My most recent install is in my Hyundai Sonata. Factory headunits are getting rather advanced these days and the car manufacturers are not making it any easier on the diy'er to swap out headunits. I happened to get a navigation unit in this Sonata because it was all they had available in the silver four cylinder. It was not until after I purchased the car that I realized the headunit was a DVD player as well. Fortunately, car audio manufacturers are coming out with some very sophisticated processors that will connect to the factory system and allow the addition of aftermarket amps and speakers. I chose the Rockford Fosgate 3sixty.2 so that I could keep my factory headunit and factory look. It has everything a man could need anyway... AM/FM and XM Satellite Radio... DVD and CD player along with USB connections for and iPod or similar storage device. The large display is really nice and much more that I was expecting initially.


The ride... an 09 Hyundai Sonata Limited...

The aftermarket equipment for this install:
  • Rockford Fosgate 3sixty.2 Processor controlled by a Palm TX Handheld via Bluetooth.
  • Phoenix Gold Xenon 200.4 (200 watts RMS x 4) actively powering the front stage composed of Dynaudio MW162GT 6.5's for midbass and MD102's for the highs.
  • Phoenix Gold Xenon 1200.1 (1200 watts RMS x 1) powering a pair of Infinity Kappa Perfect 12VQ 12" subs ported and tuned to 25Hz.

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First things first... rip out the insides and prepare for Dynamat Extreme deadening. Taking out the seats, carpet and center console has gotten rather tricky on some of these new cars, but a few hidden screws and unexpected snaps later, it all comes out. Tedious work to say the least... and very time consuming. I spent a few hours here and there over a couple of weeks to get all of this done. There is lots and lots of Dynamat... a little over 5 bulk packs and 100+ pounds.

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Moving on in to the workshop... what mess. You will see the door baffles that I just painted for the Dynaudio MW162GT midbass speakers. The baffles I made for the door speakers are simply a couple of pieces of 3/4" birch routed the proper size to mount the 6.5" midbass speaker so that the door window will not collide with the rear of the speaker. You can also see the door area where the baffle and speaker will be mounted. There is Dynaxorb by Dynamax placed behind the door speaker. I really do not know if this works as prescribed, but it supposedly diffuses the door speaker backwaves, which generally cause issues with door speakers. They are fairly cheap, so I figured why not. I replaced the factory Infinity branding with the Dynaudio branding on the left bottom corner of the factory door speaker grills.

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Rodny has the factory tweeter pods performing surgery to accommodate mounting the Dynaudio MD102 tweeters. They will look similar to the factory pods when finished... except obviously a little larger. Can you believe that the Hyundai dealership wanted $200 for EACH one of these pods? When I almost choked on my coffee, the parts manager exclaimed, "They come with the tweeters!" How comforting to know. Needless to say, I did not purchase an extra set.

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I have always enjoyed building sub boxes. This one ended up being sealed after attempting the ported version you see in the pics. The sealed sounds smoother and is less muddy... I just never could get the ported box to sound right. The sub drivers fire down into the trunk... behind the rear fold down seats. The front of the sub box faces the backside of the rear fold down seats... where the Xenon X200.4 front stage amp is mounted. The back of the sub box is, of course, in the trunk. The Xenon X1200.1 sub amp mounts on top of the sub box, but is hid from view after the beauty panel is installed. The battery powering all these amps is a Kenetik HC1800 with proper fusing and wiring all the way to the rear.

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You would think getting on up into the middle aged bracket that a man would eventually grow out of some of the things that excited him so much in his teens and twenties. Obviously not in my case... nearing 50 and still having fun with this ever changing car audio hobby. I got started in car stereo before I was out of high school. In 1977 I was excited to have an old hand me down eight track tape player to play my 2 or 3 eight track tapes in my 1972 Gran Torino. In 1980 my dad let me inherit the $106 payments on his 1979 Datsun 310 Hatchback. I finally had a cassette tape deck and added an IDI EQ/Booster with a pair of Jensen 6 X 9's in custom made boxes. Later I upgraded the headunit to a Kraco. I was jammin'. I remember in 1984 I installed an Alpine cassette deck, a 15 inch sub on a piece of plywood mounted behind the rear seat, a JVC amp, and a pair of ribbon tweeters from Radio Shack on the dash... all in a 1984 Cavalier. Now I really had some thump then.

The years to follow would have me getting rather serious about car stereo and even eventually competing in car stereo contest. In 1985 I met a fellow by the name of Walter Barno, a good friend who I stay in contact with to this day. In 1985 he completely customized a 1984 Chevy Van for us (from just a hull) with a nice customization package along with an awesome Nakamichi/Zapco system. He also got us started with our first home stereo system in 1985 with a complete NAD system. Walter and CKR are mentioned in our Stereo Review Systems article from the August 1996 issue. Walter has been with CKR Automotive for several years now and works in their Montgomery, Alabama store. We installed an 18 inch Kicker competition sub underneath our home in the mid 90's... that thing shook our entire house. Walter and I have worked together on our vehicles for a number of years. I managed to place 1st and "Best of Show" in one competition (1988 Nissan King Cab in 1988) and placed in several others over the years. Eventually I had to quit the competing as it was getting a little on the ridiculous side monetarily. The motorized this and that phase was getting popular and people begin to spend upwards of 10 grand on car stereo just to win a few hundred bucks and a plaque or trophy... too much for my blood. Far the last 18+ years or so it has been much smaller systems, but always good sound quality and plenty loud enough for me. I would say we have put together over a dozen systems in various vehicles throughout the years.

For the last several years I have done more of the do it yourself installs with help from Rodny Alvarez, also of CKR in Montgomery. Rodny does a great job on the more tidious areas that have to be so precisely finished... not to mention he is just plain out the brains when it comes to ideas.

Prior to my 2009 Sonata install there was the 2006 Sonata install, which was a very nice sound quality systme in itself. It wasn't quite what my current install is, but still very good. It has the following gear installed:

  • Alpine CDA-9835 Headunit... (CD/MP3/WMA and XM Radio)
  • Kicker SXRC (Remote control for amps)...
  • Boston Pro 6.5's in the front doors...
  • Kicker SX 400.2 (208.50 tested wpc powerng the front Boston Pro's)...
  • Phoenix Gold Xenon X10d2's (Two in a 2.2ft^3 sealed box)...
  • Kicker SX 1100.1 (770 tested watts powering the Xenon's @ 2 ohms)...
At that time the SXRC remote was absolutely the neatest gadget I had run across in my car stereo experiences. No longer did I have to get out and lower the back seats to adjust the amps, go back and listen, repeat, etc. I could sit right in the drivers seat and tune the amps until my heart was content. Of course, now there are much neater gadgets available.

Here are the pictures...

The car:.........

2006 Hyundai Sonata LX



The Alpine 9835 Headunit with the Kicker SXRC. This was some of Rodny's work.


Another shot of the HU and SXRC install.



The doors had the full complement of Dynamat. Here you can see the Boston crossovers were mounted in the door as well.


A close up of the Boston midbass driver mounted where the factory speaker was removed.



Behind the midbass drivers was Dynamat DynaXorb.... DynaXorb supposedly absorbs, diffuses and attenuates the sonic energy directed towards it and removes back-wave interference from the speaker allowing the speaker to produce the full quality potential it was designed for. The midbass was very good in this car... not sure if this was the reason or not, but it sure did not seem to hurt and is an inexpensive tweak.



Of course the frontstage had the factory look. The tweeters were mounted in the front window corner sails. Soundstage and imaging were excellent with minor time correction on the front left.



The sub box had two separate compartments completely sealed with 1.1 cubic foot of air space each. The box was built out of ¾ inch MDF, glued, screwed, and siliconed. With the subs firing down there was a 3 inch rise with an opening towards the front and rear.



The sub box was designed to eliminate standing waves inside the box (if there really is such a thing). It was as shallow as possible to allow for maximum trunk space and enough room to easily remove the spare tire.



The Phoenix Gold Xenon X10d2 subs installed. Wired in series/parallel for a final 2 ohm load to the sub amp.



Dyanmat was loaded up in the entire back end... under the seats, over the front of the rear wheel wells, rear doors, top and bottom of rear deck, and the entire trunk including the trunk lid.



The Kicker SX 1100.1 sub amp and SX 400.2 frontstage amp mounted behind the fold-down rear seats.


With the trunk open all you could see was the beauty panel on the back of the sub box.


A closer look at the beauty panel.



And finally the Optima copy-cat battery with the fused connection.




The following are some pics from a few of my previous systems.

The following install was in the 2005 Toyota Camry LE which Rodny and myself installed... Rodney Alavarez is the man at CKR. Rodney took care of the headunit, dynamat and speakers while I handled the sub, sub box, amps and most of the wiring.

The system included the following equipment:

  • Alpine CDA-9835 Headunit... (CD/MP3/WMA with XM Radio)
  • Boston Pro 6.5's in the front doors...
  • Boston NX97's in the rear deck... (powered off the HU)...
  • Kicker 350.4 (390 watts bridged powerng the front Boston Pro's)...
  • Phoenix Gold Xenon X10d2's (Two in a 2.2ft^3 sealed box)...
  • Kicker 600.1 (745 watts powering the Xenon's @ 2 ohms)...


The Alpine 9835 installed in the factory dash location.



The midbass component of the Boston Pro's were mounted in the factory door location with Dynamat on the inside and outside of the door panel around the speaker. Rodney (CKR) did surgery on the factory speakers and built the custom mounting rings... he then glued the rings to the factory speaker frame.


The Boston Pro tweeters were mounted high in the doors for best imaging and soundstaging... however, a small amount of time correction was still applied to the left front speakers for the best staging.



The sub box was mounted in the trunk, directly behind the seat, and the subs fired down. Dynamat was applied to the trunk floor.


The sub box had two separate compartments completely sealed with 1.1 cubic foot of air space. The box was built out of ¾ inch MDF, glued, screwed, and siliconed. It was as shallow as possible to allow for maximum trunk space and enough room to easily remove the spare tire. The front is angled slightly so that it would fit flush to the front wall of the trunk.



The box was designed to eliminate standing waves inside the box. With the subs firing down there was a three inch rise with an opening towards the front and rear. This allowed bass to travel towards the front and the rear.


The Xenon subs installed.



Dynamat was applied to the rear deck, the Boston NX97's mounted, and the two plates in the center were snapped out so that bass could travel from the trunk back into the car. I was actually impressed by how much this helped the bass response. Rodney (CKR) painted the XM antenna to match the car.



The factory speaker grills were removed from the rear deck and the holes cut where the metal plates were removed.


This was a panel that Rodney built to act as one large speaker grill... it was designed to fit nicely into the rear deck groove. It was primed with gray paint and was covered with gray speaker grill cloth to match the interior.



A closer look at the rear deck where the plates were removed.


The beauty panel was designed to allow the flow of the bass to escape through the bottom into the trunk and then back through the top and on through the rear deck.



The beauty panel covered and mounted... you can see from the pic that there was still plenty of trunk space and there were no subs or amps to be seen. I wanted it to look as normal as possible. You can barely see the rear deck grill that had been covered near the top of the pic.


A closer look at the beauty panel... grill cloth was used at the top to allow air flow.



From the inside of the car... a little better pic of the rear speaker grill. It was difficult to get a good pic through the window but it looked factory.


The amps were mounted to the sub box... it obviously would not win any contest for the neatest wiring but everything was snug and tight. When the seats were raised up, nothing could be seen anyway.




The next install was in my 2003 Ford Supercrew.... with gas prices as high as they are now... I realize more and more why I got rid of it.

My old 2003 Ford Supercrew... I do miss my truck and that system... it was awesome!



After getting the headunit installed I took the factory console out and started on the new console. The new console would have to be built so that the 4 factory bolts holding the factory console in place could secure the customized console. The sub fired down.



Using JL Audio's recommended 1.25 cubic feet of box volume, I came up with a simple console similar to my older one. The sub portion was the taller section with the front part being used to mount the cup holder and a wooden storage pocket. The edges were routed and sanded for a smooth look.



The box was built using 3/4" MDF sealed with Liquid Nails and drywall screws. The inside seams were sealed with silicone. This box was small, heavy, and incredibly solid. This was how it mounted to the vehicle with the sub firing down.


The almost finished product. The side panels would eventually be carpeted. My brother helped me stretch and secure the vinyl using a heat gun (blow dryer) and staple gun. I used a little polyfill for padding.



Next we would install the JL Audio sub. It was and still is a very nice heavey duty sub driver.


A pic of the 12W6 v2 from the JL Audio website.



JL XR570CSi components which included 5 X 7's for factory mounting. The tweeters were mounted just below the woofer and angled upwards. The location turned out very good. The x-overs were mounted underneath the arm rest in the door panels.


Console less the side panels.



The MTX 2150 (tested at 120wpc) and the Kicker 600.1 (tested at 725 watts) were mounted underneath the rear seats.




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