amberin10

Thanks for the suggestion. Had definitely come across that unit in my research.

I am relying pretty heavily on the recommendations of the installer, whom I trust, and comes highly recommended by others in the DIY community . I'm no expert when it come to these components and I have not found it particularly easy to audition many of the options.

Making a blind purchase like this is not something I usually do but based upon the research I have done I believe I should be pretty happy with the end result.

subterFUSE

I am not a fan of the JBL MS8.

The Helix DSP products are far superior. I have the new Helix DSP Pro on order. It should be here in a couple of weeks.

ex_boxster

I was never happy with the sub performance (if you can call it that) in my 2013 with the non-Bose system. I ran across this thread a few weeks ago, and I finally pulled the trigger. Got a JL 10W0v3-4 sub and an Alpine MRV-M500 amp, and got them installed yesterday. What a difference! I still need to tweak it a bit, but it's great. My wife's car is still a bit better (LS460 with the Mark Levinson system), but now the A6 sound doesn't suck. :-)

Thanks to all of you who blazed this path and showed us the way.

Waaazooo

where did you guys mount the amp? what size amp did you prefer?

ex_boxster

The amp is mounted in the trunk behind the panel on the left side. There's a "shelf" in there that's just the right size. The Alpine amp I used is rated for 300w RMS into 4 ohms.

subterFUSE

My amp is under the rear deck.
1000 Watts to the subwoofers.

DB22

I just finished calibrating a professional theater of approximately 16000 cubic feet for 5.1 playback at 85 spl with a max of 97 spl using 250 watts into 4 ohms per channel. The cubic footage of the Audi interior is less than one three hundredth of the theater and by logic should not require the kind of power that people fit inside them.

It's interesting why some people feel the need to have blood running from their ears and having to breathe in sync with the bass.

More power does not equate to a better sound although, I must admit that, subterFUSE has the ingredients to make a very impressive system even if it can move more air than his thorax can take.

Waaazooo

Can you help me orientate that picture? The amp is upside down? The speakers are against the back seat?

subterFUSE

Yes. Pic is taken from behind car looking into trunk.

Amp is hanging from a metal rack about 2 inches below rear deck, and then the trunk was re-carpeted to hide the rack. Don't worry, the amp is fan cooled. Besides, the cooling fan has never even turned on so heat hasn't been an issue.

Subwoofers are installed in a trunk-baffle firing into the cabin through the folding seat opening. Here's how they look when the back seats are folded down.

r1racer

How much did that setup run you??? You should post a video for us. That's just sickness.