Recommend me an installer with an ear in San Antonio

scottyf

I need to see someone who knows how to set up stereo to get it's max potential. I'm getting frustrated. Can anyone recommend someone in San Antonio, TX?

Greg Peters

If you go to someone you didn't purchase your gear from, they will probably want to take you for an expensive ride.

Any idea specifically on what you would like to improve?

It is a shame to pay someone for setting up your gains and tuning your system. The tuning is subjective, and someone else's ear may prefer things to sound different than you do.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the mic in your H/U it has a built-in RTA of sorts, and setting that up will probably help you tune for a flat frequency response. Once you start there, you can improve things to your liking with the EQ.

scottyf

I get real frustrated working with graphic equalizers. I can't ever figure out what frequency to adjust to get the sound right. I guess I haven't trained enough on them.

Today, I knocked the 1.25k and up bands down a couple of notches and the stereo is no longer buggin' me, so I will have to pull my back seat off and use the -3 setting on the tweeters.

I also faded the rear speakers out removing that tweeter energy from the cabin as well. It's obvious in hearing them that the SR's are capable of more detail than my MoMo's, but I don't have the frequency balance maximized. The speakers need to break in. Once the tweeters smooth out some more, a better idea of what needs to happen will be evident.

I'll calm down. I've never really worked at car audio -- I'm primarily a home audio guy. In the past, I had a friend of mine who is really good at setting up eq's and has similar taste to me, but he has since suffered a stroke and can't do it anymore. I guess I got spoiled by his expertise.

Greg Peters

I had a look online at the manual for your h/u- looks like a great piece of equipment (though complicated).

If you can't find a preset EQ curve that works for you, you have the option of adjusting one that is close to your liking, or setting up one of two custom EQ curves.

Depending on the music you listen to and your preferences, you should be able to dial in your sound pretty much any way you like it with the 13 band EQ.

50 hz to about 200 hz will cover the bass to mid-bass spectrum, 315 hz to 2 khz will cover the midrange, and 3.15 khz to 12.5 khz will be in tweeter territory.

A slight boost in the bass and treble, with midrange flat or reduced slightly would be a good place to start- a "banana curve" if you picture the boosted frequencies at the bottom and top of the spectrum from left to right. Picture the areas where you feel the sound is lacking and boost/cut as necessary.

It is best to set up your system with CDs you are familiar with and sound good on your home equipment (mp3 files can lose a lot of quality in compression). Frequency response of your speakers will change for the better as they break in, and you'll want to re-tune everything after some listening time. It's worth the trouble, and better than paying someone to do it for you (possibly twice).

As for your rear fill, the trick is to sit in the front seat and fade them down to the point that you cannot hear them over your front speakers. You can accomplish the same thing with lowering the gains on the amplifier channel powering the momos.

Good luck.

scottyf

Thanks for the tips. Thought I'd post pics of the work.......stealth is what I was trying for.....

removed pictures.....

scottyf

BTW, those SR tweeters are smaller than the MoMo's. Any smaller, and we wouldn't have been able to put them in the same hole!

neomagus00

scotty - as far as setting the eq goes, that's basically trial and error... put on some music you're familiar with and just play with the bands... put them each up to +6 and down to -6, and that'll give you a good idea of where in the spectrum each is (for example, to make electric guitars more 'crunchy', give it a bit of a kick in the 1.5-2.5 kHz range, but watch out for female voices, parts of those are in the same range), then just mess with it... listen for problems, try to hunt them down...

i keep a 'known-good' configuration in custom1, and whatever new config i'm trying (usually only a +1 or -1 difference on one band, now) in custom2...

neomagus00

oops, double-post...