MECA 2011 Season

MacLeod

Yup, there is no replacement for placement. It is everything. No amount of processing can overcome crappy speaker locations. I tried every thing I knew to try with the speakers in the stock door locations of this Edge which are halfway up the door, but couldnt make anything work worth a damn. I put them in the A pillars and with no EQ it already sounds as good as my heavily EQ's system did in the stock locations.

I just got home so Im gonna go replace that amp and finish hiding all the wires. Im chomping at the bit to get out there and do some tuning. Im really excited about the potential this thing seems to have.

Youre right tho that most cars have very little room in the A pillar location. This Edge has huge, flat pillars so its perfect. The Honda Civic and Fit are also great and have a big huge area at the corner of the dash and windshield for speakers.

JBD99ERIDE

Get that thing tuned up!

I'll be messing with mine some after work too. something is funky with the amp I installed last night.

MacLeod

Its ALIVE!

Yessss! Its playing music and I havent broke anything else! I hooked up my trusty old Crossfire and its playing just fine. Still has the turn off thump it always used to but thats what capacitors were made for (turn off delay circuit. )

I did a quick tune on it and its sounding pretty good. Not loving the Morel MDT12 tweeters though. Just not enough bite. Think Im gonna put those LPG aluminums in there and see what they sound like.

I can do that later though. For now Ive got tunes so I can start cleaning up and finish hiding the wires. God what a relief. This is hands down the worst install Ive ever done in my life! And that goes all the way back to 1989 when I first tried to install a Mitsubishi cassette player in my 1977 Mustang Cobra.

MacLeod

And done. Well gotta wrap the A pillars since theyre full of 1/4" holes but Im done with everything else. I actually might run up to the local shop and let them wrap the pillars for me. I just know there is no way I could do it and not have a thousand wrinkles and creases. Shouldnt cost more than $50 or $60 I would hope since an experienced guy should be able to do both of them in an hour.

There is zero wire management. Having to mount everything under the rear seat and still have room for the spare tire right behind them, its all tuck and go. The H701 is under the passenger seat and everything is just tucked in under there too including a 20' Ai-Net cable and 25' optical cable.

Its embarrassing but it will do til next year when I can dump this thing and trade it in on a more stereo friendly ride.

Took out the Morels and stuck in these Vifa soft domes and they do a much better job. These are great little tweeters especially considering they only cost $22 a pop. They have much more bite and bring the brassiness of a saxophone out much better. Ill ride with them til I can get my Scan replaced or repaired.

arun1963

You may want to try the SR' tweets too. If you're running the mid-range till 5-6khz and then use the RR's after that, you would be running them in the zone they are best in.

Did you manage to contact Madisound? Any news?

MacLeod

Nah its the weekend so wont get in touch with them til Monday.

MacLeod

Having fun tuning this thing. It sounds very good and is needing very little EQ. Im playing around with different crossover points and levels right now but am getting closer. Right now Im at 4KHz @ 24db on the tweeters, 4KHz @ 24db and 500 Hz @ 24db on the mids then 500 @ 24db and 63Hz @ 24db for the midbass then finally 40Hz @ 24db for the sub. I tried staggering the crossover for mids and tweets but it just had something missing. I wouldve thought that having the mid and tweet right next to each other and firing in the same direction wouldve called for a staggered crossover point so they wouldnt be running all over each other. Doesnt seem to be the case.

I think these SR 5's will have enough grunt to work as midbass but I do need to look into finding something a little better though for a little more energy.

I also need to dampen my doors. Got all kinds of resonance there not to mention some other panels. May need to slap a layer of Dynamat on every panel I can for good measure since the sub is actually in the cabin with me.

Got noise issues for days though. The replacement Crossfire amp has a big turn off thump that I may be able to cure with a big enough delay circuit. Will have to experiment. Ive always thought it was BS that MECA counts off for turn on/off pops. That is in no way the fault of the install or installer. Hell, $1000 Genesis amps have turn off pops. I protest every year but it falls on deaf ears.

Also found a noise issue with the mids/highs amp. One of those faint buzzes that slowly runs all the way up then back down the frequency spectrum. For some reason its very faint when I use my 18' JL Audio cables but a little louder with my 3' Tsunami cables. Guess the extra resistance is choking if off some. It is very faint and you can only here it if you pause the CD and are in a dead quiet environment so for 99% of shows, I doubt any judge will cue in on it.

Sigh, guess Im just gonna have to break down and invest in some Zapco ampage.

cam5860

What brand of components are most people running these days in the competitions? I know focal has to be still at top of list. Also anybody heard about eric stevens leaving imagine dynamics? I hear precision power owns them now. So the brand should go to **** pretty soon.

MacLeod

I havent been to a finals since 2009 so Im not up on the latest batch of guys. MECA is growing pretty steadily it seems especially out on the western states like California.

The best guys arent using a particular brand. There arent really any high end car audio speaker makers left anymore except for Morel and Focal I suppose. Most of the top guys are using different combinations of raw drivers from Scanspeaker, Seas, Vifa and even Tang Band. If I had to pick the best brand of car audio speakers though, it would have to be Morel but install and tuning matter the most. Ive seen a world champion win with a pair of $40 mids.

MacLeod

Alright, I think Ive got my final answer for GA state finals tomorrow. Got the SR 5's playing very low, down to 40 Hz actually. Took some trickery but I think it works.

MECA uses the Chesky Ultimate Demonstration Disc for their SQ judging but they also use 2 optional tracks and they change every year. I dont like this but a lot of guys do. It always presents a problem that will force you to make sacrifice between the Chesky and optional disc. This year, one of the tracks is [URL=" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXYAXv09ik8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL4838E7DC6842CD2A"]Keb Mo - Suitcase.[/URL] Right where the vocals kick in at 32 seconds I think, that first note is a BIG bomb that was bottoming out the SR's pretty good. I tinkered around and found 80 Hz was the culprit so I cut it 6db and dumped 63 3 db for good measure and that did the trick.

Surprisingly I didnt lose any midbass energy in kick drums like I thought I would. Guess being able to fatten up 40-50Hz thru the midbass helped.

Slapped a bunch of foam inside the A pillars as well. Was getting kind of an "echoy" thing going on kinda like if youre talking down a paper towel roller. Stuffed foam into every place I could and that fixed that. Gotta love foam. Dirt cheap and fixes so many things.

Dont know though, havent been in another car in a while so there is no telling what will happen. State Finals isnt the place to be breaking out a brand new install.

Also figured out that whine I was having. Embarrassed I didnt think of it before but my sub amp is grounded about 2 feet from the ground for everything else so Ive got a bit of a ground loop going on. Dont have time to fix that tonight so I just hope its kinda noisy at the show tomorrow because its very faint and unless its dead quiet, you aint gonna hear it.

arun1963

GL Bro. Any idea how many competitors expected? Keep us updated from the venue if you can.

MacLeod

So I won my class but not convincingly. I need to be in the 80's to stand a chance at finals and I scored a 74. Granted I had 79/74/69 so one judge boned me but he's not known as the best judge in the world.

I did get some good feedback though. Tonality Im pretty well set. Got high scores all across the board. Imaging is where Im hurting and noise. My left side is very weak. In Spanish Harlem, a pair of violins come in about 1:40. My right side was fine but the left was smeared and not focused. Thought it was the mids needing to be angled in more so when I got home I rigged them to angle in a tad more but this didnt help. So I stuck the tweeter in the sail panels and this helped a lot! I guess the tweeter sitting right next to and in front of the midrange just wasnt working. Works much better with them in the sail panels and the stage is noticeably wider albeit a tad lower now but not too much I dont think.

The noise I can hopefully fix by fixing up my grounds and grounding everything to one spot. Ill give that a try tomorrow night when I get home from work.

Alabama finals are next week and thats the big one. One of the best SQ judges the business will be there. He'll also be a judge at world finals this year so if I get a high score from him, I know Ive got a shot. If he trashes me, Ill wait to next year. Not blowing $300 to finish 5th!

On the up side, so long as I finish at least 2nd at Alabama Finals, I will have my 4th state championship. You gotta have 40 points to qualify for world finals and state championship as well. So yay me! One more cool thing to add to my sig hopefully.

MacLeod

Alright well Im in. Registered today. Sheer insanity if you ask me. Its the most competitive class, its the class with the most competitors and 3 weeks ago my car was bone stock. Something tells me I shouldve lit that $165 and smoked it instead. Wouldve got more out of it. Good God Im gonna get stomped.

Last day for registration is tomorrow but the list so far looks pretty thin (except for my class of course). We've got a couple classes with only 1 competitor! Mark Eldgridge is in his class all by his lonesome! The list usually grows a bunch the last day of registration so I hope it does so again.

MacLeod

Ha! Never. Well almost never. I think the 2 seat class has a cash prize maybe. Mostly its for bragging rights and one of those big **** 6' trophies.

MacLeod

3rd place. I suck.

I'm pissed now though. 5th finals and I still can't win. I'm going balls to the wall next season. I'm winning next year. This is getting ridiculous. I lost 3 points to system noise with turn on pops and such. Gonna have to do an overhaul.