Well, i've recently gotten a new h/u that has time align, and previously i've been toying with the idea of bi-amping my splits.

I'm still playing around with time align... I can notice the difference it makes, but don't really know what i'm looking for...
Anyway i'm wondering if its worthwhile (also probably, better?) to time align the tweets and the mids seperately?

Mids are low in the doors, tweets are up high under the window sill. Ideally moving these would be the best solution but that isnt going to be happening...

Obviously i'm going to try this regardless of what people say, just to have a play around... But i'd love to hear peoples experiences with this (I guess it's also to do with partially active setups)...

Cheers.

Measure the distance from your ears at the driving position towards each driver.

Then work out the time it takes for sound to reach you, input it into i-personalise. that will work out your time delay FOR you.

edit : stupid me

most people offer an online system ,or a downloadable program, that will calculate everything for you...does clarion?

I-Personalize is an Alpine thing?
I dont have an Alpine unit...
I have an 03 Clarion unit (DXZ-935)...
The increments are in 5cm chunks.
Mids will be on front chans, tweets on rear chans...
Also gives me greater peq control, which should help in tuning as well.

edited my post.

Clarion does not appear to have anything like this.
I'd imagine i measure the distance to each speaker, and put that in as the distance on the time align setting?

yes, then play around with things. If the stage appears too far to the left, adjust the time delay accordingly.

I have the same HU (Clarion DXZ935), and I'm planning on doing similar with a custom/DIY chosen 6.5' mid + tweeter, along the lines of a Peerless woofer and Vifa tweeter (started this thread about it just this afternoon). I am very keen to hear what kinda results you get.

The benefits I can see is being able to time align the tweeter to the woofer to correct any mounting compromises, and also will effectively give a 6 band parametric EQ across the frequency range, ie 3 bands for tweeter range, 3 bands for woofer range.

In my old hatchback I literally measured the distance from speaker to ear for each channel, and found this got me close enough that I only needed a minor tweak of the settings to get it right. My rear speakers were firing directly up at the hatchback glass, so I assumed this was mainly reflecting, and basically bent my tape measure 90degrees where it hit the glass to measure the actual path. (I think the neighbours were a bit lost at this stage )

What you are looking for is to be able to shut your eyes and hear the sound coming from directly infront of you (or in the middle of the dash/windscreen area). This is made more noticable by toggling the TA on and off as you will be hear how the different sounds are located.

As for if you should TA your different componants differently - well maybe yes, maybe no.

I am also toying with doing a simular thing - but that is because I am running horns and then mid-basses so obviously the staging on the horns is already awsome, and the staging on the mids could be tweaked a little.
In your case though there may be some risk of seperation (in that the music stops sound like it is coming from the middle of the dash/windscreen and starts coming from the individual speakers). I don't think that there is a standard rule of thumb in this case - more a matter of try it and see.

But certainly once you have given it a go you should report back on here, because this is obviously a consideration for anyone who is runnin active.

~Steve

What your trying to achieve is a delay in the speakers closer to you so that all sound reaches you at the same time. If you take the speaker farthest away from you (or closest depending on how the system is set up, but normally it is in delay not advance) and measure the distance, the delay you need to put into the deack for each speaker is the difference between the two distances. So effectively the speakers all sound like they are the same distance away.

As for time vs distance, speed of sound is ~343 m/s so most processors that do delay work in increments of 0.1s, so 0.1s for every foot of distance. You might be able to change to setting in your deck to use time instead of distance, I think you can on the higher end alpine but don't know about Clarion.

I found being in a car with time-alighnement supposedly 'proffesionally' setup that it did make a difference. For the better or worse I wasnt sure. In a blind test I found it hard to tell whether it was on or off. I could tell the difference when it was switched but I couldnt go 'ooo thats timealignment, ooo thats not'. So at the end of the day I wasnt really fussed if I didnt have it. I would like to be able to play with it and set it up myself and see how I liked it though,

Well, anyone wanting to play around with time-align is welcome to on Sunday... I hope to get down to Hektik around midday, to have a chance to listen to some sweet systems.
Don't mind if u guys come have a listen and play with the headunit, i'm still trying to figure out half the stuff too... a good ear might prove useful
Hope to have it all bi-amped by then... have to pull out the h/u to do so, and speaker wires will be messy for the meantime

No sub for the moment though, and my speakers probably arent regarded as "high end sq splits" but they do the job

I'll report back more after i've done some testing with it all.

This particular Clarion model works only in a distance setting of 5cm intervals, which works out to approximately 0.15ms intervals. I have not found any way to swap to a time based display of this setting as yet, I don't think it can be done at all. I think that a distance setting is slighly more intuitive than adding a time delay to a closer speaker, so maybe thats why Clarion went that way, as you can just measure and input the settings and work from there.

Kev, regarding the difference time alignment makes, I noticed the same thing at first, but decided to leave it on for a while anyway. After having it on for a while and getting used to it, disabling it suddenly made a huge difference, just didn't sound as good and it was hard to put your finger on exactly why. I think its a subtle effect that is hard to notice at first until you're used to it?

The difference is clarity, because the sound is hitting you all at the same time it's clearer, most noticable is the less 'muddy' mids, it takes a bit of training to listen for things like this, like picked frequencies that stick out above the rest and the like. Some things only come with experience, try listening (if you can) to different ppls setups, with and with out t/alignment on a really well mastered cd (not burnt) I always use tight female vocals, as the have a good range and are generally recorded and mastered well. Basically, as long as it sounds good to you........ Who cares????

the i-personalise is made by alpine but it has a handy feature that will do the maths for you.
The result will apply to any head unit not just alpine and it will give you the delay time and you can manually enter it into your non-alpine head unit.

go to alpine.com.au and follow the links.

Yeah I know what you mean, its similar to speakers and stuff, after a while you just get used to them and cant go back. Hey I just realised something... findog you've made some DIY home speakers before... I think? Let us know how the Vifa/Peerless setup goes in your car

Thats what got me thinking along those lines, as my DIY kit speakers are a Peerless/Vifa combination and sound incredible. You might be waiting a while for news, as my funds just got badly absorbed by a mechanic's bill that stretched a tad...

The most use i've found for time align is getting the sub sound up front. With the distances put in, the sub no longer sounds like it is in the back, more than the sound is naturally coming from front speakers.

Here's a question - is it possible to time align if your head unit does not have that function? I know I can reverse the phase of my sub, which I might try, but what about left and right? Its not far off at the minute, but the difference may be worthwhile...

Can ultimately time align by physically moving drivers around...
Or you can buy a processor to do this.
Audiocontrol make some I believe, and i'm sure other brands would too.

Best way to set TA is by ear I've found. It isnt hard to do, use a reference test disc like F#1 Status First Encounter, or even an old one like Highway One.

If set properly, TA makes an enormous difference. It can win or lose you a comp.

Is there any point adjusting time correction if the distances from the front speakers to your ears and the distance from the rear speakers to your ears are similar? (i.e. I have a sorta square-ish cabin since my car is a 2dr coupe)

any time correction is supposed to be an advantage Maderia, it produces a cleaner sound for the driver. Just remember though, it may sound 'weird' for passengers if all speakers are time delayed for the driver. You can tell in some cars when it is delayed for the driver, when you sit in the passenger seat and it sounds 'hollow'.

well in my case the time delay for each speaker would be minimal anyway.

Is there any methods to compromise the time correction between the front passenger and the driver? At the moment I'm using the front armrest (i.e. centre of the cabin) as the reference point for each speaker.

yeah there is... dont compensate The time compensation takes into account how far from a certain point te speaker is, so the sound waves will reach that point at the same time from all speakers. There are not going to be 2 points in a car that are the same distance from your speakers

what a bummer! my gfriend sits in my car most of the time, don't think she will like it if I adjust the setting for the driver only

Don't know how it will sound but you could only use the TA for the rears and adjust them the same, the desired effect being to bring the rear more into the front stage rather than creating the sweet spot in the centre of the car. This might work and therefore sound better in both front seats, try it and find out I guess.

If possible, time align your speakers, and save those settings (a lot of head units these days have the option to save custom settings). Then, just change to that setting when you are alone, or competing, and leave it non-aligned for when you have passengers.


.... Or, do the time align, and if your GF doesnt notice.... All good...

oh yeah, what a brilliant idea! thanks dude

The Clarion DXZ935 (the one Fury and I have) has 6 premade TA settings, and then allows saving of 6 custom ones, so can make a a variety of em and swap quickly between them.

(I'm not sure of the point of the premade ones are though, considering there's very little chance of them matching your vehicle anyway?...)

I can understand a need for maybe 3...
Driver, Front, and then 5.1...