Bit Ten tuning for a newbie :)

jedi-knight83

So After googling 'bit ten settings' I came across this very helpful thread but its a bit old now so I thought I'd start a new one

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?125627-Bit-Ten-Install-and-Tuning/page6

Ive got a mk5 VW Golf and I've slowly been updating the audio.

Stock headunit as i want everything stealth
Audison Bit Ten
JL HD600/4 Amp
Hertz HSK 163 3 way passive speakers in the stock VW locations (6.5 at the back of the door by the drivers hip, 3" mid by the door handle and 20mm tweeter in the mirror triangle)
JL 10W3V3-4 in a sealed box on the left side oft he boot facing across the boot towards the right side.

I've also added lots of silentcoat sound deadening.

Its a UK car so I sit on the right side.

The rear speakers are running from the headunit but after setting the Bit Ten up with the fader split 50/50 I've now set the fader to 80/20 to the front.

I know that with my passive 3 way set up I'm going to be limited as to how much I can actually change or improve things but thats the way it is for now. I dont have any extra amp channels to move to an active set up.

So, my question is.. where do I start. I have already entered the basic TA settings based on measurements from the sub and from the mid speaker by the door handle on each door. I've also had a play with the EQ based purely on my ears. I should say that although I'm no expert, I'd class myself as having quite a critical ear and I know the sound I like... I just lack the technical knowledge to set this Bit Ten up straight away to give me that sound that I like

So initially I started boosting the higher frequencies but judging from that other thread thats not the best way? Rather cut all the mid frequencies to give the effect that the low and high are boosted but dont raise them above 0db so as not to introduce distortion or noise? Am I really going to notice that on my 'budget' system though? I say budget as although I feel I've bought decent components, I'm not fooling myself that this is a high quality, competition winning set up.

I've downloaded a couple of different RTA programs on my iphone but at the moment they just look like a lot of dancing bars on the screen. What am I actually trying to achieve? I've seen alot of photos and videos or people trying to get a flat line but surely that will sound a bit .... well flat? Or is it a very old school thing to have the bass and treble turned up like on car hifi's of old?

I've also got pink noise tracks on thr bit ten disc and specific tone noises from this site.. http://ampguts.com/index.php?pageid=audio_downloads#

But how do I best use them? Play them through 1 channel at a time and then try to match the volume on each side from my drivers seat?

Any help appreciated basically. As you can tell I'm pretty new to this, but im not expecting a quick fix and I'm happy to put the time in to get it set up properly.

Many thanks in advance.

Nathan

jedi-knight83

anyone please?

arun1963

hang in there will reply over the weekend.

jedi-knight83

arun1963 wrote: »

hang in there will reply over the weekend.

great, thank you. Any help appreciated. Have recently noticed that the sound changes MASSIVELY when I've got a passenger in the front seat. Really annoying! The down side of having the main woofer at the back of the door i guess.

jedi-knight83

dont suppose you have had ime to formulate a reply yet

I'm due to be going away in the car this weekend and at the moment the system sounds rubbish

arun1963

Hi Nathan,

Sorry about being a week late with my response. Have read your posts and I would like to break this up into two parts. First install and then tuning.

From what I can make out you're running a 3 way + sub with the bit 10 off a 4 ch amp. That tells me you're using 2 amp channels to run the components and bridging the other two to run the sub. The bit 10 does 2 way active + sub. As a first step if you can you should add another 2 ch amp or at least a mono amp. Then you can run the mid bass active off 2 channels, run the mids and tweets via the xover off another 2 ch and then the sub off a mono amp. This would be the best case situation given your equipment and setup.

When you time align use the distance to your mid bass drivers to set TA. 20hz ~ 800hz are the frequencies most sensitive to phase issues. 800~2.5khz are sensitive to both phase and FR and above 3 khz they are mostly sensitive to FR. Can you post some screen shots for each channels from the bit 10? It would help in getting a clearer idea of whats going on.

Have you used the white / pink noise tracks to balance for L/R response? Screen shots of the bit ten would help a lot. Lets see if we can get some decent sound for your road trip.

jedi-knight83

arun1963 wrote: »

Hi Nathan,

Sorry about being a week late with my response. Have read your posts and I would like to break this up into two parts. First install and then tuning.

From what I can make out you're running a 3 way + sub with the bit 10 off a 4 ch amp. That tells me you're using 2 amp channels to run the components and bridging the other two to run the sub. The bit 10 does 2 way active + sub. As a first step if you can you should add another 2 ch amp or at least a mono amp. Then you can run the mid bass active off 2 channels, run the mids and tweets via the xover off another 2 ch and then the sub off a mono amp. This would be the best case situation given your equipment and setup.

When you time align use the distance to your mid bass drivers to set TA. 20hz ~ 800hz are the frequencies most sensitive to phase issues. 800~2.5khz are sensitive to both phase and FR and above 3 khz they are mostly sensitive to FR. Can you post some screen shots for each channels from the bit 10? It would help in getting a clearer idea of whats going on.

Have you used the white / pink noise tracks to balance for L/R response? Screen shots of the bit ten would help a lot. Lets see if we can get some decent sound for your road trip.

Hello. Thanks for the reply and no worry about the delay. Grateful to have any help.

As much as i'd love to do a semi active setup, I dont have space for a second amp. If I have funds this year I might swap to the HD900/5 which will give me the extra channels but for now this is what I've got to work with.

So far I've set up TA by measuring the sub - my ear and then each tweeter - my ear and then tweaking the delay on the drivers side to get it central. I did it with a pink noise track and some different music. I've not tried (mainly because I didn't know how) to set it at the different frequencies.

I will try it again next week using the distance to the midbass though.

Whats FR?

Ive got a couple of RTA apps on my phone and an SPL meter too and I can play tracks at different frequencies from this site.. http://ampguts.com/index.php?pageid=audio_downloads#

One strange phenomena seems to be that I set it up with the car idling and it sounds good and then when your driving the sub doesnt sound anywhere near as punchy so I have to alter the settings via the DRC?

Anyway... I'll post screen shots of the bit ten... just try not to laugh to hard when you see them

Nathan

jedi-knight83

This is why I cant fit another amp.. I want it all hidden away.



under the seat



and the bit ten is under the drivers seat



DRC hidden in the ash tray. Lid closes fine so its all hidden



Sub and speakers... sound deadening all in the doors and boot.




Bit ten shots coming up..

jedi-knight83

clickable thumbnails.



I just did it by ear but having listened to it for a couple of days it sounds quite harsh in the high frequencies and not enough midbass punch.

pentoncm

From the looks of it, my guess is that your system sounds awful. Definitely lower your xovers to 50 or 60Hz. Also switch over to the Linkwitz Riley filter type. Everything from 1k on up is way too high. It likely sounds bright and clear but that is what many people mistake for sound quality. The main problem is that there is likely no impact. Vocals likely sound like they are coming from a "speaker" and not like the vocalist is really there in the car with you.

Here are my settings to give you an example. I am running the MM6501 active with no rears.

jedi-knight83

pentoncm wrote: »

From the looks of it, my guess is that your system sounds awful. Definitely lower your xovers to 50 or 60Hz. Also switch over to the Linkwitz Riley filter type. Everything from 1k on up is way too high. It likely sounds bright and clear but that is what many people mistake for sound quality. The main problem is that there is likely no impact. Vocals likely sound like they are coming from a "speaker" and not like the vocalist is really there in the car with you.

Here are my settings to give you an example. I am running the MM6501 active with no rears.

Thanks... I'll have a play with the settings and try to make it more like yours (even though I'm 3 way passive so cant make it exactly like yours)

BTW my Hertz passive crossover splits at 500Hz and 4.5kHz. Not sure if it changes things or if i should still aim for a similar eq

pentoncm

jedi-knight83 wrote: »

Thanks... I'll have a play with the settings and try to make it more like yours (even though I'm 3 way passive so cant make it exactly like yours)

BTW my Hertz passive crossover splits at 500Hz and 4.5kHz. Not sure if it changes things or if i should still aim for a similar eq

Sounds good. I imagine that you won't have to cut as much as me in the high end because you have paper woofers that won't have cone breakup and you have a three way so your mids extend better and have a much better off axis response. Regardless, try bringing everything on both sides down that is 1 k and up. You can try selecting multiple bands and start dropping them and pay attention to how it effects the sound. It will make everything feel thicker and smooth.

jedi-knight83

Right. just input new settings in the the 'B' memory with the same TA settings so I can really see what difference the EQ makes.

Tried to copy yours as near as possible taking into account mine is 3 way passive

Going to go and upload it to the bitten and see what it sounds like...

Should i test with different test tones as well or just listen to my usual music?

jedi-knight83

hmm. didnt love the settings. sounded very dull and the sound sounded a lot lower in the car.

ended up tweaking my old set up for now by just reducing the high frequencies down a bit

pentoncm

jedi-knight83 wrote: »

hmm. didnt love the settings. sounded very dull and the sound sounded a lot lower in the car.

ended up tweaking my old set up for now by just reducing the high frequencies down a bit

I highly recommend lowering that sub filter down to 60Hz. Your sub is generating way too much midbass that may be muddying things up. How does everything sound without the sub. If it doesn't sound good without the sub, then it is not set right. Too many people pump up the sub to get rid of harshness but it never sounds natural. You want to get it so you barely need the sub, the sub will just give you a little low end thump but the majority of bass/midbass will be handled by your midbass drivers.

Try messing around with your 315 to 800 Hz range. Try raising and lowering different bands in this area on each side. This area will be much different in your car because of your three way setup. You may have to cut 315 through 500 more than me.

jedi-knight83

It sounds ok without the sub actually. Just not quite as bassy obviously but the sub isnt over powering at all. Infact on some tracks I think the sub isnt working...until I mute the sub and can hear the difference... but to my ear the sub blends perfectly.

If anything.. now ive lowered the midbass crossover its a bit too punchy and I had to lower the 31-63hz eq a little.

Im guessing that its going to be near impossible to get a proper set up now without having either some sort of reference (ie use the same track at the same volume and same amp gains and try to match RTA readings rather than just matching the EQ) or find someone near to me to actually listen to my system who knows how it SHOULD sound.

Probably my speakers are just reacting very different to yours.

And that was sort of my initial question... how do I go about testing it myself? I appreciate the help with the EQ but I dont think its going to work just entering different EQ settings. I really need to know what sort of RTA plot i should be aiming for and how i should test that (ie all speakers running or just run 1 channel at a time and do i use 20Hz-20kHz pink noise to set it or is it best to use specific frequency tracks and try to match all the volume levels?)

pentoncm

jedi-knight83 wrote: »

It sounds ok without the sub actually. Just not quite as bassy obviously but the sub isnt over powering at all. Infact on some tracks I think the sub isnt working...until I mute the sub and can hear the difference... but to my ear the sub blends perfectly.

If anything.. now ive lowered the midbass crossover its a bit too punchy and I had to lower the 31-63hz eq a little.

Im guessing that its going to be near impossible to get a proper set up now without having either some sort of reference (ie use the same track at the same volume and same amp gains and try to match RTA readings rather than just matching the EQ) or find someone near to me to actually listen to my system who knows how it SHOULD sound.

Probably my speakers are just reacting very different to yours.

And that was sort of my initial question... how do I go about testing it myself? I appreciate the help with the EQ but I dont think its going to work just entering different EQ settings. I really need to know what sort of RTA plot i should be aiming for and how i should test that (ie all speakers running or just run 1 channel at a time and do i use 20Hz-20kHz pink noise to set it or is it best to use specific frequency tracks and try to match all the volume levels?)

You can try to use RTA as a guide but in the end you will have to learn to tune with your ears. A flat RTA is awful because we don't hear all frequencies at the same intensity. If you want to RTA I would aim for something that resembles the equal loudness curves. Otherwise, try to find a dealer with the new bit Tune that could do it all automatically for you.

Our setups are very different, my mids are down low on the door, yours are up high so they are producing very different responses, and your midbass drivers are in god awful locations.

Anybody else want to chime in who have tuned with mids on the door or at least up high?

arun1963

When you are trying to reproduce good sound in a car, you need to keep track of a few things.

1. What is good sound?
2. How you hear
3. How is the cars environment affecting the sound from your speakers? / What are the challenges and how do you overcome them?
4. What are the givens? How do you work your way around that.

If you really want to use the bit10 to its potential, then know that you are not going to get this done in a few tweaking sessions. At best one can give general guidelines and explain the process. But you have to understand and apply that while tweaking.

Another thing, in a car there is no such thing as perfect sound. As a first step, shoot to be in the zone of good sound and then chase that elusive 'perfect'. You'll eventually realize that perfection is a mirage, just like in real life. So it's largely about the process and the journey.

arun1963

I will explain the previous postI just need to get my attachments sorted out. Will get back.