mm6501 back in business

cadenceclipse

:DFinally got some Polks bak in my ride. just scooped the MM6501s. running off my A4 should be getting, oh, about their rms rating.

First thing I noticed(besides how light they are due to their neo magnet, and how nice they look) was their width which I really appreciated. That and warmth and not too much harshness from the tweets, which I was fearing a bit, even with tweeter non-attentuated (0db, not-3)

kinda hung up on the break-in period a bit it seems. trying to keep em down but its hard especially on highway, in the heat, etc. I seem to be keeping the crossover up which makes them sound cleaner, especially the highs. Going from the eclipses, and from what ive read here, I was expecting to be able to keep crossover lower but so far no luck. Im hoping after the "break-in" period they will handle the lows better. currently have them at 125hz @24db. I know, high, just like before if you remember, but they sure are cleaner, nicer sounding. I also put them at 63hz but I can tell theres something they dont like. 100hz works well but still something, so ive been playing between 63 and 125, trying to keep em higher least till they break in.

with the high sensitivity rating(from 85db to 95) and going from 75w to 125w I was expecting louder. maybe break-in comes to play again..

I gotta be at at least 10-15hrs by now im thinking. should I have kept a log book

Its good to be back:D

Probably heard eclipse out of business..check out that pioneer p99rs?? damn:eek:

arun1963

DSkip wrote: »

I have to ask if that gain is set right. You shouldn't be having that much issue with a 6.5 inch driver. If they are set right they should be able to handle 63 hz with ease.

pr

cadenceclipse

DSkip wrote: »

I have to ask if that gain is set right. You shouldn't be having that much issue with a 6.5 inch driver. If they are set right they should be able to handle 63 hz with ease.

gain is alllll the way down to 9v. HU puts out 8v, was thinking about raising gain.. As far as "rite", i did not use a pink noise, sine wave and all those other tools i wish i had access to.

Arun, thank you, thank you, and no, no:o:( still running polks and sub off 4channel. Less is more,.. you mean, lower freq on HP/subsonic + up gains??
Ok so your not saying I have to be active, rite? i MEAN KINDA LIKE i SAID i CAN PLAY THEM AT 63..OOps..but just not with the clarity. they definetly put off more bass and nice quality bass, but..u know, something else..tried to eq..think I should do what Mac just mentioned and turn up amp xover:rolleyes:(that means thinking to me, not sarcastic)

TakeTheTime

Seriously? Even my 5.25" (SR) driver handles 63hz easily. Something's not right here...

cadenceclipse

TakeTheTime wrote: »

Seriously? Even my 5.25" (SR) driver handles 63hz easily. Something's not right here...

Seriously.. Lets see if we can figure something out. Thanks for helping fellas.

How do most people set gains? turn it up til it distorts? Like I said wish I had an RTA or whatever..I didnt touch gains yet. Had them at 9v with eclipses previous speakers and both sets are/were getting their recommended rms, hence setting amp at HUs output plus I figure amps are underated which is why 9v(which seems to work except for the fact I think i'd like them louder, well, lets not get too far, that was the case with eclipses..still holding out on polks, no where near giving up yet). I dont know if their sensitivity rating comes in to play here (ie. lower sensitivity=up the gain, higher=lower the gain) but it seems not so, unless by some chance, which I stil am crossing my fingers for, they will break in and I will be able to crank them muahaha!

By clarity i suppose I thought distortion would be a good description but wow now that u mention it..mudiness in the midrange sounds more precise if I can recall. alrite your 3rd paragraph got me jealous.

They are just cleaner. as far as better, they actually are better in the upper range for some reason, i figure b/c im focusing more sound there instead of lower..like the opposite of what arun says about lower subsonic=up your gains. hmm by hate and suckers U refering to my MMs? their a bit brite. think im fixing that though..help me..think were almost there:o

cadenceclipse

ok, subs. well u tell me, amps xover is alll the way down and HU is on PASS. wish i had more filtering but sub isnt really overpowering now. kinda wanna concentrate on MMs now..

hhhmm, yeah i wish 50hz. HU goes down to 63Hz. gains dont look like their going anywhere anytime soon, atleast til they breakin. your telling me lowering to 50 will make my MMs sound better, doesnt sound very convincing. whats up with muddiness? what does that tel us?

cadenceclipse

sound deadened kick panels. its not them. I said i do have trust in them. also said sub filter is on PASS, just amp turned down to about 56hz, 24db. I know your trying to help and u dont know my experience. its obvious thank you

TakeTheTime

DSkip wrote: »

I can't comment on a speaker to speaker comparison in any single line, but I can tell you my SR 5250 is MUCH cleaner and detailed than the MMC6500, while the 6500 produced midbass that I'm just not going to get out of the 5250.

I'm just curious (tuning some now), how low do you cross your SR5250's?
I use 63hz with 18db's/octave now, but I find the slope a little shallow -
in order to really crank it loud. However I think the midbass is excellent!

arun1963

cadenceclipse wrote: »

Seriously.. Lets see if we can figure something out. Thanks for helping fellas. How do most people set gains?

You do it like Skip tells you below. Just cause your HU puts out an 8v signal doesn't mean you have to set your gains to 9v. My hu puts out a 5v signal and my gains would be around the 2.75v mark. If you do it Skips way you may find that around the noon position i.e. 4.5-5v is good on the gain dial.

DSkip wrote: »

Easiest way is to turn your gain all the way down. Raise your HU to 80% volume, then slowly raise your gain until it begins to distort. Once you reach that point, back off a little bit. Once you get the system tuned (its generally easier to focus on lowering the overpowering frequencies than raising all the others to match), you shouldn't have any worries about "cranking" it up and blowing something.

Forgot to mention, before you set the gains, lower your crossover to 63 @ -24db and use that as your reference, not 125 hz. With that, you should get everything correctly balanced and fill in that hole in your sound. You won't know what you're missing til you hear it

Thats how you do it. Remember to set xover to 63hz at the hu and bypass xover at the amp. Important stuff marked in bold. Get the amp fixed so you can go active. I'm sure in active mode your hu will let you xover at 50hz.

cadenceclipse wrote: »

..mudiness in the midrange sounds more precise....whats up with muddiness?.... what does that tel us?..... ok, subs. well u tell me, amps xover is alll the way down and HU is on PASS.......HU goes down to 63Hz. .........sub amp turned down to about 56hz, 24db.

You have your sub bypassed at the hu. At the amp you have the dial all the way down. This mans your sub is on a 12-18db slope (whatever is the default slope on your amp) and is cut off around 30hz. Hence its rolling off (losing its impact) around 70hz. Your mids are not kicking in till 125hz. Hence you have a hole between 70-125hz. Thats what skip is telling you. By pass sub at the amp, set sub LPF at 63hz on the highest slope 24-30db and set your mid HPF at 63hz again at around 24db. By pass all xovers at the amps. Now bring your gains down to 12 o'clock. TRY THIS


Now give us your TA and eq settings.

The advantage of having gone through a three page thread with you is that now I'm better at picking out the relevant issues from your posts and not getting distracted by the 'other' stuff. lol.

arun1963

TakeTheTime wrote: »

I'm just curious (tuning some now), how low do you cross your SR5250's?
I use 63hz with 18db's/octave now, but I find the slope a little shallow -
in order to really crank it loud. However I think the midbass is excellent!

For the sub to mid xover point, I keep the slopes really sharp. At the hu, the xover point is 50hz. The sub is on a 36db slope and the mid at 24db. I have a default lpf on the mono amp, so I have have to set the dial somewhere. I've set it at around 60hz, just to get an extra 12db/oct filtering beyond 60hz. I don't want the sub located.

I have the mids on a sharp slope as that keeps the mid bass clean. Shallow slopes here, take the snap out of the mid bass. You can get a nice blend between the sub and the mids by using your TA and just a bit of level matching.

This is because frequencies in this range are more sensitive to phase rather than intensity. So as long as your TA is spot on, you can get by with the sharp roll offs in intensity of the steeper slopes. You're basically level matching just for the drivers capability, some left right issues and for balancing the transition of a note that goes from say 30-80 hz. The note should sound like its coming from one speaker (although its going thru two) and hence no noticeable dips and peaks in intensity.

TakeTheTime

Yeah, I find 50hz the best spot too. But 63/80hz if I want to REALLY crank it loud. Thanks Arun, great post.

cadenceclipse

that was rhetorically speaking about setting gains. Sub has no filtering except for bandpass on amp turned all the way down to 56hzat 12db plus subsonic. I have MMs at 63hz at 24db and I like it and gotta say thanks for giving me the confidence to try it and trust it. i believe EQ helped but maybe needs more help because highs are still a bit bright..

TA=2.9ms for components and 8"sub, mounted in dash. 0.0ms setup up for 12". raise driver side component to 3.0ms(slight difference i know but only way that currently works) when its only me

eq-100hz= -2db, 200hz=-3db, 400hz=-4db, 800hz=-6db, 2khz=-8db, 4khz=-10db, 16khz=between -5 and -8 depending on cd. plus maybe some slight changes in the lower bands a bit.

arun1963

cadenceclipse wrote: »

TA=2.9ms for components and 8"sub, mounted in dash. 0.0ms setup up for 12". raise driver side component to 3.0ms(slight difference i know but only way that currently works) when its only me

eq-100hz= -2db, 200hz=-3db, 400hz=-4db, 800hz=-6db, 2khz=-8db, 4khz=-10db, 16khz=between -5 and -8 depending on cd. plus maybe some slight changes in the lower bands a bit.

Set the sub and mid to 63hz from the hu and bypass the sub at the amp, cut the bass boost while you're at it. C'mon c'mon, I know you can do it, don't listen to what your mind is telling you...stretch a bit and 'just do it' . Sub on the highest slope and mid at 24db.

When you TA you set your Furthest speaker to 0. For most people the sub is in the boot and hence the furthest. That is why most people have sub set to 0. In your case the sub is in the middle of the dash and your far side speakers are the furthest. Hence the MM on the passenger side need to be set to 0. Measure the sub and the near mid from your normal seating postion and enter that. Use the table in your owners manual to convert the inches into m/s.

On your passive xover set the tweeter attenuation to -3db. Now on your eq bring 4khz and 16khz up a bit. Bring 100hz and 400hz up a bit. You;ll have to do this bit by ear. See what sounds good to your ears.

DSkip wrote: »

Biamping would also help (it doesn't sound like you can do that either) in controlling the tweeters. Without this, it will be highly difficult to get the TA correct since the tweets and woofers are using the same delay at different lengths.

With all this said, I was fine w/out TA for a LONG time, up until I heard a quality 2 channel setup. It wasn't until then that I realized what I was missing.

Yes active is the best. Specially with the HU that he's running. You really need to get that amp repaired buddy. Even a passive bi-amp would be better than just plain jane, passive .

95% of TA is for the frequencies that the sub and mids play. The ability to TA your tweets brings greater clarity and definition to your image and helps in raising the stage. But not everyone gets that finicky. I know you would if you had the option . But if you can get your sub/mids TA spot on you've covered like 90% of the ground.

DSkip wrote: »

When I get a new car, I will be looking for an Infiniti Q45. ...... Its still a blast to listen to them with the car off.

Nice choice. You sure you want to replace the stock stereo in the Q45? It's an 8 speaker Bose affair after all.....:D

If you are listening to the car stereo with the engine off, then you've crossed over to the dark side and there is no redemption now.........windows up or down?

cadenceclipse

Thank you! attenuate tweets to -3 u say?? interesting! i like the sound of that..

I keep my non existent 12 at o.oms. but thank you. might download that maual but dont think i can get any better without biamping..

sheesh i gotta get my titanium back in business now!

catch22atplay

By looking at your EQ settings yes -3db on the tweets would really help you. But you really need to set those amp gains correctly still. I'd set the gains to 6v if it was me. I think you'd get way better results.

I've also noticed a huge difference between speaker cables. I personally use Tara Labs for speaker cables. Love thier stuff, especially the low end to mid grade lines. God anything but Monster cable. Never heard anything by Monster that didn't suck badly. Monster being especially bad in the mid range area. Make sure the the wire gauge is beefy enough. Same wire gauge from amp to crossovers and speakers.

RCA cables i'm not sure of. I guess amps have balanced inputs now. But the HU doesn't have balanced outputs? So what are you supposed to use? I'd guess balanced as the amp can compare the signal on it's end. But i don't know for sure. I actually need to know this as i have zero balanced cables currently. For normal unbalanced cables i tried many brands in the past to include Tara Labs. Wasn't happy with any of them for vehicle use. Amazingly i bought some cheap arse Kenwood rca cables and they beat everything else by a landslide. I was shocked. The fattest rca cables i've ever seen and has separate grounds at each end.

Sorry Cadence. i'm rambling a bit here and you probably already know most of this.

So what's the correct type of rca's needed from head unit to an amp with balanced inputs? Anyone pipe in please.

And i agree Arun and Aaron both give excellent advice that should be greatly considered.

Ah sound deadening you say Skip. UPS just came in today with some Second skin, Damplifier pro. I hope this stuff doesn't fall off like some do. I've never used any in the past. But have heard of issues with some products.

arun1963

DSkip wrote: »

Arun, if you are talking about my setup, I have the tweeters running off the HU, the mids running off the amps fronts, and the subs off the amps rears. I would LOVE to get that amp fixed and feed the SR104 the power it can handle, but money is tight..

My bad. I was talking to Cadence there. He has an amp thats been out for a while as well.

DSkip wrote: »

As far as sound though, I can't see a need to do put it on the top of the list either. I'm sure it would sound slightly better, but I'm getting to where I want to be right now. My biggest two issues are sound deadening and those tweets being off-axis..

The highs sound stretched with the tweets off axis. It's very noticeable on female vocals. That is one of the things I could never 'fix' with my eq, when I had them off axis. With the tweets on axis, the highs are a lot more relaxed, open and natural.

Since you can't eq for L/R seperately, bringing them more on axis would help even out some of the L/R level difference in the 5-20khz frequencies. Better balanced highs. You really owe it to your ears to hear these things more on axis. Even if it means putting them in pods and mounting them on double sided tape like I have them right now.

DSkip wrote: »

When I'm running around, I listen with the windows down. When the car is off, its usually later at night with the windows up. That's also when I do the majority of my tuning. I would prefer to have the windows up when I'm going around as it sounds better (fuller sound I guess would be a good description), but it gets too damn hot w/out an A/C.

Windows up would be better for driving around yes, but with the engine off try it with the windows down. You'll reduce a lot of the crosstalk from reflections off the driver and passenger windows, better clarity and wider stage. Try it sometime .

cadenceclipse

i did mess with the tweeter adjustment, actually about the first thing..and i was so wanting 0db that when my ears werent bleeding with volume in the 70s I figured I was good. With my eq down like i stated its actually not too bad now, but im still thinking about it, just dont want to unscrew kick panels(not that bad just a bit lazy now..) i think your right about the rcas..

big news: im such a dumb ****. i know mac, thats not news right? this whole damn time since my sub amp went ive been so out of myself i didnt even think to switch my rear rcas feeding my 8" with the sub rcas to give me, basically, a xover(on HU). boy o boy. was thinking about switching out my 8 with my boys extra eclipse 7200 and was thinking about how i'd cross it and..duh!? so the 8 is staying for the moment, obviously sounds a lot better at 63hz@24db then on PASS, (ha),sheesh

Windows up would be better for driving around yes, but with the engine off try it with the windows down. You'll reduce a lot of the crosstalk from reflections off the driver and passenger windows, better clarity and wider stage. Try it sometime .... Yeah, works well in a really populated neighborhood, especially at night!

arun1963

cadenceclipse wrote: »

.... Yeah, works well in a really populated neighborhood, especially at night!

So don't turn it up to 75/80. It should be great at 45-50. When its done right, the sound is highly focused. It's located at one spot. That's the sweet spot for the drivers seat.

At night with the engine off and no ambient noise, 38-40 / 63 is enough to give great impact inside the car. If I step out and walk like 15-20' from the car its barely audible. Ofcourse this is with the windows down. With the windows up, There's practically nothing beyond 10'.

catch22atplay

If i can't listen to music at 105db min i just turn it off. My ears permanently ring now btw.

cadenceclipse

So don't turn it up to 75/80. It should be great at 45-50. When its done right, the sound is highly focused. It's located at one spot. That's the sweet spot for the drivers seat....
I try not to use that word should. my unit like most eclipses are made to be maxed.

just switched to -3!! shebang!!

arun1963

cadenceclipse wrote: »

I try not to use that word should.......just switched to -3!! shebang!!

Well maybe if you accepted what you 'should' be doing, you'd reach your destination faster. The 'shebang' is validation that you 'should' listen to what we're saying. :)

cadenceclipse

do i seem to b taking a while there arun?? yeah, i feel the same way, well least i did about 6 years ago. its actually all coming together now. we all have a couple destinations, some more important than others. some say its all about the journey., some say its the goal/destination. I say its both..keep your eyes on the prize and your journey will be easier, fullfilling, and worth it.. shebang is actually validation that i 'do' listen(to most), and appreciate the help..

arun1963

It's cool to walk at your pace. Yes, the journey is as important as the destination .