setup upgrade

arun1963

Hi Guys,

Hope you have a great thanksgiving with your families. Eat and lot and drink a lot.

Take care

arun1963

Project dashmat is crawling.

Checked global accessories and godashmat for the signature series. Car model not available and they don't ship overseas. Worked on John's suggestion and googled for an australian company that carries the model. Nutshell mail and details sent to Whitneys and an autralian company. Lets see how it pans out.

As a last resort, I'll look at getting my dash pulled and carpeted here. Which kind of puts this project on 'mid-term' burner. Will need some vaccation time to do this.

A bit OT. Remember the interiors of the car that Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels drove in Dumb and Dumber? I bet that car had great sq accoustics......:D

On the brighter side of things......I'm getting my sr's delivered tmrw. I think I'm going to do the install next sunday. I need to check with you'll on a couple of issues before I install, plus sons back from his college for the winter break tmrw. Would like to spend sunday together. In any case I dont want to screw up trying to rush the install.

1. Door Panel Cutting: : Whats the best way to cut the door panel? Something that gives a smooth even cut. Also what kind of a grill does the SR come with? My test speakers just came as drivers. None of the pics on CP have pics of the grill. I hope its not a flashy grill like the momo's.

2. Mid Mounting: Since I'm cutting the panel, I'd like to mount the mid on an mdf mount. Only prob is that its base will have to be 5x7 and the top would be like a 6" circle (whatever the sr measures across its diameter). I bet my installer will struggle with this one. It may take him 2-3 attempts.

3. Tweeter Mounting: I tested the sr's with the tweets on a temp mount on the a pillar. This gave good stage height. Much better than I get with the momo tweets in the sail panels. With the tweets in the sail panels, if I tune for good tonality, I lose stage height. Now, if I flip the polarity on the tweets, I get some height but lose out on tonality. So I'm wondering if can have my cake and eat it too.

I'm also thinking about a coax install. I know that would give the best tonality but not sure what that would do for height. The A pillar mount brings another mod into play. We dont get tweeter pods here.....

MacLeod

Whats the best way to cut the door panel? Something that gives a smooth even cut. Also what kind of a grill does the SR come with? My test speakers just came as drivers. None of the pics on CP have pics of the grill. I hope its not a flashy grill like the momo's.

Theyre just standard, black grills. Nothing fancy at all.

I tested the sr's with the tweets on a temp mount on the a pillar. This gave good stage height. Much better than I get with the momo tweets in the sail panels. With the tweets in the sail panels, if I tune for good tonality, I lose stage height. Now, if I flip the polarity on the tweets, I get some height but lose out on tonality. So I'm wondering if can have my cake and eat it too.

The A pillar will be the best spot BUT you HAVE to make sure to get that left tweeter as on axis as possible. If you dont, the right one will overpower it and it will smear your image. Trust me. I drove myself insane trying to overcome this with an EQ and finally just pulled em off the A pillar and mounted them on the dash firing up with a slight inward angle. MUCH better.

arun1963

Tks for the heads up on the left tweet. So the far side tweet has to be on axis and the near side one can be off axis. Would it be possible to get a pic of your dash just to get an idea of of how you've mounted the tweets?

MacLeod

This is from an older version. Theyre not mounted on top of that plastic insert but angled back slightly. It doesnt look very pretty but the Dashmat covers my crappy craftmanship.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showpost.php?p=591714&postcount=66

arun1963

Liked your pic of the stock tweeter cover. That's what my door grills look like these days, after I tried to open more holes. Amazing what totally funtional organs like ears can drive your mind to do :rolleyes:. The wife is now positive that the old man has finally flipped it.

Oh and the sr's arrived.

arun1963

Here are the pics. One of the tweets is damaged. These are the white spots on the ring at the 5/8/11 o'clock position. Sent a msg to the polk dealer and got a call back in 2mins. Replacemnt tweet being sent tmrw. Great CS.

arun1963

I'm thrilled to bits tho. The tweet bit is just a blip. The speaker was delivered around 4pm today and I opened the box and took a look but didnt check things out in detail. I only started opening up the drivers around 8. That's when I noticed the damage. Its like three ridges on the outer ring. The box was a bit frayed at the edges, casual storage and handling I guess.

I think there are three reasons that polk has loyal customers. It offers great value along with a great product, its willing to stand behind the product with excellent CS and its got the best forum in town

Last week was crazy at work. Clocked 84 hours door to door. I'm planning to take next saturday off and do the install over sat/sun. Reality of finally owning these babies is just sinking in.

p.s. sorry abt the half **** pics. Rush job.

arun1963

Hang tough sal. I'm sure things will work out. Just take it one day and one step at a time. Wishing you all the best.

arun1963

Just a quick question. All the pics I've seen of the sr's show a black and copper colour xover. Mine are black and silver finsish. Is this a newer model or what? Or is it just a cosmetics upgrade?

One step forward and one step back on the dashmat. Got a mail from the Australian company confirming that they make RHD dashmats for a fiesta. Sent them pics of my dash and it seems the Fiesta sold in au has a different dash.....hence back to square 1.

Have a design for the tweet pod to be mounted on the dash. Will sketch, scan and post tmrw for your comments.

arun1963

Am still awaiting shipping confirmation on the replacement tweet. Dam'n I hope it gets here before sat. Correction, I hope it gets shipped first.

I'm thinking about mounting the tweets at the corners of the dash and aiming them at the centre, i.e. between the front seat head rests. The dash does'nt have tweet locations, so a flush mount is out. I'm thinking about putting them in a pod, so that the tweet sits vertical to the dash. They would be aimed slightly upwards and inwards. I hope to achieve two things:

1. Eliminate hearing them reflected off the windshield.
2. By aiming them between the front seats, I hope to have the near side tweet more on axis. This is something both Mac and John pointed out.

Will this work? Will try and post the sketch tmrw.

kwikrnu

nice looking pics.

arun1963

The sr's were installed last saturday. I'm still absorbing the jump in sq. Will post a detailed account once I hear and understand a bit more. Just a quick point. It's very easy to fall in love with these speakers. It's almost effortless.

Mac, whats the appx break in period?

mesquitehead

arun1963 wrote: »

The sr's were installed last saturday. I'm still absorbing the jump in sq. Will post a detailed account once I hear and understand a bit more. Just a quick point. It's very easy to fall in love with these speakers. It's almost effortless.

Mac, whats the appx break in period?

Thanks for sharing your ongoing progress with us, I have enjoyed reading it and picked up a few pointers myself along the way. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the SR's after they are broken in. I am getting ready to re-install mine along with some new gear and will be experimenting with tweeter locations in my truck. Great looking family as well, cool to see other family men hanging out here! Congrats on the upgrade!

arun1963

mesquitehead wrote: »

Thanks for sharing your ongoing progress with us, I have enjoyed reading it and picked up a few pointers myself along the way. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the SR's after they are broken in. I am getting ready to re-install mine along with some new gear and will be experimenting with tweeter locations in my truck. Great looking family as well, cool to see other family men hanging out here! Congrats on the upgrade!

I'm sharing my progress here because, firstly I learnt what ever little I know here and because this whole journey means a lot to me. I have no one else to share it with. My family and friends are just not into sound. Exception being my 8 yr old daughter who tells me that her Miley Cyrus cd sounds much better on the new speakers....there's hope yet. The wife thinks I just flushed $600 down the toilet. :rolleyes: I guess the regulars here, have pretty much gotten used to me and when to tolerate, when to ignore me. Most importantly they know when to help me. I normally never post pics of the family on the inernet but CP is just different. Its home.

The sr's have gotten about 50 hours of play time so I figure they are about halfway broken in. For the first 2-3 days, 15-20 hours nothing happend. I mean they sounded nice out of the box, well above the momo's but I did'nt hear any major changes. Then one day last week, driving to work, I stopped at a red light and Jewel-Alice in Wonderland was playing. The last song on this album is '1000 miles away'. The song starts with an accoustic guitar for the first 10-15 seconds and I was floored. The notes sounded much deeper and I was hearing the resonance on the guitar strings. I had heard this cd the night before and not noticed it. I had to play this part back a couple of times just to make sure I wasnt hearing things. Meanwhile the light had changed and I had a slew of cars honking behind me and drivers cursing me for sure....lol . There after I have been hearing and enjoying these speakers et better by the day. I honestly cant visualise where thay are going to take me once fully broken in.

The sr's are not the loudest speakers (THANK GOD). But the details they bring out is amazing. The details in the mid-bass and midrange is bewitching. Songs I've heard hundreds of times now sound totally different. I'm picking up so many different nuances which just werent there earlier. Damn it, I don't believe polk had this winner on their hands and they didn't go to town promoting it. The mid-bass is really pacy and dynamic. No weak spots here. At least none that I have picked so far. Very smooth and balanced from 50hz right up to 2khz. The mid bass is snappy just the way I wanted it.

There is one issue though with this mid. To be honest it could be my lack of tuning skills. Hope to get some feedback on this. With female vocalists there is a sort of roughness around the 2-3khz range(rough is perhaps too strong a word, but I cant think of anything else, at 2am). It's slight but when everything else around it is perfect, this stands out. Have no clue on this one.

The tweets HAVE to be mounted and angled correctly. I have my mids mounted ok but my tweets are still a temp mount on the dash. The far side tweet is firing directly at my head and the near side one has to be angled just right. If the angle of the near side tweet is too off axis, I get a hole in my highs and the image is pulled towards the far side. If the near side tweet is more on axis than it should be, the image is pulled sharply towards the near tweet. A couple of degress is all that it takes to screw up the balance. Mac and Johns comment on this was gold. Once they they are set correctly......pure and utter seduction. Airy, open, lifelike. Not bright and not calmatose like the dyn tweets. Just pure magic.

To better manage the 'aah' syndrome I have to pinch down on 800, 1.25 and 8khz more than I did on my momo's. I'm planning to get fibreglass mounting done for the tweets about half way up the A pillars. With the tweets mounted on the dash in cross firing mode, I have great tonality but the stage height still sucks. I don't want to flip the tweets polarity or fiddle with the TA to raise this height as it always screws up the tonality. So I figure mounting the tweets higher would be a possible solution. The million dollar question is how do I ensure that the installer angles the tweets properly? I'd hate to get the car back with the tweets at the wrong angle. The installer does custom installs on high end cars and will not let me be on site when he is working on this. I'm stumped on this one.

Mac/John, the bold portions are where I need your help. The reason I'm sitting and writing this post at 2:40am (been at it for 3 hrs, editing, rediting) i/o of sleeping or listening to the sr's, is because my daughter is down with h1n1 and I have'nt left her side for the last 3 days. I also have an ear infection and one ear is all bandaged up. So no critical listening for the next few days.

arun1963

The thing about this sq chase is, that its addictive. This addiction, comes above every other reason. So you're only going to get your next fix, when the sq goes up. That's only going to happen when you learn more. You only learn when you're light on your feet. Getting ahead of yourself blocks learning. QED.

That said, tuning the sr's is a ton of fun. I love the fact that they are so dynamic and accurate. You can instantly hear the result of each adjustment. The drivers are now properly broken in. Amazing mid bass, smooth mids and upper mids. The roughness issue was just managing 800/1.25 / 2 and 8kz better. That and managing the tweets angles. These tweets are really tough to manage. Aural bliss when you get it right and hollow highs when the alignment is off. The physical kind, not the time one.

One yardstick I use, to evaluate my knowledge level, is to check my stage width. Most normal 4 door sedans would vary within 4-6" in terms of cabin width. Hence a 4-6" variance in path length. That's a 0.4- 0.45ms variation in TA. So here we have Mac with a Honda accord. Mac's mids are separated by like 1.15ms which is like 15", for us guys who time align in inches. My mids are separated by like 9". Anything more than that and my stage starts to fall apart. The more width you have the better your image. That tells me two things. a. my install could be better and b. I don't control enough frequencies.

Like my kids, I think I just got lucky with the sr's.

arun1963

The mids are securely mounted on the door, the tweets are still in temp mode. When I got the sr's installed, I figured that I would play around with the angles first to try and understand what works best. I'm was sure (still am) that I want them mounted on the A-pillars, but at what angle? The entire exercise from day 1 has been about keeping the tweets as on axis as possible.

The tweets are setup in xfiring mode with the far tweet dead on axis and the near first set on axis to the passenger and then angled a few degress more on axis to the driver. I tuned and played around with this combination. Of late, I felt I had reached the point where I could proceed with the permanent mounting.

I had the image centred around the centre of the windshield, the tonality was good, although the stage height could be better. I figured that once I mounted the tweets on the A's this issue would be addressed to a large extent. Then, I happened to read a thread on angling ring radiator tweets on diyma. The author (Patrick Bateman) made the following contentions:

1. The RR tweets are highly direction and have a very narrow disperson width. (Known)

2. With tweets, the early reflections are are a bigger nuisance than late reflections. If anything the late reflections would give a slightly wider stage.

3. It is essential to avoid the early reflections by either installing them above the dash obstructions ieg on A pillar. If dash mounted, by angling them slightly upwards, so that the dispersion clears initial reflection points.

4. By firing them on axis, the dash, the windows and the B pillars would act as early reflection points. With them off axis and avoiding the dash contours with proper install, the same windows and b-pillars etc become late reflection points and therefore, less harmfull.

5. The theory here, is to basically keep both tweets off axis. Attached is the frequency chart of a typical RR tweet. I think this one is for the scans, I think that's what he runs. So now the far side tweet is about 30deg off axis to you and the near side one is about 50 deg off axis. Basically both the tweets are now firing at the passenger side and drivers windows.

5. You would need to tune the 5-20khz range upwards. L/R eq control is vital in this case. The range 10-20khz would be fairly flat for both passenger and driver.

This flew in the face of everything I had been aiming for, over the last few weeks. But since my tweets were in temp mount, I tried it just to see what happens. Here's what I found:

1. I reset the angles so that the far tweet was about 30deg off axis and the near one about 60deg. These are approximations. I'm not a measuring, numbers guy. Next I checked if I needed to change any TA values, no I didn't. Told myself, 'Well Duh!!'. You havent changed the mids, the TA for tweets only changes, if you need to change the mids TA. I guess I was just following a routine.

2. From the frequency chart I used the general trand for 30deg and 60deg off axis to re-adjust from 5khz upwards. I didn't use the exact numbers on the chart just followed the general idea to the point where the sound was right. I brought the tweet gains up some. The highs get really dead when you hear them off axis. So you have to breathe some life back into them. In a nutshell above 5khz everything changed, some of it drastically. I have also attached a copy of my settings from earlier and those after the change in tweet angles.

3. Subjective: The first thing I noticed was that the image had moved back, deep over the dash. Near the windshield. The next realisation was, that I had been seeing an image that was kinda in my face. Hence certain parts of the image were much larger than they should have been and as a result, the scale of the picture was lost. Hold a photograph at an arms length, then bring it up to like 4" from your face. Do you see the same photo differently? Kinda the same thing with the image.

The proportions of the image are so much better and realistic. The aural and visual balance between the frequency ranges is so much better now. So I guess I'm saying, the tweet mounting will have to wait till I get the angles right in this setup.

I'm still working on this and it will be a while before I have it dialed in properly, but staright off the bat its night and day.

arun1963

Anyone who tweaks and tunes will tell you, that after a while your mind starts playing tricks on your ears. Perhaps because it gets overloaded with all the, 'is it better now?', kind of processing. So you could be going downhill and your minds telling you, 'yeah thats better'. Cause its shut down and you're going on auto pilot. You come back the next day and you know its a dog.

Sometimes you jump to the next level and the mind gets so focused on the gain and its benefits that it forgets to evaluate is the 'whole' sound better, not just the part you're working on.

The morning after the last post, the benefits of the off axis tweets were still there, everything was better proportioned, the image was plastered to the windscreen, but something was missing. I had taken the image from like 10" in front of my face and put it on the windshield, but I had lost stage depth. Good sound in 2D.

The objective of the off axis tweets, is to have the front edge of the sound stage at your windshield and its depth to extend out beyond the windshield, onto the hood. To achieve this, with the right balance, you need two things. You need to mount your mids as low and as far forward as possible, kicks deep in your floor-well would be one option. You also need to control 7-8 frequencies from your eq over the 4-20khz range.

You need to pull up the 4-20khz range a fair bit (depending on how off axis you set the tweets). This is like 2 and a bit octaves. You need to tune over 7-8 frequencies over these two octaves to maintain the balance. I control 4 frequencies in this range from my p-880. A processor would sure be handy. .

So for one issue I need to change my mindset and for the other I need to start saving. :rolleyes: For now I've settled on a compromise. I've brought the image a bit forward to the edge of the dash by bringing both drivers a bit more on axis, I don't have to raise the 4-20khz range as much and I can thus maintain the balance. As a concept, it works.

A couple of points if you're going to try this. The tweets on the sr's are ring radiators and while these have great extension at the very top and don't break up, they are also highly directional. So there is a very narrow angle range in which the left and right tweets would snap into place to give you that seamless sound. Anything out of this range and the top end would fall apart.

One other advantage of running the tweets off axis is that 3.25khz and 5 khz are better managed. Assuming a normal xover point between 4-5khz for mids/tweets (active), both drivers would be playing these frequencies, loud enough for it to impact your sound. The average 6.5" driver beams at around 3-3.5khz. At this frequency, your off axis mid would be much weaker than your on axis one. On my eq the on axis mid is -6 and the off axis one is -2 Even though the on axis one is further away. Your tweets are not beaming at this frequency. So it would just make one side brighter than the other. Sure the tweet would be playing the 3.25khz lower than the mid (approx 5-6db's in my case) But still enough to leave an impact.

5khz is an other example where the sound is 5-6db's louder from the right. Here, the impact of the tweet would be more pronounced. Aiming the tweets off axis would attenuate all the frequencies they play so now you can set 3.5 and 5khz according to mids and have a lesser impact from the tweets.