Hellbilly

Welcome to another review of the audio components that I am installing in my 52 WRX Estate. Please have a look around and keep an eye out for my other reviews

I would like it known that I am not a professional ICE installer, nor am I an audio purist; Im just a normal guy who wants a decent in car sound system, for minimal outlay and without cutting the interior about in order to fit stuff. As a service technician, I do posses knowledge, experience and tools necessary to do the job, and dont intend this to be a 'how-to' guide, but if I discover any tricks (or make any mistakes) as I go along, I will be sure to share them.

In short, my reviews are real world and hopefully of use to other enthusiasts planning their own systems.

Finally, if you are a company that would like to send me your product to review, then I would be happy to do so

Hellbilly

++ ON TEST : VIBE BLACKAIR 5 SPEAKERS ++

Tonight is going to be a text only affair, but I will edit this tomorrow and get some good images loaded in.

Out of the box, these speakers look great; very sturdy and professional finish. Comes with Vibes nice flat wiring, and real nice aluminium covers/mesh, which it is a pity to discard, as they are not part of my install. It should be realized that although these are components, you can install the tweets in the center of the woofer to create some high performance coaxes, should you wish.

I installed the woofs in the front doors, using those plastic SAK2820 spacer/adapters. On the subject, I couldn't really recomend them; although they are triangular mounts, they don't line up with the holes for a blobeye anyway, so require drilling the door panel. The predrilled speaker mounting holes are slightly wrong for these speakers, so I just ended up drilling the screw holes anyway. Given the choice again, I would make 20mm MDF spacers, using the standard speaker to get the holes for the door pattern.

A point to note when mounting the woofs; there are 4 holes around the circumference, and 4 slots. It makes sense to screw the speaker onto the mount using the holes, but WAIT! Although the lugs are about 4mm thick, the section holding them onto the main ring is about 1mm, which I discovered when I promtly snapped one off whilst tightening the screw by a reasonable amount (honest). To avoid damage, hold the speaker in the hole, where you want it, then turn it 45 degrees, use the holes to mark for drilling, then turn back to where you want it and use screws in the slots; much more secure

The woofs clear the window, although it is a tight thing (c.5mm) despite their beefy magnets. I wired the woofs up, but being a MAN hadn't bothered to read the instructions... There are two pairs of cable terminals on the rear of each woof, and it's not immediately clear what they are for. It transpired that one pair is for the woof, and the other pair is for when the tweet s mounted in the center (coax). Guess which pair I wired up to, then later wondered why the woofs didn't work Its easy, the pair for the woof have those silver braided bonds arcing across to the center of the cone. Oh, how I laughed...

Last thing about those terminals - Somebody in the design department had a 'go' at engineering, and put different screws into each of the wire clamps. By different, I mean a Philips in the positive and a slotted in the Negative. Now, whilst this asthetically empthasizes the polarity of each post, it is a minor annoyance to swap screwdrivers when making the connection.

Whilst in the front corner of the door, I popped the lower clip for the standard speaker loom, so that I could lift it up and feed the plug through the hole above the speaker. This neatens the final wiring, and keeps stuff away from that damn window

Removed the factory tweet and bracket, and then scratched my head as how to best fit Vibes' small tweet and its massive socket. In the words of the HitchHikers guide to the Galaxy, 'DONT PANIC'. The Vibe tweet is like a Russian Doll; just keep pulling and twisting off the holders, until you get down to a fork in the wires. Twist this socket to loosen, then tease it down the cables. You will now see a threaded boss in the rear of the tweet itself. You need to drill a hole in that last socket, but trust me, with the right bolt, the tweet will mount straight onto that Subaru bracket

Finally, I mounted the crossover. This was as simple as marking and drilling two holes in a stratigic position on the door frame, to align with the bulge in the rear lower quarter of the door trim. If you were worried about damaging the exposed components of the crossover, the circuit board can be teased out of its clips on the backing plate; then just use that as a template. Step back from a job well done

Well, not quite... There's still the bloody thing to wire up, and nothing is labled. The drawings in the manual are misleading (and wrong) so follow this simple system that I distilled out of alot of trial and error. Are you paying attention? Right then - Viewed from above, on each pair of terminals, the one on the left is positive, and the one to the right is negative. Assumming you mount it as I did, with the single terminal on top, and the pair on the bottom; the top is line in, the bottom left is line woofer and the bottom right is line tweeter. The cover has the lines marked next to the slots, btw, but not the polarity. On the subject of the cover, the allen bolts are fake; twist the cover anti-clockwise to release from the base.

Loads of that lovely flat speaker wire left over, and it really is good stuff

Once I get the new head in, I will be able to appraise them properly, but on the factory head, the produce a tight sound which cries out for more power

++ OVER & OUT ++

BlueBugEye

iTrader: (12)

I've recently fitted a set of 2 way Vibes into the front of my Bug as part of the stereo downgrade and frankly they are pants in every way, but they were all I could get hold of at short notice.

In all honesty I wouldn't touch their stuff given the choice.

Hellbilly

What series were they? Blackair is by no means high grade, but they are not quite entry level either?

Im not defending Vibes' products, but I notice that you performed a stereo 'downgrade' whilst mine is an 'upgrade', so perhaps your experience of Vibe would be equivalent to me putting those hateful Subaru speakers back in, perhaps?

Thanks for sharing your experience