Stereo Stuff

Hooray! I got a call today from Jim at Superior Systems in Peabody that the custom subwoofer install in GPMINI was completed – I of course headed straight over to check it out and pick up GPMINI … and I was not disappointed 🙂

The custom enclosure holding three JL Audio 6″ subwoofers (and the two DPSM 6×9 speakers) is now nicely finished in dark vinyl, a close match to the cars interior dash trim (and the back of the seats). The enclosure is also nicely molded to the shape of GPMINIs interior. A JL Audio 250W amplifier drives the subwoofers, tucked away in one of the two GP storage areas where the rear seats live in a normal MINI, and the DPSM 6×9 speakers face forward, sitting close behind the seats – but they effectively give some extra “surround” depth to the car.

Of course what you can’t tell from these pics is the resulting sound … I can, and I like it 🙂

I visited GPMINI today at Superior Systems, a custom audio shop in Peabody, to see how the creation of a speaker box was going, and to decide how it should be finished; what we have so far is a box which extends across the width of the car, positioned just in front of and below the GPs luggage bar – it’s front edge lines up with the front edge of the rear half of the car (where the rear seats would finish in a normal MINI).

The box will hold three 6″ JL Audio subwoofers, firing towards the back of the car; the DPSM 6×9 speakers, which normally fit in the MINIs rear speaker positions, will also be mounted, just behind the front seats and firing forward:

The DPSM speakers are of course driven by the DPSM amplifier; the subwoofers will be driven by an amplifier mounted in one half of the GPs rear storage area …

I originally thought about having the box painted to finish it, perhaps with some sort of design on it – but seeing the box in GPMINI made it clear that painting it wouldn’t work well, unless I did lots of additional custom paintwork both inside and perhaps also outside the car.
So the new plan will be to cover the box, perhaps in a “vinyl” material (similar to MINIs leatherette seating finish) either black or, if we can find an appropriate color material, in a finish which matches the red panels in the back of the GP.

More in a couple of weeks …