alpine H701 VS JBL MS8

[rightaway 10+ year member]

anybody have the the pro's and con's of each?

my head unit is a pioneer d1.

the speakers are alpine type R. 6.5comp in the front and 6.5 in the rear. i have a alpine pdx 5 as the amp and alpine type s in a sealed box. i'm just starting out. i do not know much. everything is in the stock location. my car is a 2002 infiniti G20 sport.

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[Sweet'n Low 10+ year member]

way to specific. just search both. someones bound to of had one or the other before on here.

 

[basebalz13 10+ year member]

IMO you dont need something as complex as that for that setup. But if I had to choose the H701 would be my choice

 

[basebalz13 10+ year member]

IMO you dont need something as complex as that for that setup. But if I had to choose the H701 would be my choice

 

[rightaway 10+ year member]

i plan on to keep on upgrading. i have read good things about both but wanted to know which one will clean up the sound and make it clearer sound?

 

[Cruzer 10+ year member]

i would start here

JBL's MS-8 processor!

 

[rightaway 10+ year member]

i read most of that. but i'm not sure if the features are the same or better than the alpine. i know that the alpine is older but was the technology up to par with the JBL. I'm trying to find out what are the negatives of both. everybody has great things to say about both

 

[Cruzer 10+ year member]

then go with the cheaper, or whichever has more features.

i personally would go with the ms8 though i know nothing about either. ive just heard so much about the ms8 and seen it a lot more than the alpine, yet the alpine has been around longer

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

The MS-8 and the H701 aren't really in the same league. They both offer time alignment, flexible active crossovers, phase adjustment, but that's where the similarities end. The MS-8 is FAR more advanced. The MS-8 will do auto time alignment as well as auto EQ on all the drivers after you pick your crossover points. The EQ is stupidly powerful, hundred of bands IIRC, doing far more than you can do using just your ears and fairly simple 32 band eq by yourself. It also uses a microphone that is attached to a headset so it will take measurements just as you would hear the sounds, which is much better than a onmidirectional mic most products use.

Both will do 5.1 for movies and crap like that, but again the MS-8 is WAY more advanced. It can actually extrapolate a center channel out of just regular 2 channel music. In addition it can create rear channel out of a normal 2 channel recording too and autmatically time delay it to add a sense of space to the recording and vehicle.

The h701 is a good unit though. It is a little noisy, the eq bands don't actually adjust what they say they do (but since most tune by ear yougo by sound anyway so it's close enough even). Other than that though if you use a w200 or even a w205 it's got a very easy to use interface. If you know how to time align, eq, etc by ear then it can still be a great unit. If your not capable of learning all that though the ms-8 like I said will do it all for you anyway which makes it the better overall unit. However, a MS-8 runs for about 2x the price of a h701. Anway I do own a h701 and am still using it until I get my ms-8 installed later this month. If you looking to get a good amount of control over your sound and can't pony up for the MS-8 and are willing to mess with the stereo and learn how to tune it's a great unit. I'll be selling mine soon although one set of the front outputs dont' work anymore. You still have sub front and rear outputs though so it can do a 2 way active setup and control a sub which is enough for most ppl anyway, plus I'll be selling it cheap due to that lol.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

The MS-8 and the H701 aren't really in the same league. They both offer time alignment, flexible active crossovers, phase adjustment, but that's where the similarities end. The MS-8 is FAR more advanced. The MS-8 will do auto time alignment as well as auto EQ on all the drivers after you pick your crossover points. The EQ is stupidly powerful, hundred of bands IIRC, doing far more than you can do using just your ears and fairly simple 32 band eq by yourself. It also uses a microphone that is attached to a headset so it will take measurements just as you would hear the sounds, which is much better than a onmidirectional mic most products use.

Im confused. The only difference I see there that is actual, is the mic. The 701 uses a mic to allow auto-EQ'ing, t/a, etc. But if I understand you correctly, it sounds like the ms8 has dual mics for stereo auto-inputs. The 701's mic is a single mic, mono input. Otherwise, the differences you listed here aren't different. The 701 doesn't have a simple 32 band EQ, it has a 32-band EQ per output (including for each left and right output individually). 32 bands is a '1/3 octave EQ' which is plenty for almost any application. It also has a parametric EQ. Im assuming when you say the ms8 has 'hundreds' of bands, you simply mean a 32 band per output, just like the 701. I cant imagine it has hundreds of bands of adjustment for every output, who would even want such a complex EQ? If a 'simple' 1/3 octave and/or parametric EQ isn't enough equalization for your system, your system has bigger problems than lack of sound processing. I agree with the rest of your comments on their differences however.

The reason I say Im confused is, you have a 701, so you should know all this already.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

H701 has a standard 31 band eq per driver, which really isnt' enough in a car. yeah, you can make good sounding car with one, but untimately the response isn't "that good". Far from what you would get in a home even remotely, not enough processing to counter the room issues. The parametric can't even be overlapped with it and saved as a setting. Anyway, Look at a usmoothed response of a speaker, it's VERY rough in a car. Hundreds of dips and peaks sometimes big ones, like twenty in between even 2 points you can adjust on a 32 bander. You can ballpark flatish if you use a low resolution measurement using 32 bands on every speaker, but that's it. 32 bands became popular as early science said that's the resolution we hear in, modern tests say otherwise. The MS-8 literally does hand HUNDREDS of EQ bands. The MS-8 uses very good software to measure the response and can clean it up very easily using all those bands and it's processing power. Once it builds to flat by using it's very advanced EQ system (much more than you could easily adjust by hand and even measuring with an RTA would still take days to to tune it that flat) for each speaker you get a 32 band to control the entire stereo (you dont' need seperate controls for each speaker as MS-8 gets them all F/R matched ahead of time). This allows you to cater it to your tastes, the overall tonality of they system. If you boost the sub it'll even adjust phase and crossover points, etc to match your boosted bass request but keep the bass upfront. It sounds like your not very fimilar with the MS-8 and what it can do. I'm very fimiliar with the h701, I've had it for years. 1980's pro audio converted to 12 volt. MS-8 is like the home processor Audessey except even newer, more features, and on proverbial steroids as it was designed to fix car issues, not room which is usually less.

Also the MS-8 has one mic input, but the "mic" isn't a standard omni mic that you put on a stand, with you not in the car, or not comforably and natrually as you woudl sit anyway. That's and the fact they are onmi is why RTA often doesn't work well in a car. The mic pics up sounds technically not where either ear, just the spatial aveage of the space between with even reflections that would normally be blocked by your head being counted in. The MS-8's mic is a set of heaphones you wear on your head. One mic on each ear that point out to pick up the exact response at your ears position, with your head related transfer function, foot placement, etc all in tact and calculated in. You look to the left mirror, right mirror and straigt ahead. It actually uses this to get a spacial average of those three points so your car keeps tonality even as you head moves. It can even balance a stage between 2 seats if you want and make the best compromise for both driver and passengers.

As I also said you get true center channel as it decouples left and right and attentuates them properly if you tell the car you have a center. Not just on 5.1, but actual 2 channel music decoded, it uses logic 7, very advanced vs the very old 5.1 style stuff. It'll also auto tune rears to add spatial depth to the recording by putting out of phase stuff in the mix out of time to mimic reflections and what not. H701 does neither and certainly won't automaticaly do it all for you. The MS-8 auto tunes as good as most pro's with several h701's and ALOT of time could do and it'll do it in 10 minutes after start up. Even then you'd be lacking features vs a MS-8.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

You are correct, Im not very familiar with the MS-8 at all. I will say though, Ive sat in some (ok, many) very very good sounding cars, including many top ranking SQ competitor's vehicles, that only used one 32-band EQ per side (left and right, not even per channel). So Im skeptical that hundreds of bands are a requirement for high fidelity mobile sound. But yes, certainly in those competition vehicles the install also played a role in reducing the necessity for lots and lots of processing (speaker placement mainly). Maybe because the ms-8 adjusts automatically, having hundreds of bands is a positive, but I suspect for most enthusiasts, even fairly serious ones, its over kill. Hell the 701's 32 bands per speaker is overkill for most people. The only way I see having more bands of adjustments would provide any significant improvement would be if the mic and auto-adjusting is very very good. Otherwise, most people will be chasing their tails trying to adjust bands that are a 1/4-octave apart (or less).

Thanks for the info tempest.

 

[ramos 5,000+ posts]

MS-8 only has a 31 band eq.

I would go ms-8 for a couple reasons.

1. The h-701 is no longer made

2. You would be required to get the rux controller as well to use with your head unit.

3. 701's are notorious for noisy analog outputs. If your head unit doesn't have a digital output..........................

4. The MS-8 will work with pretty much any head unit.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[ramos 5,000+ posts]

You are correct, Im not very familiar with the MS-8 at all. I will say though, Ive sat in some (ok, many) very very good sounding cars, including many top ranking SQ competitor's vehicles, that only used one 32-band EQ per side (left and right, not even per channel). So Im skeptical that hundreds of bands are a requirement for high fidelity mobile sound. But yes, certainly in those competition vehicles the install also played a role in reducing the necessity for lots and lots of processing (speaker placement mainly). Maybe because the ms-8 adjusts automatically, having hundreds of bands is a positive, but I suspect for most enthusiasts, even fairly serious ones, its over kill. Hell the 701's 32 bands per speaker is overkill for most people. The only way I see having more bands of adjustments would provide any significant improvement would be if the mic and auto-adjusting is very very good. Otherwise, most people will be chasing their tails trying to adjust bands that are a 1/4-octave apart (or less).
Thanks for the info tempest.

I played with the ms-8 for a while. The autotune is pretty cool as far as phasing goes. How ever, it tunes to an "ideal" eq curve. To me it sounded bright as hell and bass heavy. It's not that big of a deal, you can adjust the eq after the ms-8 has done it's thing.

701 wins for tweaking , ms-8 wins for better technology, the auto tune is much better, and it's readily avaliable. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

You are correct, Im not very familiar with the MS-8 at all. I will say though, Ive sat in some (ok, many) very very good sounding cars, including many top ranking SQ competitor's vehicles, that only used one 32-band EQ per side (left and right, not even per channel). So Im skeptical that hundreds of bands are a requirement for high fidelity mobile sound. But yes, certainly in those competition vehicles the install also played a role in reducing the necessity for lots and lots of processing (speaker placement mainly). Maybe because the ms-8 adjusts automatically, having hundreds of bands is a positive, but I suspect for most enthusiasts, even fairly serious ones, its over kill. Hell the 701's 32 bands per speaker is overkill for most people. The only way I see having more bands of adjustments would provide any significant improvement would be if the mic and auto-adjusting is very very good. Otherwise, most people will be chasing their tails trying to adjust bands that are a 1/4-octave apart (or less).
Thanks for the info tempest.

I've heard one setup with an MS-8 the auto tune is VERY good. We retuned it just for me in a matter of minutes. I picked his old crossover points, a few quick chirps, looked where it told me to and BAM. Stage was center of the dash, up high and tonality was VERY good. Midrange and upper end was perfect, I wanted a little more punch around 60hz, a quick trip to the 32 band EQ and I was done. As I said the "big" EQ you can't mess with. The processor uses it's a computer to adjust it for each speaker when you first calibrate your setup. Once it builds a flat response you get a 32 band EQ that you can use to contour the sound to your tastes. . JBL spent years trying to make an auto EQ that woudl work in a car and they succeeded. The headset style mic is what really makes it work, IMO. Your body and head are included into the measurement, it really seems to hear what you hear. It doesn't even RTA totally, it is flat to from 80 to 20k and then a rising response down low, which is what alot of SQ guys actually used in competitons once people realized RTA flat sounds bad lol. They figured out what actually sounds neutral and flat to the HT/SQ car crowd and built a processor that could create that for the baseline. The MS-8 is somewhat actually built for the casual crowd too. It'll work like a improved Jl cleansweep to fix a stock stereo and has 8 small amp channels to push some non stock speakers if you want It's got enough DSP to even make a stock stereo sound decent from at least one seat. Then at the top end of SQ, it'll do everything else I mentioned. It's pretty expensive, but having it do such a good job with no hassle is worth it I think. Plus amazon.com had them 45% off with a coupon code last month lol. Like 450 shipped.