MY MS-8 review

LosIsATool
5,000+ posts

CarAudio.com Veteran
Review of: JBL MS-8

I've had this in for about 4 weeks now. As of yesterday its tuned, yes it took 4 weeks.

You see a lot of stories about how the MS-8 worked wonders, better than software based processors right out of the box. You also see post about how the MS-8 didn't work for them.

I was one of the it didn't work for people.

It almost cost me $500 for an HO alternator, I knew I wouldn't need one for what I'm going for but I was having bad voltage drop.

I found out why- When you calibrate the MS-8 it runs a sweep and EQs to build the Harmon curve(my preferred curve ). It has to hear each speaker. With the Harmon curve the sub is about 6db hot to the midrange. I guess it wasn't hearing the sub enough so it BOOSTED it a lot. That caused my M1 to go into heavy clipping, get the sub very warm, and drop voltage into the 12s. It was very bass heavy at low volume also. It just didn't sound right and the exact opposite of what other users experienced.

How I fixed it- During calibration I turned the gain on the M1 all the way up, this helped it hear the sub in turn not boosting it. After calibration I dialed the gain back to a good blending volume. No more voltage issues, stays above 14v at idle full tilt.

Issue #2- Still haven't found out why it did this. It BOOSTED 400hz to the point I had to back the manual EQ at 400hz all the way down to -10db. I kept listening to the same area of a song over and over till I found the right frequency.

One big props- Sound stage is spot on. There is a song where the trumpet is 10 feet away during recording and the singer is up front, you can see that. A song where a symbol is out the driver window, you can se that.

Now the bass is right, it rumbles when it supposed to, kicks when it supposed to, blends perfect with the mid range, not there when its not there.

Mid bass is very solid, sound stage is very solid. Highs are crisp and clean. Vocals are realistic

This is what others have out the box. It took a lot of work, if I didn't have to tune is 20 minute sessions I could have gotten it much faster.

Judging by how it is right now its a winner, at first I wanted to pull it out and get a bit 10. The onboard amp on the rear fill it very helpful to get that 7.1. There is a big difference when logic is on and off. Much better with Logic on.

If you have any questions ask. I think I'm a MS-8 expert now

 
Why did it take that long to tune it when your issue was just too much bass/ 400hz boost.
Not accusing, just curious on what steps you took over time.
It's hard to do while driving. I can't tune at home. I didn't know how to get the bass down. I didn't think it would boost 1 frequency for no reason so I kept trying different stuff to get it down. I thought it was boosting a higher frequency.

 
Noloud do u have ur speakers amped too, did u set gains 1st and run ur sweeps and left them alone?

 
Noloud do u have ur speakers amped too, did u set gains 1st and run ur sweeps and left them alone?
Everything is in sig. I tried it with gains set around 2v and gains at minimum. Got the best results with gains set first. Except the sub

 
Ok I've been going with the 2v gain on the measurements Happy with the way it sounds I had midbass problems but fixed that with sticking with the 80 crossover lowering the gain on the sub and setting the sub lowpass to ~120ish maybe lower. But i can't seem to get loud without distortion any tips?

 
Ok I've been going with the 2v gain on the measurements Happy with the way it sounds I had midbass problems but fixed that with sticking with the 80 crossover lowering the gain on the sub and setting the sub lowpass to ~120ish maybe lower. But i can't seem to get loud without distortion any tips?

If you set the mids crossover to 80 it sets the subs crossover there also. Is it distorting everywhere or just one frequency? Mine was bad at 400hz. I had to drop the Eq there all the way down. Still don't know why it boosted it so much.

If it's everywhere you just have the gains to high.

Or the HU is clipping

Or the MS-8 volume to high.

It's that right combo you have to find. It would be much easier on a aftermarket HU.

 
Yea I figured just more trial and error. I'm thinking I need to find a super quiet spot to do it. I hear birds chirping and cars driving by people talking I feel like that effects it results. The distortion is in the Tweeters. Mainly on "In For The Kill" By La Roux (Skream's Lets's get Ravey remix). I sounded like crap on my last setup but I like it so I've been trying to get that song to play perfectly Loud It's the highs it seems. But then every couple of tries It will completely cut out some midbass. I use "Blue" By Gemini as my first song to see how everything sounds I feel like it has a good range of sounds and I know it well if the MS-8 passes the Blue test I move to In for the kill rinse and repeat I just need to find the sweet spot of loud and clear. I have the gain on the mids and on the tweeters set to about 10 o'clock. Iv'e heard it louder than I'm getting it without distortion but at that time my Midbass was bad so I had to re configure If i keep getting the same problem I'll try to mess with the EQ in the highs and go from there.

My factory head unit ***** because it has a safety feature that kind of muffles the sound past ~3/4 volume so that has to be my max I haven't done much in terms of messing with the MS-8 volume or EQ's I guess that's my next step

 
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LosIsATool

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