Sensitive right ear - what the heck is this!?

TakeTheTime

So here's the thing. I've loved the sound of the Polk Audio SR5250
ever since I got it half a year ago. But now, the past couple of months,
it's something about the midwoofer that is annoying my right ear very often. :mad:

Certain frequencies are cutting straight through my ear and into my brain,
it's very annoying. I can't believe it. What could this be at all?
At first, I thought maybe it was my right ear that had taken some damage,
but when listening to the same songs in my home - the problem isn't there...

The only time any noises is cutting into my brain like that,
is in the car - from the right midwoofer (the SR5250)...



Both woofers are mounted like this in the door ^
(it has some angle upwards, but only vertical)

What could this be!?
It wasn't like this before.

catch22atplay

Not to say it can't be a hardware problem. Because it can very well be. The problem however usually is because the right speaker is more on-axis. So frequencies above 1.2k or so are a lot brighter than the left speaker. Since the left speakers is off-axis you attempt to balance the 2 with an equalizer. But without an eq for each side the right on-axis one will always be bright. This is especially noticeable at least to me with female vocals. Evanscense for example can really bug my right ear at 2k thru 4k. Especially as i EQ boost her piano and the violins. I drove about 500 miles yesterday and i ended up changing the balance more left as time went by. You can try googleing listening fatigue as well. And it's not really limited to certain frequencies. It's more on-axis vs off-axis that creates the initial problem. But there are other factors as well.

At home you usually don't have this problem. You don't have your left speaker facing the tv with the right one positioned directly at you. This is what makes car audio a challenge. Try changing the polarity of the right tweeter and see if it helps. Or change the polarity of the left tweet and redo the EQ. You're looking to reduce the right and or increase the left.

Now for hardware it could be the amp. Not that it's damaged. But if you're using it and increase the volume to exceed 40 watts it can cause clipping and or most importantly increase distortion. The speaker that is more On-Axis perceives distortion a lot more than an off-axis speaker does. Note that you may not actually hear the distortion. But it instead causes listening fatigue. Like most people we hear distortion then back it down a few notches thinking we're ok. No you're not ok as this isn't enough and listening fatigue will still be caused. Solution is to increase watts via a higher watt amp or decrease volume more than a few notches below what you actually hear as distortion.

Anyways those are a few of my thoughts. I'm in the same boat here. There are so many other possibilities as well though. I know for myself and listening to music etc in a car that it's always effected my right ear first. I know this may sound like a pain. But you could swap woofers and see if the right side speaker although being a different speaker still causes this issue. If it does it would confirm listening fatigue. You'd then need to find out if it's the amp not providing enough watts or try phasing and eq or something else.

TakeTheTime

Thanks for a great response. It's true what you're saying, the right woofer is MUCH more on-axis than the left one. And I've thought about that too, but how can it be THAT intense around 1-2khz!? Sometimes I wish I had a HU with stereo EQ - that way I could pinch down a lot on the right side's intense midrange. Maybe I should sell my Alpine 9855r, and buy Pioneer's P88RS-II? Or would you just put the right woofer less on-axis!?

catch22atplay

Male vocals would be that intense at that range. Females from that low to 4k or maybe higher. After i wrote my response i went out to get some lunch. I put my balance at normal position for equal left and right sound. That's usually L+2. Loaded up some Evanscence and turned it up. Right ear causing problems right away. So i decided to try kneeling on my seat facing the rear bumper. This put my left ear on-axis with the right speaker. Sure enough my left ear was now doing the same thing as my right ear was doing.

Yes off-axis vs on-axis can be that intense. It's not limited to Polk. All speakers do this. Putting the right speaker more off-axis would help reducing the intensity. But i'm sure it'll cause other problems. It may effect tonality, imaging, width, depth. Reflections for left and right speakers would be different. So output would be different at same frequencies. Arrival time is effected even more. So i believe you end up creating more problems when trying to fix this one problem.

I think the best answer is individual EQ of each speaker. Along with being able to adjust the output level of each speaker. This is mainly why i'm thinking of going with the Rockford Fosgate 360.2 I downloaded their program to my pc so i can see just how easy it is to work with. It would be perfect for 4 speakers and a sub. Individual controls of TA, output level, EQ, crossover, etc, etc. I'm sure there's other alternatives. But since i have Rockford amps it just seems a no brainer.

Your Alpine 9855r is one badass HU. One of the last great Alpine HU's made. At least that seems to be the consensus. I don't know if switching to a Pioneer unit is the best solution. I had assumed the 9855r had individual eq and TA for each speaker. But it looks like it's individual for each speaker for TA. But EQ is not individual. So maybe keep it and just get an EQ that does have 27 bands or so for each speaker.

catch22atplay

OH update your signature as well. I forgot you swapped to Genesis amps. So rule out distortion causing listening fatigue. Unless your level matching is way off. And i've been saying female vocals and male vocals. Was just using that for reference. Can easily be piano, flute, guitar or any sound obviously.

arun1963

The p-88 is an amazing hu. It would solve your current issue, it would also improve your tonality, imaging and stage by a big margin. Thats what L/R control can yield. This and TA are the two most important tuning features required for good sound in a car environment. Oh and the TA on the p-88 is more precise than that on the alpine. On the alpines the TA is in 0.1ms steps, on the pio you TA in inches/cm but you can adjust in 0.5" steps. That is 0.04ms.

In addition to what catch22 mentioned about on/off axis beyond 1khz, you also have to factor in the beaming of your mids. The 5.25" mids would be beaming around 2.5khz, at this frequency your on axis mid would be much louder than your off axis one.

So hu for hu the pio would be better, but your alpine with a processor would be even better.

TakeTheTime

catch22atplay wrote: »

OH update your signature as well. I forgot you swapped to Genesis amps. So rule out distortion causing listening fatigue. Unless your level matching is way off. And i've been saying female vocals and male vocals. Was just using that for reference. Can easily be piano, flute, guitar or any sound obviously.

It's mostly male voices. Here's an example (sorry bad quality),
but listen to this song on YouTube, the voice at 1:05...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8O-EkjJJhM
"And I tryyyYYyyYYyy to sustain calm...."

That note is just incredibly painfull from the right side,
it's not just a small peak - it's an extremely high note!

So that's around 2.5khz, eh? :rolleyes: But yeah, piano's as well can be like that...

arun1963 wrote: »

The p-88 is an amazing hu. It would solve your current issue, it would also improve your tonality, imaging and stage by a big margin. Thats what L/R control can yield. This and TA are the two most important tuning features required for good sound in a car environment. Oh and the TA on the p-88 is more precise than that on the alpine. On the alpines the TA is in 0.1ms steps, on the pio you TA in inches/cm but you can adjust in 0.5" steps. That is 0.04ms.

In addition to what catch22 mentioned about on/off axis beyond 1khz, you also have to factor in the beaming of your mids. The 5.25" mids would be beaming around 2.5khz, at this frequency your on axis mid would be much louder than your off axis one.

So hu for hu the pio would be better, but your alpine with a processor would be even better.

Yeah okey, I think I'm gonna go for the P88RS-II,
since I don't like to have a lot of seperate processors, etc.

The beaming, you say? SO the main problem is around 2.5khz?
I'm gonna go out try tuning a bit with my 'trusty' Alpine 9855r,
and se what I can do with this. God, I love my HU,
wish I could keep it and live happily with this one.

catch22atplay

OMG that dude has one grating voice. That about drove me nuts. I managed to tone it down by lowering my eq at 2k and 4k. So it's centered in between there somewhere. Ears are most sensitive at between 2k to 4k and is also the freq where the majority of hearing damage occurs. The more i listened to that song the more bands i needed to turn down. I ended up doing this before i gave up 500hz -2, 1k -3, 2k -6, 4k -8. And now my ears need a rest. The solution may be to never listen to that singer again. And i'm totally serious here. Try Fates Warning with John Arch singing. 1st 3 albums btw. He sings in the tenor range appended with a well-developed head voice, not falsetto. Basically like Geoff Tate of Queensrÿche. Very easy on the ears.

arun1963

TakeTheTime wrote: »

The beaming, you say? SO the main problem is around 2.5khz?
I'm gonna go out try tuning a bit with my 'trusty' Alpine 9855r,
and se what I can do with this. God, I love my HU,
wish I could keep it and live happily with this one.

You can't control this without either stereo eq or physically bringing your near mid more on axis. As good as you think the sound is right now, it will only get better with L/R control. Without this, at best your stage would have left and centre stage squished together, the image would be right in front of you. The sound would be jumping around across your stage. As the notes / vocals move across frequencies, some would be louder on the left and some on the right.

L/R control would let you open up the stage and get your sound real still with good balance and impact. Your centre stage and the mouth should image up near your rear view mirror. That way left and right stage have equal space and hence more lifelike reproduction.

catch22atplay

Fates Warning - Prelude to ruin. See if that bugs your ears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEed3WV37I&feature=related

Queensryche - Silent Lucidity. Even more mellow on the ears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3QSkux3vcQ

Tell me if that solves the problem. 2 bucks from itunes. gogo.

Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun. Now this one bugs my ear a little bit. And no offense Arun. I have no idea what this guy is saying nor what language. But it's amusing. So added for comedic relief. Hey, and the WoW Drenai dance is based on this guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bAN7Ts0xBo

TakeTheTime

Yeah, the P88RS-II is on it's way the upcomming thursday. I heard it also has stereo crossover, not only stereo EQ?

I was out trying different things now, I tried different things with the Parametric EQ, TA and even switching + and - at the tweeters to check phase. I used "Catatonic Coma" by Aspera (actually a great song!) to try tuning this. Only thing that helped was to set crossover at midwoofers to 800hz with 24db's/octave, that's maximum - in order to get rid of the intense vocals... But with the tweeters at 2.5khz and 12db's/octave, the sound is a litte strange you know. Let's hope the Pioneer will help my issue. If not, I need to change my setup...

arun1963

Read Mac's thread on tuning the sr's and make a note of which frequencies are louder on which side and by how much. Download and save macs tuning sheet from 08 finals. Those would be a great starting point.

Get ready for a new experience. You'll love the pio.

arun1963

catch22atplay wrote: »

Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun. Now this one bugs my ear a little bit. And no offense Arun. I have no idea what this guy is saying nor what language. But it's amusing. So added for comedic relief. Hey, and the WoW Drenai dance is based on this guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bAN7Ts0xBo

Daler is singing in Punjabi. He's trying to woo his paramour . Go back to the u tube video and watch it with the english sub titles. An absolute riot.

TakeTheTime

This is okey now, it was some frequencies that were "out of phase" in my car. Not anymore!