I recently sold my Audi S3 and bought a new car. The requirements were: loads of storage space, safe & comfy ride for my new baby girl, quiet inside for hi-fi, effortless pace, reasonable service & spares costs, solid build quality. Plus some decent room up front for comps would be ideal. After driving a few large Audis, this VW ticked more boxes.

VW W8

4.0 litre, 8 cylinder, 4x4

Loads of space for euro trips

De-badged rump for added amusement

Two weeks after collection the hi-fi needed to be upgraded. I wanted it as simple and compact as possible, to play high quality music at normal listening levels. I also wanted to keep the car looking totally stock inside for security. Plus I don’t have time to do a huge no holds barred install, so the stock VW speaker locations would suffice for now. A full monty bare shell, mig welder in hand install will have to wait until I have a project car to slice up Therefore this was going to be a 2 way component set up front, one compact boot mounted sub, one multi channel amp, a basic sq CD player, plus a passive set up for less equipment hassles. The key points for this install were going to be: simple, practical, compact.

The HU was kept from my previous install as it offers great quality for the outlay. Badged Rockford Fosgate, made by Denon, with copper chassis, multi bit DAC, fully balanced mini DIN gold outputs if required. Although I am tempted to upgrade a tad to the McIntosh MX406 at some point just out of interest. Or even better, another sq HU with a detachable black face plate, so I can keep it 100% stealthy inside. Any ideas welcome.

Brushed metal Rockford Fosgate

The DLS Ultimate A5 amp is an ideal way to keep the size and complexity to a minimum. It’s a 3 channel amp, offering somewhere around +100rms x2 for the front comps, plus 500rms for a 2ohm sub. SQ is pretty damn good. Again, I may be tempted in future by those high end TRU amps as they are a bit porno, when my next install is more worthy. All my power and signal cables are by Stinger, mostly as their terminations seem so well engineered from lumps of metal.

DLS A5 amp to go in

The sub choice took me a while to nail down. Awesome accuracy and integration were paramount, so it would hopefully sound like all my bass was coming from the front soundstage. But I also wanted to keep the sub enclosure as small as possible, without sacrificing the low end extension or output volume. So, close to impossible then! I had previously used a few different subs, all with sealed boxes in my last install. To sum it up quickly some of the options sounded like this back to back …

Image Dynamics IDQ 10 – Amazingly accurate, not bad extension, but very low volume output (due to small xmax and low power handling no doubt). All in all, a bit like an Aliante I guess, which is aimed more towards quality rather than output potential.

JL Audio 12 W6v1 AE – not bad accuracy in isolation, but very blurred compared to the solid IDQ 10. High output volume and decent low end extension though. Overall it was too much quantity at the expense of quality for my tastes.

DLS Iridium 10 – virtually as accurate as the IDQ and almost as loud as the JL. The best of both worlds then. This had it nailed as far as I was concerned, so I owned this the longest by far. A damn good sq sub driver and highly recommended. From what others have said on TA, I suspect an ID Max (Arc Flatline) must sound very much like this DLS, with high SQ plus decent volume in one package. The only slight niggles were the driver weight was very high, plus the box was on the large side (for me) at 0.8 cuft.

In order to get the sealed enclosure size drastically reduced I had to downsize to an 8” driver, to maintain maximum boot storage space. I also didn’t fancy the hassle of going IB or AP in this particular car. The trouble is most small subs have pretty poor build quality, low power handling and low cone xmax movement, which all limit the output volume too much. I don’t want high spl, but I do expect the sub to overcome road noise properly and reproduce realistic levels you expect in some songs. Very few 8” have the sort of build I was after. Only Crystal or JL’s 8W7 seemed beefy enough to look at, but both are hardly the last word in sq. Plus the W7 needs a whopping 0.8 cuft sealed anyway, which is the same as the larger 10” DLS, so pointless. Unfortunately DLS Iridium / Nobelium and ID Max do not come in an 8.

Literally the only sub I could find on the market which ticks all my boxes is the new CDT Euro Sport 8” (Gold). It handles decent 400w rms of power due to a large 2.5” aluminium voice coil and relatively huge 17mm xmax (most 8’s are only 9mm or so), drops low enough to 10Hz, can be used in a mini 0.4 cuft sealed enclosure, or even smaller if you want. Plus it has the reputation of top level sq in the USA. Build quality is awesome with a cast chassis, butyl rubber surround and chunky terminals. The only flipside is it isn’t exactly the cheapest small driver around at £450. But it does seem you get what you pay for as it has all the bases covered. Alternatively they also offer an HD version at lower cost.

CDT Euro Sport - 8” sub (ES-SQ-800 Gold)

400w rms, 17mm xmax, 2.5" aluminium voice coil

While I was at it I also went for matching CDT Euro Sport 2 way components up front. The trebles are much smaller than my previous Dynaudio’s, allowing far more install options. Plus being silk domed should keep the smoothness I’m after. Another feature is you can quick release the tweets from their car mounted housings to swap them over. Say, if you wanted to go from silk to alloy, or even titanium domes for sq competitions, it will only take a few seconds. (Btw, their metal domes are the smoothest I’ve yet heard of that type). The 6.5” mid bass are the optional upgraded 06 models and look like smaller versions of the 8” ES sub. These offer an increased xmax of 11mm (which is mad in a mid!), to aid low end extension, or more volume potential if that’s your thing. Should be good for dragging the sub tones closer to the front of the car and blending it all together.

CDT Euro Sport - silk tweeters (1” DRT-26 Gold)

CDT Euro Sport - 2 way x-over, featuring EQ and stage uplift option (ES-200Z Gold)

CDT Euro Sport - extended bass 06 mids, 6.5” (ES-06 Gold)

The matching x-overs are pretty trick too. You can actually kind of EQ the front drivers to suit the install, by tweeking x-over points and output levels of the tweeters, upper mid and lower mid bass separately. Pretty handy as clearly every door or enclosure is different from car to car. Also you can add a second pair of tweeters from this x-over. This means you can have normal 2 ways in the kicks, plus another set of tweeters high up on the A-pillars. This allows you maintain a higher soundstage and keep the benefits of a near point source effect from the kicks. The upper tweets can be set up to run at lower volume (up to –6db), while the far away tweeters maintain the ideal large path lengths at higher normal volume. Sounds complex to describe, but it sounds really natural and stunning in Chris Audi A6 (from Axis Distribution). Pretty useful if you want to go the whole nine yards with a competition car.

So anyway this is my simple install underway…

Optimum sealed 0.4 cuft enclosure

Internal bracing detail

Covered, with CD to show compact scale

Alloy sub to car chassis mounting bracket detail

Front VW door card removed

Inner metal door panels removed

20 sqft of Skinz Damplifier Pro deadening added to front doors

Mid bass rear reflection foams added in behind driver locations

Skinz water protection foams added behind mids. Inner metal panels deadened

Another 20 sqft of Skinz Damplifier Pro deadening added to whole boot and roof

Full size alloy spare wheel added, with cover to follow. Amp & x-over hidden under black vent at back right, next to the sub

Ski hatch internal panels removed, x-overs just behind hatch hole under black vent

Standard VW tweeter and mid grills remaining for stealth look

I listen to a wide range of music, from electronica like ulrich schnauss, underworld, cicada, to normal stuff like razor light, or female vocals, to heavier tunes occasionally like nirvana. My home hi-fi is pretty natural and clear so that’s what I’m used to, coming from kit like Bryston / Flying Mole / PMC / Benchmark / Dynaudio, etc over the years. So this is what this car system sounds like in comparison…

With a half decent recording of something like Clapton, it’s very clear on the vocals and top end. The strings are precise and realistic with a bit of bite when it’s on the recording, but never approaching harshness. It lets you hear what’s on the track. Generally it’s very smooth and natural, so that’s all good. The mid bass is pretty epic compared to what I had before. It doesn’t stand out or anything, but there is definitely more energy and bass up in the front of the car now. The sub is so easy to get a seamless integration into the front comps which makes life easy. It’s really hard to tell how much of the drums in a song are coming from the sub in the back, or the mid bass up front. I have a remote DLS control dial in my glove box, so I can mute the sub at will. Turning the sub on doesn’t slow the music down or cause any blurring of notes at all. The only down side initially was the amount of output on some drums would cause my roof to rattle. This has now been sorted out by adding sound deadening to the roof and lining. Now that the car is more solid and quiet it lets the system do it’s thing. The mid bass is certainly nice and solid now. While the sub does a great job of keeping in time with the music and being loud enough to entertain me when I crank it up a little. It’s fast and clearly articulate on complex tracks, yet can also drop nicely to give that low end atmosphere when recorded. A couple of people who have heard it so far couldn’t believe it was only an 8 back there. It’s also good to retain so much boot space too, especially as I now need to put tons of gear in there.

Overall, it’s damn good for such a simple little install. It’s not at the same level as Chris’s lovely Audi A6, as mine’s a much simpler quick install. However this is easily my best system to date, so I’m very happy so far. I will tweek the settings some more, once the drivers have run in properly after 40 hours, where it will apparently sound better. Now it’s done I’m looking forward to a long trip driving to my Dad’s in Belgium soon.

Paul