Hello all!
Brad here, from Western MI (Kalamazoo-ish). 2 weeks ago I picked up a new-to-me 2018 Honda Civic Sport hatchback after having driven a company car for the last 5 years. I've been out of the car audio game for just as long, not having a car to play with, and I'm excited to jump back into the deep end.
My last build was in an Impreza wagon: 80PRS, Sundown X-12, dual silver flutes in the doors, dual 3.5 inch full-range drivers in the windshield corners. Amps were nothing special; had an old PG two-channel on the doors, Polk PA330 on the quad full-ranges, and a Brutus on the Sundown. Prior to that, I had an Fi Q18 that I'd stuffed into the hatch of an Acura Integra.
Currently in the planning stages for the Honda. The stock radio is absolutely atrocious and needs to go. Chip shortage will have me waiting, though, especially with what I'm looking at. Here's the plan as it stands so far:
Deck: Narrowed it down to one of two options: Pioneer DMH-WT7600NEX or Kenwood Excelon DMX957XR. I'm leaning towards the Pioneer (the 9-inch floating screen would look great in here).
Front Speakers: Haven't narrowed down what I want to put here yet. Looking generally at a set of mid-tier 2-way passive components. Probably in the $300-$500 range
Front Amp: I have a Soundstream REF2.370 in my possession that I picked up in a trade a few years back. It's the newer re-make of the old REF series amps, but I've already got it and it will serve my purposes
Rear Speakers: Keeping the stocks in there and running them off deck power, but fading everything to the fronts. These will only be standby's for the rare instances I have passengers back there
Subwoofer: I held onto the Sundown from my last build, so I'll be breathing life into this again. Previously, I had it in 3 cubic feet, ported, and tuned to about 29Hz. What a beast it was. I still have my sketchup files from that build, and I may just build the same box again...but, I've also got a sketchup file I'd done back then, as well, that's a type of horned/flared port setup, but I'd never built it. Pretty sure I copied something HexiBase had done for this...don't remember any of the specs, but I do remember it's specific to the X. I may go this route, just to see how it works out
Sub Amp: For now, I'll use the Hifonics Brutus 1700 watt amp I was using previously in the old build. It never did me wrong. With that said, I'll likely upgrade/update to something else down the road. Not a priority at the moment, though.
Sound Deadening: I have a ton of stuff I'd gotten from Sound Deadener Showdown years ago. 4 boxes of CLD tiles, a huge roll of MLV, and at least enough closed-cell foam to get the doors done. I'll need to get a bit more CLD and CCF, but shouldn't need much. I'll likely pick up a roll of VibraFlex and call it a day
Power Considerations: Big-3, second battery in the trunk. Will be running 0-gauge KnuKoncepts wire. HO alt further down the road, as well, but not in the cards just yet
So that's it! We'll be off to a bit of a slow start, as I need to sell off a bunch of stuff I've hoarded over the years to open up the liquidity for the items I still need to purchase: deck, fronts, power, primarily. I just sold off the 80PRS on ebay for double what I'd paid for it, which was a welcome surprise! I've got some stuff already up on DIYMA, but it's slow going. Other stuff up on my local CL, but no bites there, either, oddly enough. In any case, once all of that goes, I'll start buying what I can for this new build, which I'm pretty excited for. I've been missing bass...
Happy to be here!