It took a good 6 months and around 1200+ man hours to complete this build.
BHPian flipflop recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
The moment I test-drove the all-new Tata Harrier, I just fell in instant love with the vehicle. Such a massive road presence, and surprisingly easy maneuverability considering its size, resulted in an instant purchase.
I don’t consider myself an audiophile but rather an audioholic, if at all such a word exists. For those who have not seen my previous threadkindly check it out.
Now, the Harrier is probably the WIDEST car in the segment and obviously, I am not going to be running the stock music system. And with width, the potential to achieve a very expansive and wide soundstage presented an opportunity to consider a dream build. Yes, I say DREAM cause, with any passion, the dream and the desire to achieve the best we can will always persist.
Since my wife was going to be using the Sonet, she did not want any music in her car. That left me with an entire top-of-the-line audio system that can easily be migrated onto the Harrier. But the devil inside me could not resist the urge to update. Firstly, up until that point, the music system in the Sonet was something I loved and was the best amongst all the other car audio systems I had owned earlier.
After much deliberation and discussions with Mr Karthik of Speedfreaks, Chennai (Had always been my go-to installer and a very dear friend), we decided to do one No-holds-barred install. The best that I could afford. The equipment was finalized (will post a detailed explanation and the reasons we picked them in subsequent posts).
Even though the Harrier is built like a Tank and has excellent cabin quietness, for the system that is being planned, the car had to be stripped and soundproofed totally.
Music from the stock was played and the vibrations, reflections etc were recorded and measurements were taken. I really wish I had done a video of how they go about this, but sadly it just did not occur to me then to shoot. As much as the entire dashboard was removed and sound proofed. Here are a few pics.
Door pad treated with 6 layers of damping
vibrobarrier from Dr Artex
Boot stripped and sound proofed
The floor
Entire dashboard stripped
Dashboard sound proofed
POWER
Since the system consists of a few high-current requirements, the stock battery of the Harrier was checked. The car comes with an alternator capacity of 150A and the battery has a 78Ah capacity. The initial thought was to add a secondary battery since the alternator has enough juice. However, after checking the ampere requirement of the Car OEM, and after checking the Ampere requirements of the equipment to be installed, there was sufficient head room for smooth functionality.
However, we all know that the power that comes from cars, particularly the quality of alternators used in Indian cars, the quality of the current is a lot less for optimal functioning of any good system. Considering how sensitive the equipment that is being proposed to be used, the fear of impure current flowing into the system was always a worrying factor.
After much research, a DC to DC converter/pure power supply equipment was needed. Micro-precision, a well-renowned German manufacturer of High end Car audio, has a DC-DC converter in its 7 series. This accepts the 12V (which is constantly fluctuating and is not constant) from the stock battery, and puts out a constant volt ranging from 12 to 16V (which is programmable). The output was set at a constant 14.2 V and is fed to the distribution block, from where the rest of the equipment gets clean power without any grounding issues and associated undesirable noises. JK Automotive, Coimbatore is the official distributor for Micro-Precision in India. His name is Mr.Karthik as well and is a very good family friend of mine for over a decade. The transaction was a breeze and the DC-DC converter landed at Speedfreaks, in no time.
The importance of using the proper fuses is the key. Even earlier, I had not had much belief as to how a simple fuse could help in SQ improvement. Speedfreaks had specifically chosen and procured the required fuses and once the switch happened, the difference was huge. The fuses are from Dios-dela musica, a brand from Indonesia. Specifically handcrafted and along with custom-made, Gold-Plated distribution and ground blocks, the power required for a system of this magnitude is well taken care of
Micro precision DC-DC converter
Power Distribution block with Diosdela Musica Fuses
Ground Distribution Block
Microprecision neatly installed under the seat
Cables, Interconnects and Source
The big 3 update was duly completed. With the aid of the micro-precision DC-DC Converter and with the use of superb distribution/ground block, along with appropriate fuses, the power supply is now very clean with a constant output of 14.2 Volts.
Cables and Interconnects
As much as clean power was achieved, the importance of the speaker cables and interconnects really does matter. We used Tchernov supreme speaker cables and Diosdela Musica RCAs.I had the opportunity to do some comparisons in one of the demo cars at Speedfreaks. The sheer musicality these RCA brought out, even in a basic two-way setup was convincing enough to procure them.
Source
Garbage in, Garbage out. PERIOD. There are no two ways to it. I had retained my beloved Cayin n8ii, the DAP that was the source I used in my previous build. But then, when trying to achieve absolute musical fidelity, there are much better and more advanced options. Music these days is extremely digital. The quest towards achieving the best, needed a lot of research, analysis and feasibility. Chord M scaler, a home audiophile-grade product, which takes in a digital signal, upscales anything to a max 768 khz. Almost 16 times the original sample size of a 44.1 khz recordings. Then it transfers the same to Chord Hugo TT2 through dual BNC cables. The digital to analog conversion happens at the TT2, which features a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) DAC.
Now both these are home devices. But they operate on 15V only. Even Rob Watts, the person who designed this suggests using powering these with batteries so that no RFI gets introduced in the signal chain. Thanks to DC-DC Converter, and using a smaller DC buck, the required clean power to use these in a car became possible.
Chord M Scaler and TT2
DC-DC buck for powering the Chord
Continue reading about flipflop’s audio upgrade for BHPian comments, insights and more information.
