There are 2 late '80s/mid '90s Chevy vans (okay, one's actually a GMC) at different places near where I work, that are for sale. I got thinking about them today, as I passed the better looking of the 2, and about the thread on here awhile ago about "the man van", and so here is my question:
Say you bought, or already owned one of these fairly big, boxy, and somewhat empty vans. You wanted to be able to do a bit of random hauling, a bicycle, a motorcycle, some smallish furniture, (no runs to the dump/messy "crap" to be hauled) and you also wanted to be able to "blast some tunes" while driving down the interstate. What would you line this box with (or would you even line it?) so that it made a sort of giant speaker enclosure? I mean, if you lined it with shag carpetting, that carpetting would ABSORB sound, when what you'd rather do is reflect it.
I once owned a Vega Panel Express, and that thing SEEMED to be great at making music almost explode around you. That Vega had almost no sound insulationg properties/materials, just a rubber mat on the floor and painted metal everywhere else.
Depends on what you want achieve - for improved sound quality you'd need to line the bare metal surface with the usual heavy butyl mats in order to stop them from resonating. Sound reflection from bare metal usually isn't very good for SQ either...
Carpet is good. Carpet with under pad is better. Sound deadener under carpet with under pad would be awesome. Assuming they're cargo vans, the worst possible thing to do would be to leave it bare.
Yeah, reflecting sound fools the ear into thinking sound is coming from everywhere. That's the angle Bose takes, they fool the untrained or not-to-picky ear by throwing sound off of every surface within a mile of the speakers. If you want good sound quality you need to get a good foundation. Think of a race car. Most of them only have a few inches of suspension travel. Heck, you could get that out of most vehicles today just through chassis flex but you can't control it. Race car builders get that chassis as solid as possible so they can control where, when and how those few inches of travel occur. Same in sound system design. Everything in that van will emit (or reflect) sound. if you want a good system you need to control when, where and how sound is traveling in that van.
If you don't really care about sound quality and want more dB (think volume knob that goes to 11) then put some 6.5" in the front doors and a 15" in the back with a Mickey Shore amp.
I'd give it a good think first and plan what you really want to do. Goto your local audio shop and have a listen, you don't have to buy stuff there, and its usually cheaper not to, but they should give you an idea of a better direction.
As for coating the inside, basically like stated above you don't want the sound to resonate off the metal, it'll sound tinny and will distort the sound you have coming out of your speakers. Adding sound deadener will help you to feel more sound, and to a degree hear more. Where as the carpet under padding goes along the idea that you muffle the sounds outside the cabin. the quieter it is inside the more sound you'll hear, the sound actually isn't any louder but it seems like it is because you hear more.
What kind of music do you listen to? That's one of the biggest determining factors when deciding what speakers to install into you van. If your listening to rap, your most likely going to want to feel/hear more bass, where as with rock or country, they the mids and tweeters will produce the midrange and higher sounds that those types of songs produce. You do still want some bass for rock, but you'd most likely use a unported bass box, as the sound coming from it is slightly more subdued and better sounding with that type of music. Not to say that it wouldn't sound good in a ported box as well though.
check out crutchfield.com they have some excellent how to articles and lots of good information. Like anything though, There are different ways of tackling car audio, just read around and see what works for you.
Line the interior with that funky eggcrate acoustical foam. Besides absorbing stray sound, it looks waaaaay cool.
The key to good sound anywhere is speaker placement. Install and aim tweeters at the ears.
1988RedT2 wrote:
Line the interior with that funky eggcrate acoustical foam. Besides absorbing stray sound, it looks waaaaay cool.
The key to good sound anywhere is speaker placement. Install and aim tweeters at the ears.
There is a difference between the proper stuff, and the packaging stuff that looks the same, although even the packaging foam is far better than nothing. For a 'big' application like that, I would buy quality home speaker components, probably from parts express. Check out the tech help forum for what's good in the 6'-8" range.
I tend to listen to intakes and exhaust systems, gear noise and exhaust leaks when driving. But for everyone's amusement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqiIk5Mb01E
"Bass racing" - rig your sled w/ a bunch of huge alternators, extra batteries, a few kW of amps and a sh1tload of long-excursion speakers in a huge enclosure.
Diffr'nt strokes and all that.
first decide if tone quality or imaging quality is your priority.
