59 replies to this topic

[Luke352]

Pre-orders were opened at SBN (Spring Break Nationals) in the States and they had two cars on display with units installed, and Andy Wehmeyer has confirmed that they have had final approval granted and that they are just tracking down some fianl parts before construction begins, and word is they should be shipping around May.

RRP is still about $900 USD but hopefully JBL Australia won't price it totally out of the market.


p.s. I would've updated the old thread but we have this wonderful search engine on this forum that can't search for words with three letters, JBL, MS-8, and I don't feel like trolling thru several pages to find the thread.

Edited by Luke352, 16 March 2010 - 08:13 AM.

[~Spyne~]

now is there some way to see the ACTUAL features of this unit, without trolling through the 40-page thread on DIYMA looking for Andy's posts?

[Matt VIP]

nope. If you want RealSQ™ then you gotta do the research.

I believe the page count is up to 65 now?

Edited by Matt VIP, 16 March 2010 - 08:41 AM.

[Matt VIP]

I am the information. We're working on the website and the rest of the information now.

Production has been authorized this morning and we're working to secure the last of the parts required to build the units.

[Matt VIP]

now is there some way to see the ACTUAL features of this unit, without trolling through the 40-page thread on DIYMA looking for Andy's posts?

I just reread this and got really excited again...

MS-8 comes with the pre-amp/amp, a small display, a wireless remote control, a binaural microphone and a setup CD.

MS-8 will have 8 speaker level inputs, 8 line level inputs and an iPod input. The inputs are summed to provide a full-range 2-channel signal. If 6 or fewer inputs are required, then the last 2 can be used for an additional aux input.

There are no digital inputs. Why? Because the real benefit of digital input is "no noise". The downside to providing one is that for 99 percent of users, it's more hassle than it's worth and will cause a great deal of confusion. Not too many people understand that the connector doesn't determine the signal. What I mean is, if we put a toslink input and a user hooks up a toslink output, it will only work is the signal is compatible. DVD-Audio isn't available on a digital output, DVD signals are 48k, PCM is 44.1, home-made digital audio can be anything. The signal from tuners is often only output on the RCAs. For the vast majority of users, there is no benefit and too much opportunity for disappointment. As far as noise goes, our inputs are differential, so the commoon mode noise rejection is super high. There won't be any noise.

There are 8 input channels, so the 8 speaker level inputs and 8 line level inputs are basically in parallel. You can use any combination.

Once the signals have been combined and un-EQed (for a flat 2-channel signal), the signal is processed with Logic7. That provides signal steering for a center channel (if you have one--if not, no problem) and processing for side and rear channels. L7 works on any 2-channel source and is our version is written for cars rather than live-in rooms, so it sounds MUCH better than any of the encoded formats in a car. The 2-channel downmix of any encoded DVD or DVD-A disc will play back in full surround. If good-old 2-channel is what you want, L7 is defeatable and the channels are fully configurable (there are 8 output channels and they can be pre-amp channels or powered channels--20W x 8 at 4 ohms, 30W at 2 ohms). You can have 3-way front, a center and a sub, 2-way front, rear and a sub...whatever you want to do.

The electronic crossover that's built in is fully configurable. You can assign any channel to be anything and it includes an EZ setup mode and an advanced mode. In EZ setup, you tell each channel the speaker location (front right, for example), then you tell it what speaker is connected (6" full-range). It sets the crossover point. In advanced mode, you tell the channel the location (right front) and then assign a filter type (HP, LP, BP) and then you set the filter frequency (you can assign any value between 20 at 20kHz) and the slope (1st-4th order).

After the crossover setup is completed, you move on to the EQ. You put on the microphones (they look like airline headphones but contain mics instead of speakers) and insert the CD. The display will give you some instructions to sit in the driver's seat and look at the left mirror and press "go". the unit will make a quick sweep of all 8 output channels. Then it will ask you to look forward and will make another sweep. Finally, it'll ask you to look to the right--another quick sweep. You can measure only the driver's seat or up to 4 seats. After the measurements are made (takes about 5 minutes) the unit will calculate the frequency response, level and arrival time for all 8 channels in each seat and crunch some numbers (another 30 seconds or so). It auto-tunes the car with 48 measurements per seat (up to 4 seats). It will output a tuning optimized for the driver, passenger, compromise between driver and passenger and one for the rear seats. If you use a center channel, both front seats will sound the same and the image will be great for rear seat passengers too.

After the auto-tuning is done, it will allow you to change the target curve. You can call up a 31-band EQ tool and make whatever changes you want. Unlike a regular EQ, you don't have to find an RTA and tune the car with the EQ, you just draw the curve you want to hear and press "go" and it does the work in implementing your curve. Then you can switch back and forth between your curve and the automatic one and continue making changes until you're satisfied. The curve you draw will always be adjusted in level so that the maximum number of bits are available to describe the signal (optimized for dynamic range). Once you save the curve, you can access any of the settings optimized for any seat using the remote control and the display.

You can turn Logic7 on and off, adjust the level of the center channel, use a balance control, fader, 3 or 11-band graphic EQ or adjust the level of the bass. THe bass control isn't a gain control for the subwoofer output, it's a filter that works with the crossover and applies the right amount of bass to ALL channels so the illusion of bass up front isn't destroyed when you turn up the bass.

Answers to some likely questions:

1. You don't have to use the unit's volume control. You can use the one in the head-unit if you want to.
2. Maximum input voltage on the RCAs is 2V and 15V on the speaker level inputs. The signal is converted directly into digital after the preamp buffer, so a high signal level is far less important in this device than in conventional ones. The input is fully differential, so there won't be noise. I suggest speaker level connections because they are COMPLETELY isolated from ground.
3. The automatic EQ isn't exactly parametric or graphic. It's a very powerful algorithm that works on the impulse response to adjust both time and frequency response. It's amazing and does in about 30 seconds what I can do with an 80 band parametric EQ, crossover, time alignment and a serious analyzer in about 3 days.
4. The display doesn't have to be mounted. If you don't want iPod control or the ability to adjust after setup, you can unplug the display and use MS-8 as a "black box".
5. The unit is small--about 8.5" x 11" x 2.5"
6. Price will be about $800...TBD
7. The software is updatable via USB and a PC.

It does what all other OEM integration tools do and what every other DSP (EQ, Crossover, Time alignment, 7.1) processors do, but it sounds better, is easier to use, is less expensive and is far more advanced in terms of DSP power. Best of all, it's a tool you can be successful with, rather than a whiz-bang collection of filters and adjustment possibilities that require a PhD in acousitcs to use.

[Luke352]

Guess I should start putting some cash aside for one. Apparently they dropped Ipod connectivity, because of all the issue's with licenseing and the fact that Apple constantly updates Ipods and what works now may not work for the next gen, so in the end they decided it was too much hassle.

[2LOUD2OLD]

definitely time to start saving

[Marc ♫]

Without doing my research, what does this offer over the Audison BitOne?

[Tiger]

Not much.... if any. I can't really see anything that's outstanding from the MS-8 as opposed to the BitOne.

BitOne:
-8 rca inputs
-8 speaker level inputs
-31-band EQ
-full time alignment, per channel
-6/12/18/24dB HP/LP/BP X-Over, per channel


MS-8:
- 8 speaker level inputs
- 8 line level inputs
- Auxiliary input
- Fully configurable electronic crossover
- 31-band EQ

[2LOUD2OLD]

how about auto 2 seat tuning?

oh and no noise

Edited by 2LOUD2OLD, 16 March 2010 - 05:31 PM.

[Tiger]

PFFFFT! Not good enough..

I'll stick to my PG BassCUBE! hahahaha

[mad89]

Without doing my research, what does this offer over the Audison BitOne?

Keen for more info regarding this too.

Luke, spill! heh!

[Tiger]

Google it!

Resource One

Resource Two

Resource Three

Resource Four

You're welcome hehehehe

Edited by Tiger, 16 March 2010 - 07:01 PM.

[shiny_car]

As 2L2O suggested, the auto-EQ is meant to be extremely powerful and superior to any other algorithms already out there in the car audio world. So it should make tuning more precise and 'better'.

That's my understanding.

[mad89]

You're welcome hehehehe

Fixed for you.

You're welcome

[Tiger]

How the?!?!?!

hahahaha

[Winno]

Oh well, at least my HX-D2 is a keeper as far as a straight transport/dac is concerned.

Anyone wanna buy a body part?

[Luke352]

Here is some reading.



I think most of the questions about the product have been answered here, thanks to someone pasting responses from the now almost dead carsound forum. Thanks for that.
I agree that there haven't been many room correction algorithms that work well, but the one in MS-8 is a good one. There's a huge difference between room EQ in a room and room EQ in a car. Correcting response in a room with real speakers really requires two different kinds of measurements--a near field measurement of each speaker and a correction scheme for that and a second set of spatially averaged measurements for correcting room modes. In a car, we can combine this into one, since the seating positions are fixed and since the speakers are very close to the listeners (compared to a room). There's so little delay between direct sound and reflections (the time and magnitude) are so close that we hear them all as speakers. In rooms, it's important to differentiate between the two.
Can a person do a better job of tuning than MS-8? I can and I'm sure there are a few others who can too, but MS-8 has been designed to make everyone's car sound better--people like my mom who love music but don't know anything about audio--and for installers to implement. I can do a better job than MS-8 but in order to do it I need lots of bands of parametric EQ (currently I have 176 biquads available for eq and crossover), time alignment, phase shifting parametric all pass filters, separate gain control of all speakers, Logic 7, a mic array and multiplexing mic preamp, an RTA with 1/24 octave resolution, an analyzer than can measure impulse responses and phase, and a couple of weeks.
MS-8 includes all these capabilities and does about 90% of the job in about 10 minutes.
Regarding the debate between Car PC and MS-8: A car PC can include many if these tools all kludged together (except Logic 7). A car PC is like a basket full of groceries and MS-8 is like a great meal.



Anyway, the EQ in MS-8 isn't a multi-tap filter (like the Audyssey), nor is it a standard parametric EQ or a graphic EQ (like Cleansweep). It's something far more bizarre. It works great, and with 8 biquads per channel can do more work than 512 taps. It doesn't EQ phase separately from frequency magnitude, but in my experience, that isn't necessary so long as you have a center channel and a matrix or some other center signal extraction method or time alignment. MS-8 has both.

One thing that's important to remember when you're setting crossovers with conventional gear is that what appears to be a gap may, in fact, not be a gap. Here's an example (but without pictures, because I'm lazy today).

Let's say you cross your subs over at 100Hz and your mids over at 200Hz. Both slopes are 12dB/octave. When the output of the subs is precisely the same level as the output of the mids, the subs are down 3dB at 100Hz and the mids are down 3dB at 200 Hz. At 150Hz, both are down 6dB. Now, adjust the input sensitivity of the sub amp, so it sounds like you have bass. Let's say you boost it by 12dB. Now, the sub is up 12dB at maybe 80Hz and below, up 9dB at 100Hz and at 0dB at 200Hz. Now where's your crossover point?

200Hz.

MS-8 avoids this problem by providing one crossover frequency setting for the sub and the midbass, adjusting the final slopes and frequency automatically using the acoustic EQ and then providing a bass shelf filter as a subwoofer level control which is applied to all the channels through the crossover. That way, the midbass and the subwoofer get the appropriateamount of boost at the right frequencies to add bass to the system while maintaining the proper crossover point so the bass doesn't become boomy and direectional. It works great and I have that process running as a VST plug-in in my car now.



Let's make this easy and say a biquad is a filter that can be configured to be a high pass of just about any alignment; low pass of just about any alignment, parametric EQ of nearly any frequency, gain and Q; notch, high shelf; low shelf or phase shift. The MS-8 assigns the filter type and values (frequency, Q and gain) based on the measurements it makes and the algorithm (predefined process or set of instructions for making decisions written as code) that determines how the decision will be made. So, for the purposes of this discussion, MS-8 has 8 opportunities per channel to implement something that does part of the job of fixing the channel's response. The details of how it makes the decisions are proprietary, patented and too difficult for me to try to explain.



Some of it is manual and some is automatic. The user enters the crossover frequencies and assigns the channels. Then the user helps MS-8 make its measurements by placing the microphones and pressing "Go". MS-8 adjusts the EQ and, consequently, optimizes the crossovers and slopes for proper acoustic performance. Then, if you want to make adjustments, you get a 31-band EQ. The 31-band EQ is a separate set of filters that you can use to draw whatever curve you want.

Unlike most 31-band graphic EQs, the response tracks the settings precisely. What many users expect is that if they boost all the sliders by 12dB, that the response should be flat, but boosted by 12dB across the spectrum. This is almost never the case, because making the filter Qs narrow enough to do that makes the response look like a comb. Making the filters wider provides more gain than one would expect when adjacent bands are boosted. Also, adjacent band boosts and cuts are rarely executed by conventional EQs as one would expect. The math used in MS-8's 31-band EQ adjusts adjacent bands automatically so that the curve you draw is the curve you get. This is a big deal, by the way.

For those of you who have an EQ laying around, plug it into your sound card. Make it a loop-back. Generate some pink noise and look at the response as you make adjustments. You may not like what you see and it's one of the reasons that tuning with a conventional 31-band EQ and using a 31-band RTA rarely results in great sound.

The whole point of MS-8 and the point at which it differs most from every other processor that's come to market so far is that it's intended to provide a bunch of tools you can use easily to be successful in making your car sound great. It's not intended to be the tool corral at Home Depot, where almost anything is available, but it's up to you to learn how to use it. If we just took the on-chip library from the TI DSP we're using and added a GUI, this product would have been finished three years ago, but it would have been just like every other DSP EQ/Crossover. There would have been a bunch of people who can pronounce "equalizer" and who have heard the terms "Butterworth", Linkwitz-Riley" and "All-pass filter" raving about the resolution of the available adjustments, but the success rate in making cars sound great and, consequently, the sales rate for the product would have been just as dismal as every one of its predecessors.

[br85]

RRP is still about $900 USD but hopefully JBL Australia won't price it totally out of the market.

HA!

If it goes the way it normally goes, I'd estimate about $3,800.00 RRP over here, and then the local suppliers will cry at those of us who grey import.

[~Samuel~]

Nice avatar BR85, and lets try to keep positive on RRP, dont forget that JBL need to compete with the Bitone so pricing will need to be reasonable othewise they will not sell any

[Tiger]

$1500 then?

[Captn_Awesome]

If the auto tune works as well as suggested then $1300 - $1500 would be where id expect (read : hope) it to be possitioned price wise.

Look at other units in the home theatre and pro sound arena that offer this kind of thing - you wont see muchh change from $5k AUD last I looked (im thinking the DEQX)

[DG Phil]

If it goes the way it normally goes, I'd estimate about $3,800.00 RRP over here,

Who locally charges 4+ times US prices?

[br85]

Who locally charges 4+ times US prices?

exaggeration

I don't think it will really be that bad, but I hope they do consider grey importing when setting the price. Make sure adequate added value is there proportional to the added cost for buying locally, and there might be more of a local industry here for us to support!

If it's too cost ineffective to sell for less than twice the US RRP, then JBL Australia should save themselves the heartache and allow retailers to import directly. Nobody wins otherwise. JBL Aus loses because they can't move the required number of units, retailers lose because they can't compete, and the consumers lose because it's either too expensive or really hard to get via a loophole.

[icacha]

watch how many ship jumpers there will be now

[br85]

Yeah because SO many people listen to what I have to say.

Don't worry, I'm sure plenty of units will sell, I just hope retailers don't get forced to sell them with next to zero markup (as often happens with high end gear) in order to move their stock.

I bought my P90 combo for wholesale price (thank you guys, you know who you are ) but I feel a little bad about them not making anything out of it. Thing is though, even a couple of hundred bucks more, and I would've just imported. I got it locally because this particular retailer really stuck their neck out for me (and i owe a thanks to ~thematt~ as well).

Edited by br85, 17 March 2010 - 01:53 AM.

[Marc ♫]

While not being a big fan of the Bitone myself I would likely jump ship at first chance, BUT ...

Knowing the technical ability of most of those in this thread and the typical enthusiast who would want this product I would have thought it would have been safe to assume most of you would have or have access to an RTA. Would an afternoon spent with said RTA, a decent set of ears and some time alignment tweaks not yield a more satisfying "tune" that you would be confident with, than pressing a button and hoping for the best with Auto-tune?

Look at Imprint. In my honest opinion the only people seeming to use an Imprint tune are those consumers and installers that don't have the knowledge (or in installers case often haven't been paid to tune), to tune and setup a system manually. Please correct me if I am wrong but that is what seems to be the case out there.

I am just seeing this get hyped up, and certainly will be the flavor of the month for no real apparent reason? There's already more than two products on the market that do the same thing, yet the company coming to market MUCH later than everyone else is being hyped up. The only selling point I've seen is an alleged "better" algorithm for an "auto-tune" that most of us would not use anyway.

Just my thoughts.

[Luke352]

They aren't claiming that it can to a better job then a really good tuner, but it can do a much better job then what most of us can do with the tools available to us, you need alot more then a 31 band EG or 5-11 PEQ bnads to have any hope of being able to compete with what this thing can do in 5 mins vs what would take most of us weeks to acheive and thats assuming we have way more tools available then what we do.


This line of text is a giveaway to what this thing can do.

I can do a better job than MS-8 but in order to do it I need lots of bands of parametric EQ (currently I have 176 biquads available for eq and crossover), time alignment, phase shifting parametric all pass filters, separate gain control of all speakers, Logic 7, a mic array and multiplexing mic preamp, an RTA with 1/24 octave resolution, an analyzer than can measure impulse responses and phase, and a couple of weeks.


Whereas most of us can better Imprint and similar just using our HU's inbuilt tuning tools.

Of course this is all speculation until the first units get into the hands of some experienced competitors in the US who are well regarded and give there opinion of it's ability.

[Tiger]

Knowing the technical ability of most of those in this thread and the typical enthusiast who would want this product I would have thought it would have been safe to assume most of you would have or have access to an RTA. Would an afternoon spent with said RTA, a decent set of ears and some time alignment tweaks not yield a more satisfying "tune" that you would be confident with, than pressing a button and hoping for the best with Auto-tune?

The only selling point I've seen is an alleged "better" algorithm for an "auto-tune" that most of us would not use anyway.

Just my thoughts.

That is too true!

[Luke352]

I'd use the Auto-tune and then tweak it to my own desired sound, I know when I have used an RTA i've just tuned to a fairly flat/smooth response and then from there i've tweaked it to my own preference essentially. So why should I use the MS-8 to do this, well thanks to it's powerfult algorithims and complex array of filters it can get you to that flat/target response and achieve a much more combined sound then we can achieve with a set of clunky 31 band EQ's. Since flat on the RTA using a 31 band EQ or 7 band PEQ if you used a higher resolution RTA would look like a bunch of peaks and nulls all over the place but we don't see this because they get essentially averaged out using a traditional 1/3 octave RTA, the MS-8 won't end up with this comb effect.

One way Andy put it is, if you boost every slide on a 31 band eq then fed that signal straight back into an RTA you end with somethign that ends up looking like a comb, massive peaks and and nulls, do the same with the MS-8 and you end up with the entire freqs band being boosted and with perfectly smooth response, there ins't another processor on the market that can do this and it is a very big deal. The only other way to acheive this is using a carputer and software but rather than having it all in one simple to use box, you would need to run a massive array of add on software none of which has actually been designed to deal with the acoustic problems inside a car so none of it wil lbe completely optimised.

Edited by Luke352, 17 March 2010 - 09:46 AM.