JBL MS8 fitted

Hello boys and girls, I just like to share with you all my current car audio project for my bro's Mazda CX-5. I have to say, the CX-5 is a blast to work on, and I have to say the easiest I ever have to deal with.

After one week of listening to the basic audio system (fullrange+tweet fronts and full range rear), I have a fairly good idea of the speaker's behavior. Seems to me the midbass is very dominant, which is good because finding a good bass can be a daunting task. I decided to retain the standard head unit aswell, as my brother likes using bluetooth streaming audio, phone etc etc - not to mention it controls interior lighting and some other stuff in there. But it doesn't seems to be able to go that loud...

Anyhow, the process is very simple to do in this car, and I believe it has been discussed in this forum of how to access the head unit by removing the dash/air-con vent panel.



And this is the beauty and the beast processor:


A bit about MS8 for those who don't know. It is a processor which is able to do autotune and autoeq. It features incredibly smart Logic7 algorithm to recreate space inside your car for that lifelike sound performance. It is designed to to tackle today's car with integrated headunit, which sometimes replacing it is just not an option; therefore MS8 can accept hi-level signal as its signal source. What's that? Hi-level signal? Ok, hi-level signal just means you no longer need to use RCA cables commonly found on aftermarket head unit, and that means you can just use the speaker cable from the standard head unit as its signal source.

Anyhow, cut to the chase.

Since my bro's CX-5 is right hand drive, I took a quick peek from under the passenger footwell and found a huge rubber grommet with a small hole on it already (no, is not defect, is just...looks like its prepared for guys like me). So I removed the battery and confirmed it leads to the engine bay. I simply pull out the grommet and poke a hole from the engine bay side and easily guide 4awg wire to exit from the hole I mentioned above. I should've taken picture on that tiny hole, my bad.



Now that bit is done, I simply find a bolt big enough to secure my equally sized 4awg ground wire's ring terminal.

I then cut the std head unit's wiring harness only for the speakers and 12v+. MS8 only needs 2 signal wires, and just grab the front left and right signal from the headunit, wire it back to MS8's input harness. The from MS8 output harness, simply wire it to the std head unit's harness which goes to the speaker. Obviously. And wire MS8's remote turn on signal to the 12v+ cable.

Then it looks like this:


and this



And sounded like this (you can view it in 720HD):

And it sounded very good for what it is! I high-passed the front at 30hz/24db while the rear at 100hz/24db.

The standard speakers are on its limits, and depending on the songs I rather not go beyond 40/60 volume. But the bass is strong and not breaking up though! My brother thought I added a subwoofer; well not yet, but there will be one this weekend!

So the next thing I will be doing is to soundproof the doors, wire a 4 channel amplifiers, subwoofer and change the speakers.

Speakers wise, I am not too fused about the one on the front door, afterall I only need it for midbass duty because I am installing Hertz ECX87.3 speakers on the dash for left, center and right channel. I chose this driver for its shallow tweeter more than anything, and it is Hertz so it should sound good. I hope.


So what I will do is run separate signal for the stock fullrange on door and the Hertz 3.5' full range. This makes time alignment and e.q easier for MS8 to solves, and allows me to dial in crossover points between them. If the std fullrange on door cannot cope anymore, then I have spare JBL GT5 coaxials which will come to the rescue!

Now the rear speakers is a different story. MS8 likes having a rear which able to play from 100hz all the way to 20khz. I am not sure how well the rear as full range, but since I have a spare JBL GT5 coaxials speakers, why not. (I have 4 of them JBL GT5).

Powering the subwoofer is the little Audison SRx4, about 65rms x 4, or 65rms x 2 + 170rms x1. What I can do is amplify the midbass and subbass only, and have the rest of the speakers running from MS8 25rms per channel. However it is, I am very excited with this project!

Nice writeup mice! Post more pictures when you finish the rest please

No worries milkyxj!

Right, so last night I decided to swap the rear speakers as I can't stand seeing my speakers sitting on idle. So as I founded out the rear speakers uses a similar shaped speaker as my previous car Nissan X-trail, and fortunately I didn't throw away the baffle I made for it. I had to make slight adjustment for the screw hole, but no big deal as it is nicely fitted.

The JBL coaxials are 6.5' in size.




It is a thick baffle as I wanted it to be as close as possible to the grill for maximum sound disbursement, and my worries were cast away as soon as I put the door panel back on; it JUST fit.

Hot on the install, I don't feel right if I don't change the front speakers so I attended that also.


The front speaker's baffle is actually very, very nice. It's a chambered baffle, and this is one trick to get performing midbass. And here is the link from DLS to see what I meant http://dls.se/econtent/files/2/baffle_installation.pdf

Instead of getting a new baffle, I decided to do what some guys in here had already done - rip out the oem speakers from the baffle and insert new speakers onto it. Simply snap off some of the ring edge of the oem baffle/speaker, and cut the whole thing out then sand it to smooth out the surface. Then I use some kind of plier cutter (dunno what the name of the tool is) and snap off the speaker's frame which holds the magnet underneath. And of course, cut the speaker cone from the baffle.


Sayonara oem speakers! And the JBL speakers fits perfect into the baffle. WHAM!

Since OEM baffle is retained, I decided to use the OEM terminal also. I simply use bullet terminals on it and the rest is history.


Beautiful.


Connected!


Completed.

So that's it for door speakers, they're done. I am still waiting for my sound proofing materials and Hertz speakers to arrive but for now it sounded so much better. Tighter bass and clearer mid/hi obviously. However, if I use JBL MS8 EQ processing, now the standard tweeter just won't cut the mustard as the EQ follows the JBL speakers, but the OEM tweeter is still connected in parallel so it just cannot keep up with the JBL. It just went spastic all the time and sooner. But not to worry, I just switch off the processing but keep the Logic7 on as this will shut off the Eq and time alignment but not the channel steering of the Logic7. It still sounds great! Sound image is upfront and high above the dash and nice separation on sound staging.

Now my door panel actually rattles, but the bass is less boomy and much more tighter and defined. GOOD! This means my midbass is strong and adequate, and the rattles will be cured with door treatment sound proofing for that rock solid door. If the doors are rock solid, not only the midbass will improve but also the midrange, if your midbass is asked to do midrange that is. And this is especially important when using Eq, as the better the speaker is performing in raw form, the lesser the processor has to Eq and the better the result shall be.

And because the JBL is a fullrange type, technically it has a wide range of frequency it able to cover, so choosing crossover points between it and the upcoming Hertz 3.5" fullrange will be easier. Just in-case if I get too creative with crossover points, which lets hope I don't go there.


Alright, things left to do:
1. Door treatment sound proofing.
2. Add Audison SRx4 for front door speakers and subbass amplification.
3. Add JBL 10" subwoofer
4. Add HERTZ ECX87.3 full-range for left, center and right dash install.

Alright I got my Hertz CX87.3 coaxials for the dash, and it is time to put the rest of the gear in.

I began by installing 4-channel amplifier to power the front door JBL coaxials, and JBL subwoofer. And due to power cable / ground location I decided to move the JBL under the driver seat (RHD car) so the amp can sit under the front passenger seat. So to do that I have to re-route the wire:


Separate between signal input and signal output wire. The OEM speaker wire should be able to handle 60w rms just fine so I stick with that instead of wiring a new cable for the front door speakers.


Tidied up everything, and I am quite pleased with the way it turned out to be.


The audison fits quite nicely under there, and right in front of the air-con duct for extra cooling.


MS8 under the driver seat, just needing to tidy up the wiring there.

So the amplifier feeds 60w rms for each JBL coaxials, and the rest of the 2 channels are bridged to yield 190w rms for JBL subwoofer enclosed in port box.


Simple and effective.

Next up is the Hertz 87.3 coaxials, and this is my first time ever using a small 3.5" coaxials on the dash and I must say I was very excited to hear how it sounds.





Thanks to the shallow tweeter on the coaxial, there is no hassle of speaker grill fitment. In fact, there's plenty of room left and that's just fine. Screwing down these speakers can be quite a pain thanks to the windshield. On the center speaker compartment there are few openings there that I may want to try sealing it with sound deadening material. I didn't set the speakers to produce any bass or anything, but maybe worth a shot.

I set the MS8 channels as follow:
Channel 1 - Hertz cx87.3 front Left (high-pass @ 1000hz / 12db)
Channel 2 - Hertz cx87.3 front Right (high-pass @ 1000hz / 12db)
Channel 3 - JBL GT5 coaxial front Left (bandpass @ 80hz/24db and 1000hz/12db)
Channel 4 - JBL GT5 coaxial front Right (bandpass @ 80hz/24db and 1000hz/12db)
Channel 5 - JBL GT5 coaxial side Left (high-pass @ 100hz/24db)
Channel 6 - JBL GT5 coaxial side Right (high-pass @ 100hz/24db)
Channel 7 - Hertz cx87.3 Center (high-pass @ 400hz/24db)
Channel 8 - JBL 10' subwoofer (low-pass @ 80hz/24db)

So all 8 channels are used up, and after auto-tune the initial impression is; Impressive! Now, it is not the best I ever did, but put it this way - it is direct and simple install with no custom crossover or speaker location whatsoever. And for what it is, the sound image is impressive indeed. I should let the Hertz cx87.3 runs in first, but they are warm sounding speaker which helps because when firing directly to windshield the last thing you want is pin sharp treble. The way it sounded now is day and night compared to OEM (Do'h!), and everyone can enjoys it and that's the most important thing. Throw in any music and it will do so very nicely.

However, the impressive sound is made possible because of JBL MS8 processing power, but it should be noted it cannot fix a bad install so there are requirements to be met for it to function properly. In my experience, it works wonder in typical oem location as long as the speakers are fitted correctly, powered correctly, and its crossover settings are set correctly. And if you don't like the way the auto-tune is, you can adjust via tone-control and eq.

But now I need to sound proof the boot door as the subbass hits hard and low! Yeah baby!

Can you do my CX-5?

Awesome. I watched a promo video of the JBL MS8. It looks like a superb piece of kit, but the price is also very high. The standard headunit in the CX-5 lacks a decent equalizer, and this could be the ultimate remedy for that. But the price is definitely holding me back. There's also a little brother, the JBL MS-2. But you need to connect that to the aux port, which then automatically disables the steering control for song selection and such.

Big enclosure fot your subwoofer btw. I have a JL Audio 12W0V2-4 (12") and it's in a much smaller box 400 x 380 x 220/300mm.

Yeah the MS8 is indeed pricey, but for what it can do is literally amazing which made it a must buy for any car audio lover. Especially when you want to keep everything simple. What I put into my brother's cx-5 is basically entry level grade car audio and following 'whatever fits' rule. As long as it is installed and setup correctly, MS8 will blow your mind.

And yes my subbox is large, but it needs to be large because I don't have much power to drive my JBL subwoofer, so a more power-efficient port box is ideal (in trade the box is bigger than sealed).

Wow! Nice job on the installations~!
I bet it sounds awesome...

Hi Voltz, thank you for your comment.

Yes it does sound very impressive, especially when I consider the little effort it took me to get there, but this is because mostly due to MS8 processing prowess and the CX-5 is car audio friendly.

Alright people, basically this install is a wrap-up because the core of the install are done, and anything else after this are just adjustments to suit my brother's taste.

And like Barry White said, let the music play!

Hi, very interesting post, thanks!

Could you re-post the images, they seem to have expired.

Many Thanks!

^ This. Its been two months since OP visited.

Hello guys, sorry, I just read this forum again since I've been dealing with other car projects.

I will try post the pictures again tonight, and probably do another video of the audio since there has been further refinement by EQ tuning and different crossover settings (still the same hardware). Needless to say; I love the CX-5 audio possibility!

I also have helped installed a Bose equipped CX-5, which I may do a post once the problem of missing subbass is solved, which should be this weekend.

Ah what the heck, I'll do it now since somebody else was asking me about the cx-5 audio ~

For the community!

Right, so first thing first is to remove the dash garnish thing so you have access to head unit bolts. Pry it off from the side of the dashboard, carefully.


Then plug a small hole on the rubber grommet behind the battery to insert the power wire. I don't have the picture, but I remembered there is a grommet hole inside the cabin footwell.


Now the real fun begins; speaker wiring. Ok maybe not, but trust me it isn't that difficult. I use JBL MS8, so I need to grab the speaker cable output from the headunit as an input for the MS8 processor. Then I connect my speaker wiring from amp/ms8 to the speaker wire I cut behind the headunit. The cable is thick enough for 50rms to 85rms if I remembered correctly. What I don't remember is where did I grab the 12v for remote trigger wire (maybe the ciggie lighter).

Remember what mummy said? Keep it tidy son!


Moving on to the speakers. The front door speakers are JBL GT5 coaxials, but I only use it for midbass duty and lower midrange duty (bandpass crossover settings highpass 80hz and lowpass 400hz). To do this, the front speaker is simply bolted to the oem speaker baffle. I cut out the oem cone, pry off some stuff, screw in the JBL GT5 coaxial and that's it. Oh, I also took the opportunity to wire the JBL speakers to the OEM wiring harness clip.



For the rear, again, I am using JBL GT5 coaxials, but this time the fella is on for almost full range duty (high pass 80hz, play all the way to 20khz...if it can). As the requirement for JBL MS8 is to have the rear or side to be able to play all the way to 20khz. Ambiance is key to great sounding system. The rear, I just use my old baffle as it fits just right with little modifications.

That foam ring presses against the grill surrounding the door for superb sound disbursement.



Once that's done, phew, is a bit tiring typing all these again, I added the (now i know) fabulous Hertz 3.5 coaxials for the dash. Left, Center, and Right channels all in baby. I did some treatment on the speaker compartment, but I don't have the picture. These babies takes it nicely from 400hz and all the way up to 20khz.

I chose to use my old and trusty Audison SrX4 for powering the front midbass and subwoofer, in 3 channels configurations. I installed it under the front passenger seats, directly in front of the footwell air-conditioner scoop. Keep the amp cool is always a good idea!


As for the JBL MS8, well that too is fitted under the driver seat and in front of the air-con scoop.


And lastly, just simply chuck the subwoofer box on the boot. Yes, it is a large box. It is a ported box, so volume is bigger but the upside is it can hammer with little 190rms. And should the need arises to use the boot, remove the subbox and life moves on. The sub is some old JBL 10 inch sub, which I don't even know the series.


And the dash with JBL MS8 display shown (I removed it after tuning is done).




Now, to share with you my crossover setting and amp configurations:
Hertz 3.5' coax are high passed from 400hz @ 24db/octave - powered directly from JBL MS8 25rms/channel
JBL GT5 coax front door bandpass 80hz-400hz @24db/octave - powered by Audison SrX4, 65rms/channel
JBL GT5 coax rear door high passed from 100hz @ 24db/octave - powered directly from JBL MS8 25rms/channel
JBL 10' sub, subsonic 20hz@12db/octave and low-pass 80hz @ 24db/octave - powered by Audison SrX4, 190rms bridged channel.

Phew!!!!

Thanks Mice2 for the photos and description of your install.

I'm at the beginning of my install and was wondering if you could answer a few questions?

1. Where did you connect your 0V power lead from the amp to the chassi? Did you drill and tap or anything like that? I was thinking of using the bolt holding down the seat rail.

2. It looks like you ran RCA leads to the Head unit speaker connector. It's not quit clear from the photos did you cut the wires and use bullet connectors to take the signal to the MS8 and then from the amp use connectors to feed back into the speaker wire harness?

3. How much cable slack is there behind the head unit for cutting the cable and crimping?

4. Did you run all four channels to the MS8 or just the front two channels?

Cheers
Squib

squibcakes said:

Thanks Mice2 for the photos and description of your install.

I'm at the beginning of my install and was wondering if you could answer a few questions?

1. Where did you connect your 0V power lead from the amp to the chassi? Did you drill and tap or anything like that? I was thinking of using the bolt holding down the seat rail.

2. It looks like you ran RCA leads to the Head unit speaker connector. It's not quit clear from the photos did you cut the wires and use bullet connectors to take the signal to the MS8 and then from the amp use connectors to feed back into the speaker wire harness?

3. How much cable slack is there behind the head unit for cutting the cable and crimping?

4. Did you run all four channels to the MS8 or just the front two channels?

Cheers
Squib

Click to expand...

Hello Squib, sorry for the late reply.

1. I connected the ground onto the chassis under the seat rail and bolt em' good. I removed the paint aswell for good measures.

2. I simply grab the front speaker wire output from my head unit as MS8's signal input. This answers questions number 4 also. No RCA are used in this setup.

3. If I remember correctly, there's just enough room behind the head unit for wires. All of my speaker wires from MS8 and amp goes back behind the head unit for connection to the front speakers and rear door speakers. Nice and easy. Is a relatively low powered application so I don't see any benefit of running a bigger speaker wire directly to the speakers.

Mice2 said:

Hello Squib, sorry for the late reply.

1. I connected the ground onto the chassis under the seat rail and bolt em' good. I removed the paint aswell for good measures.

2. I simply grab the front speaker wire output from my head unit as MS8's signal input. This answers questions number 4 also. No RCA are used in this setup.

3. If I remember correctly, there's just enough room behind the head unit for wires. All of my speaker wires from MS8 and amp goes back behind the head unit for connection to the front speakers and rear door speakers. Nice and easy. Is a relatively low powered application so I don't see any benefit of running a bigger speaker wire directly to the speakers.

Click to expand...

I went ahead and did my install the other week. I actually couldn't get any of the seat bolts out using rachet spanners etc - just kept slipping. In the end I found a good spot behind the fuse block under the dash.

As you I ran speaker cables from back of the radio to the amp under the passenger seat. For anyone wanting to give it a go - removing the radio in this car is very easy. I used a couple of pair of molex connectors so when I give the car up I can easily join the existing speakers back in to the radio.

I think the trickiest bit was getting through the firewall and keeping power on the PCM so that iStop wouldn't reset.

Thanks for your photos they helped me a lot. I'll post some of mine later too.

Yup, enjoy it mate!

And you'll need this kind of socket to get the seat rail bolt out