What an amazing playback set up this is, it completely trounces the expensive Kenwood eXcelon head unit it replaced, I do have a couple of caveats though…I am using the TS050 touchscreen and it is much too small for this application and I am having a loud intermittent turn off pop that worries me about my tweeters.
The VIM3L is separated from the car electrical system by a Meanwell 12V DC to 12VDC converter and I am going to test that as a cause of the pop tomorrow.
I thought I’d post a photo of my car music system progress. For now I am using the TS050 touchscreen until I buy a 7" display. The TS050 is taped onto the front of the fibreglass enclosure I laid up and the VIM3L-Toneboard system is mounted inside the enclosure. I’ve started laying up a new enclosure to go with the 7" screen, the new enclosure will be fibreglass-carbon fibre cloth with a .5mm layer of copper sheeting over the whole of the outside of the enclosure.
Until I heard this system I never realized how limited car head units are in music playback, even expensive ones of which I have had three.
Hello,
Great job !
I want to do similar thing for some times now. I am no electronics but i made some diy audio for some times and i start ti understand how a good audio thing must be done, and as you said car units are just catastrophy in term of quality. You know even in high end audio you still find people to sell you dac-player with medium grade DAC chip for 2k$, so for everything car related i won’t even speak of it.
I want to use a TPA3255 amp (a very high quality one) with some focal speakers. I need a player+dac and as you will go for the vim3l + tone, so please keep us update on the touchscreen you plan on use, it is very interesting !
What amp and speaker are you using ?
Hi atohmdiy,
Thanks. Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been busy with my car and getting the house ready for winter. I can not recommend the VIM3L-Toneboard highly enough…it is an excellent playback system. I was recommended this touchscreen and it works perfectly with the VIM3L: https://www.amazon.com/Longruner-Capacitive-Display-800x480-Raspberry/dp/B071X8H5FB/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=7"+touchscreen&qid=1601071344&sr=8-5
In my car I am using three Kenwood Excelon, Class D amplifiers, 1 @ 600 watts mono for the subwoofer, 1 @ 150 watts on 2 channels for the mid-basses and 1 @ 75 watts on 4 channels for the midranges and tweeters. The subwoofer is a 30cm ScanSpeak in a sealed box, the mid-basses are 18cm ScanSpeak in the doors. Wavecor 7cm midranges and 2cm tweeters are in fibreglass pods on the dash…but I am thinking of moving the pods to the lower doors. Forgot to mention that the system is controlled and tuned with a MiniDSP 6X8 DSP which makes set up a lot easier.
It sounds very musical and dynamic and I am very much enjoying it…there is still work to be done though.
Worked on my car a bit today but it started raining heavily and got very cold so I stopped and came inside for a cup of tea, I did get the amplifiers, DSP and distro layed out and I mapped out the wiring. It is a real mulligans stew for now but tomorrow I’ll put everything in it’s proper place. Trial fitted the 'speaker pods on the dash top…still not sure that is where they will finish up.
