Help With SQ Tuning

[Elvenking]

I did some further work today. Confirmed polarity was good.....matched amplifier levels and then RL levels for each driver using pink noise and the voice phase track from the IASCA disc. Used the HU's auto EQ feature to get a reasonably close template for flat.....it seems to actually do a very nice job! I need very little tweaking after that to get sound I enjoy quite a lot. I continued to massage staging with TA and L\R level control....the left tweet does have to come down about 1-2db to keep the stage center and the same for the mid...bout 1db. I used some of calebkhill's suggestions from above and they were very helpful. After some back and forth on the settings and various test tracks........I put on Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son....and HOLY S**T does it sound solid as hell! What a song to pick first too...that thing just sounds really...really good. It is nice having the additional power...I can tell it is there. The gains are pretty low on the mids and tweets and it really blends well. I have the LPF on the woof at 100Hz cause I like that for rock and metal tracks...fills in the bottom great...mids are crossed up from there and the mid to tweet xover sits at 4K at the moment. I am yet to getting around to massaging that a bit. It can get tighter I am sure...but boy did it sound incredible so far. All in all about 2 hours or more of tweaking and getting used to an active setup. I am glad I went for it as it wasn't a total nightmare getting excellent sound out of it.

I will be hitting it a little more tomorrow after I test drive it for a bit with a few music sources. I'll get some practice so I can get better at making the adjustments. I like the limited band pink noise tracks too...it can make it easier to focus adjustments. That IASCA disc is pretty well loaded with some good sample tracks.

Ok....off for now. Thanks again all for the help and resources. I'll post more when I get some final adjusting done.

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

I did some further work today. Confirmed polarity was good.....matched amplifier levels and then RL levels for each driver using pink noise and the voice phase track from the IASCA disc. Used the HU's auto EQ feature to get a reasonably close template for flat.....it seems to actually do a very nice job! I need very little tweaking after that to get sound I enjoy quite a lot. I continued to massage staging with TA and L\R level control....the left tweet does have to come down about 1-2db to keep the stage center and the same for the mid...bout 1db. I used some of calebkhill's suggestions from above and they were very helpful. After some back and forth on the settings and various test tracks........I put on Kansas - Carry On My Wayward Son....and HOLY S**T does it sound solid as hell! What a song to pick first too...that thing just sounds really...really good. It is nice having the additional power...I can tell it is there. The gains are pretty low on the mids and tweets and it really blends well. I have the LPF on the woof at 100Hz cause I like that for rock and metal tracks...fills in the bottom great...mids are crossed up from there and the mid to tweet xover sits at 4K at the moment. I am yet to getting around to massaging that a bit. It can get tighter I am sure...but boy did it sound incredible so far. All in all about 2 hours or more of tweaking and getting used to an active setup. I am glad I went for it as it wasn't a total nightmare getting excellent sound out of it.
I will be hitting it a little more tomorrow after I test drive it for a bit with a few music sources. I'll get some practice so I can get better at making the adjustments. I like the limited band pink noise tracks too...it can make it easier to focus adjustments. That IASCA disc is pretty well loaded with some good sample tracks.

Ok....off for now. Thanks again all for the help and resources. I'll post more when I get some final adjusting done.

You have now entered the twilight zone !

After getting used th an active setup, move on to RTA.

Keep us updated

 

[Elvenking]

You have now entered the twilight zone !After getting used th an active setup, move on to RTA.

Keep us updated

Yep...slowly but surely...I'll get myself the understanding that will allow me to tune with a bit more precision. I am beginning to see what I have control over and what is shaping up to be good all-around sound. The one last nagging thing I would like to do is get the mids pitched up and exposed more....having a hard time seeing how I should do that with my door panels. Any suggestions there would probably help.

I also mix and master music on occasion for my own creations...so it is really difficult to draw a line at a great sounding system that is tuned well, and music that might need more boost or cut to my tastes. Does anyone else have this issue? At the very least, bass energy needs to be adjusted...so I find myself at least going into the LPF settings on the 80PRS to give a couple bumps up or down depending on the material. Some recordings...the guys just weren't thinking about much below 60Hz and it can vary greatly. Other ones, there is so much low frequency information that you had better have your bass tones leveled out and even pull them back a little. Am I insane to think that there might need to be adjustments for musical taste? In a quest for the greatest sound quality, I don't want to falsely believe that there will be some state I will get my system in that is just going to make every damned thing I put in it sound spectacular...I'd say that about 90% of stuff is that way, then the other 10% might not be as pro. This just isn't the case right.....I think it is a bit more subjective than that correct?

Hopefully I am making some sense there. Anyway...it is fun getting to know the capabilities of an active setup. I look forward to learning much more and getting a better feel for the adjustments.

 

[Elvenking]

I got a pretty good stage centered up now...sounds pretty tight. I went ahead and measured the distance between my ears and the drivers using a tape measure so that I always have a reference to start from. I am trying hard to hear the effects of the timing....it sounds really tight to me right now and the center has good definition. Two things that helped me the most are mono tracks to really nail center with the IASCA -Imaging (Mono) Track which has a band playing discrete instruments in mono dead down the center and then the Imaging (Reference) Track as well as the limited band versions of the same track. This one has voices all the way left center and right...just put this on repeat. I will always use these...they are fantastic!! Stuff is sounding pretty sweet now. It is also helpful that I can mute any of the drivers to isolate drivers for adjustment...helped a lot for staging. Onward we go. Any helpful tips on timing adjusting manually is greatly appreciated. Maybe I should start with a gross exaggeration of time and then pull in...trying to adjust around close to perfect is tough for the first time around doing this. The system sound really good and super low distortion with virtually no hiss from the on-axis tweet with the zero bits track at high (listenable) volume. So anything you hear is from the recording. Thanks for that tip to keep all three amps. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif I am thankful. I can't stay out of the car. I know that I have never had a system that sounded this good. The cab of my Sentra is now a Rock 'n' Roll chamber of bliss.

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

Spectacular. I love hearing this.
I hate to say get into RTA so soon, but i think you have enough understanding to go ahead. Getting things right with an RTA will make it sound even better.
That aside..

Time alignment.
I now time align with RTA, but when i was doing it by ear was like this. Recommended by @keep_hope_alive;
1. Get a piece of paper and pencil.
2. Tape measure.
3. Set all TA distances to 0.
4. Draw a little diagram with your front stage setup (2 tweets, 2 midrange, 2 midbass) so you can write down numbers next to speakers
4. Measure all left speakers to left ear. Measure all RH speakers to right ear. Write down the distances next to each speaker your diagram.

6. Locate furthest speaker, set to 0.
7. Input the path length difference for other speakers on that side related to the 0 delayed speaker
8. Locate furthest speaker in opposite side. Set 0 delay.
9. Input path length difference fur other speakers on this side related to the furthest speaker on this side.
9. Locate the closest "0 delayed" speaker. Calculate the difference in path length between both 0 delayed speakers and add that delay to all speakers on the side of the closest "0 delayed" speaker.

10. Measure distance between furthest 0 delayed speaker and ear, and distance between ear and sub. Delay all front speakers additionally by this difference in distance.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

as you experiment, take notes of where you are before you make changes. document time alignment, crossovers points and slopes, and EQ. you'll find that you will have something good then want to try something different and if you don't document where you were, you may not get back there - which is frustrating.

i also use Autosound 2000 Disc 102 - it has band-limited pink noise that helps evaluate stage center with each octave - so you can identify if any ranges are not centered.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=9BE5812AB35E1D9E%21373

this track, seven drums across the soundstage, helps with evaluating height across the soundstage and how well your soundstage represents left of center and right of center.

 

[calebkhill 10+ year member]

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=9BE5812AB35E1D9E%21373
this track, seven drums across the soundstage, helps with evaluating height across the soundstage and how well your soundstage represents left of center and right of center.

Very good track.

 

[Elvenking]

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=9BE5812AB35E1D9E%21373
this track, seven drums across the soundstage, helps with evaluating height across the soundstage and how well your soundstage represents left of center and right of center.

Yes...I can see how this might be helpful. Very cool! Copied them over to my player.

I do want to get narrow band with mono pink noise so I will get a hold of those Audiosound 2000 discs too. That will help me a lot with getting the image centered at all freq's.

I was on the way to work this morning and an accident on the freeway gave me more time to enjoy my stereo. Only thing is I am getting a little bit of thermal shutdown on my bridged amp to the mids after some time. I feel under there and it is pretty hot. The amps get too warm for being under the seats now. I mean to do a really proper install of them in the trunk now that I have mapped out the interior and know my options. For now I'll have to run the A/C out the floor vents for now. Mounting suggestions are welcome!!

Gonna remove my door panels too to see what would be involved in getting those mids exposed more. Right now....I see a huge dip between 800-1.2K in the response of the mids probably due to how they are recessed in the door panel and behind a plastic mesh grill that goes over the stock speakers.

Let the work continue....in the meanwhile...it is sounding great and I am going to have a hand at making separate EQ adjustments to L\R with an RTA to get the imaging even tighter. Cheers!

Stephen