Over the last year ABTEC1 has gone through a few transformations, when I got my grubby hands on it the Pajero it had one DD-9512-D2 facing forward & four DD-SW6.5’s facing the rear door. After that it went through a series of set-ups including four DD-512-D4’s all the way up to running a DD-Z12-D1 & DD-Z18-D1 at different stages.

This blog isn’t about the different set-up’s we have run as that would be novel on the product list alone, but about the build of its NEW and final set-up of 4 DD-515-D4’s in a wall.

Walling ABTEC1 had been a discussion Ashley ‘MAD BASS’ Burrell & I have had several times in the past year, the only hold back was Ashley’s concern that there would be a significant loss in Sound Quality.

After numerous discussions & phone calls with Jassa of Digital Designs Ashley had enough of an idea of how we could wall ABTEC1 and still retain the Sound Quality as to be able to demo “Normal” everyday music loud and clear as well as wowing people with the brutality of the “BASS” music.

The picture above is not the master design just so you know, but Dave’s sketch so he can figure out the final adjustments so that the box would fit into ABTEC1 and also the cutting/assembly order.

As you can see above the first job was to remove/dissemble the contents of ABTEC1, Ashley & I took charge of this and I must say I highly enjoyed taking it apart as most of the tool work I usually do these days is mainly maintaining the family car.

After this was all done it was time to call it a night since we were starting reasonably early the next day due to wanting to get the wall done in one day! Just before closing up we had Ashley return to the workshop due to having no bass, he didn’t even last a minute down the road before returning to get a temporarily Sub-Woofer.

When we turned up Saturday morning the first thing we did was lay out a plan of execution, once that was sorted I laid out all the equipment that was required of the build and got back to my Saturday Job of distracting customers giving Dave and Ashley the free time to start the prep work on the box.

Once the prep work was all done and cut it was now time for Dave to start piecing the box together and as you can see above it is a very tight squeeze (but apparently Dave likes that sort of thing).

Back to a serious note the box was so tight that it had to be trimmed down just a touch compared to the original design by 15mm each side and this might not sound like much but can slightly alter you tune, but since this box is monstrous  I don’t think it would of made a noticeable difference.

Now the box was sized up it and ready for assembly Dave marked out & pre drilled the screw holes, then all three of use got a cordless drill each and went to town on the box (yes I know that sounds really bad). There was an easy 300+ surefast/fix screws used in fixing this box together and a couple of tubes of glue too!

Before the box was lifted into ABTEC1 I gave the front face & inside of the box a quick coat of primmer and paint, but not before fitting the 12mm threaded rod to reinforce it from the extreme air pressure & vibrations it is bound to see in its lifespan.

Next on the job list was for Ashley to secure the box, amp & then fit the Sub-Woofers. Once that was all done we had to have a quick listen, which turned into about thirty to forty minutes of trying different tracks.

We soon realised that time had easily past us by and that some of us should really return home to our families, but before doing so Ashley put some Sub-Woofer bars on to stop any accidental damage to the two Sub-Woofers due to the seats being capable of sliding back into them.

Monday came quickly it was now time for the final touches to the front of the wall with Dave making up the two side panels that would house the 2 x DD-VO-B2 Horn Super-Tweeters and 4 x DD-VO-M6x9 Mid-Range Speakers.

The end product we ended up with is not only a brutal ground-pounder but also sounds absolutely beautiful on ALL music types/genres, I found that hoping into ABTEC3 after listening to the NEW IMPROVED ABTEC1 makes me sad. Don’t get me wrong here the DD-9518-D1-SC-ES on a DD-M4a is ballistic but ABTEC3 has so much clarity to it!

Overall Ashley has created a beast of a Pajero that sounds so surreal I keep on thinking to myself “How can I get Ashley to swap cars!” –Lance