Quality advice wanted.

[Pernod]

Hi all,

I'm in desperate need of some help/advice...

As a bit of background I should confess that I am a self proclaimed Audiophile. In saying this I should explain...

I am not after volume (in fact my 1000W RMS vega is only running off an amp with only half this RMS power)
I'm not after gut renching waves of bass that make onlookers turn and stare.
I'm certainly not looking to fill my car with as many set of 6x9's as possible.

What I am after is quality, crispness, clarity, depth, precision and prehaps something more importantly, something that sounds real.


Now, down to the point of this post...
Before I start pulling my car to peices and experimenting with different options, is there anyone else out there who has already tried this? Has anyone else managed to improve the clarity in their BA astina?

If you have tried anything then I would love to hear it...

** Have you deadened the doors? What with, how did it go? Have you done more than the doors?
** Do you run an eq? what sort of levels are you running? What music do you listen to?
** Do you run a sub? what size? Any idea of the 'tuning' of the box/sub (ie what freqs it peaks at etc)
** Have you balanced the setup with 'extra' speakers in concealed places?
** Have you done anything else in the search of quality?


Anything people can offer would be great!


Shane

[Dogo]

this is an on-going project for me. always fiddling with things and chenging things to see what i think.

deadening - yes. just the doors but it needs more throughout the car. something like G-Spot sheets and paint should be fine. maybe some foam padding ( carpet underlay maybe ) behind some of the plastic interior trim.

EQ - yes. i cant leave the settings alone, so I can really say what kind of levels im running coz im always changing them to try different things.

Sub - yes boxed 12" . to be upgraded. i usually have mine cut of at abt 60hz

extra speakers - depends on how ur other ones are set up i guess. i have tweets flush mounted in the rear C-pillars which i liked. drivers sit on the back shelf ( reinforced for resonance and strength ) Centre speaker would go well too if ur not going to angle the front door speakers

anything else, umm i guess. try changing bits around until ur happy. and then change them again and again and again :wink: the plastic under the boot floor isnt a very stable surface for a sub. would rather have it secure to the chassis but i havnt bothered . move it around to find the best location u like. my preference was against the back wall, facing towards the front, angled at the top of the back seats, but wasnt practical for me.
I also find the front doors are too small to get a good sound from those speakers without my legs getting in the way. which kinda sux.

[Pernod]

Looks like your in the same sort of space as me...

Just when I had the settings perfect inmy old car I sold it, and the new lantis seems to have completly different problems/challenges.

What have you used to deaden the doors and how did you do it? (and any rough cost?). My old laser was so tinny that It wasn't worth worrying about as I would have had to do the whole car to get any results.

I still havent gotten off my arse to get an eq - although I always tell myself its nxet on my list. My partner isn't keen as I'd never leave it alone :roll: (at home, every time a new genre of song comes on I have to change it).

I'm currently runnin 6" rear fill in the back two doors, and components in the front doors with the tweeters mounted on the front half of the door handel bits to give my front sound stage.

Unfortinuatley my BA hasn't come with wiring for the centre speaker, but I thought I might add an extra 2 4" 2-ways under the front foot wells to add a bit more focus and front bisas? Thoughts?

I'm running a 12" in a ported box which I've tuned for about 40Hz (designed for a real range of about 15ish-120 where the cross over cuts it off) :wink: I've secured this as well as you can with the plastic floor to the boot!

I seem to have the same issue with the fronts - the sounds gets a bit 'lost' and 'muddy' with the placement so low in the foot well. I'm hoping the extra pair of 4's will help this???

[submersiblepotato]

Hey guys, i'm also a self diagnosed audiophile and find it hard to believe that both you guys run huge wattage ported subs !!! Have either of you listened to sealed subs? They take up waaaay less room and you dont get those severe 'humps' in the bass range. I run a 10 inch ininity kappa in a 1/2 cubic foot enclosure and I can't fault it.... I run a pioneer hu and it has an equivalent of a 9 band equaliser in it, this is enough control for me to get proper sound on the 'flat' equaliser setting and no bass boost on the sub amp. I run pioneer 6 inch splits in the front and pioneer 6 inch 2 ways in the rear doors.

My biggest annoyance is engine whine which manifests itself when you put the a/c or lights on. fortunatley this is not amplified and can be overpowered by the volume setting.

the sub is rearward firing, the tweeters are on the dash. i have deadend the front doors and put anti vibration padding in the boot.

The sound is very natural and tight. which is the way i like it....

hope this helps...

Sub

[Pernod]

Out of interest - what sort of muic do you normally listen to Potato?

I listen to a large amount of music - everything from classical to rock to euro-trance. Because of this I am not after so much of a 'kick' from the sub, but more of a background hum/fill. A sealed box will give a nice punchy bass, but the ported box allows the sub to move more freely allowing it to provide a more even hum.

For me there is nothing like the 20hz buzz of a classical chello/bass in the background of a nice bit of jazz ;-)

Its a bit hard to see below, but the Vega series I run has a double rubber hump/ribbing on the edge of it. I have found that this makes it a bit free'er to provide quality 'hum' at lower levels with the larger ported box. The sealed smaller box I had tended to suffocate the sub and did not have the same response (although it felt like it had enough punch to smash my windows). The best setup will depend on what you are after and the type of sub you have.

A properly tuned ported box shouldn't have any 'humps' in the bass range (although I must admit that even after my best attempts I still have a slight hot spot at 25-30 hz :? )




I have had no problems with a hum? My old Lazer had one that kept comming and going and it drove me insane. In the end I re-ran the earth wires from the amp, sub and changer and that seemed to fix it.


I have my sub side loading/facing into the boot. I would idealy like to have it front loaded/facing, but that made it reasonably hard to put anything else into the boot. I have found that having it on the side of the boot facing in gives it room to 'breathe' without causing any rattles or the distortsion ( :shock: ) that sometimes comes with rear loading.

Also, what have you used to deaden the front doors? This is something I haven't tried yet and have no idea on (as most of my sound experience has been as a sound tech for concerts/shows and I didn't realy want to 'deaden' a room full of people... :shock: )

As an aside, do you guys have a parcel tray? I have been meaning to experiment by taking mine out to see if it makes and changes, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[dfvadr]

hi guys
hey potato the buzzing could be as simple as a bad earth contact or is ur earth wire smaller then ur power wire if it is make it the same thickness or thicker good luck

[Pernod]

Also, check that the earth wire links straight to the chassis - I've come across this issue a few times when other earth wires have joined to the stereo earth...

[Dogo]

my box is sealed. i prefer sealed to ported, but I have never actually had a ported box so i cant know for sure :?

[Pernod]

roughly what size box are you using?

[submersiblepotato]

I also listen to a very wide range of music and love the 'kick' AND the 'hum' but hate the one note 'doof'. I have probably been tainted by idiots who don't know how to design a ported box that can produce more than one frequency.

The infinity kappa is a very efficent speaker and has a nominal power handling of like 100wrms which basically doubles in a sealed box because of the air's "resistance' to the cone (i also have 100% fiber fill whch makes the hole thing extreeemly dead).

Maybe the higer wattage lower efficiency speakers don't like moving slowly in a sealed environment. :?

As far as te engine whine noise goes i have tried every trick in the book to stop it at the amplifier end. I think i need to stop it where it starts which i suspect is the alternator because electronic load varies the noise...... :|

I'm pretty sure the deadening stuff was like a few cm thick of heaps dense sheeting.. I only did the front two doors due to the forums suggesion. I haven't heard a sound system without the deadening installed so i can't comment on how much difference it makes. All i know is dead = gooderer :lol:

I think the center speaker may be a waste of time seeing as though the tweeters are up around that level anyway.

anyhoo, i've probably said too much......

Sub

[Dogo]

true, potato. if the tweets are up high then the centre speaker isnt worth the bother. I used to have mine up high but now i dont, and so i use the centre to raise my stage again.

100% fiber fill - does the mean the box is filled up with it ? Ive read alot abt it but never tried.

with a sub u could possibly get away with using a ground-loop isolator with little if any effect on sound. presuming ur amp is only running the subs , of couse.

[Pernod]

Potoato, this is probably a silly question but I have seen it done so I suppose its worth asking...

I am making the assumption that you have +ve/-ve wires running to all speakers, and not just looping the -ve back through the chassis??? I know this is probably silly to ask as you seem to know your stuff, but thought it would be worth checking... :wink:

[submersiblepotato]

pernod, 100% fiber fill means jam as much as you can or want to put into the box, make sure it doesnt obstruct the cone.....

the amp is driving the sub and front splits and the noise is most noticable through the tweeters.

It's all wired legit, not dodgy chassis speakers grounding. :?

[Pernod]

Weel in that case the buzz has me stumped... I dont suppose the wires running to your amp run along side any power cables?

[Critter]

OK
I use Dynamat Extreme in the front doors on both skins ie innners and outers. Essential for natural SQ and decent mid-bass punch and drive.

Try to mount mid-bass solidly in the doors with tweets less than 200mm from the bass-mid to avoid a separation of the sounds, angling tweets towards opposite side head-rests.

In this situation a decent time alignment is hugely useful. if you can go 3 way the ideal is a 4" and tweet in the kick panels if you can make them fit. Tough....

As for subs, ported vs sealed......have used both in this car, prefer allround the twin sealed 12s BUT a good ported set-up can give you fabulous low-down efforless "urge" as some people here have heard.

40Hz is kinda high for a good SQ ported tune in most cases. it will be a bit "one-note" ie rthe bass notes will tend to sound a bit all the same. Tune down to the woofer's resonant frequency for better results.
Larger sealed enclosures up to the driver's Vas will generally give you smoother, deeper bass than smaller ones, with some cost to power handling and be a bit less punchy.

Hope that helps.
If you would like help with enclosure design, I am well-qualified to help, any time.

[Pernod]

Thanks for that, sounds like you must be in the industry?

The 40hz i said it is tuned to isn't quite right - its only 1/2 the story ops:. I have aimed to tune it to both 20hz and 40hz as the wavelength of 40 is precicely 2x that of 20, so by default anything tuned to work at 20 will also give a reasonably sweet note at 40. I presume this theory hold true in car audio, as my experience is in larger open spaces.
In practise it seems that this has given a nice compromise, as it also has a nice balance at 80hz meaning the one note wonder isn't such and issue :-)

Critter, any ideas on what it would be worth to dynamat the front 2 doors (and would you recomend only doing these two, or other places as well?)

Also, any help on the 'which way to aim the sub' issue that has been raised in some of the other posts?

THanks for the help!

[Critter]

Open space and boot space are quite different as you are working very partial wavelengths.

20Hz tunes are fine for woofers that have free-air resonance that low which is rare indeed. Also steep subsonic filter below tuning freq if you want to keep the thing in one piece.

I try not to low pass above 80Hz (lower still often better, but experiment) and in a hatchback steep slopes seem to work best ie 24db/octave if you can arrange it.

I like to start with the driver working properly in the box so the performance is "right". Personally, facing rear has always worked well for me, gives a nice mix of bottom octave loading with half a boot to fire backwards at.
Facing forwards reduces the loading and a sealed box will need loading for sure if you want the bottom octave.

Ummm, I have been doing this for over 20 years some of it in the industry, yes....

[submersiblepotato]

found that most of the buzz is coming from the right tweeter which i'm pretty sure the wire and the crossover runs right next to the cars computer (just right of the accelerator pedal?)

has anyone else got there crossover up in there and had any trouble?

[IceWish]

Vega really rocks...I have a friend who has a 8" sub in a nice box and when he plays it....it shakes the whole roof.....it sure is fun watching the cone flex.ITs a nice sub.....I on the other hand have a pair of kicker comp vr in my astina...both in 2 seperate sealed boxes 1cf....Sounds really amaizing ...i just love the clean crisp bass of a sealed enclosure...and not to mention the power they can handle..I use a JBL 1200.1 class D.I also have a custom made back dash with 2 10" selenum and 2 bullet tweeters,2 5x7 earthquake focus in the front and 2 6" erthquake in the back doors...and two tiny tweeters on the front dash......ppl are always impressed with the quality of sound that my car produces.....I think its a really nice setup...

[cgunther]

IceWish, got any pics of your install? I'm just collecting ideas as to what I can do when I get some cash together.