has anybody on here installed some kind of aftermarket sound deadining material underneath their carpet and/or door panels? ive been considering doing this lately. anybody have any estimates on prices or helpful tips?

 

I used Second Skin products under my door panels on my recent speaker upgrade. Stuff I bought was comparable to the thicker Dynamat material, ran me about $60 if memory serves to do the front doors and some on the rear quad doors. Whatever amount I bought wasn't quite enough for the rear door.

It's simple to install. Clean the door/metal with something to get all the old junk off. Cut whatever you buy with a razor knife and apply. I bought a cheap little 5 dollar roller from Secondskin to help apply it, and get it into the contours a bit better.

As far as how good it works with sound deadening, no clue. Between the stereo system and exhaust, never heard much road noise anyway. While I'd use it again for any stereo upgrade, since it really is a nice upgrade over the factory plastic sheeting, not sure I'd go through the effort to put it under the factory carpet. While I'm sure you get some further sound deadening quality, my truck doesn't seem to have the creaks and groans that would warrant it.

 

Just put it in my doors with my new audio system install. Well worth the effort and cost. Bouncing the sound around that bare metal door interior causes sound waves to reflect back off the cone and that can make the speaker sound distorted at lower volume levels. Acoustic deadening will allow you to crank the stereo louder before distortion sets in. You probably won't see much difference in road noise (the door panels are fairly well insulated), but your stereo listening will appreciate the effort.

 

I've been considering this too... I was thinking about putting it under the cab.. on the outside... I haven't really crawled under there to see if it would work.. or if the stuff is even water proof.. but it'd be a lot easier than ripping up the carpet!

 

Probably won't hold up mounted to the exterior, plus you'd spend way more time getting the exterior prepped for it to have chance to stick then taking out the carpet. Think I had maybe an hour or hour and a half to take the seats front/rear out, and the carpet pops right out.

I had thought about putting it on the floor, but once I saw how much insulation/padding is on the backside of the carpet, thought it was a waste of time and money.

 

good point... had a question about the doors.... did you just replace the piece of plastic film with the dynomat?

 

That won't do anything for the audio. It needs to go on the inside of the door. That big, hollow empty space is just an echo chamber without some kind of deadening.

 

I'm not a hard core audio guy, this was my first system build, so I know I didn't do everything right. This is what I did.



I did the very minimum in deadening, was more concerned with sealing the door, and I did notice a difference in that regard. Is it the full extent of deadening, no, like Miami said, you are supposed do something with the inside of the doors. In my case, I wasn't going all out with my system, not a show vehicle, and it was a learning experience for me. I'd do some things differently if I had it to do again.

 

Hutch, do yourself a favor and put some Acoustimat directly behind the speaker. Even a 10"X10" square is enough to keep the sound waves from reflecting back off the speaker and killing your bass response. You can do it through the speaker hole without messing up your other work.

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll definitely do that. Since I've had it in for a couple weekends, only thing I'm not happy with is the mid base, hopefully that helps a bit.