hi there Bruce

first and foremost, do you prefer cash, cheque or slabs when judging fine SQ?

but seriously, i think its a privledge to be able to interact with someone with your insight and experience, its not often you get that sort of help for next to nothing

i am very niave and new to mobile audio, and have taken a liking to quality over bassism (u know what i mean)!

ive spent a lot of time researching and auditioning and have come up with a 'simple' high quality system that i hope to achieve better than good SQ from:

HU: Alpine CDA9815
Front: Focal Utopia 165W
Back: Focal Polyglass 33V2
Amp: Audison SRx3

Being my first system, I have chosen a simple set up (ie one sub one amp etc), my questions are vast and varied!

How does one measure SQ? I cannot begin to understand since it is such a personal and subjective thing.

Im installing the drivers for the 165s within the door in customer pods (facing the closest head rest) and the tweeters on the apillar (facing the farther head rest) - how does this affect 'staging'?

In terms of sound deadening, i have come to the conclusion that the more the merrier, however, there are stories of deadening having little to slight audible difference, what would u attribute this to?

Lastly, do you have any tips or tricks for the installation of my system?

Thanks heaps!

peace,
Shai

btw sorry for the epic post!

Hey Shai. well for a noob you have chosen well. Its great to see someone start out with great quality gear, as most ppl think with wallet and end up spending way too much for a system that doesnt deliver, once all the upgrades are added to bottom line. Its better to buy good gear once and have it fulfill your needs than trying to cut corners and go down upgrade path.

OK first question one doesnt measure SQ, one listens to it, and although that sounds very subjective, with experience it becomes more objective. Sure ppl think it depends on what a judge likes, but the reality is, a good staging car thats spectrally balanced will impress any judge, as we know how hard that is to do.

The biggest problem with your chosen front spkr set up is A pillar mounting tweets. This will effect staging but more importantly will cause seperation issues. As staging is judged on full range signal having tweeters that stage wont cut it and you will not have correct staging with half of music up high and rest down low. If you keep tweeters within a hand span of midrange you will have no seperation issues and can still have a stage at dash hieght although usually a bit of messin about is needed to acheive this. Try kicks rather than A pillars.

An installer or you, will need to spend many hours to get optimal tweeter posistion, and play lots of tracks to insure final posistion is correct. I literally spent a couple of months before I mounted my mids and tweets, even though I new roughly where they needed to be.

Anyone who has heard my car should say I got it close to optimal, as the months paid off IMO.

As for sound deadning, well more is good but its a case of deminishing returns and so all you need is enough and too much is wasting money. I cant say what that point is, but SD will improve results over an undeadned car.

As for tips and tricks, well it really is system/car specific as there are no easy answers, and no point fixing something that isnt broke.

Hope that helps
peace
Cyberrpunky