Greetings all.
Having browsed the forums here for a while, I think this is the one For me to start looking for answers.

I've been experimenting with all sorts of gear in the last 12 months and seem to be having sporadic luck. My sub sounds truly great some times, other times I give up and fade it off. One day the front stage seems perfect, the next it feels like all the musos are smoking something unlawful....
I do ALL my own installing, from boxes and pods to the math and research behind it all, so it's a learning experience, but where do most people start? Do they sort the bass first? Or the higher frequencies and the imaging? It would help to hear a good sounding system I spose, all I've ever heard are loud ones. They are cool, but I'm over the crowd pleasing stage.
Anyway enough rambling, If anyone has any advice on where to start tunning and how, I'd welcome sugestions.

[ January 04, 2003, 01:57: Message edited by: ssn688 ]

What I would do is pretty much the same as what i've done, Start at the front, get content with it, then get bass, bass is pretty easy as long as u follow the fundamental rules which are often spoken when it comes to bass...
once u got bass, make front stage sound prominant enuff to run with bass evenly... then start fine tuning and making it sound amazing...
basically go
1st) front
2nd) rear
3rd) fine tune front
4th) fine tune rear
5th) sit down, have a cold beer, work for another year or two and then fine tune

That thing u mentioned with it sounding good one day bad the next is something i, and alot of other ppl get, it is often varied by ur mood, even though u dont realise it, the climate can also make a diff, as can driving conditions and the music your playing...
basically its what car audio is, a very unpredictable confine where some conditions are better than others

although as time goes on, and u get more deadening, fine tune the system more, get better (ultimately more expensive) componants and this will even out to a fairly smooth, predictable sound... eventually

Tell us a little about what you have and how it is installed.

installation is certainly the crucial part of making a decent system sound great.

followed by careful tuning: gains, xovers, EQ, time alignment if you have it. and all that can take a looooong time to get right. with plenty of listening time, varied music, and small tweaks here and there. plus i believe you have to be in the 'mood' for tweaking; i find my ears are more receptive to changes if my mind is focused.

are your doors sealed and sound deadened? the tweets angled for improved soundstaging?

is the subbox really solid and secure in the boot?

do you have an EQ? as already asked, what components are you running, and in what car?

i say fronts are the most important in SQ, worry about them first. I've recently upgraded front stage and head unit, but won't be touching my sub for a long time.

Deaden for sure, seal, angle mids and tweeters. Then get the best of each component you can afford pretty much. Then tweak your heart out.

Theres no point getting an SQ sub first then thinking about the rest imo

Okies

I have a pioneer deh-4150 h/u with a sony xec-505 xover. Fronts are a pair of pioneer bullit 5.25' splits, the rear is a pair of magnat excentrics. The sub is a 10''response dvc double mag (I think it's made by mbquart) for amps I have a kenwood 848 for the sub (two chans bridged per voice coil) and a pioneer GMH-120 (a 10 year old 4x35 rms). I have installed/constructed the whole setup. VERY heavy(I used to much glass lol) 45 degree angled fibreglass pods up front, with the tweeters on the pillar at about my chin height and lighter glass pods on the back shelf. The sub box is a sealed 40 littre jobie (5 littres above recomended) and made of 18mm mdf with extensive sealant. I have used carpet underlay and 4 cans of bitumen based sound stuff in the boot and under ALL carpet and seats. None in the doors though. Typicaly I run all the splits crossed at about 180 hertz and the sub at 120. I should add here I have only had the sub for a few weeks, I got rid of a 12'' monster that was loud and awfull and got this one. It is PLENTY loud enough.

Oh yeah it's all in a n-13 sss pulsar sedan.

[ January 07, 2003, 01:20: Message edited by: ssn688 ]

First thing I recommend you do is to look at the tutorial in Technical titled "Sound deadening Lancer doors" (or to that effect) by Marc Rushton at this site.
It is a good and clear piece which is a Must Do for SQ systems. The effect for improving mid bass and general control is very important and will lead you to the best chance to set up good mid-bass to sub-bass integration, crucial for SQ and balance.

Good installation is what SQ is all about and I reckon once you have that done you will be going forward with a good platform.

The basic hardware you have is capable of good results. Good luck with it.

yeah i know.
i'm just putting off doing the doors....
doors are my enemy, i would rather build 2 new sub boxes and balance them on my nose like a dolphin than pull the cards and pods off the doors!!!!!

i also wonder if you should reposition the tweeters; they sound too high for what i envisage as being ideal.

but that comes down to experimenting too which you may already have done to determine what suits your tastes. however, down lower in the kickpanels, angled somewhere towards the opposite-seat headrest, is often a good starting point for improving soundstaging and imaging. i expect your current setup has the R tweet considerably closer to your ears compared to the L when sitting in the driver's seat; this would adversely affect the stereo image, shifting things heavily towards the right.

In addition to what others have said, I think you have set your crossover points way too high. For a set of 5" splits you should still be able to cross them around 80hz or under, then your sub the same. They won't crank as hard but should sound a lot better and will bring some bass to the front of the car, while hopefully creating the illusion that some of the sub bass if coming from the front as well. It looks as though you have a big hole in your midbass and the sub may not even play very clean at 120hz. I once had a setup that was lacking midbass and found that only certain types of music sounded good (dance mainly) but that's all I was really into those many years ago.

Although it's not as bad as a friend of mine who used to have a set of 5" splits and 2x Orion NT 15s with a MRV-1000 driving each one Or another guy who just had tweeters and subs you'd wanna looooove techno.

umm..
the imaging is hard for me to judge as all I've got to go by is home hifi. As fan of English hifi I can tell the diff between good and bad stereo imaging domestically, but in car is way different. I have tried all sorts of positions for the tweets, but settled on the pillars for these as the dedicated pioneer xovers have 2 positions for the tweeter outputs:Normal, and -3 db. I use the -3db output and find that with the parametric eq in the h/u set on mid=2k hertz, Q=2w, and high=3k hertz Q=2w,,with both the ranges set to -2 out of -5 to +5, there is little harshness and the midrange is crisp and accurate. As for imaging?? I'm big. 6'5 tall and 125 kilo's, so I sit up in the seat, but the wife is 5' nothing and 48 kilo's so she is way down in the seat. When I consider the rear splits are pulling the stage to the back the woman thinks i'm nuts and can't hear the rears at all. I think she gets better front imaging than me, but I get more benifit from the rears than her. I always wondered why ppl didn't think much of rear speakers, when I consider them so important. What I think I need really is someone elses opinion about the way it's set up, and some advice from there. Oh yeah and I need to do the doors.....=(

yes the system LOVES scooter and his friends..

[ January 07, 2003, 14:44: Message edited by: ssn688 ]

indeed, tuning the xovers lower would be good. the trade-off for the splits being their power handling may drop due to the added bass causing earlier overexcursion of the woofers.

experiment.

my advice is to always start with the front speakers as your #1 priority. i agree, those crossover points appear too high, so lowering them may help. seating position plays a big role in image placement and stage height, so you cannot expect the system to sound the same for both you and your wife. also, running rear speakers at any kind of level (other than ambient) will smear and diffuse sonic images. as for the system sounding different at different times - PERFECTLY normal ambient noise, your mood, ear fatigue, recording quality, seating posture, interior accessories (air con), temperature etc etc, all influence this. hell, the other day, my girlfriend and i commented on how the same bottle of wine tasted aweful at a friends house, but much nicer when we had it at our place without distractions. as for your doors, treat them, you will be rewarded