the doors quiets everything down

[JDKane527]

Originally Posted by sparks

I didn't do anything to mine and the rattles are GONE. Funny how removing low bass from the doors quiets everything down

You can remove the resonance that causes some rattling by adding damping material to the door. I added second skin speaker tweakers in the door panel behind the woofers and can dial the bass up a little before it starts booming.

http://store.secondskinaudio.com/speaker-tweaker-kit/

Haven't found a need to add any more damping material.

[Iddoit2er]

You know, I noticed that there's a frequency range thats not quite as present anymore - Im guessing thats why it sounds a lot cleaner, or at least in large part.

Can someone out there give a real quick explanation of the upgrade in layman's terms? What they did to the DSP? What the new cable is for? All i know is that it sounds different, theres a range that I dont quite hear anymore, and two speakers arent being used anymore.

Originally Posted by sparks

I didn't do anything to mine and the rattles are GONE. Funny how removing low bass from the doors quiets everything down

[tonystewart]

It works!
New DSP Amp cured everything!

So thankful the car is well insulated.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...4&postcount=53

The sound is excellent, I sat with my daughter and listened to Imogen Heap,"Hide & Seek", shocked at the detail and the sound stage.

[sparks]

Originally Posted by Iddoit2er

Can someone out there give a real quick explanation of the upgrade in layman's terms? What they did to the DSP? What the new cable is for? All i know is that it sounds different, theres a range that I dont quite hear anymore, and two speakers arent being used anymore.

The 400+ system feeds Front Left channel to the dash speakers (mid+tweet) and the same channel feeds the door. So 2 speakers (seperated by distance) are producing twice the mids.

The 400CF first replaces the door speakers, not a bad speaker but the replacements are better.

The cable uses the old mids speaker connections to feed the doors. The power for Front Left passes through the tweeter into the new cable and plugs into the disconnected factory amp (lines to the doors).

DSP - I started with a 400CF, so I have no comparison, but have experience with a few SQ builds. The sound stage is centered on the driver, I can fine tune the EQ to my liking, and I can tell the rear speakers are working. Now that the DSP is routing all the bass to the sub, my doors don't rattle, my license plate does

[tonystewart]

Thank you for the explanation, very helpful.

[l0aded]

Originally Posted by sparks

. The sound stage is centered on the driver, I can fine tune the EQ to my liking, and I can tell the rear speakers are working.

Might be a silly question but do you mean the sound stage is centered on the front? Or is it literally on the driver where the passenger seat hears the sound slightly worse?

[sparks]

On the driver, from the passenger it's a littlie right side heavy but still clean

[Raven23]

So how are people liking their reference upgrade? Is it a big upgrade compared to the regular version?

[buddy32]

Installed a couple of weeks ago. I like it alot.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...40&postcount=6

[epsilonkore]

I find the reference to be an improvement over the base 400 series in spacial positioning and midrange. The OEM door speakers along with the dash mids were a shallow/narrow mess compared to the Reference door speakers and deactivation of the dash ones. That being said, it provides no more "boom" for those of you looking for that,(it SHOULDNT, its a "REFERENCE" system) its just cleaner, better positioned and supplies a complete aural range as the door, dash tweets and sub all complement each others range specs better than the OEM ones ever did. The backseat speakers are along for the ride it seems, and barely audible... there just for positioning. I am happy with my setup, and for early adopters the upgrade price minus the $100 rebate made it worth it for me. I work in the music entertainment industry and I was a bit embarrassed to let my co workers ride and listen to the stock setup. OEM Audio will keep me in the lunchtime carpool rotation as even our head of A&R was impressed

That being said, a few things I dont like:

I dont like that I had to lose my dash mids (they cut the mids connector off to attach to the new umbilical cord). Part of the reason I liked the idea of OEM Audio was that it preserved my stock setup so I could restore it later if I trade up or just want to sell the system used. I can no longer do that without selling the car with a neutered dash setup.

I also dont like all the umbilical cables running through the dash. Along with my AVIC x950, SiriusXM and the various adapters to make it all work, the area behind my head unit is a tangled mess once I added the umbilical (despite my attempt to zip tie it into submission). I hoped "OEM" could have kept it cleaner, but together with Pioneers help that area is crammed full. The second complaint: the system sounds great at lower volumes (sign of a good system) and at higher ear piercing levels. Its clean, powerful, smooth and only needs minor EQ tweaking to fit the kind of music I listen to most (country, pop, rap) though I find that dance/house music needs a bit more work to keep all the sounds from melting/muddling together. I have tried tweaking the EQ quite I bit and I cant seem to find a happy spot for songs with extensive layers of sound. This kind of music can be hard to reproduce accurately, but by seeing "reference" in the name, I hoped it would be a little closer to our studio setups that can play ANYTHING accurately, then again this is a CAR with pre positioned (and not optimally) speaker locations. It will never match the studio, but it does sound damn clean at its best (listen to Drake Hold On, We're Going home) and good at its worst (anything heavily layered and already distorted, The Killers "Shot at the Night" disappoints me after hearing it in the Studio).

[Yruyur]

Got the stock 3.5 speakers out and the amp off to ship back for the reference series.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Yruyur]

And a close up of the 3.5

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Yruyur]

Here are the speakers back. You can see how they removed the plugs to add to the umbilical

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2