{"id":569,"date":"2016-11-19T19:01:05","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T06:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/?p=569"},"modified":"2019-02-14T19:14:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T06:14:22","slug":"ddz18-spl-to-madd-sq-makeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/ddz18-spl-to-madd-sq-makeover\/","title":{"rendered":"DDZ18 SPL to MADD SQ Makeover!!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To get the full story of how ABTEC3<\/strong> (Toyota Vitz<\/strong>) ended up with my CRAZY<\/strong> Ports<\/strong> in the back of it we will have to go back to the end of last year in Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley<\/strong> and I had spent a lot of hours testing to get ABTEC3<\/strong> to SPL<\/strong> at 155+dB<\/strong> for this event. So when we finally did we came to the agreement that between then and the event at Nelson there was to be no changes to the setup, this made perfect sense since any changes could net in a lower result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event came and went and I thought \u201cSweet I\u2019ll go put my old musical box back in\u201d however Ashley<\/strong> had another idea, he wanted for me to keep the Burp Box<\/strong> in ABTEC3<\/strong>. His true reasons were not totally revealed until a long time after that\u2026 I will get to that further on though!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the first week I just selected my songs carefully so to play near the tuning of the Burp Box<\/strong> and to be honest I hated it, with a passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a couple of weeks it was starting to really get on my nerves as on Rock<\/strong> the bass was really peaky and I could not play any of the low lows that I love. At this point I was getting really fired up (That is putting it softly since I am censoring my language) and said to Ashley<\/strong> that \u201cI refuse to drive ABTEC3<\/strong> with it sounding like a fart box\u201d (Again putting it very softly).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashley\u2019s<\/strong> answer to this was \u201cOk, take the truck (ABTEC1<\/strong>) for a few days and I\u2019ll have a listen\u201d. When I got ABTEC3<\/strong> back that Saturday Ashley<\/strong> had made a change, the SPL Ports<\/strong> were a touch longer and the box had a touch of Dacron inside lining the floor. After a quick listen I noticed it wasn\u2019t quite as peaky so I thought I would give it a chance\u2026 All along still not getting why Ashley<\/strong> left the Burp Box<\/strong> in ABTEC3<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christmas came and went and I had made a whole new playlist to suit ABTEC3<\/strong>, however I still wasn\u2019t happy with the sound since I couldn\u2019t quite play in the low 30Hz range. Again I ranted and raved to Ashley<\/strong> about getting my old Music Enclosure<\/strong> back into ABTEC3<\/strong> in which this time he replied \u201cIf only we could extend the ports long enough\u201d, now I was on a mission to find all the clean cut 6\u2033 Port off-cuts so I could extend the ports longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To my luck there was a box full of 6\u2033 Port off-cuts that I used to make another longer set of ports, these new \u201cDubstep-Ports\u201d<\/strong> as I dubbed them made a massive difference this time round. Even though it wasn\u2019t as low as I\u2019d prefer it still was a hundred times better than the SPL Ports<\/strong>. What I did notice was it being VERY aggressive in the 40Hz-30Hz range which made it perfect for the Underground Dub\/Deathstep<\/strong> that I listen to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So the Feilding Sound-Off came and went and for quite a while there I was content, ABTEC3<\/strong> was an insane Dubstep<\/strong> machine and you could hear it for miles. This was until I found some old Rock\/Metal<\/strong> albums I used to listen to growing up, at this point the kicks\/bass become very peaky and I did not like this one bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my mind started ticking over again and I started looking into ninety degree bends for 6\u2033 Aero-Ports<\/strong>, the only problem here is the company we get the Aero-Ports<\/strong> from only made bends for the 4\u2033 Aero-Ports<\/strong> but in the mean time Ashley<\/strong> decided to distract me with a new addition to ABTEC3<\/strong>\u2026 DD-AT28 Tweeters<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since the DD-AT28 Tweeters<\/strong> had been installed the high range changed so dramatic that the the Mid-Woofer\u2019s<\/strong> from the CS Series could no longer keep up but I will get to those soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another month or so passed and ABTEC3<\/strong> was almost at a point where I was happy with the sound but it still wasn\u2019t playing low enough for my liking and the bass in Rock\/Metal<\/strong> was still too peaky, this time around thought I\u2019d take it into my own hands and just sort it out myself. My thinking was that only I know how low I want it to play and if my idea doesn\u2019t work at least I tried!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I searched around a few local plumbing stores to price up some sewage piping and two ninety degree bends, funny enough only the third store had what I was after and it cost a touch more than expect. So for the next week I waited till I could afford to get said sewage pipe, anyone that knows me will know how impatient I am and for the next week the only thing on my mind was will it work!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The week passed very slowly and I finally had fabricated up the ports, ABTEC3<\/strong> was now playing low but now I had a new problem! With the ports firing straight up the hatch sounded like it was being destroyed very violently with every bass note and since ABTEC3<\/strong> is not only my daily driver but also a company vehicle I would need to find a solution to this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally I was understanding why Ashley<\/strong> wouldn\u2019t let me put my old Musical Enclosure<\/strong> back into ABTEC3<\/strong> but I will explain this soon enough!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My solution to the ports destroying the hatch was simple, add another two ninety degree bends to the ports! Now I had added the bends the ports were even longer it was not only playing lower but it also smoothed out the higher (peaky) notes that were annoying me while listening to Rock\/Metal<\/strong>. I spent about three or four hours that night listening to all the different genres of music I loved, everything from 60\u2019s\/70\u2019s Rock<\/strong> to 80\u2019s\/90\u2019s Metal<\/strong> to Modern Dub\/Deathstep<\/strong> to Bass-Boosted\/Orientated music<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABTEC3<\/strong> was so close to being at a point of musical happiness, well to myself anyway\u2026 It was only missing three things, some industrial grade clamps to hold the ports in place, a pair of DD-AW5.2 Mid-Drivers<\/strong> for the doors and some DD-CC1 Crossovers<\/strong> for the Tweeters<\/strong> and Mids<\/strong>. Lucky for me I have a few friends in the engineering trade for getting the brackets and fasteners, I had even more luck that Ashley<\/strong> had already ordered some DD-AW5.2\u2019s<\/strong> and DD-CC1\u2019s<\/strong> for stock and was willing to sacrifice them for the greater good that is ABTEC3<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since I\u2019m usually busy in the ABTEC Showroom<\/strong>, writing blogs or on the phones here I left installing the DD-AW5.2\u2019s<\/strong> and DD-CC1\u2019s<\/strong> to the Team<\/strong> in the Workshop<\/strong>, Ashley<\/strong> on the other hand wanted to fit the Port Clamps<\/strong> on himself so I just left them to it. The end of the day came and left and ABTEC3<\/strong> was sitting outside ready for a proper listen, but instead of blasting some bass heavy music as I usually would I decided to play some Pink Floyd<\/strong> because if there was anything that I would be to tell all the little differences in the music it would be Floyd<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow! That is the only way I can explain the way it sounded, even though the DD-AW5.2\u2019s<\/strong> hadn\u2019t even had an hour on them they were sounding amazing. I could hear every little detail in my front staging now, this is something ABTEC3<\/strong> did always lack on the low end of the mid-bass. Now ABTEC3<\/strong> is a completely different machine sound wise!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now everything was installed, run-in and playing ALL<\/strong> my favorite music stupidly loud and clearly it made me finally understand what Ashley<\/strong> had been doing all along! Ashley<\/strong> set me a task without telling me directly what it was, this task was to get the Burp Box<\/strong> to SPL<\/strong> well (Which we had already achieved) but also play music (Not just Dubstep<\/strong> but most if not all) extremely loud and clear. The reasons behind getting myself to do so in my own time and to test it was that I have always believed that one-note wonder Burp-Boxes<\/strong> are no good for music, I still believe this however with slight changes (Or extreme in my case) they can be improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes you just have to put down the calculator and try something out of the ordinary!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One thing I do expect is to get odd comments, or hating as some people would call it. Yes it does sewage piping in it, yes it does look raw, yes I have placed the flares outwards to look like fog-horns but it sounds amazing and feel free to ask me for a demo to make up your own mind! I used to tell people I prefer the Pajero<\/strong> (ABTEC1<\/strong>) over the Vitz<\/strong> (ABTEC3<\/strong>) and don\u2019t get me wrong ABTEC1<\/strong> is still nuts but I am the happiest I\u2019ve ever been ever with a setup. To make things better I also learned a couple of things on the way!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can truly say ABTEC3 SOUNDS ALIVE<\/strong>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To get the full story of how ABTEC3 (Toyota Vitz) ended up with my CRAZY Ports in the back of it we will have to go back to the end of last year in Nelson. Ashley and I had spent a lot of hours testing to get ABTEC3 to SPL at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-tech-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":594,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569\/revisions\/594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hifihq.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}