Thanks for the tuning help

I've been tweaking my system alot since the summer and I've been able to make it sound much thanks to reading posts on the polk forums and trying out some settings suggested by arun1963. I had foolishly posted on the forum advising to run the eq as flat as possible ; I couldn't have been any wrong. I started comparing how the sound was in my car to how it is through headphones. So I began trying to cut out frequencies with my eq to make everything sound better and more balanced and i've had really good results.

I began with cutting out frequencies and ended up with these settings sounding the best to me(7 band graphic, no parametric):
50hz - flat
125Hz -4 db
315Hz -8db
800Hz -8 db
2kHz - 8db
5kHz -6db
12.5kHz flat

I also boosted the tweeter +3db on driver side and cut tweeter -3db on passenger side using the attenuation switch on my crossovers. The tweeters are in stock location above woofers but still half of the way up the door. I like this position keeping the tweeter close to the woofer as I do not have TA adjustment . So the driver side tweeter is off axis while the passenger one is on axis i believe, this is where L/R independent eq would help but i don't have it on my headunit, pioneer 600ub.

I have also staggered the LPF on my sub and the HPF for my front components. I have the LPF at 50Hz (18db/octave) and HPF at 80Hz (12db/octave) I would prefer steeper slopes but these are the ony ones available on my headunit. In addition I use the LPF on my sub amp (Polk PA 400.1) to add another 12db/octave as I could still localize bass in the rear of the car otherwise. I'm not sure what it is set at as there is knob with a scale of 30-250Hz with no markings in between, it is currently set between 11 and 12 oclock. This is just at the point where the bass moves completely up front and the midbass-bass transition sounds good.

I appreciate all the help and I plan on continuing tweaking over time. Next up might be adding a processor with more eq bands and TA, any suggestions around $500 or less?

Front Components: Polk DB 6501
Rears: gains all the way down Polk DB 691
Sub: Polk DB 1212

If youre not against buying used, you can find Alpine H700's or 701's on Ebay for around that much. I recommend the 700 as they have a better power supply I think. I know the 701's had issues with crapping out where the 700's didnt. Dont know for sure if its a power supply issue but something is difference in the inards of the two.

Welcome to the world of 'it's not as loud, but it's much clearer'. :smile:

at your amps xover 30hz would be 7 o'clock. 50hz would be a touch under 8, try setting it there. With your near tweet at +3 and far tweet at -3db, thats a difference of 6db's. Try 0/-3 L/R xover setting.

50hz : Some frequencies have a direct impact on the sound, some have more of an indirect impact, i.e. they will affect a range of frequencies more than an individual point. 50hz is one such frequency. You have a gap from 50-80hz, you can boost a bit here maybe +1/2 db. 50 hz has a high impact over the 60-200hz range.

125hz: This is the bottom end of the male vocal range. Boosting here will screw up your vocals but will sound great for the low end on a piano/drum. Pick a song that has strong drums and male vocals and try to get the best balance. This is also about the point where the L/R response difference is beginning to kick in. -4db sounds about right.

315hz : This frequency will be about 4-6db louder on your near side. So attenuating here makes sense. Try bringing this up to -6db and 125 to -2db.

800hz : try this around -4/-5 db.

2khz : Close to beaming frequency. The far mid will be much stronger here than the near mid. Try -5db here. This is the starting point for your height cues, so you don't want to cut this too much.

5khz : Like 200hz and 800hz this frequency is more about the dimension and placement of sound. I'd bring this up to -4db's.

12.5khz: The tweets on the db series are a bit bright to begin with. This frequency is about 'air'. It opens up the sound. It can also make the sound hollow if things aren't well managed in your 100-500 range. In a car this frequency is typically much louder than the other highs, I'd pinch down here a bit. Maybe -2 db, after you've set the preceding frequencies like I mentioned.

Sound is subjective. At the end of the day it boils down to the music you hear and the way you like to hear it. The h-700 that Mac mentioned would be a great add on.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried lowering the HPF on my components to 63 Hz and it seems to sound a lot better. I don't think there is as much of a hole in the bass. Is 12db/octave too shallow to put the HPF at 50 to match the sub? Will it cause a peak in the bass response? Regardless now i'm trying to adjust the sub amp accordingly to blend optimally with the new HPF setting.

I definitely agree with you on lowering 12.5 kHz, I took it down -2db, it just sounds more realistic. Also I found that because of this, raising 5khz up to -4db to sounded just right. I'm pretty certain -4db on 125Hz is where it should be as any higher, something is just off with male voices and the kick drum is too punchy.

I'm going to make some more adjustments today after I listen to a few different cd's in the car. I listen to many different styles of rock and I try to focus on getting the tone of the electric guitar just right (I play electric guitar as well and know relatively how it should sound) and i feel that focusing on this helps with setting the midrange/midbass. For example I have a few songs that I like where the bass guitar is played on the G string which helps with determining if 125 Hz/315Hz are at the right level.
I have 315 cut at -8 because this is where the upper bass guitar notes sounded good and natural and not screaming above all the other frequencies.

I have a question regarding my tweeters. Because they were installed in the stock location, they are not quite at the surface of the doors. They are slightly recessed in the door especially because they are a .5inch bigger than the stocks. I was thinking this is ruining the dispersion especially of the near tweeter and perhaps why I feel that the midrange needs to be cut so much. I tried 0/-3 db on my crossovers but the image still pulled to the right way too much, right cymbals way too strong. +3db/-3db sounds balanced. L/R sound is very different as a whole. Left speaker sounds like it needs more highs still, maybe -2db on 5khz and maybe less of a cut on 2hHz. Right speaker makes electric guitar sound scooped and unnatural, recessed midrange and highs are too bright. I had my settings where they were because that was where both speakers played together sounded relatively good. Now i'm going to tweak the midrange today (315, 800, 2khz). I tried having them all at -6db and this was not right, mids were too prominent and lack of smoothness in the sound. My guess is that at least one will have to be brought up to at least -6 db. By the way my headunit only adjusts eq in 2db increments which is a pain.

Thanks for the help

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Originally Posted by pentoncm

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried lowering the HPF on my components to 63 Hz and it seems to sound a lot better. I don't think there is as much of a hole in the bass. Is 12db/octave too shallow to put the HPF at 50 to match the sub? Will it cause a peak in the bass response? Regardless now i'm trying to adjust the sub amp accordingly to blend optimally with the new HPF setting.

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Staggered cross over points are useful when you have a peak that you can't cure. Stagger the drivers on either side of this point and the peak is flattened out. If you don't have a peak and you stagger, you'll end up with a dip.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pentoncm

I definitely agree with you on lowering 12.5 kHz, I took it down -2db, it just sounds more realistic. Also I found that because of this, raising 5khz up to -4db to sounded just right. I'm pretty certain -4db on 125Hz is where it should be as any higher, something is just off with male voices and the kick drum is too punchy.

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:smile:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pentoncm

I'm going to make some more adjustments today after I listen to a few different cd's in the car. I listen to many different styles of rock and I try to focus on getting the tone of the electric guitar just right (I play electric guitar as well and know relatively how it should sound) and i feel that focusing on this helps with setting the midrange/midbass. For example I have a few songs that I like where the bass guitar is played on the G string which helps with determining if 125 Hz/315Hz are at the right level.
I have 315 cut at -8 because this is where the upper bass guitar notes sounded good and natural and not screaming above all the other frequencies.

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It's perfectly ok to tune around one sound that you are sure about.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pentoncm

I have a question regarding my tweeters. Because they were installed in the stock location, they are not quite at the surface of the doors. They are slightly recessed in the door especially because they are a .5inch bigger than the stocks. I was thinking this is ruining the dispersion especially of the near tweeter and perhaps why I feel that the midrange needs to be cut so much.

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Since you don't have TA keeping your tweets near your mids is fine. My only issue is the placement of the tweets where the far one is bang on axis and the near one is nearly 90 deg off axis. Your tweets play frequencies that are most sensitive to L/R intensity, which is affected by the on/off axis mounting. I just prefer tweets that are more on axis.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pentoncm

I tried 0/-3 db on my crossovers but the image still pulled to the right way too much, right cymbals way too strong. +3db/-3db sounds balanced. L/R sound is very different as a whole. Left speaker sounds like it needs more highs still, maybe -2db on 5khz and maybe less of a cut on 2hHz. Right speaker makes electric guitar sound scooped and unnatural, recessed midrange and highs are too bright. I had my settings where they were because that was where both speakers played together sounded relatively good. Now i'm going to tweak the midrange today (315, 800, 2khz). I tried having them all at -6db and this was not right, mids were too prominent and lack of smoothness in the sound. My guess is that at least one will have to be brought up to at least -6 db. By the way my headunit only adjusts eq in 2db increments which is a pain.

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Go by what your ears tell you is right.

Ok so I changed around some of the bass settings and it changed the overall tone quite a bit.

1. I decided to try the LPF on the sub at 63 Hz at the headunit. I also turned the LPF on the amp to just above 9 oclock. I played around with the amp filter till the point where I could get good clear output but also could clearly hear individual bass line notes.

2. HPF is at 63 Hz for front components, I think I have the fronts/sub blended really good right now. This is the best they've been, I've gotten rid of boomy bass, now it feels tighter.

3. Because of these bass adjustments there aren't any holes in my bass/midbass transition resulting in a thicker warmer sound overall. Thus I've raised my midrange controls.

315 Hz -6 db
800Hz -6 db
2kHz - -6 db

Ideally i think that it would be a tad clearer if i could have 800 Hz at -5 db, but i can't and -4db sounds unnatural so I am leaving it at -6 db. Any higher on 2kHz sounds harsh.

Overall very smooth now with more detail overall and I love that i can hear more bass detail/ no more one note bass.

I plan on adding dynamat to the doors around x-mas, and also i was going to put a dynamat dynaxorb sheet behind the speakers to diffuse the back wave.

:smile:, yeah seal your doors that would be a good start. Next upgrade would either be the h-700 or a better hu.