DSP tuning for below dummy level

[Original wis]

I'm a little confused. You shouldnt need a dedicated crossover(passive crossover) if you have a dsp. I'm running an active 3 way setup with the DSP handling the crossover stuff.

If you are running passive crossovers your tuning process will be a little different since you have less adjustability on individual drivers, but your goal is the same.

Matt

The reason for the crossover is so that if I'm driving and I want to cut or boost a particular frequency I can do it without having to access the app on my cell phone. It's easier to just use a basic crossover to boost or cut that frequency for all of the speakers at once. It's just a turn of a knob.

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

The reason for the crossover is so that if I'm driving and I want to cut or boost a particular frequency I can do it without having to access the app on my cell phone. It's easier to just use a basic crossover to boost or cut that frequency for all of the speakers at once. It's just a turn of a knob.

That's not a crossover. A crossover takes the full range signal and sends only part of it through to the speaker. You are talking about an EQ of some kind. You shouldn't need to do this after you tune your DSP. Any small adjustments can be made on your headunit with its graphic EQ.

Can you give me the model number and brand of the equipment you are using?

Matt

 

[tommydh 10+ year member]

Yeah I understand that on the basic level it gives you complete control over what each speaker does. And I see how if you use time alignment you can change where the sounds intersect each other. I get how using the crossover on every single speaker you can choose what frequencies you want it to play. I see how those things work. But I don't understand what the graphs are for, what the mic is for what pink noise is for, what an RTA is for. Like how can a speaker be out of phase if you connect everything correctly? If it's out of phase that means you messed up on the install so you shouldn't even be messing with the frequencies yet. Right?

The Microphone and pink noise are tools to allow the unit itself to tune. Place the Mic about where your head would be. I don't have first hand experience with that specific unit but I have used DSP's in the past in both cars and Live Music Venues. The Mic will pick up the pink noise from each individual speaker and adjust accordingly.
Just look how the speakers are in your car. Normally they are in the lower door panel in front possibly with tweeters in door or A pillar. Obviously the driver side speaker is closer to your ear than the right. One way to help with that is kick panels or the DSP will delay the signal to help the sound arrive at same time. That is the most basic function to me of a DSP.

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

The Microphone and pink noise are tools to allow the unit itself to tune. Place the Mic about where your head would be. I don't have first hand experience with that specific unit but I have used DSP's in the past in both cars and Live Music Venues. The Mic will pick up the pink noise from each individual speaker and adjust accordingly.
Just look how the speakers are in your car. Normally they are in the lower door panel in front possibly with tweeters in door or A pillar. Obviously the driver side speaker is closer to your ear than the right. One way to help with that is kick panels or the DSP will delay the signal to help the sound arrive at same time. That is the most basic function to me of a DSP.

Most DSP's in the car audio sector don't include an auto-tune function. You can usually get an add-on or separate device that can do that(eg the audison Bit tune for audison bit amps and DSP's).

Matt

 

[Original wis]

That's not a crossover. A crossover takes the full range signal and sends only part of it through to the speaker. You are talking about an EQ of some kind. You shouldn't need to do this after you tune your DSP. Any small adjustments can be made on your headunit with its graphic EQ.

Can you give me the model number and brand of the equipment you are using?

Matt

Sorry I meant an equalizer.

I'm going to have a Clarion 7 band EQ right below the head unit. So it's going to go head unit to equalizer and then outs from equalizer to in on dsps

 

[nauc 10+ year member]

JL has all kinds of vids you can learn from, about all this stuff and more...

https://www.youtube.com/c/JLAudioInc/videos

 

[Original wis]

JL has all kinds of vids you can learn from, about all this stuff and more...

https://www.youtube.com/c/JLAudioInc/videos

Thanks. I've seen those though.

 

[Original wis]

This is the build: maybe this will help if you know what's going in it
Front:
Hertz Dieci series DSK 165.3 components
Hertz Dieci series DCX 87.3 coaxials
Rear:
Hertz Dieci series DCX 165.3 coaxials
Subwoofers:
4 CT Sounds Tropo 10" 1.2 net cube per sub tuned to 30hz
Power:
250 amp alternator
60ah AGM under the hood
100ah AGM in rear
2/0 Big 3, fused at alt
2/0 power wire to rear, fused at battery
Amplifiers:
Taramps TS 400x4
Taramps DS 440x4
Taramps Smart 3

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

This is the build: maybe this will help if you know what's going in it
Front:
Hertz Dieci series DSK 165.3 components
Hertz Dieci series DCX 87.3 coaxials
Rear:
Hertz Dieci series DCX 165.3 coaxials
Subwoofers:
4 CT Sounds Tropo 10" 1.2 net cube per sub tuned to 30hz
Power:
250 amp alternator
60ah AGM under the hood
100ah AGM in rear
2/0 Big 3, fused at alt
2/0 power wire to rear, fused at battery
Amplifiers:
Taramps TS 400x4
Taramps DS 440x4
Taramps Smart 3

Too many speakers. Too many tweeters.

You could likely get an 8 channel dsp but your sound stage is never gonna be right. Coaxials are horrible for this purpose.

Some coaxials have independent inputs for tweeter and mid so you can tune each individually but with your setup that's not possible nor would it be worth the effort.

You system is going to be loud sure enough but the sound stage is going to be rearward and low. On top of having numerous peaks in the response curve.

At best you can use time alignment to pull the sound stage forward and maybe a little bit up. But individual eq on each speaker is going to be hard.

I'd suggest ditching the deci 87.3 coaxials.

 

[Original wis]

Too many speakers. Too many tweeters.

You could likely get an 8 channel dsp but your sound stage is never gonna be right. Coaxials are horrible for this purpose.

Some coaxials have independent inputs for tweeter and mid so you can tune each individually but with your setup that's not possible nor would it be worth the effort.

You system is going to be loud sure enough but the sound stage is going to be rearward and low. On top of having numerous peaks in the response curve.

At best you can use time alignment to pull the sound stage forward and maybe a little bit up. But individual eq on each speaker is going to be hard.

I'd suggest ditching the deci 87.3 coaxials.

I'm disconnecting the Tweeter and just using the midbass. I'll do it as if I were gonna bi amp them and leave them that way. Later on when I upgrade the enclosure to meso or level 3's I can always reconnect if needed.

I actually thought about not connecting the ones in the sail panels and seeing how the ones in the 87.3 sound without them.

 

[Original wis]

After thinking about it that's exactly what I'm going to do I'm going to leave the ones in the sail panel disconnected and use the six and a half mid basd and 87.3 as my front stage. At least as a starting point.

That will free up two channels on the DSP that I can use for rear fill or sub channels

 

[Jimi77 5,000+ posts]

Imaging nightmare - way too many speakers to get the system sounding right. You need one pair of midbass drivers in the front, one set of tweeters in the front. The rear speakers should be run only as rear fill at a lower output level.

 

[Original wis]

I'm beginning to think that the outcome that I'm aiming for isn't the same as everyone else's.

My first goal is for this to be loud. Not just normal daily driver loud, but obnoxiously loud. Like shake your home foundation before I turn the corner loud.

My guess is that once you move above a certain SPL level, it's going to be very difficult to hear the nuanced impurities whether you have trained ears or not. And I'm pretty sure that my ears are grossly untrained.

There's been a few times when I didn't have rear speakers, even with sound systems, and I hated it. I couldn't wait to save enough money to get them.

I like to be able to adjust the system while I'm cruising. I've had a bunch of seven band or 13 band EQ's and I know what they do and what they don't do. So that's definitely staying.

You guys have given me loads of information about how a DSP works and what the expected intent for it is and I truly appreciate it. All of you are awesome for taking the time to respond to my post and giving me valuable information that I can use moving forward.

But I'm probably going to do something different with it. Rather than change the plans for the system that I plan on putting in my car, I'm going to use it to enhance the system to the best of it's capabilities. It's not going to be perfect. But over time I'll play with it, see how it works. I understand the value of having one and it's legit, so I'm gonna use it.

I even looked up information on a couple of things that we didn't discuss in this thread like beaming and comb filtering. And figured out how phase shifting actually works. It's pretty awesome when you know the basis for it.

So I'm going to install everything, make sure that it works, and see what happens.

If it sounds like ass, I'll give you guys an honest look the results. I'll do the work, graph the responses, screenshot them, and upload them as part of the post.

That way everyone in the know and everyone who needs to learn will have a set of data compiled by an inexperienced person that can be compared to the optimal data set that you guys are describing. And you can say "see I told you so", we'll all laugh about it, and I'll keep working to correct it. Because I honestly don't think it's one way or the other I think it's somewhere in the middle.

 

[winkychevelle 10+ year member]

I'm beginning to think that the outcome that I'm aiming for isn't the same as everyone else's.

My first goal is for this to be loud. Not just normal daily driver loud, but obnoxiously loud. Like shake your home foundation before I turn the corner loud.

My guess is that once you move above a certain SPL level, it's going to be very difficult to hear the nuanced impurities whether you have trained ears or not. And I'm pretty sure that my ears are grossly untrained.

There's been a few times when I didn't have rear speakers, even with sound systems, and I hated it. I couldn't wait to save enough money to get them.

I like to be able to adjust the system while I'm cruising. I've had a bunch of seven band or 13 band EQ's and I know what they do and what they don't do. So that's definitely staying.

You guys have given me loads of information about how a DSP works and what the expected intent for it is and I truly appreciate it. All of you are awesome for taking the time to respond to my post and giving me valuable information that I can use moving forward.

But I'm probably going to do something different with it. Rather than change the plans for the system that I plan on putting in my car, I'm going to use it to enhance the system to the best of it's capabilities. It's not going to be perfect. But over time I'll play with it, see how it works. I understand the value of having one and it's legit, so I'm gonna use it.

I even looked up information on a couple of things that we didn't discuss in this thread like beaming and comb filtering. And figured out how phase shifting actually works. It's pretty awesome when you know the basis for it.

So I'm going to install everything, make sure that it works, and see what happens.

If it sounds like ass, I'll give you guys an honest look the results. I'll do the work, graph the responses, screenshot them, and upload them as part of the post.

That way everyone in the know and everyone who needs to learn will have a set of data compiled by an inexperienced person that can be compared to the optimal data set that you guys are describing. And you can say "see I told you so", we'll all laugh about it, and I'll keep working to correct it. Because I honestly don't think it's one way or the other I think it's somewhere in the middle.

Basically you just need the dsp to be a crossover and eq. The advanced techniques aren't gonna do you much good

 

[Original wis]

Basically you just need the dsp to be a crossover and eq. The advanced techniques aren't gonna do you much good

You're probably right but I'm not going to listen to it at max volume all the time. I listen to rock, alternative, meta, ska, a little emo, you know what I mean. Cradle of Filth, Garbage, No Doubt, Portishead, Chevelle, 30 Seconds to Mars, Slipknot...I have a little taste beyond bass. It's just that bass is the main course and those are the side dishes.