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Saturday, April 09, 2005
Cruising to the music
By Jasper Huang
High Speed
This week I am featuring one of the hottest SUV's in the car audio scene in Davao City: Roberto Sebastian Jr.'s Toyota Land Cruiser FJ80. When Roberto decided to enter car shows and sound-off competitions, his first idea was to give the Land Cruiser a face-lift.
At first, he was not so thrilled with the way his Cruiser looked inside and out, so he made some modifications to it to fit his style.
First up was a new paint job. He then added American Racing Rims wrapped in 15x13.5 Maxxis tires to make the Cruiser buff and mean. Then he modified his suspension with Rancho RS9000x for added performance. Now we go on to the story behind the sound system of this Cruiser and what makes it so special.
When Roberto Sebastian decided to set up his car with a car audio system his vision was threefold: to have the installation look simple yet elegant, to be able to show it off during events and car shows, and for it to sound good! He did not want a flashy system that just boomed he wanted a classy install that would be focused on sound quality.
In order to accomplish what he had in mind, Roberto brought the Cruiser to SUBW4 and discussed the plans for installation with Subw4's master installer and proprietor Victor "Yo" Tan. A month later the Cruiser was brought back to SUBW4 and the installation began.
You would ask why it took one month before they installed the system? It was because some of the components for the sound system like the Focal Utopia are not available in the Philippines. Roberto flew abroad to purchase the components that he really wanted.
Yo used many products in building the system. Running the show is the Alpine 9813 CD Commander. The unit was installed in the factory radiolocation with no major modifications. Underneath the radio, Yo installed an AUDIOCONTROL 4.1 to make adjustments to the sound accessible to whoever is driving the car.
The Cruiser uses MB QUART and FOCAL for the high and mid sound output. A couple of sets of FOCAL's UTOPIA 165w3 and a pair of MB Quart Qline QM218.6 were used for the front stage and another pair of MB Quart speakers were used to provide the rear fill.
In the back, providing the BOOM is JL AUDIO's famous W7 that is known to provide really great sounding bass!
Powering the speakers are 3 Precision Power Amplifiers. One amplifier for the power hungry subwoofer, while the two other amps were for the other drivers.
AUDIOCONTROL DQS and AUDIOCONTROL 6XS equalizers and crossovers are also installed to fine tune the system.
The entire installation took only a few days and the outcome of the system was exactly as Roberto and Yo envisioned it. It was competition ready. The test came during the Hot August Night's sound off.
Roberto joined the competition to test the systems capabilities and at the end of the sound competition the Cruiser won the prize. Roberto still has plans on upgrading the sound system and entering more upcoming competitions.
The system sounds really great as it is now, what more if he upgrades it. This Toyota Land Cruiser will surely be cruising to more victories in the future.
SPECS
ICE:
2 Sets FOCAL UTOPIA LINE 165W3
1 Set MB Quart Qline QM218.6
1 Set MB Quart QM 1116 KX
Alpine 9813 CD Commander
Audiocontrol 4.1
Audiocontrol DQS
Audiocontrol 6XS
Precision Power PCX 280
Precision Power PCX 480
Precision Power PC 2600.2
Intersys Capacitor
JL Audio 10W7
Exterior and Suspension:
American Racing Rims
Maxxis 15x13.5
Rancho RS9000x
(April 9, 2005 issue)
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