New build installed [2013 Subaru WRX sedan: 2600w RMS] - Need help with some tweaking

[lyons238]

Hello, all. I just finished installing my system and I'm looking to make some improvements. Mainly it seems my component/co-axials are too bright, potentially lacking mid range, or hidden with bass and highs. I will pose some ideas and questions below.

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Vehicle:

- 2013 Subaru Impreza WRX Premium Sedan

Electrical: No voltage drop - solid as a rock (2600 watts RMS)

- DC Power 250 amp alternator

- Big 3 w/ 0g Sky High wiring

- XS Power D3400 under hood

- XS Power XP950 in trunk

- 0g Sky High wire used throughout / 4g used just from rear battery to 4 chan amp

Head unit:

- Pioneer AVH-4000NEX

Front Stage:

- Image Dynamics CTX65cs (front doors - tweeters mounted on A pillars)

- Image Dynamics CTX65 coaxial (rear doors)

- Sundown Audio SAX150.4 amplifier

Sub Stage:

- 12" fi Q subwoofer (fully loaded, except no suspension option)

- Sundown Audio SCV-2000d amplifier

I have sound deadened throughout all 4 doors, around the speakers, as well as in the drunk floor, lid, and deck. Rear deck still raddles on low bass.

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The main problem I have is that the front state sounds too bright and it's not only painful, but it's diminishing the natural sound of the music.

I'm trying to adjust this but my system seems to not want to allow me...since I'm using 2 channels for the front components, and 2 channels for the rear coaxial speakers, I do not have seperate channels to adjust the tweeters crossover, filters, and gain The crossover units in my doors that came with the Image Dynamics speakers do not have any adjustment that I'm aware of.

Lastly, my head unit EQ stops at 12k Hz, which I have no clue why, but I can't adjust the high frequencies.

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What would be the best way to tune this brightness down and get the sound I'm looking for through any other type of adjustment? Here is what I'm thinking...

1. Get an external EQ and mount it somewhere in the car - any thoughts/recommendations?

2. Upgrade my crossovers in my doors so I can increase the crossover frequency going to the tweets so it only plays the high highs.

3. Connect my rear door speakers directly to the HU power, and use the 4 amp channels for the 2 front speakers and tweaters - How would I simply connect the rear speakers to the head unit power?

Any other ideas or comments?

Click to read more...

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

It really sounds like you would benefit from a external DSP. You've got good equipment but have no way of controlling your speakers the way you want. The reason the EQ stops at 12khz is because there isn't much information after that. It would still be nice to have more tweaking options right? That's where a DSP comes in. Right now you're using your stock crossovers that it comes with, and you said it was too bright. Well there's nothing you can do about that unless you take those crossovers out and manually tune it yourself. You can EQ some of it out but many headunits are pretty limited in bands that you can mess with. Another thing is you'll see a lot of SQ guys ditch rear speakers because it actually ruins your front stage. You can hook up the rears with headunit power but I feel it is still a weak link. It just gets in the way. If anything, use the rears as a filler for your front stage if you insist on using it. The real way of telling where you're peaking on your curve is to use a RTA. There's like usb mics you can get for fairly cheap and use a freeware program called REW (Room Equalizer Wizard) and measure your response so then you have a general idea where to start cutting your frequencies at. When you say rear deck rattles, is it from the sub or rear speakers? That place is a common rattle monster for trunk cars. I've had to deal with this on many cars. If you remove your rear speakers completely from rear deck, then it will allow a passage way for the bass to come in and not rattle as much. You're gonna have to deaden inside there too and if the rear deck panel is made of plastic, then you need to add weight to it somehow to tame it.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

How do you like your Fi Q so far? It's a low end monster but doesn't do well with upper notes. I owned the fully loaded Fi Q 12" before too and I had to sell it bc it wasn't musical enough for me. What's your box specs for it?

 

[lyons238]

It really sounds like you would benefit from a external DSP. You've got good equipment but have no way of controlling your speakers the way you want. The reason the EQ stops at 12khz is because there isn't much information after that. It would still be nice to have more tweaking options right? That's where a DSP comes in. Right now you're using your stock crossovers that it comes with, and you said it was too bright. Well there's nothing you can do about that unless you take those crossovers out and manually tune it yourself. You can EQ some of it out but many headunits are pretty limited in bands that you can mess with. Another thing is you'll see a lot of SQ guys ditch rear speakers because it actually ruins your front stage. You can hook up the rears with headunit power but I feel it is still a weak link. It just gets in the way. If anything, use the rears as a filler for your front stage if you insist on using it. The real way of telling where you're peaking on your curve is to use a RTA. There's like usb mics you can get for fairly cheap and use a freeware program called REW (Room Equalizer Wizard) and measure your response so then you have a general idea where to start cutting your frequencies at. When you say rear deck rattles, is it from the sub or rear speakers? That place is a common rattle monster for trunk cars. I've had to deal with this on many cars. If you remove your rear speakers completely from rear deck, then it will allow a passage way for the bass to come in and not rattle as much. You're gonna have to deaden inside there too and if the rear deck panel is made of plastic, then you need to add weight to it somehow to tame it.

Thank you so much for your reply! I appreciate you recongizing the quality of this build and the time and the money that went into it. I will post pictures later. I have a few questions though.

1. What exactly does DSP do? With my application what type of adjustments and tuning will I be able to achieve. What DSP would you recommend for my build? Something good quality but not too expensive as I'm not trying to spend too much more on audio.

2. Do you recommend I use my 4 channel amp for the front components and ditch the existing crossovers or should I buy better crossovers with more tuning ability?

3. If I do want to run the rear speakers (in my rear doors) for fill, whats the best way to power them? Through the HU? How would I hook the speaker wires up to the HU, I kind of forgot, I've never hooked speakers directly to a HU before.

Lastly, my rear deck rattles from my subwoofer in my trunk. I do not have speakers in my rear deck, the rear speakers are in the rear doors. I did use sound deadener in the rear deck, but the rattle is still present with the lows.

Also to your question about the fi Q. I love it. I have it tuned to 32Hz with around 2 net cuft and optimal port area. The thing slams the lows. It plays music, well but some of the highs are lacking. I still have yet to dial in my filters, so I will see if I can get the high end bass to come alive a bit more, but yes I have that same experience :/. I had a 15" AQ HDC3 tuned to like 36Hz and that thing was so musical, it would still slam the lows, and it would zip the highs like a chainsaw through your face, it was amazing. But there's always give and take you know...

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

Thank you so much for your reply! I appreciate you recongizing the quality of this build and the time and the money that went into it. I will post pictures later. I have a few questions though.
1. What exactly does DSP do? With my application what type of adjustments and tuning will I be able to achieve. What DSP would you recommend for my build? Something good quality but not too expensive as I'm not trying to spend too much more on audio.

2. Do you recommend I use my 4 channel amp for the front components and ditch the existing crossovers?

3. If I do want to run the rear speakers (in my rear doors) for fill, whats the best way to power them? Through the HU? How would I hook the speaker wires up to the HU, I kind of forgot, I've never hooked speakers directly to a HU before.

Lastly, my rear deck rattles from my subwoofer in my trunk. I do not have speakers in my rear deck, the rear speakers are in the rear doors. I did use sound deadener in the rear deck, but the rattle is still present with the lows.

Also to your question about the fi Q. I love it. I have it tuned to 32Hz with around 2 net cuft and optimal port area. The thing slams the lows. It plays music, well but some of the highs are lacking. I still have yet to dial in my filters, so I will see if I can get the high end bass to come alive a bit more, but yes I have that same experience :/. I had a 15" AQ HDC3 tuned to like 36Hz and that thing was so musical, it would still slam the lows, and it would zip the highs like a chainsaw through your face, it was amazing. But there's always give and take you know...

1. DSP stands for Digital Signal Processor. You install it after the headunit but before the amps. It basically manipulates your response before it even reaches your amps. One of the biggest benefits is you can run your tweeter and mids active. That means you can control each speaker individually. It does take more time to get right but atleast you can control a lot more things. It can do things like setting various crossover points with different slopes, controlling the volume level of tweeter and mids separately, time alignment, multiband EQ and alot of them come with parametric EQ too for precise tuning. You can control how your sub sounds too to an extent. DSP prices can vary. The well known ones are JBL MS-8, Audison Bit One, rockford 360.3, alpine pxa-h800, Arc Audio PS8, ... these are all very expensive actually.. except the JBL but it's discontinued now so it's starting to become hard to find. Cheaper alternative can be MiniDSP which is getting popular, or a headunit with built in DSP features. Like the Pioneer 80prs, alpine cda-9887, there's a few double din too but i don't remember the model numbers. If you like your headunit tho, just get an external DSP. Gonna have to save up a little if you want the good stuff tho. It's well worth it IMO. I do often see a used 360.3 in the forums here and there. Keep looking and you might find a good price.

2. Yes I do recommend it. If you have filters on your amp, you can try out active but there's a chance you could blow your tweeters if you're not careful. Using a DSP, you just use a computer to tune it so no fiddling with knobs back and forth.

3. If you want to run the rears, you can. I wouldn't waste a 2 channel on it tho cuz you don't want it to overpower your front stage anyway. Headunit power should be adequate enough but fade it out really faint so it doesn't interfere with your imaging up front.

The thing about deadening is that when you make one thing rock solid, the rattles transfers into another weak link and then that weak link becomes into a louder rattle lol. It's a never ending battle with car rattles. Takes a lot of time.

I tried the Fi Q in several different scenarios. Sealed, low tuning high tuning, tuning in between. It really likes low tuning and has a very narrow bandwidth compared to a lot of subs I've heard. It excels in lows tho. It sounds great with rap and music with super low lows but that's about it. Doesn't blend well with upper notes. It's biased on the lows basically. It does get pretty loud for one 12" tho I gotta admit.

 

[lyons238]

1. DSP stands for Digital Signal Processor. You install it after the headunit but before the amps. It basically manipulates your response before it even reaches your amps. One of the biggest benefits is you can run your tweeter and mids active. That means you can control each speaker individually. It does take more time to get right but atleast you can control a lot more things. It can do things like setting various crossover points with different slopes, controlling the volume level of tweeter and mids separately, time alignment, multiband EQ and alot of them come with parametric EQ too for precise tuning. You can control how your sub sounds too to an extent. DSP prices can vary. The well known ones are JBL MS-8, Audison Bit One, rockford 360.3, alpine pxa-h800, Arc Audio PS8, ... these are all very expensive actually.. except the JBL but it's discontinued now so it's starting to become hard to find. Cheaper alternative can be MiniDSP which is getting popular, or a headunit with built in DSP features. Like the Pioneer 80prs, alpine cda-9887, there's a few double din too but i don't remember the model numbers. If you like your headunit tho, just get an external DSP. Gonna have to save up a little if you want the good stuff tho. It's well worth it IMO. I do often see a used 360.3 in the forums here and there. Keep looking and you might find a good price.
2. Yes I do recommend it. If you have filters on your amp, you can try out active but there's a chance you could blow your tweeters if you're not careful. Using a DSP, you just use a computer to tune it so no fiddling with knobs back and forth.

3. If you want to run the rears, you can. I wouldn't waste a 2 channel on it tho cuz you don't want it to overpower your front stage anyway. Headunit power should be adequate enough but fade it out really faint so it doesn't interfere with your imaging up front.

The thing about deadening is that when you make one thing rock solid, the rattles transfers into another weak link and then that weak link becomes into a louder rattle lol. It's a never ending battle with car rattles. Takes a lot of time.

I tried the Fi Q in several different scenarios. Sealed, low tuning high tuning, tuning in between. It really likes low tuning and has a very narrow bandwidth compared to a lot of subs I've heard. It excels in lows tho. It sounds great with rap and music with super low lows but that's about it. Doesn't blend well with upper notes. It's biased on the lows basically. It does get pretty loud for one 12" tho I gotta admit.

How would a DSP allow me to control things like tweeters and mids separate if I keep them hooked up the way they are currently with the stock crossovers?

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

How would a DSP allow me to control things like tweeters and mids separate if I keep them hooked up the way they are currently with the stock crossovers?

You would not have any control of your speakers if you keep your stock crossovers even with a DSP. You will have a crazy amount of EQ bands to play around with but you would be wasting your money if it's for that purpose only. You have to remove the stock crossovers out of the equation completely because it has only one setting. Every car has different acoustics so those crossovers do not account for the environment that it's in. Being able to control your speakers individually will change your imaging up much different than it sounds now. EQ down exactly where you think it's harsh. Changing crossovers to fit your needs. To the way you like it because you made it that way. You get my drift?

 

[lyons238]

You would not have any control of your speakers if you keep your stock crossovers even with a DSP. You will have a crazy amount of EQ bands to play around with but you would be wasting your money if it's for that purpose only. You have to remove the stock crossovers out of the equation completely because it has only one setting. Every car has different acoustics so those crossovers do not account for the environment that it's in. Being able to control your speakers individually will change your imaging up much different than it sounds now. EQ down exactly where you think it's harsh. Changing crossovers to fit your needs. To the way you like it because you made it that way. You get my drift?

so how do i hook up the DSP in relation to all of my speakers? and are you saying i have to get different crossovers ontop of the dsp as well? that way i can adjust the crossover and gain of my tweeters individually and have the dsp for overall EQ/tuning?

what if i powered by rear door speakers off the HU and used my 4 channel to power the tweeters and front speakers? then i could hook the DSP up how> also how do i hook the rear door speakers up to the HU for running off HU power? I've never done that before only run off amps.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

so how do i hook up the DSP in relation to all of my speakers? and are you saying i have to get different crossovers ontop of the dsp as well? that way i can adjust the crossover and gain of my tweeters individually and have the dsp for overall EQ/tuning?
what if i powered by rear door speakers off the HU and used my 4 channel to power the tweeters and front speakers? then i could hook the DSP up how> also how do i hook the rear door speakers up to the HU for running off HU power? I've never done that before only run off amps.

No, you don't have to buy a different crossover set or anything like that. It's all in the unit itself. You would connect a laptop/pc to the DSP and you tune it through that. You can change crossover settings and compare them side by side on the fly. You connect RCA's from your headunit to the DSP, then RCA's to the amps. Each channel will go thru it's own individual speaker. Ch 1&2 for tweeters, 3&4 for front mids, and usually 7&8 for sub. Looking at the back of your headunit, I don't know if you'll be able to retain your rear speakers. Seems like you'll only be able to do a 2 way active front stage + sub. If you really want those rear speakers, then you're gonna have to keep your stock crossovers in. Why don't you mess with your graphic EQ a little and see if you can get some of that harshness away. Maybe try lowering your gains on your 4 ch a little to see if it helps too. Harsh vocals tend to be around 2.5k- 4k. Try 1k also.

 

[lyons238]

No, you don't have to buy a different crossover set or anything like that. It's all in the unit itself. You would connect a laptop/pc to the DSP and you tune it through that. You can change crossover settings and compare them side by side on the fly. You connect RCA's from your headunit to the DSP, then RCA's to the amps. Each channel will go thru it's own individual speaker. Ch 1&2 for tweeters, 3&4 for front mids, and usually 7&8 for sub. Looking at the back of your headunit, I don't know if you'll be able to retain your rear speakers. Seems like you'll only be able to do a 2 way active front stage + sub. If you really want those rear speakers, then you're gonna have to keep your stock crossovers in. Why don't you mess with your graphic EQ a little and see if you can get some of that harshness away. Maybe try lowering your gains on your 4 ch a little to see if it helps too. Harsh vocals tend to be around 2.5k- 4k. Try 1k also.

would you recommend the miniDSP C-DSP 6x8?

I would like to make my front speakers active and run the rears off the HU power, which I thought was possible?

Then use a DSP if necessary.

 

[blazian87 10+ year member]

would you recommend the miniDSP C-DSP 6x8?
I would like to make my front speakers active and run the rears off the HU power, which I thought was possible?

Then use a DSP if necessary.

I've never tried the mini dsp before but I've heard good things about them. I would still do more research before you buy tho. There are a ton of options out there.

With your current headunit, you can probably just use 4 channels with your active front stage and then use the wires from the harness to hook up the rears. It's kinda a hassle honestly and it's not gonna help with your imaging. Though there are some DSP's where you can have like several presets you can save so you can have one without rears running for daily use and one preset for when you have back seat people. From my personal experience, even sitting in the back with rear speakers, it's really annoying. I've never liked it. But I understand tho.. it's a matching set and you already bought em. Might as well use em.

 

[lyons238]

I've never tried the mini dsp before but I've heard good things about them. I would still do more research before you buy tho. There are a ton of options out there.
With your current headunit, you can probably just use 4 channels with your active front stage and then use the wires from the harness to hook up the rears. It's kinda a hassle honestly and it's not gonna help with your imaging. Though there are some DSP's where you can have like several presets you can save so you can have one without rears running for daily use and one preset for when you have back seat people. From my personal experience, even sitting in the back with rear speakers, it's really annoying. I've never liked it. But I understand tho.. it's a matching set and you already bought em. Might as well use em.

i dont think im going to get the mini dsp. im looking at maybe a used version of one of the ones you posted. cant decide though. leaning toward the apline h800

as far as the rear fill, is there any dsp that will allow me to somehow run the rear speakers through the DSP without buying another amp? if there is that would be awesome! otherwise i might have to buy a small 2 channel amp and i will just really filter/eq the rear fill.