No longer a deadener Virgin!

[SQMonte]

Thanks to Ant from Second Skin and his generous promotion, I was one of the members who lucked out and was given a door pack of Damplifier Pro a couple weeks ago. I finally got around to installing it today, here's how it went down.

The first thing to do, of course, was remove the door panels and check out the door to see how much of a pain this was going to be. It was already going to be kind of a pain cause I had never before used or applied sound deadening so today was a very special day for me as I got my deadening material virginity popped In the process of removing the panels I ran into a slight issue, the geniuses at Chevy decided to put the plugs in with the release mechanism in the worst possible spot so when I was removing the passenger side panel the window switch broke apart while I was trying to flip the panel upside down so I could gain access to the release mechanism. When I say split apart, I mean just that, the internal pins were exposed and all. I just knew I'd have to pony up for a new switch but I was able to get it back together securely with no issues. Whew, dodged one there.

So I get the panels off and this is what is staring at me

Not too bad, I suppose. Before I go any further I decide to look for the culprit of this nasty sticky stuff thats on the inside of my window. It's horrible stuff. I detail cars and have lots of products in my garage but none of them could do any damage to this stuff so I had to resort to using a brillo pad. It got the stuff off but if you look hard enough you can see some fine scratches. Not a big deal, but a deal none the less. So this is the nastiness that's on my inner window, again.

Close inspection of the door panel and wiring revealed the cause:

Again, the geniuses at Chevy came up with a great idea and decided using duct tape on the inner door wiring was the thing to do. The adhesive melted and the tape unraveled, getting that sticky mess on my window :mad:

So the first order of the day was to remove the plastic lining from the door panel and handle that issue with the tape. You see what the wiring looked like before, this is what it looks like now:

Now I can rest assured that I'll no longer have to worry about the sticky shit getting on my window and can move on to the real job, should be fun.

I pop open the box of Damplifier Pro and notice the deadener is sticking to the sides, not a big deal, rather an observation. I pulled a little harder and it opened right up. It was a little warm out today so I set a sheet of deadener on my dash board so it can warm up a little and hopefully be a little easier to work with and stick a little better. Worked like a charm! I pulled up a milk crate and began to proceed. Like everybody else who won this via the promotion, I got the Fury blade, but I found myself using a pair of scissors to cut the sheets of material and the knife for cutting the more intricate cuts when the material was on the door; for things like holes for bolts, clips, etc. Worked out well. The Fury blade looks pretty sick but when I first picked it up it didn't scream "high quality" or "heavy duty", my first impression was "Wow, this thing is pretty lightweight, I hope it holds up." At the end of the day, it did what I needed it to do and with no issues at all.

My goal was to use as many large, solid pieces as possible, but that didn't work out too well. Far too many ridges, angles, and curves for me to do so. Either that, or I just don't have the technique to do so. I'm thinking a combo of both. In any case, I was able to get the driver side door done with no major issues. It took me about 2-3 hrs to get it done, including a 30 minute lunch break, and about 30 minutes to clean/organize my garage/tools and to reinstall my subs and box which I had removed last weekend after a little technical issue. It felt like it took longer than it really did and i'm sure it should have been done faster but I was taking my sweet time since it was all new to me. The product was easy to work with, although cutting with scissors probably wasn't the best way to go even though it did prevent me from having to get up and go to my work bench every time I needed to cut a sheet. I think i'm going to have to devise a better way to locate screw holes and the like because this stuff is pretty thick so it makes locating the holes beneath a bit of a task if the holes are small. It was very pliable and conformed to the angles and curves of the panel with ease (I think setting it on the dash to get warm prior to using was a good idea). So this is what my first door came out like:

I think it came out alright, could be better, but not bad for a noob.

So I move on to the passenger side, and aside from the issue I had with the window switch as stated above, it went rather smooth. I got this one done in about an hour to hour and a half. I hadn't had any issues with the wiring getting adhesive on the window but I noticed this side also had duct tape on it which was loose a sloppy so I handled that before I started the deadening.

Before:

After:

And this is how this door came out

Once I was done and had removed all tools and what not from inside my car, I closed the door and heard a solid "thud", it put a smile on my face. It sounded far less hollow and more solid than before...the sound was so impressive that after cleaning up my mess and locking everything up, I watered my lawn and once I was done with that I went over to my car and opened and closed the doors again just to hear it. LOL.

My car is a two door, but the doors are pretty damn big, but even still I had a sheet and a quarter left over!

I had planned on running my speaker wire and installing my fronts today as well but my cousins had come up from the Bay Area and stopped by so we were shootin' the shit for a while and I pretty much lost my drive to go any further with it today.

Once again, big ups to Ant for the promotion, the product is easy to work with and even though I haven't been able to confirm yet how much of a difference it made when playing music, the sound of my doors closing has me feeling very optimistic about it. The freebie folding knife looks cool as hell and came in handy during the install. So far, I give it two thumbs up, I'll report back once I get my speakers in and powered up.

[Godsmack]

GREAT review bro!!!!

J

[SQMonte]

GREAT review bro!!!!

J

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

[Got_Bass89]

Looks good man

[SQMonte]

Looks good man

Thanks

Is it really necessary to use as much as I did on the doors? I see some installations where they just put a couple pieces here, couple pieces there, nowhere near the coverage like I got on mine. Did I do too much?

[Anthony Collova]

Looks good man

Gotta ask though.

Did you do any sound deadening inside of the doors?

Looks like you only covered the one panel but never went behind the speaker or IN the door cavity itself.

ANT

[SQMonte]

Looks good man

Gotta ask though.

Did you do any sound deadening inside of the doors?

Looks like you only covered the one panel but never went behind the speaker or IN the door cavity itself.

ANT

I did infact put deadener "inside" the doors

I got as much coverage in there as my chubby little hand could reach and did two layers as well.

Edited July 12, 2009 by SQMonte

[snafu]

Thanks

Is it really necessary to use as much as I did on the doors? I see some installations where they just put a couple pieces here, couple pieces there, nowhere near the coverage like I got on mine. Did I do too much?

This is an excellent question. I began using deadening material when it was first introduced in the early 1990s. As Ant has said repeatedly, the objective of this stuff is to lower the resonance of the metal surface it is applied to. Let's think about that for a second . . . if we could mount the speakers in our door panels in the ideal enclosure I can assure you it wouldn't be made of tinny metal!

After years and years of installing sound deadening materials of all types, I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as too much in the door panels. In my 2003 Mustang GT, the deadening material in my door panels is about 1/2" thick on the outer skin of the door (inside of exterior sheet metal) within about 18" of the midbass driver itself. From there, its probably 1/4" thick all the way to the rear of the door (from top to bottom). The deadening material on the inner sheet metal surface (directly behind door panel) is about 1/4" thick within 18" of the midbass, and 1/8" or so all the way over the rest of the metal. This means a BUNCH of layers of sound deadening and about a full day of work.

My midbass drivers are mounted to 1.5 inch thick baltic birch panels, bolted to the doors with nutserts and 1/4-20 bolts, which are siliconed to the door to prevent energy from the rear of the speaker from cancelling with that of the energy from the front of the cone. The drivers themselves have 1/8" x 1/8" weatherstripping on their baskets to seal them to the baffles and 1.5" wood screws holding them firmly in place. The speakers in the front of my car are MB Quart QSD-216s and they are powered by a RF T8004 bridged into 2 channels ( a bunch of power ). I cross them over at 75 Hz with a 24 db/octave slope, but they can play down to at least 40 Hz or so with ease in this arrangement - just can't use full power of the amp at 40Hz without bottoming them! With the 75 Hz crossover point, I have no need for any boost (only minor cuts) from about 60 Hz to over 300 Hz. This allows me to play the system at very high levels with incredible midbass without worrying about damaging the speakers.

The result? Outstanding mid-bass response that most comment they have never heard the likes of in an automobile.

Now, I've been by Ant's place and I gotta tell you - when it comes to sound deadening materials, Second Skin offers some of the best products I've personally seen.

[SQMonte]

This is an excellent question. I began using deadening material when it was first introduced in the early 1990s. As Ant has said repeatedly, the objective of this stuff is to lower the resonance of the metal surface it is applied to. Let's think about that for a second . . . if we could mount the speakers in our door panels in the ideal enclosure I can assure you it wouldn't be made of tinny metal!

After years and years of installing sound deadening materials of all types, I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as too much in the door panels. In my 2003 Mustang GT, the deadening material in my door panels is about 1/2" thick on the outer skin of the door (inside of exterior sheet metal) within about 18" of the midbass driver itself. From there, its probably 1/4" thick all the way to the rear of the door (from top to bottom). The deadening material on the inner sheet metal surface (directly behind door panel) is about 1/4" thick within 18" of the midbass, and 1/8" or so all the way over the rest of the metal. This means a BUNCH of layers of sound deadening and about a full day of work.

My midbass drivers are mounted to 1.5 inch thick baltic birch panels, bolted to the doors with nutserts and 1/4-20 bolts, which are siliconed to the door to prevent energy from the rear of the speaker from cancelling with that of the energy from the front of the cone. The drivers themselves have 1/8" x 1/8" weatherstripping on their baskets to seal them to the baffles and 1.5" wood screws holding them firmly in place. The speakers in the front of my car are MB Quart QSD-216s and they are powered by a RF T8004 bridged into 2 channels ( a bunch of power ). I cross them over at 75 Hz with a 24 db/octave slope, but they can play down to at least 40 Hz or so with ease in this arrangement - just can't use full power of the amp at 40Hz without bottoming them! With the 75 Hz crossover point, I have no need for any boost (only minor cuts) from about 60 Hz to over 300 Hz. This allows me to play the system at very high levels with incredible midbass without worrying about damaging the speakers.

The result? Outstanding mid-bass response that most comment they have never heard the likes of in an automobile.

Now, I've been by Ant's place and I gotta tell you - when it comes to sound deadening materials, Second Skin offers some of the best products I've personally seen.

Cliff Notes: Yes

Hahaha

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us, now I don't feel like a tool for using too much on my doors