JBL 500GTi, 400GTi User Manual

Table of Contents

Welcome to Club GTi............................................3

About this Manual .................................................3

Autosound at its Best ............................................4

Designing Your System.........................................4

Component Placement..........................................5

Installation Warnings and Tips ..............................5

Mounting Instructions............................................6

Wiring....................................................................7

System Connections .............................................8

A Note on Power Handling ....................................9

In Case of Difficulty ...............................................9

Specifications......................................................10

Thiele-Small Specifications .................................11

2

Welcome to Club GTi

About This Manual

Thank you for purchasing the finest
automotive woofer/midrange JBL has ever
produced. As a GTi Competition Series
owner, you are a member of a select group
of people who enjoy the most advanced
mobile audio products available. We call
this group “Club GTi.” By sending in the
customer information card, which you will
find attached to your warranty, we will
automatically register you as a Club GTi
member which will give you access to
exclusive Club GTi apparel and other
special offers we will make available from
time to time. We suggest you fill the card
out at your earliest convenience.

Also, be sure to save your sales
receipt in a safe place. It will be necessary
to use this document as proof of purchase
in the event that you ever need warranty
service. It is also useful for insurance
purposes and for establishing value when
you re-sell your vehicle.

Because of the performance capability
of your GTi Competition Series product,
and the variety of potential system
configurations, we strongly recommend
that you have the system professionally
installed. You will also get a better warranty
if your equipment is professionally installed
by an authorized GTi dealer and you have
your warranty card stamped. This manual
provides information on installation and
usage to help a skilled technician get the
most from your GTi Competition Series
product. This manual does not cover basic
information about installation which is
common knowledge to a professional
installer, except for information which is
unique to the 400 and 500GTi Midranges.

If you feel you possess the necessary
skills, and prefer to install the equipment
yourself, this manual will provide you with
the necessary specifics to properly use the
400 or 500GTi in typical installations.
Consult your JBL dealer, or a qualified
technician, for more information.

3

Autosound at its Best

The 400 and 500GTi’s are built to
meet the same rigorous standards of
construction and performance that have
long established JBL’s renowned home
and professional speaker systems. The
400 and 500GTi Woofer/Midranges
incorporate advanced JBL woven Kevlar
cones which are especially suited to the
unique acoustic and environmental
conditions which characterize automotive
sound. The 400 and 500GTi are
engineered to provide excellent frequency
response low distortion, and high-power
handling, in a minimum size.

The small size of the GTi
Woofer/Midranges is made possible
through the use of a Neodymium magnet
assembly with JBL’s Stray Field
Containment Geometry. By preventing
stray magnetic fields, this closed circuit
magnetic assembly design concentrates
the magnetic field on the voice coil where
it provides superior performance. This high
concentration of magnetic power is
coupled to a 2" Edge-wound Aluminum

4

Wire High Temperature Fiberglass Voice
Coil. This voice coil uses lightweight
aluminum wire to maintain the agility to
reproduce high frequencies while its large
diameter assures extremely high thermal
power handling.

The cone motion of these high
excursion designs is controlled by a
Aromatic Polyamid Fiber Spider. This new
material is able to control the 0.6" motion of
the cone while maintaining musical
accuracy because it is 3 times stronger
than conventional spider materials.

Treated Kevlar fiber cones are used
because of their combination of low weight,
high stiffness and resistance to resonances.
The 400 and 500GTi Woofer/Midranges are
topped off with a treated fabric inverted dome
for smooth reproduction of high frequencies.

What does all this technology add up
to? Adriver with flat frequency response,
excellent off-axis response, and high
output capability, all in a small and elegant
package. The result is exceptionally
smooth and detailed music reproduction to
5kHz and clean sound that cuts through
road noise.

Designing Y our System

The availability of separate
components makes a variety of system
designs possible. Because of their small
size, the 400 and 500GTi’s are perfect for
many different applications. The overall
quality of any system design is a result of
how well all of the components work
together, not just the result of the
performance of any one component.
JBL GTi Series tweeter and subwoofer
transducers are the ideal companion
products to your 400 and 500GTi
Woofer/Midranges. Each of the GTi
Competition Series components is
designed to complement the others to
provide the highest performance with the
simplest and most predictable system
design. To use the 400 and 500GTi as the
woofer/midrange transducers in a high
quality system, we recommend you use
either a high quality active crossover such
as JBL’s GTX47, GTX4 or GTX2. If you
prefer passive crossovers, we suggest a
complete 408GTi or 508GTi system which
includes the 08GTi Tweeter, 400 or 500GTi