SQ Steps

eprater1

ok so sounds to me the like you need 2 amps,

1) 2 channel-run 1 tweet and mid in center
1) 5 channel- run 2 components left and right and sub i.e - a memphis belle

setup the middle channel to produce mostly vocals and poof perfect setup eh????

ive got a spare kicker amp and room for a center and starting to think about it, unless it would be a complete waste of time effort and materials.

candaddy

eprater1 wrote: »

ok so sounds to me the like you need 2 amps,

1) 2 channel-run 1 tweet and mid in center
1) 5 channel- run 2 components left and right and sub i.e - a memphis belle

setup the middle channel to produce mostly vocals and poof perfect setup eh????

ive got a spare kicker amp and room for a center and starting to think about it, unless it would be a complete waste of time effort and materials.

You should start a new thread for this if you are interested.

arun1963

Hi,

Went today and got it done. Bi-amped the momos

1. Increased the dynamat on the doors made sure every metal paty of the door frame was covered.
2. Sealed the doors with a fresh layer.
3. Dynamated the mounting ring, couldnt fit a baffle.
Didn't get in a twist over wires, just used 16g o2 free copper wires :-)
Bi-amped via the xovers
4. Tweets mounted halfway up the a pillars.
5. Gains for front (tweets) set at 9 o'clock and for rears (mids) set at 9:30.
Tks Mac.

4. Didn't get in a twist over the speaker wires.
5. Bi-amped via the xovers
6. Xovers behind the front door panels and thus inaccessable. Installed them in the boot.
7. Tweeter setting now at -3. Will eventually want to go back to -6.
8. Xover on HU for front set at 200hz
Tks Candaddy

Got back and got into tuning / listening mode. Some initial comments:

1. The sound quality is at a different level.
2. The ability to TA all 4 speakers independantly is the biggest gain.
3. The sound at the crossover points, sub to mid and in particular mid to tweets is much smoother.
4. Followed Mac's advise on tuning and tuned in the following sequence. R mid--L mid--Rtweet--Ltweet (right hand drive).
5. The flexibility while tuning is amazing.

Mac based on your post on TA, it seems that sequence you want to haer the speakers in is as follows:
1. First the sub
2. Next far side mid
3. Followed by near side mid and far side tweet
4. And last the near side tweet.

The actual distances are as under;
Right Mid 32" (my side)
Right tweet 28"
Left Mid 48"
Left tweet 43"
Sub 76"

At this setting the sequence would be the same but i would not hear near side mid and far side tweet together. Should I set right mid at 36" and left tweet at 39"? This would bring them closer together.

I will post more as I absorb and apply the comments in this thread. Conclusions for the day:

1. This thread and bi-amping has given a quantum jump to the SQ
2. I have just got off the elevator on this sq level. Am excited about the fact that there's tons to learn and enjoy.
3. I used to love the "surround" sound from fronts and rears. Now the memory of that sound is boomy and boxy.
4. People serious about SQ and with the set up to bi-amp should seriously consider it. It makes that much of a diff.


3.

eprater1

arun1963 wrote: »

Hi,

Went today and got it done. Bi-amped the momos

1. Increased the dynamat on the doors made sure every metal paty of the door frame was covered.
2. Sealed the doors with a fresh layer.
3. Dynamated the mounting ring, couldnt fit a baffle.
Didn't get in a twist over wires, just used 16g o2 free copper wires :-)
Bi-amped via the xovers
4. Tweets mounted halfway up the a pillars.
5. Gains for front (tweets) set at 9 o'clock and for rears (mids) set at 9:30.
Tks Mac.

4. Didn't get in a twist over the speaker wires.
5. Bi-amped via the xovers
6. Xovers behind the front door panels and thus inaccessable. Installed them in the boot.
7. Tweeter setting now at -3. Will eventually want to go back to -6.
8. Xover on HU for front set at 200hz
Tks Candaddy

Got back and got into tuning / listening mode. Some initial comments:

1. The sound quality is at a different level.
2. The ability to TA all 4 speakers independantly is the biggest gain.
3. The sound at the crossover points, sub to mid and in particular mid to tweets is much smoother.
4. Followed Mac's advise on tuning and tuned in the following sequence. R mid--L mid--Rtweet--Ltweet (right hand drive).
5. The flexibility while tuning is amazing.

Mac based on your post on TA, it seems that sequence you want to haer the speakers in is as follows:
1. First the sub
2. Next far side mid
3. Followed by near side mid and far side tweet
4. And last the near side tweet.

The actual distances are as under;
Right Mid 32" (my side)
Right tweet 28"
Left Mid 48"
Left tweet 43"
Sub 76"

At this setting the sequence would be the same but i would not hear near side mid and far side tweet together. Should I set right mid at 36" and left tweet at 39"? This would bring them closer together.

I will post more as I absorb and apply the comments in this thread. Conclusions for the day:

1. This thread and bi-amping has given a quantum jump to the SQ
2. I have just got off the elevator on this sq level. Am excited about the fact that there's tons to learn and enjoy.
3. I used to love the "surround" sound from fronts and rears. Now the memory of that sound is boomy and boxy.
4. People serious about SQ and with the set up to bi-amp should seriously consider it. It makes that much of a diff.


3.

I really wish you guys would stop making crazy post like this, i just dont believe you at all...:rolleyes: but hey if anyone wants to come by tomorrow and help i might be running 2 extra sets of seaker wire tomorrow from my 4ch amp to my 2 componets up front

MacLeod

eprater1 wrote: »

setup the middle channel to produce mostly vocals and poof perfect setup eh????

ive got a spare kicker amp and room for a center and starting to think about it, unless it would be a complete waste of time effort and materials.

Center channels dont work - period. The only way to make a center channel work is to have a processor that plays ONLY center material. In other words, it doesnt play stuff meant for left or right only channels. The new JBL processor is supposed to do this I believe.

Youre not going to get a perfect soundstage in your car because YOURE IN A CAR! No matter how you do it unless you completely rebuild the interior and some of the exterior of the car, youre going to have one set of speakers closer to you than the other.

Mac based on your post on TA, it seems that sequence you want to haer the speakers in is as follows:
1. First the sub
2. Next far side mid
3. Followed by near side mid and far side tweet
4. And last the near side tweet.

No. You should hear the sub first, then both mids together then lastly the tweeters. Having the tweeters fire last, your brain will think most everything is coming from up high.

candaddy

Somebody asked if this was going to mess up the sound for other listening positions inside the car. The answer to that is a resounding YES! A lot of electronics have memory pre-sets now so you can dial it in for either the driver or passenger seat, or somewhere in-between. If you are proud of your system and want to impress your friends, making a passenger side pre-set is a good idea or they might not be too impressed!

arun1963:

Once you've got this all dialed in so far, I'd still urge you to get that CD I mentioned earlier and set your eq for all the frequencies as I stated then. I think as a last step, that's really going to put the icing on the cake for you.

arun1963

I'd still urge you to get that CD I mentioned earlier and set your eq for all the frequencies as I stated then. I think as a last step, that's really going to put the icing on the cake for you.

Dan gave me this link. It allhttp://binkster.net/extras.shtml The full cd is 423MB and at my connection speed it will take ages. You can also download individual files for particular frequencies. So I thought of the 16 frequencies on the 880prs. Here is the complete list. What all do I need to download?

Left Right
Left Right Center Surround
700/1000Hz Dual Tone
700Hz
1000Hz
Log Sweep
Linear Sweep
80Hz warble
100Hz warble
120Hz warble
16Hz
20Hz
25Hz
31.5Hz
40Hz
50Hz
60Hz
63Hz
70Hz
80Hz
90Hz
100Hz
125Hz
160Hz
200Hz
250Hz
315Hz
400Hz
500Hz
630Hz
800Hz
1250Hz
1600Hz
2000Hz
2500Hz
3150Hz
4000Hz
5000Hz
6300Hz
8kHz
10kHz
12.5kHz
16kHz
20kHz
Piano A 440
stereo piano solo
stereo drum solo
120bpm metronome
Crest Wave
DC offset 10%
DC offset 100%
1kHz inverted polarity
1kHz -60dBFS
1khz Square -2dBFS
1kHz Square 0dBFS
White Noise
440Hz 20 minutes
Pink Noise 20 minutes
Digital Silence
Back to top

1. One of the fall outs of the bi-amping is that the door panels vibrate much more than earlier. I guess thats a sign that I'm over cooking the bass. But its something I will have to fix down the line.

good luk getting it done in front of u, arun. its pretty simple stuff, couple wire connections, main thing is tuning ...... just keep gains down till u know crossovers r set and move up slowly. i'm sure every1 else agrees...

2. Thanks candence you're right it wasnt that complicated. Currently gains at 9;30 for both mids and highs. In addition I have the tweets attenuated by -3 from the HU. (Daddy, I went back to -6 on the xovers after a day and a half of listening to it -3. Didnt try 0. It was just too bright at -3. Maybe I've just got used to -6) What is the red line for the tweets and mids? and how long before the 'xovers are set'? IE When can I start turning the gain back towards 10:30-11 o'clock?

You guys are 100% right the so called installers know very little about quality sound / install. But its not just the installers who are dumd after the bi-amping the installer told me to check to ensure all was ok before he put the panels back etc. So I turn on the ignition....expectations sky high......and all I get is the tweeter, the sub and a muddled warble, no mids....my heart sank.

Second thought was (first being I have screwed up the amp / mids) there must be a polarity issue. So first checked the connection from amp to crossover, then xover to speaker. Everything looked right. By now I was really panicking. I had already lowered the gains to 9:30 before turning on the ignition...by now the installer and me were in a fairly heated argument. Installer saying 'you fiddled with the amp before turning it on" and me saying 'you dodo I was just adjusting the gains'. This was getting serious.....

The installer went and called the propietor (so now there were three clueless idiots arguing, two on one side insisting I had screwed up since install was done as per my isntructions and me on the other side). We also had a nice audience around us. Other customers wondering 'hmm should I be getting my install done here....'. My mind was in hyper drive going thru all possible options.

Then it struck me......... I had set the rear gains from the HU to -24. While getting used to listening to a 2 spk set up before bi amping, I had first attenuated rears to -24 and the in the second step had just faded totally forward. Imagine my acute embarrasment :o:o Appologised and explained what had happened. Turned the rear gains up..........sweet sweet music

The shop doing the bi-amping is an authorised dealer for Focal speakers. So while the wiring was being done he made me audition the polyglass 165 v1 components. The shop had three seperate listening rooms, one for JBL one for Pioneer and the third for Focal and guess which brand? Kicker. The guy is selling focal and kicker from the same listening room. I gave him my cd of keith jarret - the cure. HU was an entry level pioneer HU, 4ch Kicker amps with two chanels bridged for a kicker sub. My first listen and I cringed. It seemed that all the settings were geared for SPL not SQ. Having heard so much about Focal speakers I was really disappointed. But I knew this was not the way to hear them. So I turned everything flat on the HU and then went to the xover for the speakers. Sure enough the xovers were at 0. Turned them down to the lowest setting. The sound was much clearer now. The Focal has a really clean and smooth tweeter. But the mid bass is weak. I'm sure the set up wasnt the best but even with a better set up I dont think the Focals were up to the momo's. Am I correct on this?

Its that time of the night here. Everyones asleep and I'm heading to the car for some listening and tuning. Will post comments and questions from tonites session tmrw...g'night all and take care.

arun1963

......two hours down the line, listening and tuning and listening and.....

What grabs me most about bi-amping:

1. Tons and tons of mid bass / bass on tap. I am spending more and more time on the mid-bass/bass, trying to get the most without going overboard. When the fronts were not bi amped I spent more time on the mids and highs.

2. The toughest frequencies to tune on the earlier set up were 3.15 and 5khz. If I tried to boost these I got high levels of sibilance, if I attenuated I felt like I was missing the high end on vocals specially male vocals. Now both are smooth. I can boost these frequencies without the hissing in the vocals. 3.15-5khz are the top end of male vocals as pointed out by mac. I have set 3.15khz at 0 for far side and +1 for my side and 5khz is set the other way. I feel this opens out the top end of the vocals and also helps in increasing the stage width. It 'sounds' right, but is it right?

3. Mounting the tweets on the a pillars really improves the stage height and the depth.

4. The tweets sound best at -6. Plus I have the gain turned down on the tweets fom the hu as well.

5. How do I get out of the rut of going back and forth between TA and eq setting. I set the TA and then tune from the eq. I get to the stage where the sound is near perfect but now its boxed in so I use TA to open it out. So now the sound is open but just a bit of tweaking on the eq is needed........and on and on :-)

6. Oh yes before I forget, while doing the bi-amp connection, I noticed the there was some rusting on the spk wire mounting fram and screws on the xovers. The guy who did the original install mounted the xovers in the door well. There must have been exposre to moisture. How serious is this? What is the course of action?

I must thank candaddy, mac and cadence for pushing me to bi-amp as well having the patience to answer mutiple and stupid FAQ (including those abt spk wires).

eprater1

"6. Oh yes before I forget, while doing the bi-amp connection, I noticed the there was some rusting on the spk wire mounting fram and screws on the xovers. The guy who did the original install mounted the xovers in the door well. There must have been exposre to moisture. How serious is this? What is the course of action?"

The seriousness just depends on how pitted the rust is and how far into the connection/board it got. assuming its just some surface rust i would take a very fine grit sand paper or a fine grit bit on a dremel and sand off all the old rust then hook everything up and give it a coating of electronic's approved rust inhibitor.

eprater1

ok so ive had my prs800 for about 2 weeks now and had time to play with all the setting and the sound continues to improve as i tweek. the thing is im not sure if ive got the time alignment perfect or completly screwed. when i listen to music is like i hear it from almost all around me, you know that nice surround sound effect even though i only have front componet speakers. when whoever sings i can not pick out a single spot on the dash where it sounds like he would be standing. instead its like his voice is coming from almost all the way accross the dash but not from the rear or sides. sorry if this sounds a little confusing but im not sure if ive got everything set up great or horriable. it sounds good to me im just wondering what a sq judge would say?

cadenceclipse

F+ lol sory budy its late, had to..

candaddy

I would definitely get the 1000hz and the 1khz reversed polarity tracks so you can burn them to a disk back-to-back and do an A-B-A type test with them. With the standard 1khz track, the tone should sound directly centered in front of you and with the out of phase track, it should reveal your speaker position exactly. If there is no difference, or the difference isn't very pronounced, then you have to fix your time-alignment. The rest of it sounds interesting, but without hearing it, I'm not sure of the specifics. I guess you could get each track corresponding to your EQ frequencies and play those to help center the EQing. I would start at around 200hz and go up from there.

You need to figure out some way to physically stiffen the door panels. I think that is why McLeod suggested an MDF type baffle, to spread the load of the speaker and help stiffen the door. I'm sure anything you can do will be a big help. If you download the sweep on that disk you can play that and see where the door panel vibrates the worst and then compare it again after you make changes to stop the vibrations.

If you turn the amp gain down on the tweeter channels you can bring the attenuation switch back to -3 or 0 or whatever (the different settings between channels is called "gain structure"). If you prefer to do it the way you are currently (keeping both gains identical) and -6 sounds good to you, then go ahead. You are not hurting anything by doing that and if you like the sound, then leave it alone. The way I do it is to leave the switch at 0 and turn the tweeter gain all the way down before slowly bringing it up in increments until it blends properly with the midrange speakers. You will get to a point where you'll be hovering back and forth between a narrow band when listening to different types of music before you settle on the best setting for your preferences that way. How you did it is perfectly OK though.

Do you need the music to be louder? You can probably turn the gains back up to 11:00 right now, but that may not be what you need to do. Figure out how loud you want to listen to your music on a regular basis and then set the gains so that you are about half way up the scale on your head unit. In other words, if the head unit goes from 0-40, set the gains so your nominal listening level is around 20-25. What you don't want to do is set the gain so high that your head unit is blasting you out of the car at 10. You'd like the listening level to be about as loud as you'll ever want to hear it when the head unit is at about 80% of it's full range. That is actually the main reason amps come with gain adjustment.

To get out of the eq/ta rut, I think you need to get tracks relative to your EQ frequencies and then set your left/right TA by distance settings to start. Once you've done that you might find the image isn't perfectly centered and now is the time to do your eq work with the frequencies. Once you've done that at each frequency and run back through it to double-check, go ahead and play with the time alignment from there. Or at leas that's how I'd handle it. I'm hoping Mcleod can help out more with this issue because I think he's probably got more experience with it.

eprater1

eprater1 wrote: »

ok so ive had my prs800 for about 2 weeks now and had time to play with all the setting and the sound continues to improve as i tweek. the thing is im not sure if ive got the time alignment perfect or completly screwed. when i listen to music is like i hear it from almost all around me, you know that nice surround sound effect even though i only have front componet speakers. when whoever sings i can not pick out a single spot on the dash where it sounds like he would be standing. instead its like his voice is coming from almost all the way accross the dash but not from the rear or sides. sorry if this sounds a little confusing but im not sure if ive got everything set up great or horriable. it sounds good to me im just wondering what a sq judge would say?

when i say all the way accross the dash i dont mean that its on one far side or the other its just more like the voice is spread out over the width of the dash and moves around a little from song to song and i have to chase it down with the TA to recenter it as much as poss.

arun1963

ok so ive had my prs800 for about 2 weeks now and had time to play with all the setting and the sound continues to improve as i tweek. the thing is im not sure if ive got the time alignment perfect or completly screwed. when i listen to music is like i hear it from almost all around me, you know that nice surround sound effect even though i only have front componet speakers. when whoever sings i can not pick out a single spot on the dash where it sounds like he would be standing. instead its like his voice is coming from almost all the way accross the dash but not from the rear or sides. sorry if this sounds a little confusing but im not sure if ive got everything set up great or horriable. it sounds good to me im just wondering what a sq judge would say?

I hear you buddy, I keep falling into that pit myself, though less and less now. When the TA is good, if you close your eyes the sound will be directly in front of you, ideally centre of the windscreen as high up as possible.

Your mind is used to hearing the surround sound and drives you to that end. You have to get the stage right and then let your mind get used to listening to that sound. Once you hear the proper stage you will keep wanting to go back to it every time your TA falls out of whack. Here is what I did.

If your comps arent biamped set your TA from your mids. Also remember that the mid and tweet on your side will always be closer than the one on the far side and hence will play most of the frequencies louder. TA allows you to balance this sound level, so that it feels like the speakers are in front of you. Once you hear this for a bit trust me you will forget about your "surround sound". I have just gone thru this :-)

Before starting your TA turn off the sub and attenuate all frequencies in the 63-315 and 3.15 - 20khz on your HU EQ to -4. You will now be hearing mostly mids.

Measure the near side mid and far side one. In my case this is 30" and 49". Now dial that setting in. Next reduce the distance of the near mid by 0.5" and increase the far side by 1" (49/30= 1.63x0.5=0.82"). Close your eyes and listen. Where is the sound now? The objective is to keep left and right side balanced and equal. When you get to the point where the far side starts to dominate, dont reduce the far side distance, increase the near side. Mac is dead right on the fact that TA is best done with male vocals.

Once your mids are set, then go for the tweets from the EQ. Here is how my highs are set. L&R below are set for a right hand drive vehicle. You would have to invert the L/R on your car. Use these as a ref and work from there.

3.15khz - 0 left and 0 right
5.00khz - 0 left and right
8 khz - +1 left and 0 right
12.5khz - -1 on left and -2 on right
20khz - 0/0 or -1/-1 depending on how you like it.

Once your mids and highs are set then fill in the mid bass. I got a great tip on Mac i.e. on 200hz and 315hz the far side setting needs to be one notch higher than the near side. eg I have my near side 200hz at -1 and far side at 0. 315 is 0 for the near side and +1 for the far side. The mid bass will be a lot more solid this way.

Once the mid bass is done then turn on the sub and set to the exact measured distance i.e. no TA.

Some pointers:

1. Read Mac's and candaddys post in this thread on TA and phase.
2. If the sound is centred but boxed in, reduce TA distance of sub. Eg measured distance of sub is 72", you have done the above and sound is centred but boxed in, start reducing the TA setting for sub in 0.5" increments till the sound opens out.

hope the above is of help.

MacLeod

What youre hearing is called beaming.

Since the left speaker is 90 degrees off axis and right next to you, and the right speaker is almost dead on axis and much further away, the frequencies are hitting your ears at different intensities. The lower stuff up to around 500 Hz is stronger on the left but the upper stuff like 800-3000 is stronger on the right because the higher the frequency, the more it becomes directional and intensifies with being on axis.

The only way to correct for this aside from physically moving the speakers is with an EQ for each driver. For this youll have to spend some money.

Without a 6 channel EQ, youll never get the image focused right. You can experiment with phase by swapping polarity on one of the mids and then re-adjusting time alignment. This wont be perfect but it may get you closer.

eprater1

so if i told you that with the 800 prs i could adjust the eq, phasing, output, and curves for each speaker independantly (forgot to mention that lil tidbit when we were comparing the models i guess) what would you recomend Mac?

candaddy

You need to adjust the EQ to center your soundstage as I laid out somewhere on page one.

arun1963

so if i told you that with the 800 prs i could adjust the eq, phasing, output, and curves for each speaker independantly (forgot to mention that lil tidbit when we were comparing the models i guess) what would you recomend Mac?

eps' for me, its not about establishing which HU is better. As mac mentioned both units are good. To my mind its about first, learning how to get the best out of your set up and then learning to accept and maybe work on the gaps you may spot. :-)

What youre hearing is called beaming. Since the left speaker is 90 degrees off axis and right next to you, and the right speaker is almost dead on axis and much further away, the frequencies are hitting your ears at different intensities. The lower stuff up to around 500 Hz is stronger on the left but the upper stuff like 800-3000 is stronger on the right because the higher the frequency, the more it becomes directional and intensifies with being on axis.

The only way to correct for this aside from physically moving the speakers is with an EQ for each driver. For this youll have to spend some money.

Without a 6 channel EQ, youll never get the image focused right. You can experiment with phase by swapping polarity on one of the mids and then re-adjusting time alignment. This wont be perfect but it may get you closer.

I burnt an audio test cd for the frequencies that I can tune from my HU equaliser. This was strongly recomended by both candaddy and mac. I set all eq to 0 left and right and then listened to each frequency trying to get each dead centre. Should I have turned off the TA when I did this test? (I left it on whatever setting it was on) The results were in line with what mac says above.

20-50hz : Since I have a mono sub setup and the fronts are crossed over at 63hz, 20-50hz would be all sub. Hence I adjusted these from the TA. Focus was to get the sound up front. I ended up with the sub distance on TA at 74" . Actual measured distance is 72". Did I do this bit correctly?

80hz: This one was a shocker. +3 for far side and -1 for my side!! I normally have these set at +1 left and right.

125hz: Another surprise. +2 far side and -1 my side.

200 hz: +1 far side 0 near side.

315hz: Another shocker! +3 far side 0 near side. Mac had meantioned on page 1 that 200-400 would be weaker on the far side, but wow this much!

500hz: +1 far side -1 near side.

800hz: was ok at 0 for far side +1 for near side.

1.25khz: 0 far side +1 near side.

3.15khz: 0 far side and +2 near side

5khz: -1 far side +3 near side

8khz: 0 far side +2 near side

12.5khz: -1 far side +2 near side

20khz: 0 far side +2 near side.

Listened to music at this setting and stage was centred but sound was boxed in. I felt I didnt have enough of the highs. So went back to what candaddy suggested 0 on tweeter at xover and -4 on tweeter gain from HU. Much better . The great thing about this sq chase for me, is that everyday I am reminded how ignorant I really am .

Didnt have much time last night to listen, so will do some listening tonight and revert. I have to fix the damn rattling today. It kills the sound.

candaddy

The 80 and 125 might be from resonant vibrations added by the doors vibrating.

What I usually do is eq like this.

Far side -2, near side + 2

That way you end up with a net 0 unless you wanted to boost or cut that frequency as a whole.

Hopefully that made sense.

I think you're getting there.

You might want to try setting the eq with the time alignment off and see if that makes any difference in your settings. The only reason I would say to NOT do that is if the time alignment was curing an interference problem (which it could easily do).

Did you try the 1khz in-phase/out of phase experiment? That will tell you how well your time alignment is with your front drivers.

Darn, now I'm excited for you! LOL

MacLeod

Leave the TA on.

The way I tune is I start with the EQ set to where L and R mids are together and L and R tweeter are together. I tune everything up to where I think it sounds pretty good THEN I level match the L and R mid and tweet. Then fine tune after level matching.

Dont get too caught up worrying about the levels. As long as youre not having to boost anything like +5 dont sweat it. There are going to be some pretty drastic differences.

As an example, here is my EQ log for my complete settings for World Finals last year.



I have virtually nothing boosted and several things cut by a ton.

eprater1

"eps' for me, its not about establishing which HU is better. As mac mentioned both units are good. To my mind its about first, learning how to get the best out of your set up and then learning to accept and maybe work on the gaps you may spot. :-)"

I also delcared that both were good units and was just letting him know i had the ability to do what was needed with out the purchasing of aditional equipment. with that knowledge i wanted to know what he recomended me do and i also give thanks for your input but please do not lecture to me about what i can and can not say in a thread.

arun1963

hi guys,

sorry checking in here after a couple of days. Its been a hectic two days at work. 16 hrs door to door. Have squeezed in two trips to the installer to fix the rattling and sealing the door totally. Including the 2'x1" gap to allow the power window cable, plus some gaps around the midbass mount, plus..... I fixed the rattling by drilling 4 extra holes for each mid. Now a total of 9 screws hollding each mid in place. Rattling is cured.

Its also been 24 hrs of walking around with a big , a big silly grin. Here's what I finally settled on:

far side / nearside

20hz : 0/0
31.5hz : 0/0
50hz : 0/-1
80hz: +3/-1
125hz: +2/-2
250hz: +2/-2
315hz: +2/-2
500hz: +1/-1
800hz: +1/0
1.25khz: 0/0
2khz: +1/-1
3.15khz: 0/0
5khz: 0/+1
8khz: 0/0
12.5khz: -2/-2
20khz: -1/0

Hey candaddy, lots of +2/-2 just like you mention. Attenuating / boosting, L/R by equal amts seems to prevent holes in the sound. At the above setting, the vocals were centred but there was just a touch of mid bass lacking. Clear, but the final punch was missing. I didnt want to boost the mid bass on the far side further as I did'nt want to go beyond +3 on any setting. Boosting the mid bass on the near side caused "stage loss", if I can use that term. Struggled with this a bit then set the slope for far mid at 6db/oct and near at 12db/oct. Home and dry. As I soak in this sound over the next few days I know I will want tune ou some excess mid bass, maybe tighten up the mids a bit. But still, its silly grin time.

Its exactly as mac said.

The way I tune is I start with the EQ set to where L and R mids are together and L and R tweeter are together. I tune everything up to where I think it sounds pretty good THEN I level match the L and R mid and tweet. Then fine tune after level matching.

I now have it where the male vocals are directly in front of me and the female is just a little to the left. So on songs with a duet chorus, I can see the male and female vocalists standing next to each other. This is just amazing!!!!! What would it sound like if both male/female vocals were to originate from the same point? Is that the right way to go?

Mac: Questions on your sheet;

1. Why are 20-40hz so heavily attenuated? You're crossing over at 40 with a very sharp slope?

2. I love the way you run the 5khz to 20khz flat. That has to be the vifa tweeters on the sr's. The momo tweeter has problems around 12.5khz. It gets too shrill.

3. Somewhere in this thread I mentioned splitting adjoining high end frequencies eg 12.5khz stronger on one side and 20 on the other. Mac does that with his mid bass. 160hz heavier on the left and 250 and 315 heavier on the other side. Mac, does boosting the 160 on left fill up the mid bass hole that the other settings create? Same thing done with 800/1khz on one side and 1.2/1.6khz on the other side.


4. Comments on the sheet mention sub not linear...what does that mean? and midrange 60-100hz thin. Would it help to set 80 at 0 and -3 i/o -1 and -4?

Candaddy going back to your earlier post;

I would definitely get the 1000hz and the 1khz reversed polarity tracks so you can burn them to a disk back-to-back and do an A-B-A type test with them. With the standard 1khz track, the tone should sound directly centered in front of you and with the out of phase track, it should reveal your speaker position exactly.

1khz normal is centred and 1khz out of phase is centred on mid bass. Tks

If you turn the amp gain down on the tweeter channels you can bring the attenuation switch back to -3 or 0 or whatever ..... You will get to a point where you'll be hovering back and forth between a narrow band when listening to different types of music before you settle on the best setting for your preferences that way. How you did it is perfectly OK though.

The amp gain for the tweeter is slightly lower than that for the mid bass, just a fraction. the tweeter gain from hu is -2 from the xover i'm back to -6. If ure running the sr's or equivalent i guess you can go with 0 from the xover but the momos get too bright. IMHO.

Do you need the music to be louder? You can probably turn the gains back up to 11:00 right now, but that may not be what you need to do. Figure out how loud you want to listen to your music on a regular basis and then set the gains so that you are about half way up the scale on your head unit. In other words, if the head unit goes from 0-40, set the gains so your nominal listening level is around 20-25. What you don't want to do is set the gain so high that your head unit is blasting you out of the car at 10. You'd like the listening level to be about as loud as you'll ever want to hear it when the head unit is at about 80% of it's full range. That is actually the main reason amps come with gain adjustment.

Gains on the amp are at 10:30 and the max volume on the prs is somewhere in the 60's. I listen to music at around 40-42. So I guess I'm within the 80% range.

One last question, when the sound is properly TA and equalised, why does it feel like the sound level has fallen a bit. The sound gets sharper and clearer but a bit softer?

ciao

MacLeod

arun1963 wrote: »

Mac: Questions on your sheet;

1. Why are 20-40hz so heavily attenuated? You're crossing over at 40 with a very sharp slope?

The SR mids play down to 40 with no problem but below that they tend to get sloppy. I wanted as few of these frequencies coming thru the mids as possible. 31 Hz and below is pretty much non directional anyway so I didnt need the mids to pull these frequencies up front any.

2. I love the way you run the 5khz to 20khz flat. That has to be the vifa tweeters on the sr's. The momo tweeter has problems around 12.5khz. It gets too shrill.

Thats just on the mids because theyre cut off at 5 KHz. The tweeters are pretty heavily EQ'd in the 5-8 KHz range.

3. Somewhere in this thread I mentioned splitting adjoining high end frequencies eg 12.5khz stronger on one side and 20 on the other. Mac does that with his mid bass. 160hz heavier on the left and 250 and 315 heavier on the other side. Mac, does boosting the 160 on left fill up the mid bass hole that the other settings create? Same thing done with 800/1khz on one side and 1.2/1.6khz on the other side.

No. I didnt have any holes. 160 being higher on one and higher on the other is strictly level matching. 100 Hz is hotter on the left side, 125 is hotter on the right side, 160 is a lot hotter on the right side then 200-315 are hotter on the left. When I run my test tones, if say 200 Hz is 4 db hotter on one side, Ill add 2 to the weak side then drop 2 from the strong side. This way the overall tune stays in place for the most part. If youre hotter on one side by 4 db, dont drop just that one side or raise just the other side. Split them up equally.

4. Comments on the sheet mention sub not linear...what does that mean? and midrange 60-100hz thin. Would it help to set 80 at 0 and -3 i/o -1 and -4?

The lower part of the sub was too thick. This was the 40-63 Hz range. Sounded good on more rock style music but jazz with stand up bass guitars got a tad muddy. Right now Im playing between keeping the 40 Hz x-over setting and cutting those frequencies more and just crossing the mids at 63 Hz with a shallower slope. Havent decided which works best yet.

One last question, when the sound is properly TA and equalised, why does it feel like the sound level has fallen a bit. The sound gets sharper and clearer but a bit softer?

For one, if youre system is properly EQ'd youve got most of the frequencies cut a little. Plus youve got everything more linear so you dont have a huge bump in the midbass which makes things sound louder but not better.

candaddy

Mcleod:

How much later do you want to hear the tweeters in general? I saw your settings on page one, but is that for compensation for actual physical distance? Or are you really delaying them that much so you are actually hearing the tweeters last?

MacLeod

Neither. Im delaying them til they sound best.

I play the right side only and listen to the male narrator track on the Chesky Ultimate Demonstration Disc and then add delay to the tweeter til I hear the voice focus up as high as it will go. Then do the other side. For my car and mounting positions, it was 1.15 ms.

arun1963

actual distance as under (drivers seat on the right):

Right Mid : 30"
Right Tweet : 27"
Left Mid : 49"
Left Tweet : 42"

I typically run my TA on the following settings:

Right Mid : 29"
Right Tweet : 27"
Left Mid : 52"
Left tweet : 49"

I think with this setting I am hearing the far side mid and tweet first and then the near side mid and tweet. What I am trying to do (unsuccessfully) is to first hear the sub then the mids "together" and finally the tweeters "together". I hear the sub first that is the easy part. Manging the mids and highs is the tough bit.

The vocals are centred but some highs(I think 3.15-8) and some middle mids (125 to 315) drift back towards the speaker location. For these frequencies, its not as though one side is louder than the other. the sound is equal from both sides but very focused on the speakers.

To tackle this I try to attenuate the near side EQ for these frequencies and boost for the far side. It helps a bit but doesnt solve the problem. It could also be that I need to tweak a frequency which I can't access. eg 160hz, 250hz, 400hz, 630hz and 1khz.

Once I am fully at home with the TA and EQ, the two things I will need to work on are

1. A seperate 24 band per channel eq
2. Work on my sub bass. Lacks tightness is a bit boomy.

candaddy

arun1963 wrote: »

It could also be that I need to tweak a frequency which I can't access. eg 160hz, 250hz, 400hz, 630hz and 1khz.

Once I am fully at home with the TA and EQ, the two things I will need to work on are

1. A seperate 24 band per channel eq
2. Work on my sub bass. Lacks tightness is a bit boomy.

I think you're right. If you have the option, I'd suggest even more bands of EQ. AudioControl makes some nice units.

Thanks for sharing your settings.

Mcleod,

Thanks for the explanation.

arun1963

Hi,

Have spent the last 7-10 days listening, exprimenting and learning. Soaking in the new sound. It’s a bit like learning to walk again. You’re learning to do the same thing, but with a slight difference. You’re learning to hear, tune and appreciate sound differently.

I am at a point where I don’t have to feverishly tune every song, every cd etc. I have a general setting which seems to work with most of the music I listen to, which is fairly diverse. A minor tweak here or there is all that I normally need.

If I close my eyes, I can hear and see the sound upfront. The height is about halfway up the windscreen and the sound comes from just beyond the windscreen, over the hood. The stage is about half the width of the windscreen. All sound frequencies are within this channel. On certain passages eg solo instruments, pianos gutars and pure vocals it feels like the musician is standing on my dash and playing his instrument / singing. It’s unreal and almost better than ‘live’.

Here is the eq setting I am currently listening to HU is the pioneer 880prs

Xover points for tweets hpf set at 200hz from HU / mid hpf far side 63hz; mid near side 80hz / sub lpf 63hz
Slope tweets and mids slope at 12db/oct, wish I cud do 36 18db/oct wish I could do 36

Xover Gains at HU (Left/Right) : Tweets -2 -1 / Mids 0 -1 / Sub 0

Eq Settings far side/near side
20hz 0/0
31.5hz 0/0
50hz 0/0
80hz -1 -3
125hz -1 -3
200hz -3 -1
315hz -1 -3
500hz -2 -2
800hz -2 -1
1.25khz -2 -1
2khz -3 -1
3.15khz -3 -2
5khz -2 -2
8khz -2 -3
12.5khz -3 -3
20khz -2 -1



I feel that I am halfway to where I can & want to be. I need to work on my sub set up. Need to get that sealed enclosure that’s been in work for ages and a 24-32 band equaliser as and when I can muster the spare $$. Since Polk is a premium product with limited distribution in India, we are buying this stuff at US ‘suggested retail’ prices. Have already shelled out over $ 2,000 for the current set up.

I wouldnt have made it this far w/o the contribution of the following people;

1. Matt Polk - For Making such great products
2. Candaddy and Mac - I will continue to pick your brains
.

sgesang

Is there any lpf for Mid? How about your current sub slope? 63hz@18db/oct? so you wish your sub has lpf 36hz@18db/oct or 36db/oct??

arun1963

Mids are connected to the rear channels of the amp. Mids are cut off at HPF 63hz @ 12db/oct.

Sub is LPF at 63hz @ 18db/oct. I wish i could have the cut off slope at 36db/oct for a cleaner sub bass. At 63hz @ 18db/oct I think the sub would be catching frequencies till 100hz, whcih is kind of boomy bass :-(