Running new speaker cable to the doors.

[Nick Mann]

I am looking for advice on replacing the speaker cable to the doors.

I am going to be fitting Alpine components with a crossover to the front doors and Alpine coaxials to the rear doors sometime around Christmas. I currently have a Pioneer head unit with reasonable output, but will eventually be looking at a car pc so will have to run the speakers from amplifiers. As a hi-fi person, I appreciate the difference good cabling can make, so it seems like a good idea to run the cable in at the same time. I also think that dynamat or equivalent is a good idea - I have already suffered rattly doors in the past!

So I have a couple of questions from someone who hasn't done this before:

1. Cable - what size is sensible? I obviously want a decent thickness but not so thick it won't feed through the doors wiring grommit. What have other people done?

2. Dynamat or equivalent. How much would people recommend for the doors? I quite like the idea of putting a fair bit in the car - internal bulkhead, floor, doors etc. I don't really want to spend a massive amount on it though, so what would people recommend?

[VR457]

Hi Nick,

The problem with door cabling is if its too thick it will not go through the rubber near the door hinges. I think its 12-16 gauge wire thats good. I put some pictures up yonks ago about that. Will check cabling sizes later.

Dynamat is good but expensive. I think the rule is one pack of Dynamat Xtreme per door. Alternatives are Second Skin and Silent Coat. Look at the Car Audio Direct website for info. The thicker the material the better in general. If you knock on the outer panels you want to hear a dull thud, then you know you have put enough on. The advantage of putting lots in is the car door will effectively act as a sealed chamber for the speaker.

I have some photos on lining the floor of the car which i forgot to upload. Will share some ideas on that a bit later....

I think it was Pugme who deadened his car? He seemed to know stuff about this too.

[Pugme]

yeah man i used the 4mm second skin from car audio direct for deadening my boot, u wouldbonly need the 2 mm stuff on the doors really.

also the quality of the cable is not measured by thickness its more about copper content, im using chord cable in my boot have a look at the install pics and ull see if u look at the amp wiring pics the size of the speaker cable altjough that cable is £11 per meter.

[foxdie]

I've thought about sound deadening my car, how much difference does it make? Significant enough to justify the cost?

[Pugme]

ermmm at the minute its hard to tell because i never had bass without the sound dead, but to be fair tho there are very few ratlly vibrations coming from the boot so its definately done something.

[foxdie]

Ahh yes the rattling, I did have to pad a couple of things out with rubber when I installed my sub, most notably the gap between the rear spoiler and boot lid, and part of the bumper :)

[Humpty's Revenge]

Ahh yes the rattling, I did have to pad a couple of things out with rubber/Hmmm

[WOODY72]

On the rear as well!!!!!! :smartass:

[VR457]

Put it that way, 1500 wrms on the bootlid and no vibrations. With deadening the sound of normal speakers is much enhanced as the energy normally goes into panel vibrations.

I had a friend who installed 2 x 15" without sound deadening. The rattles were nuts, the bass travelled so far as to knock things off shelves in shops! The car sounded like scraping tincans off a 'just married' vehicle as it went past.

Not so sure about spending lots of money on cabling, my hunch has always been on thickness for current to flow rather than on content. There is an endless debate on whether high quality cables can improve the sound, ideally in a double blind situation. No one ever moves the debate forward though!

[Nick Mann]

There are three British Standards for copper that are frequently used, the LEAST pure is 99.95% minimum copper. The types used for cabling are usually 99.99% minimum copper. The conductivity difference between the three grades is minimal, fractions of a percent. The conductance of a wire increases directly with it's cross sectional area, which is to say the resistance reduces. If you double the CSA of the cable, you half it's resistance. Therefore, to my mind, an increase of 1% in CSA is more important than the reduction of impurities measured in parts per million.

There are other factors all to consider - hard copper is less conductive than soft copper, so if you bend the cable lots and start stiffening it up, you will (marginally) hurt it's performance. The performance could drop significantly more than the gains found with the premium cable.

There are many other factors to consider - connections at each end of the cable, number of individual strands in the cable, excess length, etc.

[VR457]

There you go Mr Mann, new thread, just for you.

http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthread.php?60969-Sound-deadening-floor