Need help setting bass & treble frequencies

[Aurora]

I have an Alpine CDA-9884 hu. Sherwood Amp is 4 x 100 watts with low pass and high pass filters. I have a 3 chambered bandpass sub speaker box. I also have a 7-band EQ mounted in trunk. All 8 speakers in Buick Century are now aftermarket.

Two channels of the amp are set to high pass for the 6 x 9's. And the other two channels are set to low pass for the subs. Only the Alpine hu is powering the 5.25" and tweets. (18 watts rms)

I need someones help setting up the frequencies for the bass and treble. I don't know what is ideal, but have only played around with it. Still would like a pros help on this. Just give me a place to start. Thanks.

The "base center frequency" has 4 settings: 60Hz, 80Hz, 100Hz and 200Hz. I set mine to "80Hz". Can you suggest anything? I did have mine set to 60Hz at first, but have read somewhere that that might be too low.

The "bass bandwidth". There are 4 settings for that. 1-2-3-4. 1 being narrow and 4 being wide. I set mine to "3". It says a wider setting will boost a wide range of frequencies above and below the center frequency. And a narrower setting will boost only frequencies near the center frequency. Can you suggest one over another? Why?

There are 4 settings for "treble center frequency". Those are 10.0 kHz, 12.5 kHz, 15.0 kHz and 17.5 kHz. I set mine to "12.5 kHz". Here again I am not sure what is ideal. When setting from one to another I really couldn't hear any difference.

There is also a "high pass filter" setting. The settings for that range from: off, 80 Hz, 120Hz and 160 Hz. I believe I set mine to "off" since I have an amp. Right?

Since I am using an EQ with my system, then does it really matter how all those other frequencies are set? My manual doesn't mention anything about default settings. So I suppose it all depends on a numbers of things dealing with your system, personal taste, etc. Thanks again for your help with this. I really do appreciate it.

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[eharri3 10+ year member]

I have similar controls on my 9883. I set my bass to about 80 with the widest possible amount of boost you can get. Some people will say you should keep it on the lowest setting with the widest range because the lower frequencies will sound better boosted. I prefer to put it on 80, where we're approaching the sub's cutoff but the component woofers may not be reproducing frequencies so low that strongly yet. Generally you want to boost the trouble frequencies and/or cut the overwhelming ones. If I go 100HZ or above I start to get more of that booming midbass type sound than I really need.

On my treble, people will say the treble frequency emphasis is best at no higher than 12.5K as when you hit 15 and above you're getting so close to the limits of what the human ear can perceive that it's next to impossible to tell the difference. I could swear after listening ALOT that with the emphasis set at 15K I seem to be slightly more able to pick up on the subtle background noises involved in the intricate guitar work in my blues music (plucking of the string and vibration after the finger moves away) that make it seem more real to me. As I move the treble frequency up from 10 to 12.5K to 15 to 17 what I generally find is the following:

At 10K the sound imaging seems to be thrown off: It feels like the singer is MUCH MUCH closer to me than the instruments in situations where I know that probably wouldn't be the case. (How do you think B.B. King would ever manage to stand 5 feet IN FRONT of his guitar while singing and playing?) Between 10K and 12.5K vocals move further away and instrumentals move closer and sound imaging feels better. It feels like a guitar soloist is holding his guitar in front of him and singing rather than that his own instsrument is being played at the back of the stage while he stands in the front. Between 12.5K and 15K, string instruments get a tiny bit more detailed, while sax, trombone, trumpet, etc... gets a little flater. I honestly can tell no difference from 15 to 17.5. Don't know how an EQ affects all this either.

These things have alot to do with personal tasts and types of music you listen to. To better understand things, you are best advised to find charts or tutorials on line pertaining to what types of musical sounds play and which frequency ranges.

This will help you figure out what changes to listen for in the music as you play with the frequency bosts so you can better figure out what settings work for you. Once you read about how sounds in music relate to frequency and then listen and play with the settings again you will be better at telling the difference.

 

[Aurora]

eharri3 thanks for the more detailed explanation than what I got elsewhere. I'm still learning about this subject. I seem to have my frequencies set pretty close to what you mentioned. I had said earlier that I did try the setting 60Hz for the bass. But I had read somewhere that that could be hard on the system (amp, subs). There's no truth to that is there? It was just someones opinion.

My EQ is basically set like the letter U. I set the bass high, the midrange gradually lower, and the treble high. If setting "bass center frequency" to 60 Hz is no problem like trying to obtain frequencies that the system can't produce, is that hard on the amp or subs in any way? If I'm ok there, then I might go ahead and set the bass to 60 Hz and the "bass bandwidth" to 4 (wide) setting. I did notice lower bass doing so, and liked it. So I should be ok there?

The "treble center frequency" I will leave at 12.5 kHz. I do have plenty of highs.

I'm sure I would benefit from doing more research on the subject online. Thanks again for the reply.

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

No, I don't think 60 will hurt as opposed to 80. IMHO what hurts things is the mount of boost itself, not which frequencies are boosted. If your gain is set right and HU bass boost stays on zero you should be fine.

DISCLAIMER: Im also new and still learning.

 

[Aurora]

Sounds good! Good luck on your mission.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/cool.gif.3bcaf8f141236c00f8044d07150e34f7.gif