Deal of the Day!!!

eprater1

I was in one of my local stereo shops today (wont name them to protect thier idenity) and looking at their line of hertz, specifically the mille's. so im listening and they do sound really good, tweets a little brigt but im loving the mids. i already have a set of HAT legatias im going to run for tweets so all im really interested in any ways were the mids. i go ahead and ask him how much for the enitre component set is just to see and he says let me check comes back and says 260.00..... i have never seen them anywhere near this cheap and i ask him once more how much....260 he says again. so then i get to thinking well **** how much for just the mids he says let me check comes back and says....480.00. i think its about that time he realizes something isnt right. he goes to his manager comes back and tells me they have the pricing wrong in thier computer. whoever enterend in the price put what they paid not the retail price. the manager said "we quoted it we will sell it for that price but this is a one time deal and will not be offered again if you leave the store." he goes on to tell me that if hertz gets wind of him selling them for that price he could loose his rights to them in the area. long story short i got a complete set of hertz mille's for 260.00. i plan to run my HAT's for the tweets but who knows might like the milles and sell the HATs or vise versa.

exalted512

Sweet. I was was unaware that Hertz has a minimum price agreement with their dealers...so I think that was a little bit of BS, but I could be wrong.

Either way, Hertz makes great equipment. I tried listening to their demo vehicle at CES a couple years ago but there was a quite a few people ahead of me and I don't have a lot of patience...haha.
-Cody

eprater1

he acturall showed me copy of his prices and it did have a colum labeled MAP. this is thier minimum selling price per Hertz from what i understand. kinda like the agreements apple has on all its stuff. doesnt matter if you go to walmart or bestbuy a 32gig ipod is the same price. if anyone wants a set of just the mids dealer price is 190.00 retail was 480. gives you and idea of the markup, then again we all know its about 100-200 percent depending.

exalted512

MAP is minimum advertised price. Meaning, I can't openly advertise the product below that amount. That doesn't mean I can't sale it for less than that.

Not arguing, just clarifying
-Cody

MacLeod

Id sell the HAT's and run the Hertz all the way. Spend the money from the HATs on Dynamat.

arun1963

eprater1 wrote: »

long story short i got a complete set of hertz mille's for 260.00.

Are you talking about the MLK2 or the MLK165? MLK2 at $260 would be a steal . I auditioned the MLK2 here when I was upgrading and they would have cost me around the $ 1,200 mark. If you run passive, I think the xovers let you bi-amp.

eprater1

yes the mlk2. i listened to both but could hear no difference in the mids. i know the crossovers on the mlk2's are much nicer and huge but i could not hear nor see any differences in the two mids.

arun1963

Now that is more than just DOTD . Hurry up and install them. Do you have the p-800?

eprater1

i do have the prs-800 and will prob run it for a week or two until i get the kenwood 9960. got ot talk to the kw rep for my area yesterday and he assured me the kw would run a full active system with full crossover, time alignment, 16 band eq, and levels for each speaker individually. no need to sell the HATs for dynamat. ive already stripped the entire cab and laid down 4 rolls of mat and double layered the doors (one on the skin of the door and one on the skeleton of the door. also going to be building baffles for the mids in the doors.) any recomendations for a good RTA software and test cd????

eprater1

i have not had a chance to listen to the new kw but it Does have the TA, 16 band bla bla bal. sounds like your judging without first hand experience with this particular model.

also how i the r1 superior if it doesnt have any of these features???

MacLeod

There isnt any sound quality difference between an Alpine, Kenwood, Pioneer or whatever. Kirk Proffitt won 6, yeah 6 straight world championships in sound quality using his Acura's STOCK head unit.

The only differences will be in the available features. Get whichever model has the best features.

That being said, the Kenwood only has a 13 band EQ and Im not sure if its L/R independent, whereas the Pioneer has a true left and right 16 band EQ. That is a HUGE tuning plus.

Im not sure how the Kenwood's time alignment works but make sure its an actual, active feature. Some decks have what they call "time alignment" but its a crap auto feature that never works. Pioneer's is awkward because you input inches instead of the superior Alpine's way of inputing miliseconds.

So from what I can see, the Pioneer is the best bet and will not only run a full active, 3 way system but itll also allow you the necessary features to tune the crap out of it as well. The only way to get more tuning ability would be to buy an expensive outboard processor.

eprater1

coffee,
thats like saying just bc a car now has the advantage of antilock brakes that its not as fast as an old car that didnt have any electronics (a new 6 banger tarus will destroy an old hemi from the 60s, not sayin id rather have the new car just illustrating a point) im not saying there wasnt some great stuff that is no longer made but to state that bc a manufacture adds a feature it suffers in other areas is flawed. besides the prs-800 does not have any usb ports or bluetooth. it does have the advantage of burbrown (look that one up old) and many other features. please educate me on the advantages of the z1 maybe i will pick one of those up instead.

if you want to go serious sq get rid of anything digital and go all analog. its gonna take a ton of power be very inefficent, agravating to tune, hell to maintain, and sound more lifelike and real than anything your used to, but here isthe deal. the amount you gain from running all analog just isnt worth the trouble that and good luck finding it.

Skip,
Maybe the kw rep was shooting me a line of **** but here is what he said per our conversation best i can remember. you go into setup tell it that the fronts are components, then tell the hu which you want to tune. after selecting say the tweeter you can adjust eq, cross, phase, all that jazz just as the pioneer. he coulda been lieing but sound like he knew his stuff, then again he is the kw rep.

The pioneer isnt going to waste. just as i stated im going to run it for a while till i get the kw and try it out. maybe the pioneer will go back in, maybe the kw will be jsut as good with a few extra goodies who knows until you try it.

eprater1

coffecake wrote: »

I had several kenwood in my time, I had a pioneer DEH 5000UB, I had the eclipse cd7200 mkii and other old school receiver...So I'm talking FROM experience. Better question is have you ever heard of the Denon r1 and the legendary z1? ALL OF TODAY'S HEAD UNIT DOESN'T COMPARE TO OLD SCHOOL DECKS. The less features you have like usb, bluetooth and all that crap the less sound quality you'll have. Please guys, today's competition are nothing compare to the old school competition. That's when companys like denon, zapco, clarion, alpine, soundstream were into true sound quality. So of course there's a difference between different brand's. That's like saying ford is the same as mercedes benz.

the brands for the most part could care less about sq and that goes for all of the major ones. if they did your right there would be no usb ports or ipod hookups (mp3s are **** quality). but some of thier lines are dedicated to and have great sq functions in them. pioneer has stage 4 and it looks like kw is giving it a go with this hu and i intend to try it out unless i discover from a creditied source that it doesnt. i have always been a pioneer guy and yes i am a little hesitant to get the kw but i will never know if i dont try.

MacLeod

A CD player's job is to reproduce the source material on the CD as transparently as possible. 20-20 KHz at +/- 0 db. All do this as evidenced by their response graphs in all their reviews. Because it doesnt take magic components or $2,000 circuitry to accomplish this, all name brand head units do this. So how can one sound better than the other? Is the Denon transparenter? If a Kenwood reproduces the source +/- 0 db from 20-20KHz and the Denon also does it at +/- 0 db at 20-20KHz then theyre going to sound the same to human ears anyway. I suppose if you can hear grass grow then youll notice the difference but I never could. If it did matter then youd see only Denon head units in the lanes. But you see Alpine, Pioneer, Clarion, Eclipse and like I said earlier, factory head units. No one brand ever wins. Its different every year because theyre all equally good for the most part. Its what you do with it that makes the difference.

And spare me the "old school" crap. I was around in the "old school" days. I date back to the late 80's when Linear Power and Orion were top brands and there werent 4 channel amps and definitely no amps with crossovers on them. Then there were the 90's when Kicker's demo car had PPI amps in them because they only made subs. Todays systems sound much better than the "old school" systems BECAUSE of the technology. Head units didnt have near the extensive tuning features they have no and the amps certainly didnt. Back then you did everything with install so if you were simply slapping some speakers in your doors, you were doomed to mediocre SQ. Sure you could go get a Sony 5 band EQ to mount under the dash but todays midrange head units have 16 band EQ's and the amps have crossovers and bass boost and time alignment didnt even exist much less show up in midrange head units. "Old school" systems cant hold a candle to todays stuff.

The above analogy is correct. You cant say cars were better in the 60's because the ones now have all this technology. Yeah, youve got cars making 300 horsepower but getting 25 MPG and lasting 200,000 miles. In the 60's you had cars making 350 horsepower, getting 9 MPG and youd be lucky if you got 50,000 miles out of before it died.

eprater1

well put Mac seem to know your stuff, have any opinions on analog?

fyi to all. the government made us to go digital tv b/c the needed the bandwidth for themselvs and analog was taking alot of it up but thats a conversation for another day.

arun1963

Listen to what Mac and Skip are saying. Then evaluate it against what you really want. Do you want average sound but a ton of bling features or do you want close to competition grade sound?

What the 9660 doesn't have:

1. Ability to go active. You can only set HPF for your components and LPF for your sub. Thats passive. The salesman is ignorant.

2. It has a 13 band eq not a 16 band and while you can have different settings on your eq for fronts / rears / centre, you DON'T have independent L/R, which like mac said is a huge benefit. The salesman is ignorant.

3. Time alignment like the Pio is not in milliseconds. On the Pio you can TA in steps of 0.5" on the 9960 you TA in increments of 0.1 feet, thats 1.2". Better accuracy with the pio. The salesman is ignorant.

Got the above by downloading the manual. Check it out for yourself.

What the Pio doesn't have:

1. DVD
2. Navigation
3. Good ipod interface
4. Good bluetooth
5. A ton of other bling features.

The Pio will eat the 9960 for lunch, if SQ is your aim. If it isn't go with the 9960.

eprater1

again...all i had to go on was what the rep said and i was basing my judgment upon the best source i had at the time.

he said you have to go at it a little backwards from the pioneer but that yes the kw would adjust the left channels independant of the right. now just b/c he says it doenst make it true. my argument was based off of a factory reps (not just the in store salesmans) info. assuming that it does not do adjustments indvidualy then no, there is no comparison. do more bands help no doubt but just how much better is 13 than 16? not saying it isnt better just wondering how much better it is, if 3 bands is that bid of a deal should i buy an additional external eq or upgrade to the new pdx since it has a 32 band or does the law of diminishing returns apply here? not being smart i mean that as an honest question. kinda like going from 2 way to 3 way ya know.

eprater1

and why cant i get competition grade sound?? why does it have to be close to comp? are hertz mille mids, HAT legatia r2 tweets and a pioneer prs-800 not up to competition snuff? again not being smart just wondering. if set up right with the right amp are these not all competition grade components?

eprater1

and on another side note....any recomendations on a good spl meter and rta computer software with a good calibrated mic at a decent price? ...ohhh and a good sweep cd.

arun1963

MacLeod wrote: »

A CD player's job is to reproduce the source material on the CD as transparently as possible. 20-20 KHz at +/- 0 db. All do this as evidenced by their response graphs in all their reviews. Because it doesnt take magic components or $2,000 circuitry to accomplish this, all name brand head units do this. So how can one sound better than the other? Is the Denon transparenter? If a Kenwood reproduces the source +/- 0 db from 20-20KHz and the Denon also does it at +/- 0 db at 20-20KHz then theyre going to sound the same to human ears anyway. I suppose if you can hear grass grow then youll notice the difference but I never could. If it did matter then youd see only Denon head units in the lanes. But you see Alpine, Pioneer, Clarion, Eclipse and like I said earlier, factory head units. No one brand ever wins. Its different every year because theyre all equally good for the most part. Its what you do with it that makes the difference.

And spare me the "old school" crap. I was around in the "old school" days. I date back to the late 80's when Linear Power and Orion were top brands and there werent 4 channel amps and definitely no amps with crossovers on them. Then there were the 90's when Kicker's demo car had PPI amps in them because they only made subs. Todays systems sound much better than the "old school" systems BECAUSE of the technology. Head units didnt have near the extensive tuning features they have no and the amps certainly didnt. Back then you did everything with install so if you were simply slapping some speakers in your doors, you were doomed to mediocre SQ. Sure you could go get a Sony 5 band EQ to mount under the dash but todays midrange head units have 16 band EQ's and the amps have crossovers and bass boost and time alignment didnt even exist much less show up in midrange head units. "Old school" systems cant hold a candle to todays stuff.

The above analogy is correct. You cant say cars were better in the 60's because the ones now have all this technology. Yeah, youve got cars making 300 horsepower but getting 25 MPG and lasting 200,000 miles. In the 60's you had cars making 350 horsepower, getting 9 MPG and youd be lucky if you got 50,000 miles out of before it died.

+++

@ coffeecake: In a car you are not going to get true 'SQ' without a ton a of DSP. Hence either a processor or a hu that gives you a scaled down version of that processing power, a.k.a. the pio p-800/880. 'Old school' stuff like the denons, naks, et al which have 0 dsp, will not give you sq. Thats just another forum myth. Get some seat time in Macs car and then see if your old denon gave that quality.

'old school equipment', 'running everything flat', 'install is 90% of sq', are all crappy forum myths. On a like to like level there is no audible difference from the run of the mill pio / alpine / denon / nak.

The forums have some crazy mindsets, I'm just comming of a thread where the question was 'how to keep the bass upfront'. I got flamed by everyone for sticking to my position that you can't keep bass upfront w/o TA and keeping a low xover point. :biggrin:

arun1963

eprater1 wrote: »

and why cant i get competition grade sound?? why does it have to be close to comp?

Competition sound to me means the sound, in Macs, Kirks and a couple of other guys cars on finals day. Haven't heard any of them but I can only guess.

1. The pio will not give you enough dsp to get there.

2. In martial arts, you have a master who will train noobs. Some masters will teach 80% of what they know, others will teach 100%. That seperates a good teacher from the best. The noob being a noob will only manage to absorb maybe 15% of that initially and over a longer period, maybe 2-3 years, with 4-5 hours of practice a day, will comprehend, understand and begin to apply maybe 70% of what they have been taught. So assume you're lucky to get one like Mac who will not hold back on sharing knowledge. Do your maths and you'll know that 3 years down the line you're only 70% of where he was three years ago. He has progressed as well. Thats where I find myself.

3. Respect for his knowledge and who he is as a person. In this hobby the toughest thing is to accept the fact that you're actually a couple of steps behind where you think you are. This while all your senses are screaming 'dude, you've arrived, you're the ultimate'. It's tough and I keep tripping over this one from time to time.

arun1963

coffecake wrote: »

Woww!!! then you must have hearing problems

Read his sig. You really think he has an auditory impairment? :rolleyes:

coffecake wrote: »

cause the difference between old school and new is freaking obvious. On an old school denon for example, it has a wider stage, more dynamics, better imaging, better everything.

Sorry dude but you have no clue on dynamics, staging, imaging. Proof:

1. Dynamics is 95% media related and only 5% equipment related. Live sound up close can give you a +/- 35db dynamic range. the best recorded CD's only give you a +/- 9-12db range. Of the 5% dynamic reproduction that is equipment related, 95% is related to your speakers.

2. Imaging : IT'S POINTLESS TALKING ABOUT IMAGING IF YOU DON'T HAVE L/R EQ IN A CAR. Independent driver control, level matching, and accurate TA and reflections management, is what you need for pinpoint imaging. Any unit including the pixie dust mixed with snake oil, blessed denon is not going to give you imaging. So don't talk about it.

3. Better Everything : Right :rolleyes:

coffecake wrote: »

There are still good head unit today like the new pioneer stage 4 but it still doesn't match the z1 or the clarion drz9255.

The stage 4 and the P-99 are rip off's with **** price value equation. However they are great for noobs like you.

coffecake wrote: »

I know this cause my friend has car electronics shop and we tested it and compare it with his old z1. Plus I had recently a eclipse cd 7200 mkii(came bad) and still didn't match my now recently installed denon r1. You may think that having all those features gives you better sound but in reality it doesn't compare to an old school deck. You should listen again,if you have any old school denon or clarion, and compare it.

Ever hear the story about four blind men who tried to describe an elephant? One touched the tail, the other the tusk, the third guy touched the trunk and the fourth guy touched the elephants leg. Guess what they came up with?

What i'm saying in blunt words, is that your 'audition/test' is worthless, cause you and your buddies are clueless on what the benchmark should be.

coffecake wrote: »

Well there is an audible difference between brands cause none of them reproduces the same sound. But it all depends on how well you capture details when listening to the music and trust me I've been around lots of high end system and entry level system. And from I know and other people like myself, we still choose old school head unit over new ones. It's not about the feature it's about the design of the deck.
system and entry level sytem

Listen, you're a kid who thinks he's an audiophile cause he's played around a bit and has read a ton off the internet. Fact remains that you are ignorant and what's worse have no respect for people who are clearly ahead of you.

eprater1

....so.

any software / mic recomendations?

arun1963

1. The Chesky disc from meca.

http://www.mecacaraudio.com/dnn50/MECAStore/Shop/tabid/100/ProdID/8/Default.aspx

2. The Focal disc with the sine wave frequencies and technical tracks is on disk 2 iirc.

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diyma-sq-forum-technical-advanced/48815-all-6-focal-demo-discs-ready-download.html

3. Get a decent spl meter.

4. You don't need a mic.

Once you have everything in place, we'll have to work on your ears.

MacLeod

Eprator- yes you can very close to competiton level sq with your current gear. The Pioneer has the TA and crossover to be good enough but the 16 band EQ is a little limiting. I've tuned a couple guys systems with this Pioneer and there are areas I couldn't get to because of not having 31 bands. That's still excellent for a head unit though!

Coffeecake- try listening to those head units blindfolded. You think the Denons sound better so when you know youre listening to it, you'll automatically think its better. Set up a couple HU's, turn off all the bass boost and such, level match them to within 1 db and A/B them while blindfolded. Then try to guess which is which. Psychoacoustics is a very powerful thing and double blind A/B testing is the only objective way to compare things.

Arun- I'm hiring you as my publicist.

eprater1

Mac,
I live about 2.5 hrs from you in greenville sc and travel through ATL biweekly and even get up to Rome GA occasionaly. Any chance in meeting up sometime?

KaosTsoc

Ok. I think we have it now. You like the old school stuff more than the new stuff, and that's ok. For those in my generation we tend think that the old school stuff is good in all for its day, but we like the newer technology that give us the capability to expand on the cool old school stuff. Yes the Denon you have is older, and was im sure a pioneer for alot of the stuff that is out there now, and yes it does look nice, and thats ok too. The thing alot of people are getting at here is that the old school stuff was good, but its old school, and sometime old school just is not going to cut it in this current time.

Thanks.

MacLeod

arun1963 wrote: »

2. In martial arts, you have a master who will train noobs. Some masters will teach 80% of what they know, others will teach 100%. That seperates a good teacher from the best. The noob being a noob will only manage to absorb maybe 15% of that initially and over a longer period, maybe 2-3 years, with 4-5 hours of practice a day, will comprehend, understand and begin to apply maybe 70% of what they have been taught. So assume you're lucky to get one like Mac who will not hold back on sharing knowledge.

Ha! Thats awesome! Im an SQ ninja!! I love it.

Patrick, you gotta put this under my screenname as my title. I can see it now:

MacLeod
SQ Ninja

eprater1 wrote: »

Mac,
I live about 2.5 hrs from you in greenville sc and travel through ATL biweekly and even get up to Rome GA occasionaly. Any chance in meeting up sometime?

That would be great but Ive got a pretty sucky schedule. I work 2 jobs and the days I dont work the 2nd job Ive got my boy while my wife works late so I dont have a lot of free evenings. Let me know next time youre around here and Ill see what we can do.

eprater1

and just b/c something is expensive doenst make it good quality. hell look at range rovers very expensive and built with many low quality parts that cause them all thier issues. hondas are cheap but they are known for thier longevity and quailty control.

you can build a toilet out of solid gold, with diamond tiped handle but guess what....it donest do anything a hole in the ground wont do. price is irrelevant.

eprater1

mac,
thanks for the reply and i understand about your schedule. fortunately i typically only work about 3-4 days a week and quite often im through atl while doing it. maybe one sunday afternoon or something we can get together. i still have to install all my gear, and do some inital tuning before i would be ready to take up any of your time. it is much appericated though.

MacLeod

Don't feed the troll brother. Let the mods smack him down. In the mean time, remember the two most beautiful words on the internet - "ignore list".