skylin4
Junior Member
Short Version:
In my particular case, hearing loss means I cannot hear above 16k Hz. What are some reasonable ways for me to tune my sound system so it is pleasant to others riding in my car instead of just me?
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Long Version:
The other week my girlfriend mentioned that she hates my speakers because they are shrill and give her a headache. I have also been annoyed by shrill speakers before, but I never noticed it in my car and I knew nothing about audio so I started looking into what could be causing it. At that time I had a cheap android radio on default settings, Rocket Player running the default "rock" equalizer, an Alpine MRV-F300 amp, and stock speakers. I started reading, found this forum, and realized how enormously stupid I was when I originally set this up in many many regards.
For your amusement:
-I thought fronts and rears were full range and should be treated like earbuds and that the tweeters were just something the car used to warn me when my keys were still in the ignition.
-The amp gains were set to default, its filtering abilities turned off, and idiot me even had the speakers plugged into the wrong slots so the front-left and right-rear were tied together, and vice versa.
-I also used the equalizer on the amp, radio, and player simultaneously, and tried to keep all 4 speakers at around the same level.
Since then I have:
-Activated the low-pass filter for the rears with a crossover of 400Hz so the rears don't try to drive the song.
-Recalibrated my gain settings (including the preamp) on the player, radio, and amp.
-Turned off the amp and radio equalizers and focused on the Rocket Player equalizer
-Learned about my speakers, amp, radio, and their capabilities. (the car is an '01 Celica GT btw)
Now even calling me an amateur when it comes to audio would be generous at this point but I do have an engineering background so sensors and data acquisition have been in the back of my mind throughout this process, and it came to a head when I found the Frequency Spectrum chart in the references section of this forum. I realized that the highest bands of sound were outside of my hearing range, were driven by tweeters who have a reputation for being overly harsh, and were likely the tones that were aggravating my girlfriend's ears. I confirmed using a tone generator and headphones (at their lowest setting) that I cannot hear any tones above 16k Hz, but most people my age can typically hear 18k-20k.
So ultimately my question is this: how do I calibrate sound for a spectrum that I cannot hear? Can I use spectrum analyzers on my phone for that, or would it be too inaccurate/need calibration first? What is the target dB that I should aim for in the higher frequencies? Or in general, what does an ideal frequency spectrum output look like for a sound system that typically plays rock, pop, and podcasts?
Thanks guys, this forum has had a lot of extremely useful information and I am very glad I found it. It makes me sad I didn't pay closer attention in my experimentation class because after learning all this I'm sure it would have been much more interesting.
Also, feel free to critique the changes I have made or suggest further changes I should make. I'm considering buying new speakers for the fronts, but I would love to just take advantage of the capability I have because I'm sure its underutilized.
In my particular case, hearing loss means I cannot hear above 16k Hz. What are some reasonable ways for me to tune my sound system so it is pleasant to others riding in my car instead of just me?
---------------
Long Version:
The other week my girlfriend mentioned that she hates my speakers because they are shrill and give her a headache. I have also been annoyed by shrill speakers before, but I never noticed it in my car and I knew nothing about audio so I started looking into what could be causing it. At that time I had a cheap android radio on default settings, Rocket Player running the default "rock" equalizer, an Alpine MRV-F300 amp, and stock speakers. I started reading, found this forum, and realized how enormously stupid I was when I originally set this up in many many regards.
For your amusement:
-I thought fronts and rears were full range and should be treated like earbuds and that the tweeters were just something the car used to warn me when my keys were still in the ignition.
-The amp gains were set to default, its filtering abilities turned off, and idiot me even had the speakers plugged into the wrong slots so the front-left and right-rear were tied together, and vice versa.
-I also used the equalizer on the amp, radio, and player simultaneously, and tried to keep all 4 speakers at around the same level.
Since then I have:
-Activated the low-pass filter for the rears with a crossover of 400Hz so the rears don't try to drive the song.
-Recalibrated my gain settings (including the preamp) on the player, radio, and amp.
-Turned off the amp and radio equalizers and focused on the Rocket Player equalizer
-Learned about my speakers, amp, radio, and their capabilities. (the car is an '01 Celica GT btw)
Now even calling me an amateur when it comes to audio would be generous at this point but I do have an engineering background so sensors and data acquisition have been in the back of my mind throughout this process, and it came to a head when I found the Frequency Spectrum chart in the references section of this forum. I realized that the highest bands of sound were outside of my hearing range, were driven by tweeters who have a reputation for being overly harsh, and were likely the tones that were aggravating my girlfriend's ears. I confirmed using a tone generator and headphones (at their lowest setting) that I cannot hear any tones above 16k Hz, but most people my age can typically hear 18k-20k.
So ultimately my question is this: how do I calibrate sound for a spectrum that I cannot hear? Can I use spectrum analyzers on my phone for that, or would it be too inaccurate/need calibration first? What is the target dB that I should aim for in the higher frequencies? Or in general, what does an ideal frequency spectrum output look like for a sound system that typically plays rock, pop, and podcasts?
Thanks guys, this forum has had a lot of extremely useful information and I am very glad I found it. It makes me sad I didn't pay closer attention in my experimentation class because after learning all this I'm sure it would have been much more interesting.
Also, feel free to critique the changes I have made or suggest further changes I should make. I'm considering buying new speakers for the fronts, but I would love to just take advantage of the capability I have because I'm sure its underutilized.
