Hello again everyone, as the topic name says i am just new to the whole SQ scene and am looking for someone with experience to give me a few tips / hints. I am installing into a Ford Falcon ED in which i have already sound deadened the fronts doors and installed my CDA-7892E.

As i am new to SQ and have never heard a SQ car before i am kind of confused about the positioning of the front splits among other things. I have just put the woofer of my 6" Tantrum splits into the stock falcon upper-door area and have the tweets under the woofer. the sound stage is at about windscreen level but heavily towards the driver or passenger depending on what side im sitting. The majority of the "singing-voices" seem to be comming from the woofer and that seems to be pulling the stage accross.

Basicaly, im new to the whole scene and need a helping hand. Would anyone be available (preferably someone who has done a setup in a ford falcon) for me to have a phone conversation with to get a few tips / hints. I would rather not annoy everyone with many different posts asking questions that may seem silly etc, i just need a little help .It would be great if someone would have the time. please PM me if you can help.

Thanks heaps

[ March 16, 2003, 19:13: Message edited by: Another KIWI ]

Well there have been a number of threads on this subject and it is prob worth looking them up from the archives with search.

You are gonna get listener side bias in any "conventional" instal, which you can deal with to some extent with balance control when it's just you.

You are much closer to speakers on your side of the car and so will get an emphasis of that channel. Good general imaging can be improved in the Falc by getting the drivers down in the kick panels where the differences in "path length" ie how far the sound has to travel to your ears can be better balanced/more equal.
You will surprised how well the image height can be maintained, being that the drivers are lower down.....

Some angling will also help, broadly aiming towards the ears of a person on the opposite side of the car.

almost all car cound systems feature imaging which is biased towards the listener, so it is an extremely common thing and quite difficult to overcome.

one of the problems with the falcon is that they mount the woofer in the upper portion of the door, which makes it extremely close, and given that the car is a wide one, the farside speaker is too far away to compensate.

there are a range of ways you can address this, the first of which is to minimise pathlength differences, this means getting both speakers to be the same distance from your head (or as close as is possible]. kickpods and forward/low doorpods help here as they get the nearside speaker away from you.

another easy one is as critter said, using the balance control to attenuate the nearside speaker, and this is something everyone should try as it helps and is free

other things you can then try are time alignment, to delay the nearside speaker so that both arrive close to each other, or experiment with a centre speaker and some kind of processor to run it (see my sig for what i personally use).

The 7892 has time alignment, I would initially try mounting the tweeter closer to the dash in the very corner (almost near the side vision mirror button, just below) that may give a wider sound stage which will then even things out a little bit. Then use the time alignment feature on the deck to heavily compensate, if you play around with delaying the right speaker you will very good results, its just a matter of playing around with a well recorded accoustic soundtrack where the different instruments are very well spread out. when tuning it close your eyes and hold your right hand above with your fingers pointing to the middle of the sound stage (middle of the windscreen or bonnet) and use that as your aiming point to 'move' the middle instrument (often the vocalist) to where your hand is. Apart from that maybe build some custom pods to go down into the kick panels or document holder at the bottom of the door

thanks for the tips / help guys. i have decided to build some door pods which will place the tweets and woofer both at the bottom of the door. I was thinking of putting the tweets in the kick pannels but passenger's legs etc would block the path....from just my own mucking around with the help of a mate this seams to be a problem. When it comes to "immaging", "stage depth" etc i am kinda at a loss...i just dont know what to listen for. I have been sitting down with the good old Dire Straights and a bit of Avril Lavigne on and am finding it kind of hard to work out exactly where the insturnments are supposed to be (this is the whole immaging thing right?)....i'll have to re-try this with the new pods.

I'm only on my L's at the moment (hanging out for 31st may) so i have never been to a CAA meet yet, but i wouldnt mind making a special effort....off to check the victorian events forums now...

anyway, thanks guys. I stumbled accross a thread with good old shiny_car's guide to tunning a system for SQ so im having a good old read of that. I guess i cant really do too much though until i get an amp for the fronts and start whacking in a sub / sub amp but as usual shiny's post came in very handy.

it does take a bit of experience to know what to listen for and how to tune. however, it's not difficult to acquire it; at least, you should try and audition either a top SQ car system or better still audition a true home audiophile system.

yes, imaging is the ability of your stereo to 'place' particular instruments and vocals in the right position where they were recorded from; a solid centre image can be hardest to achieve. the soundstage is the entire 'area' infront of your ears from which the music eminates; ideally it is wide, high, and demonstrates depth.

width is usually easy to achieve if the speakers are well-placed to either side of the car. height requires optimally-angled tweets and preferably woofers too. depth is very difficult to achieve; our [CAASQ] judge, cyberpunky, who has auditioned and judged more cars than most, cannot recall systems that demonstrate good depth. this tells me it's virtually impossible in a car!

i think your proposal to mount the splits in custom pods in the bottom-front corners of your doors is a good one. it will improve equidistant pathlengths between L and R (ie: R speakers approximate same distance from your ears as L), whilst allowing the woofer to still vent into the door cavity for good midbass (i presume it will still do this, requiring a service hole or similar behind the woofer).

try and get a copy of a test disc of sorts (eg: alpine 'first encounter', IASCA). these have well-recorded tracks to demonstrate imaging and soundstaging. also listen to as many systems as you can, car and home, and gain some experience for what does and doesn't sound good.

and if you ever enter a comp, keep telling yourself the subbass is too overbearing! nah, just that the vast majority of SQ recordings actually record subbass as very subtle, which is evidenct on an audiophile home system. just that for daily driving, we love the impact of 'doof'! unfortunately this is not 'true' to the recording and scores worse. however, at the end of the day, 99% of the time you will be listening for your own pleasure as part of daily driving, and not comps, so it doesn't matter how it sounds except that it's good for you.

pod construction is well underway and looks promising. Thanks for your time guys and i hope to be able to come along to a victorian CAA meet soon