This winter has been so cold. There are lot of projects I want to do but the appeal and my drive is vastly diminished by the weather. However, there was a “warm spell” a couple of weeks ago – got almost to forty degrees – and I managed to sneak something in.

Back in December I purchased two JL Audio amplifiers (an HD750/1 and HD600/4). Since they are larger than the Kenwood amps that were in the car it was necessary to fabricate a new amp rack. I called up J-Wise and he worked up a beautiful new design and had it put together in just a few days. I painted and carpeted it myself.

Installation was pretty straight forward but took the better part of a Saturday. I replaced my battery and ran new power and ground wires. I haven’t had time to get good pictures of the setup, but it looks outstanding. I also took the opportunity to replace the connector on the sub-box with something a little beefier (the old connector wasn’t holding the wires tightly and had a small leak).

The sound? Fantastic. I don’t know if it’s in my head, but everything sounds super crisp and clean (which is what I like). The bass seems vastly improved as I can listen through songs that before were simply too hard on the ears. I can’t A/B test the setups, but I’m really happy with this switch and that’s good enough for me.

There are a couple of issues left to deal with though. If life teaches me one lesson over and over and over it’s that nothing can be perfect. I have a shorted RCA cable that I need to replace. It’s fine for now (a little ugly though), but it’s exacerbating the ground loop. One day I am planning to line the car with some kind of sound deadening material and I will pull everything apart, check connections, run new RCAs and reground things. In the meantime I will just enjoy!