System Build
- Thread starter Fast SHO
- Start date
Active Army.
I have a lot to learn about tuning this DSP. Almost too many settings. You can control gain, crossover, time alignment, phase, etc...
Time to start reading some tutorials about what frequencies each component is supposed to play and where to increase the DB's within each freq range.
Final pics:
I have a lot to learn about tuning this DSP. Almost too many settings. You can control gain, crossover, time alignment, phase, etc...
Time to start reading some tutorials about what frequencies each component is supposed to play and where to increase the DB's within each freq range.
Final pics:
Well Army (I'm retired USAF)... THANK-YOU!
I helped build 2 vehicles with Alma Gates (Google her.. seriously) and her son While I lived in Payson... one was a Bronco which was national SPL champ for several years in the early 90's (180DB+) and also the national sound quality champ, an F250 SC.
Early recs are:
After you know you have no phase cancellation (see below) use of an RTA can be a starting place (your installer should have done this)... but your hearing is unique, so use a couple of you fav songs and make it so you like it... keep written record of chaqnges as you make them.... and all final settings (for when your battery goes dead!).. keep the latter in the car.
About the tuning (tweaking we call it)....
You should be able to adjust time delay using distance or a supplied microphone... if not let it go.
Leave gain at factory neutral... use volume controls on the head unit.... adjust gain last at the volume you will use most. Usually this is an EQ and you end up with a "V" shaped pattern because our hearing is worst at the highest and lowest frequencies.
Cross subs at 100HZ (too high) to start and work down using your fav song and your ear... i think you'l find something between 40-70 Hz about right to divide subs and mids and get a "bump". Overlap mids with this about 5-10Hz... your tweets should already be done but likely about 2500HZ and above.
Phase-leave it alone if you hear the subs... get a CD with "phase clicks" to check for phase cancellation. Your installer should have done this.
Again Thanks for making my life safe!. and enjoy Germany. It can be fun!
I helped build 2 vehicles with Alma Gates (Google her.. seriously) and her son While I lived in Payson... one was a Bronco which was national SPL champ for several years in the early 90's (180DB+) and also the national sound quality champ, an F250 SC.
Early recs are:
After you know you have no phase cancellation (see below) use of an RTA can be a starting place (your installer should have done this)... but your hearing is unique, so use a couple of you fav songs and make it so you like it... keep written record of chaqnges as you make them.... and all final settings (for when your battery goes dead!).. keep the latter in the car.
About the tuning (tweaking we call it)....
You should be able to adjust time delay using distance or a supplied microphone... if not let it go.
Leave gain at factory neutral... use volume controls on the head unit.... adjust gain last at the volume you will use most. Usually this is an EQ and you end up with a "V" shaped pattern because our hearing is worst at the highest and lowest frequencies.
Cross subs at 100HZ (too high) to start and work down using your fav song and your ear... i think you'l find something between 40-70 Hz about right to divide subs and mids and get a "bump". Overlap mids with this about 5-10Hz... your tweets should already be done but likely about 2500HZ and above.
Phase-leave it alone if you hear the subs... get a CD with "phase clicks" to check for phase cancellation. Your installer should have done this.
Again Thanks for making my life safe!. and enjoy Germany. It can be fun!
Looks factory!BiGMaC said:
+1 to all of that. Except overlapping, as I would say that depends on the crossover slope you are using, and whether or not you are using digital processing, or more analog types. Reason: phase distortion is present in analog types.
Sweet that you were on Alma's team. Props for that.
Digital Signal Processor.
Mosconi 4to6.
Using Linkwitz-Riley 12DB slope on everything. Still figuring things out.
Set tweets to a highpass of 2500
Woofers high pass at 65 and high at 2500
Subs low pass at 70
Havn't even tried to equalize any channels. I have the woofers on channels 1 and 2 and have 32 equalization options...mind blowing.
Time delay can be adjusted by distance but I don't think I'm saving it right in the 4to6 processor.
BTW, what is considered factory neutral. Out of the box the amp gain was set such that turning the radio up halfway was too loud. And going active I have the tweets on their own channel, so that channel I have gained pretty low to prevent damage.
Mosconi 4to6.
Using Linkwitz-Riley 12DB slope on everything. Still figuring things out.
Set tweets to a highpass of 2500
Woofers high pass at 65 and high at 2500
Subs low pass at 70
Havn't even tried to equalize any channels. I have the woofers on channels 1 and 2 and have 32 equalization options...mind blowing.
Time delay can be adjusted by distance but I don't think I'm saving it right in the 4to6 processor.
BTW, what is considered factory neutral. Out of the box the amp gain was set such that turning the radio up halfway was too loud. And going active I have the tweets on their own channel, so that channel I have gained pretty low to prevent damage.
I was having an issue with the sound being a bit muted on the highs. Couldn't figure out how to fix it until I changed the woofer low pass to 18KHZ. That is high, but the woofers are rated for it. The result is that it really filled out the sound. Here is how my freqs are set.
I know most people say to low pass the woofers at 2500 with a low pass overlapping the sub, but for some reason it just sounds better with it at 18KHZ and tweeters high passed at 2500.
I know most people say to low pass the woofers at 2500 with a low pass overlapping the sub, but for some reason it just sounds better with it at 18KHZ and tweeters high passed at 2500.
spot on. sounds like a terminology problem...... you got it now!! experiment with the 18Hz between the subs and mids.... at high volumes this could be hard on the mids...... Most would shoot for a flat line without "valleys" across the top of the curve you posted, but if you like the sound that's the key!Fast SHO said:I was having an issue with the sound being a bit muted on the highs. Couldn't figure out how to fix it until I changed the woofer low pass to 18KHZ. That is high, but the woofers are rated for it. The result is that it really filled out the sound. Here is how my freqs are set.
I know most people say to low pass the woofers at 2500 with a low pass overlapping the sub, but for some reason it just sounds better with it at 18KHZ and tweeters high passed at 2500.
I'll work on the valley's. I try and get it where it is technically supposed to be then move it around based on what sounds good. It is the EQ settings I'll tackle later after more reading, and then time alignment.
I have the mids low passed at 18,000HZ, doing that filled in my highs. Previously they sounded muted when I had them low passed at 2500 (i.e. playing everything below 2500hz down to the high pass of 70hz). For some reason relying on the tweeters starting at 2500hz to 20,000hz without the mids was causing that problem.
I have the mids low passed at 18,000HZ, doing that filled in my highs. Previously they sounded muted when I had them low passed at 2500 (i.e. playing everything below 2500hz down to the high pass of 70hz). For some reason relying on the tweeters starting at 2500hz to 20,000hz without the mids was causing that problem.
Thing is, any time you overlap you introduce potentially devastating issues.
Example of one, is your woofer and tweeter in their overlap are now operating at slightly different distances from your ear, so it creates interference patterns. Another, the tweeter's timbre playing those frequencies, and the woofer's timbre playing those, are different. More interference (distortion), and so on.
Minor overlap is potentially a great thing, a way to "fill". But everything is a series of compromises.
Example of one, is your woofer and tweeter in their overlap are now operating at slightly different distances from your ear, so it creates interference patterns. Another, the tweeter's timbre playing those frequencies, and the woofer's timbre playing those, are different. More interference (distortion), and so on.
Minor overlap is potentially a great thing, a way to "fill". But everything is a series of compromises.
I know the overlap is significant but for some reason when I cut the woofer off at 2500 and had the tweeter pick it up from there I was getting an odd sound I didn't like. "muted, muddled" etc... would be a good description.
Once I set the woofer to go up between 18-20KHZ it solved the problem. No idea why, but it sounded better. My brother was listening and said the same thing.
I can adjust time alignment also with this DSP but the changes don't seem to be retained, so I need to figure that issue out.
Looks like I can adjust the actual delay or just use distance.
Once I set the woofer to go up between 18-20KHZ it solved the problem. No idea why, but it sounded better. My brother was listening and said the same thing.
I can adjust time alignment also with this DSP but the changes don't seem to be retained, so I need to figure that issue out.
Looks like I can adjust the actual delay or just use distance.
I was set on installing a sub on the side of the trunk but I love your install so much I'm actually thinking of chucking the spare.
Something to keep in mind when you start eq'ing is to pull down peaks and not boost valleys. You can run out of headroom VERY quickly boosting and it may even be a dead spot you will just have to live with.
The best thing I can recommend is getting the software roomeqwizard from hometheatershack.com. There are also pretty good cheap mics you can get that just plug into a usb port or you can spend a little more and get a calibrated mic and powersupply/usb sound card. The software is fantastic! You use a spl meter to calibrate the software first. You turn the volume till the spl meter says 75db then you tell the software what its reading now is 75db. After that you can run sweeps or any tones of your choice and it will measure response, delays, reverb, you name it; all with very nice graphs.
Close to flat response is achievable but sounds pretty shitty. You'll be wanting to dial in a "house curve". At lower volumes our ears are more sensitive to midrange as stated earlier but as the volume goes up it gets flatter. The "loudness" button was mad to compensate for loss of bass and treble perception at low volumes but everyone left it on at high volumes and it sounded "better".
Something to keep in mind when you start eq'ing is to pull down peaks and not boost valleys. You can run out of headroom VERY quickly boosting and it may even be a dead spot you will just have to live with.
The best thing I can recommend is getting the software roomeqwizard from hometheatershack.com. There are also pretty good cheap mics you can get that just plug into a usb port or you can spend a little more and get a calibrated mic and powersupply/usb sound card. The software is fantastic! You use a spl meter to calibrate the software first. You turn the volume till the spl meter says 75db then you tell the software what its reading now is 75db. After that you can run sweeps or any tones of your choice and it will measure response, delays, reverb, you name it; all with very nice graphs.
Close to flat response is achievable but sounds pretty shitty. You'll be wanting to dial in a "house curve". At lower volumes our ears are more sensitive to midrange as stated earlier but as the volume goes up it gets flatter. The "loudness" button was mad to compensate for loss of bass and treble perception at low volumes but everyone left it on at high volumes and it sounded "better".
Fast SHO said:I know the overlap is significant but for some reason when I cut the woofer off at 2500 and had the tweeter pick it up from there I was getting an odd sound I didn't like. "muted, muddled" etc... would be a good description.
Once I set the woofer to go up between 18-20KHZ it solved the problem. No idea why, but it sounded better. My brother was listening and said the same thing.
I can adjust time alignment also with this DSP but the changes don't seem to be retained, so I need to figure that issue out.
Looks like I can adjust the actual delay or just use distance.
If you're going to get this far into I REALLY recommend the rta software I mentioned. It will show you what driver is capable of what then you can make decisions off the data.
the distance / ms in the delay is the same thing. It just does the math from the distance you enter for you to get the ms.
Correction, here is the interactive one to help real-time
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm
From here, you'll be able to move your mouse over each range, and get more info.
http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm
From here, you'll be able to move your mouse over each range, and get more info.