KICKER AUDIO INSTALL

If it seems as if it was only yesterday that we had Wiremu Burkhardt’s B2000 splashed across the cover — well, that is because it was; it was featured in Issue No. 259, only a few months back. In the article, Wiremu expressed his intention to continue to perfect his award-winning show truck. True to his word, only a week after the magazine hit the shelves, phase two of the interior was brought into play.

With Wiremu’s vehicle being a ute, room for a sub box was always compromised and would limit the performance of the system — or so Wiremu thought. However, in a team-up with Kicker Audio and Rapid Radio, a clever plan was devised to use two different Kicker innovations that push the box’s performance well beyond your typical behind-the-bench-seat unit.

The first of the two innovations is the pair of eight-inch square L7 Q-Class subwoofers. Traditionally, subwoofers are circular — although, if you can recall anything from high school geometry, you will know that a square of the same dimension as a circle will have a significant increase in surface area; 27.33 per cent to be exact. Apply that theory to subwoofers, where performance is directly related to the amount of air shifted, and you can see that a square sub is going to punch well above its class weight.

Now, you’re probably looking at the install and thinking that there are four woofers. Therein lies the second trick to get this compact system boom’n; the second pair are actually passive radiators, or woofers without a driver or magnet. When placed in a sealed box with a powered woofer, these are driven by the internal air-pressure changes as the working woofer shifts in and out. These movements create their own sound waves, and, when tuned properly, the system will be able to reach the low frequencies usually seen only with larger woofers. It’s a perfect solution when space is limited and a ported box just isn’t practical.

It’s the same principle used in Kicker’s loaded enclosures. In

fact, to build the B2K’s set-up, two L7 Sublime boxes were cut open and both the subs and radiators repurposed in the custom sealed enclosure. The overall performance from a pair of eight-inch subs in this tiny-capacity enclosure is impressive.

The system utilizes two Kicker KX amplifiers: a 1200W rms unit drives the woofers, and a 400W rms unit powers the six-inch fronts and tweeters.

Wiremu wanted to keep things as clean as possible, so chose to forgo the traditional head unit, instead opting for a PXBTC controller, which connects via Bluetooth, allowing Wiremu to play music and control the system via his phone. The controller sends a high-voltage preamp (5V) signal to the amplifiers to ensure highquality sound.

Rapid Radio took care of the custom MDF enclosure, before the team at Waikato Motor Trimmer, who handled the original retrim, went to work trimming the enclosure in Bentley Blue nappa leather with matching stitching on the bench seat and custom door cards. The tweeters are hidden in the carbon-fibre kick panels.

To hear this system in action, jump onto facebook.com/ kickeraudionz.