93 replies to this topic

[mrock]

I think the biggest problem in car audio is, that whe often forget to have a good reference. I have been going in circles for the last few years , As I haven't had a propper referance. I finally soughted out my home system, and wolah. What a difference. One thing we do forget is that it is easy to get used to way your car or home hifi sounds. I finally got a new amp courtesy of a friend of mine... And I have now been listening to music non stop. I aquired a nice old AKAI AM73 refence master amp, while I had my old b&w speakers, which I have moded the guts out of. ANd boy, does it sound sweet. Now the goal is to recreate the sweet spot in the car.

[~Spyne~]

mrock, on 02 May 2010 - 09:47 AM, said:

One thing we do forget is that it is easy to get used to way your car or home hifi sounds.

one of the biggest issues for judges in particular, considering the subjective nature of the MEASQ format. This is why it's important for judges to listen to the judging material on a number of various systems, because each one will reveal different details, which you can then put together to form your reference.
for example, one person's car might have excellent subbass and that becomes your reference for that part of the judging. your home set-up might have great imaging and staging, so you use that as a reference when judging...etc.


good thread, well done.

[Pulse-R]

in deed, it is important.

and what really shows, if I speak from personal experience, is several years ago that I didn't know how crap my system really was until I heard a better one.

and I'm still chasing the perfect sound.

[syd-monster]

At the recent judges training we had up here, this is exactly what we encourage. In fact there is 3 basic refrences:

1. reference disc/music. currently for MEASQ format it is Alpine First Encounter. For the average listener, im not sure if they will get everything out off the disc as there is plenty on every track. however it is a great start.

2. stereo hi-fi and proper triangulated set up. Linkwitz explains it best, so read there on proper room set up http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm . this is actually quite important and when triangulated properly the difference is astonishing, this helps for staging as well as response referencing.

3. reference head-phones. i currently use a pair of sennheiser HD448's which are great value for money. But any quality circumaural headphones will do the job, avoid ones that over accentuate bass. See here for recommendations and pricing http://headphones.com.au/products/ . headphones produce a detail that is beyond 99% of even the best cars and beyond most hi-fi's.

I combine all 3 and often remind myself and reteach my self the disc doing the above.

Edited by syd-monster, 02 May 2010 - 10:36 AM.

[2LOUD2OLD]

syd-monster, on 02 May 2010 - 10:34 AM, said:

headphones produce a detail that is beyond 99% of even the best cars and beyond most hi-fi's.

aint that the truth, i didnt know what i was missing out on until Chris told me to get a decent set of headphones

[mrock]

I must say I dissagree. Heqadphones a good but shouldn,t be used as a reference as you can always pinpoint the sound to the cans. Trust me, have a good stereo amp and set of speakers and it will blow your mind away.I also have a set of AKG 240s's, and they are not that great. A very good friend of mine tought me to listen to transient response or so called speed. Up untill then I was listening for tonal balance and smoothness. But the thing that makes music 3D is speed or transient response and also control. That's what a good amp comes down too. A good amp will paint a picture that you can basically touch. That's why I want to get rid of the old rockford 250m2. It is so slow and has very narrow imaging that it is not my piece of cake. Hopeing to switch to a coustic dr refence. But honestly you need a good home setup so that you can achieve the same or close to it in the car. Also, experiment with the crossovers, do 6/12/18/24db, butterworth, linkwitz, zobel, contour, series and parallel circuits so that you get an idea of what they do. And implement that, because the crossovers that come with your speakers are not tuned for "your" car.

[~Samuel~]

2LOUD2OLD, on 02 May 2010 - 08:30 PM, said:

aint that the truth, i didnt know what i was missing out on until Chris told me to get a decent set of headphones

While the ATH AD700's are a good sounding pair of headphones bellow $300 there are much better sounding headphones out there, what amplifier & source are you using?

While headphones are great its important to note that the sound reproduced by a headphone is not how we hear sound, in a HiFi sound from left and right channels reaches both ears (with delay of course), with headphones its very much one ear or the other at times. Although a simplistic example a jazz trio with a double bass to the left with keys on the right can sound painful through headphones, much more enjoyable through a pair of speakers. Headphones have major limitations in regards to the soundstage reproduction compaired with speakers.

While people often give the reason of price for headphone listening you can achieve a decent sound with speakers on a low budget, for example studio monitors.

Although they are far from perfect i really enjoy my Behringer monitors, $450 shipped from Ebay, thats for a 18mm MDF cabinet (25mm baffle) bi amped speakers etc, amazing value for money. If i ever manage to get my car sounding close to these monitors i will be amazed, it will not happen without considerable cost and time though.

Edited by SPL Samuel, 02 May 2010 - 10:42 PM.

[2LOUD2OLD]

i never said headphones are the be all and end all i was agreeing with Chris in that they are a very useful reference, what they are very good for is tonality and detail. yes i agree you dont get any sort of staging or imaging with headphones.

i use my hifi system for staging and imaging, and use my headphones for tonality. a decent home reference system is on the cards but my car always seems to come first, so i just make do with what i have.

as for source and amp i just use my pioneer dvd player and amp or, nothing flash but better than using the computer's sound card

[mrock]

Sam, I just wanted to say that I agree. I couldn't help but notice you have the same cans.lol.

[~Samuel~]

2LOUD2OLD, on 02 May 2010 - 10:51 PM, said:

i never said headphones are the be all and end all i was agreeing with Chris in that they are a very useful reference, what they are very good for is tonality and detail. yes i agree you dont get any sort of staging or imaging with headphones.

i use my hifi system for staging and imaging, and use my headphones for tonality. a decent home reference system is on the cards but my car always seems to come first, so i just make do with what i have.

I have to agree 100%

mrock, on 02 May 2010 - 10:52 PM, said:

Sam, I just wanted to say that I agree. I couldn't help but notice you have the same cans.lol.

They are average headphones, i have however listened to lots of Cans including AKG701's, 702's, ATH AD700, 900, 1000 etc but i could not justify spending lots on headphones, its only for when others are sleeping, whenever i have the choice i will always turn to speakers first

[mrock]

When using your computer as a source, the best thing you can do is buy yourself an external dac. I have a Behringer ultramatch pro, even though it's not spectacular it is a great upgrade for the price. The beauty is also the fact that you can have a cheap dvd player and use it as a transport. Works wonders for little money. At the moment I am using my amps dac, which is an old school mash setup.lol. I must say for reference cd's I prefer comercial cd's as they are almost always readilly available. And someone always has one. For intance, a great reference is the album "sowing the seeds of love"from Tears For Fears. Dynamics are fenomenal, sound very flat and sounds like crap on badly setup stereo's. Also they spent 1 million pounds on the recording. Also another one is Thriller from Michael Jackso-great dynamics, and awesome bass.

[muzzy66]

Pulse-R, on 02 May 2010 - 10:29 AM, said:

and what really shows, if I speak from personal experience, is several years ago that I didn't know how crap my system really was until I heard a better one.

I hear ya buddy

syd-monster, on 02 May 2010 - 10:34 AM, said:

3. reference head-phones. i currently use a pair of sennheiser HD448's which are great value for money. But any quality circumaural headphones will do the job, avoid ones that over accentuate bass.

Very hard to find, that - almost all headphons I know of either dramatically overemphasise bass and midbass, or else fall off massively in the bottom end.

Midrange and treble are two other areas that most headphones (even the highly regarded ones) are usually flawed with. Most either have either holes, or significant peaks in the mids and highs.

I did a ton of research before I bought mine, and I ended up going for the AKG K601 - not particuarly cheap (~$400) but they absolutely have the most accurate and extended bottom end I've heard on any set of headphones. They are about 1dB or 2dB up from 120hz down, but they are flat enough from there down to 20hz or so that it doesn't become a major factor.

The other high end phones' i've heard exchagerate the bottom end way too much, while the cheaper ones tend to have nothing much under 50hz (ignore the 10hz -30khz FR claims on the packets).

Like anything else out there there is no perfect headphone, but the AKG's are one of the more linear ones I've heard, and as a bonus they are also nice and light and extremely comfortable to wear - you kinda forget you have them on after a while.

Anyone looking for a more entry level priced pair, the Grado GR60's are very nice value at <$200. A little strong in the top end, but they are worlds ahead of many far more expensive models out there, and they are sensitive enough to work off an unamplified source.

[muzzy66]

mrock, on 02 May 2010 - 10:28 PM, said:

Trust me, have a good stereo amp and set of speakers and it will blow your mind away.

I agree with this also.

A headphones are always going to be a little restricted by the fact that it's a single driver being forced to cover a very wide range of frequencies - this i'd imagine has a lot to do with why it's so damn hard (near impossible) to find a set of headphones with a truly linear (or even close to) frequency response.

+/- 3d from 20hz to 20khz is achievable from a hifi system if it's well designed and properly implemented into the environment, but finding a set of headphones that are this linear...I've yet to find one, let's put it that way.

Headphones take the 'room' pretty entirly out of the equation, and this is one of their many strengths - however they have limitations also.

[syd-monster]

guys, your all making great points, hence thank you.

At this point i find it important to point out that the reference is all 3 combined.
> a known quality disc
> a good hi-fi set up right
> a good pair of cans that don't accentuate bass

My personal equipment is:

disc - used to use Sheffield Drive alot and BBE's Modern Music for Real People, but due to the 2010 MEASQ changes, i have dedicated lots of time to the Alpine FE disc, im still discovering new things on this disc. It was easy to dismiss at first, but now I see just how much went into it.

Cans - I used to have AKG and Grado's in the ol studio, but no more, my old HD555's got nicked. Now i deliberately bought the HD448's because they don't over accentuate the bass, in fact they have won countless awards for being such great value and so linear in their sound. I'm also lucky my home hi-fi amp has a very good headphone out-put.

HiFi - my stereo set up is a bitsa. I have modded Energy C5' speakers from Canada, these now legendary units have custom x-overs in them and because the reflex port fires forward, the leading wall reflections are less effective and have a great overall smooth sound, with nothing being over the top. They're comparable to my S1 Alesis Studio Mons. Amp is a ol HK with built in preamp, it does the job. A Yamaha reference CD player (with no pre-amp section to colour sound unnecessarily). A simple Yamaha 8" active sub does the low end, it works. All very simple but very affective, what is more important is my listening space, which is measured & marked out really well so sweet spot is easy to set up and gets the most out of my equipment. The stereo illusion is really good.

In short you need to use all 3 in combination to get the most out of a good reference set up. ...personally I know that not having one of the 3 at your disposal, or having one massively better than the other, are short-fall in your best possible reference. You don't have to spend big either as the basics in all 3 will still sound better than most cars.

[~Samuel~]

Great post Syd

I think it also highlights that you do not need to spend silly amounts of money to have a reference system, providing you cover the basics you can have a great sounding stereo and headphones on a budget.

Edited by SPL Samuel, 03 May 2010 - 12:02 AM.