2011 VW Jetta sound system upgrade…again!

You may recognize this vehicle if you’ve spent some time browsing our website.  This is because, as the title suggests, we have previously upgraded the sound in this vehicle from stock and, now that he sees just what we are capable of, the owner wanted to give us the opportunity to shine!

The previous installation utilized an Arc Audio SRI to integrate with the factory radio and it’s signal was then sent directly to the Audison amplifiers which ran the front and rear speakers, passively, and the single subwoofer in the trunk.  We took out the SRI in favor of an Audison Bit One to give us all of the benefits of the SRI and so much more, such as a 31 band equalizer, full crossover control and time alignment.  The signal from this device was then sent to one existing, and one new, Audison SR4 amplifiers, one of which was used in bridged mode to run the new Hertz Mille midbass drives in the front doors, the other was used to run the front tweeters and the rear Hi Energy speakers passively. As if one Hertz Hi Energy 12″ subwoofer in a ported enclosure does not create alot of bass, we added a second, in a bigger enclosure and gave it a whole other amp to run it!  Two Audison SR1Dk’s ran in Master-Slave mode provide a teeth rattling 2400 watts of subwoofer power!

Now, we are not the type of shop to just throw a bunch of power in your vehicle without making sure the electrical system can support it, that’s just lazy!  So, we added an XS Power replacement starting battery up front, two more in a custom rack  in the trunk and an upgraded alternator that supplies 220 amps of current to the vehicles electrical system. Yeah, the headlights don’t even think about dimming on this ride!

After only a couple hours of tuning, the system just shines!  Our preferred method of running an active front stage allows us to get nice full midbass while giving us the ability to dial back the tweeters a bit for a pleasant listening experience and it really showed in this system.  The sound stage was high, wide and deep and very well focused while the bass was just crazy!  The good thing about these subwoofers though is that, even though they can create some serious output, they are also very musical, so you don’t hear a bunch of rattling and distortion, just nice clean bass!

The DRC for the Audison Bit One fit nicely in front of the shifter.

We fabricated the Hertz Mille tweeters into the factory A pillar.

Then we re-wrapped them in matching material.

The Hertz Mille mids with a generous helping of sound deadening from Stinger.

Stinger Overkill was applied to the back of the door panels to keep em quiet.

Here is a custom steel rack we made for the amplifiers, Bit One and batteries.

We covered the trunk 100% with deadening to keep it from rattling with all the bass!

The rack is installed and equipment is in place.

Here you can see the new rack, and the rack from the previous install. 4 amps!

Here you can see out system ground, paint removed and bolted in place.

The other side of the bolt with lock washers and a nut, this won’t come lose!

Two Hi Energy 12’s in a ported enclosure.