Monday, February 07, 2011

Vicky's 3rd Birthday is Coming Up

Happy to be leaving the house.

Infinity Basslink II Install for the RAV4

Infinity Basslink II Installed on my 06 Toyota RAV4

The Idea
I had a challenge of having 3rd row seating and VERY limited space to install a subwoofer. The project actually started back in October after being sick and tired of having lousy sounding music coming out of my speakers. If I'm going to drive thousands and thousands of miles, I might as well go all out. With previous experience installing Infinity speakers in my old Saturn, I wanted to buy the very best speakers for the doors. I was very limited because I didn't want to hook those speakers up to an amplifier... that would cost more money. So I settled with some Sony X-plods (40W). After driving around for a couple of weeks with NO BASS, I needed an upgrade. Days of research turned into weeks and I finally settled on the ultimate little amplified speaker, the Infinity Basslink II. It is the most wattage for a tiny little speaker, with an eardrum bursting, 250 Watts of power!

The Process
Actually acquiring the speaker was painstaking. I searched Craigslist everyday until I found one. The 200W Basslink was available everywhere... but I DIDN'T want to settle for that one, I WANTED 250W. I HAD TO HAVE 250 WATTS OF POWER!!! And I didn't want to pay Best Buy's pricetag of $399. I wanted to pay $150. So that's what I got.


Where I stashed the Rockford Fosgate 1 Farad Capacitor and Fuse I put it in the center of the back seat.



The capacitor is also sitting on particle board and I wrapped the front of it with grey fabric.

Particle Board


I covered the particle board up with fabric from a Dodge Durango seat cover from the junk yard. With good scissors and a hot glue gun, you can achieve quality results as you see in the top picture. Everything blends in nicely for a professional, installed look.

UPDATE:
I'm adding in this comment dated July 6, 2013.

The subwoofer is still holding up.  My kids are growing up and there is still room in the back.  I'm still able to move my seats forward for my 3rd row seat occupants.  My only gripe with the Infinity subwoofer is that it doesn't seem to work in hot temperatures above 90 degrees.  I would have to cool down the cabin with AC and it would start to work again.  The bass is still deafening and the sound my 2006 RAV4 makes is better than my 2012 Camaro.

February 4, 2014 - Bass is still bad ass.  Plenty of boom, no flaws however I am planning on trading in the RAV4 for something newer within the next couple of months.