Time Alignment T/A Delay, etc.

[headless 10+ year member]

t/a on a passive setup does help...you can, if your tweets and woofers are placed close together, get a good, centered stage. If your tweets are far from your woofers, when vocals or sweeps cross the x-over point, the tone or voice can seem to 'wander' as the tweets and woofers trade off.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

Nowadays, with stock locations or easy locations, tweets not close to the mids, tweets in pillars/sails/dash, and mids in the doors, we might have a problem then.

There should be tips or ways to help that "wandering", right?

IIRC, many say that T/A doesn't affect the tweets (2khz+) as much as it does with midrange/bass. (I think that was posted in this thread as well)

Then again, certain passive xover networks have more features/settings than others. Better attenuation settings or whatnot.

Before T/A, were there no such thing as a good stage? what did they use to get a good stage, or help get a good stage w/o T/A?

 

[SSS 18734 5,000+ posts]

My mids and tweets are in the corners of my dashboard. Mid-basses are halfway up the doors.

Since I don't have a mic or any kind of tuning equipment, I just adjust by ear. My Eclipse 8455 lets you adjust each speaker by the millisecond. I've found that as you adjust it, the sound stage "moves" across the dash. The mids are by far the most sensitive, so I adjust those until I hear them coming from the center of the dash and then adjust the tweeters to the same level, since they are right next to each other. The tweeters are crossed over at 4khz, but T/A does make a slightly audible difference on them as well.

As for the midbasses, I can't notice any audible difference with T/A (probably due to their very narrow frequency range), so I've just left them equaled.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

a 3-way frontstage +sub with a 3way xover network single din HU?

anyhow, have you checked how your tweets sound/image with the midranges off? Since you just adjusted them according to the midranges, and you noticed that midranges are affect much more, they setting for the midrange might not be ideal for the tweets.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

How about you mofos with bi-ampable comp sets.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

So with the traditional non-bi-amppassive network, you only have two channels to work with, right and left.

So wth can you do to try and get decent imaging? (After all the correct phasing goodies are done of course)

Since as stated above/earlier, you'll notice the changes in the midrange more than the tweets, so lets start with the mids. Mids only and tweets disconnected. If there isn't too much of a level difference, you can jump straight to adjusting the T/A. If the left is noticably louder than the right, which is usually the case, then you can adjust the balance to get them leveled. Then T/A to your desired location.

Now for the tweets. Since this post is about passives, the T/A adjustment done in the previous step also applies to the tweets. Therefore, its probably best to not adjust T/A anymore. Instead, we'll adjust the amplitude to get the tweets centered, or wherever you'd like them. The only way to try and get this right is using the amplitude/attenuation settings/jumpers on the passive xover. In most cases, you'd either need to attenuate the left side or boost the right side or both.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

Cliffs?

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

F U and your 880/800prs, 9833, 9835, 9855, 9887, cd7000, cd7200mkii, h701, deh-p860mp, deh-p980mp, ural concerts, and P9s. Bit@h.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

Next step up is bi-amping that will open more capabilities to get better staging.

But how?

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

Bump that staging and imaging crap. I just want it loud and clear.

Yo

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

F U and your 880/800prs, 9833, 9835, 9855, 9887, cd7000, cd7200mkii, h701, deh-p860mp, deh-p980mp, ural concerts, and P9s. Bit@h.

You forgot 8053's //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

Bump that staging and imaging crap. I just want it loud and clear.
Yo

frequencies above 1k are not dominated by the phase difference we get with timing irregularities in regards to imaging. Since amplitude differences are the key biamping allows you to adjust the levels of the tweets in relations to the mids easier as well as the levels of each tweet vs the other tweeter. You can also time align each tweet seperately, but that's honest not the biggest factor for tweeters although if the tweets are placed far apart from the mid it may help.

 

[MegaloJntariac 10+ year member]

I like to put my speakers 6" close together as possible. Ambiophonics ftw!

 

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

F U and your 880/800prs, 9833, 9835, 9855, 9887, cd7000, cd7200mkii, h701, deh-p860mp, deh-p980mp, ural concerts, and P9s. Bit@h.

You forgot PRA-H400.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

Next step up is bi-amping that will open more capabilities to get better staging.
But how?

Bi-amping and T/A. It's kind of a funny combo, because if you have a deck capable of T/A, then it most likely has a 3-way xover network.

Anywho, some might still do so. It's a little step up from the traditional passive network at least.

After bi-amping, you can now T/A the mids without having the T/A setting affect the tweets. And now the tweets can be T/A separately. Also, if you have individual levels/gains for each channel, then that's even better, as you can adjust the amplitude of each individual speaker. Almost like being active, but you just don't have control of all the xover points.

Next step is going fully active. omg active.