So the weather broke this weekend and it's finally looking spring-ish, so the "upgrade" bug finally bit me....Again.
I've been stock-piling equipment (hoarding) over the past winter and my build has been mostly directionless. During this time, I bought myself a pair of 6.5" Silver Flute wool-cone drivers and two GT Mat 80mil sound dampening door kits. Here's how my weekend went...
Silver Flute W17RC38-04I installed them in my factory location after using a GT Mat 80 mil door kit (more later) on my front doors and decoupling them with a 1" ABS mounting adapter.
First Impressions- They're very well built and look and sound like they cost way more than they actually do. They reproduce EVERYTHING you throw at them and they even try to operate beyond their suggested usable freq range (yes, I tortured them foe a few minutes while tuning). What stood out most is it's ability to get into the low frequencies without distortion. I've tried them crossed as low as 40hz with a 24db slope on about 100 watts per side and the sound stage moved forward drastically!
even though I wouldn't run these that low for any extended period, it was nice to see $70 worth of equipment remain so composed under that kinda abuse. I would recommend these to anyone looking to upgrade their factory equipment or someone looking to piece together an entry level or budget SQ kit. They're not as loud as some of the higher end options but that's not the point of the builds these are marketed for... Honestly, I'd happily pay $20 more per driver now that I know what they're capable of.
*sidenote: this is the first time I've used my sub purely for rear fill (crossed off the HU at 31.5hz, 36db slope)GT Mat door dampenerSo lately, I've been a bit of a car audio snob; meaning I try to stick with the upper tier of whatever
my pockets can afford (as I'd encourage others to try to do). So when I decided to give SQ a shot, I initially opted for the tried and true Stinger roadkill, that I have in my trunk and headliner but, while it sat in my Amazon cart I saw a kit that covered the same Sqft-age, same weight/thickness but costed a fraction. So after a few hours of reading and ball scratching, I swapped out what was in the cart for the cheaper alternative. I figured, it can't hurt -if it fails as I won't be out by alot, dollar-wise.
I took apart my doors (again), pulled off the factory protective foam and gave them a good wipe down then proceeded to cut to fit. I went with the 25-50% coverage method on the inner door skin, covering all the factory holes with cut-to-fit foam core board which I hot glued and dampened as well. I did as much as I could behind the woofer and I treated a few flat areas on the actual door cards. I also did around the base of the speaker and I added some mass to the mounting ring as it's made of ABS plastic.
The product worked as advertised and on close inspection, it appears to legitimately be butyl and not asphalt based, which some cheap alternatives are. There are no smells- even though I was using my heat gun (it's still a little chilly) and it stuck/rolled on with no issue and the dampening effect was instantaneous. I can't speak for the durability but I will update once it's made it through a north-east summer but for a first impression @ $30, it's well worth the savings... So far.
