Went active with SR5250 - lost bass

[Vital]

When I used passive SR5250 x-overs to run speakers bi-amped my SR5250 woofers were putting out incredible amount of lower midbass. The moment I went active with Arc Audio IDX that midbass is gone. Don?t get me wrong, there?s nice midbass but nothing like it used to be. It felt more like a small sub in my doors and now it?s like a regular decent midrange speaker.

Before and after going active I had/have my LPF on both ? 60 and 80Hz and in both cases I had sub-feeling when bi-amped and full range feeling when active.
I even turned up 125Hz and 275Hz frequencies on my eq (Arc Audio XEQ) and still can?t get that ?sub? effect

[arun1963]

For a start turn the gains on tweets by -5 to 6 dbs. Do this at your IDX.

To start with cross your mids and sub around 60hz put each driver on the steepest slope you can get. I think that's 24db for the sub and 12db for the mids. You can set a cascading xover at your amp so that you get a steeper slope, but lets leave that for now.

Cross your mids and tweets around 4khz for a start. I would have said 2khz, but a 12db slope on your tweet is kind of shallow to run a low xover point. Start by cutting everything on the eq by 2 dbs and then cut 2.2khz and 6khz by another 2-3dbs. Play around with the other frequencies and see what sounds best.

Is the problem fixed?

[pentoncm]

Double check that your woofers are in phase with each other and that in the process of switching them active that you didn't flip the polarity of the wires on them/at the amp. By doing that it would kill your bass.

A quick test to tell if they are out of phase, adjust the balance all the way to the left, then center it. If the bass doesn't get louder or becomes less, the woofers are out of phase with each other.

[Vital]

For a start turn the gains on tweets by -5 to 6 dbs. Do this at your IDX.

To start with cross your mids and sub around 60hz put each driver on the steepest slope you can get. I think that's 24db for the sub and 12db for the mids. You can set a cascading xover at your amp so that you get a steeper slope, but lets leave that for now.

Cross your mids and tweets around 4khz for a start. I would have said 2khz, but a 12db slope on your tweet is kind of shallow to run a low xover point. Start by cutting everything on the eq by 2 dbs and then cut 2.2khz and 6khz by another 2-3dbs. Play around with the other frequencies and see what sounds best.

Is the problem fixed?

I pretty much had everything the way you said here to begin with except for eq. Played around with it yesterday as well as with some x-over points and got it to sound close to what it used to be... not exact but def close. In the big picture of things eq settings you listed were the "key"

Thank you Arun!!

[DSkip]

It will take you at least a year to tweak and get the most out of them when going Active. There is so much to learn and the only way you really can is through experience. Just have fun with it, learn how each change affects everything else, and set yourself a baseline to refer back to every once in a while to see if the changes are for better or worse.

[arun1963]

+ to what Skip said. Once you get to the point where it begins to sound right, jot down the settings so that you have a baseline to come back to. Learning to hear the difference between each tweak will take some time.

One thing that the XEQ/IDQ don't give is time alignment. Do you have that at your hu? If not, you may want to look at adding that via a new hu somewhere down the line. Enjoy.

[Vital]

I think main issue for me at this point is reading the x-over point between SR woofer and SR tweeter. It is SOMEWHERE in 4,000Hz range lol but there's no way of getting it exact as these dials can only get you so far, they are kinda like filter knobs on most amps that go from point A to point B without a single "this is point Point A.1 for sure" markings or clicks in between so you can only guess and/or estimate where u're at.

I've cut SR comps at 60Hz from the headunit (god bless it offers some basic filters lol i actually go back and forth between 60 and 80Hz when i want to be more of a teenager lol) and have full control over my sub from the headunit as well but this woofer to tweeter ratio is a pita as i'm sure i'm getting either overlap or underlap every time i tweek.

[DSkip]

What I found w/ the 5250 woofer is the higher the cutoff up high, the harsher the sound gets. It plays those notes well, but in my car, no matter how much I cut the EQ, it was always too bright. The LSi xover is around 2khz. It sounds like you can't go as steep as you'd want, but keep that in mind when you fiddle around with it.

[MacLeod]

You shouldnt have lost any midbass from going active. What are your mids cut off at? If theyre at 80 Hz, thats too high.

[Vital]

I switch up from 60 to 80 depending on my mood. I've been doing that for a while, before even going active. It's just that sometimes I do want to be louder and boomier (sub's cutoff also changes sccordingly)

Playing with eq did help some which gives me hope but another thing I thought of today: before active I used TruTechnologies SSLD6i line driver & conditioner. Unlike most line drivers it is also known for it's "conditioning" feature which somehow makes your sound cleaner, crispier, more balanced....insert every word u can think of here. Kinda sounds like snake oil but actually does improve sound.... So since Arc stuff is putting out 8v there was no point for me to keep ssld6i in the mix. Is it possible that "conditioner" could be what im missing?

[DSkip]

I switch up from 60 to 80 depending on my mood. I've been doing that for a while, before even going active. It's just that sometimes I do want to be louder and boomier (sub's cutoff also changes sccordingly)

Playing with eq did help some which gives me hope but another thing I thought of today: before active I used TruTechnologies SSLD6i line driver & conditioner. Unlike most line drivers it is also known for it's "conditioning" feature which somehow makes your sound cleaner, crispier, more balanced....insert every word u can think of here. Kinda sounds like snake oil but actually does improve sound.... So since Arc stuff is putting out 8v there was no point for me to keep ssld6i in the mix. Is it possible that "conditioner" could be what im missing?

Shouldn't be too hard to find out, should it? I figured you changed something else when you went active, but didn't feel it needed mention.

[MacLeod]

before active I used TruTechnologies SSLD6i line driver & conditioner.

Slap yourself for not mentioning this sooner. Of course thats your problem because youve cut your input voltage damn near in half. Line drivers boost the signal quite a bit. I call BS on the "conditioner" part of it but it does send out a much stronger signal maybe double what youre getting now. So you didnt lose anything, you just changed your input/gain setting. In other words, you effectively turned your gain down. Readjust and all will be well.

[arun1963]

And slap yourself once from my side. Then slap me while you're at it. Your thread on gain setting should have raised alrm bells!!

Jeez halving your signal voltage is going to give you less of everything. Just turn the gains up from where you had them in passive mode. Keep the tweets gains 25% lower than the mids.

However I stand by what I said. When you move from passive to active your tweets are now getting way more more watts. Plus maybe you were using some sort of tweeter attenuation on the cross over. If the 1.5-8khz range is brighter than it should be, you are sure to lose a lot of mid bass. A high xover point is the next big culprit and improper delay between your sub and mids is the third possible issue. Balance across 40-200hz is the fourth issue. Or you can have each out by 10% and that is sure to drive you nuts.

For your situation I would just turn up the gains on the mids and leave the gains on the tweets where they are or turn them down a bit.

Oh, and also cut in the 100-200hz range.

[Vital]

I'll slap myself till i bleed lol but i don't think you guys caught what i mentioned about Arc's units - they both put out 8V. In other words they are also line drivers in addition to being a crossover and eq.
I also did chance all gains as i was setting them up due to "changes in the set-up" so my gains are where they should be. Any more and i'll be clipping.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121698

Balance across 40-200hz is the fourth issue
Oh, and also cut in the 100-200hz range.

^^^ not sure i understand these 2.

[MacLeod]

That Arc ain't putting out as much as the line driver. That one is putting out 13 volts if memory serves. That's a whole lot more oomph than 8 if indeed it really is 8.

[arun1963]

On all hu's, you won't hit the rated number unless you're pretty close to maxing out your volume. With or without an external amp, in real world terms you're normally not going to max out your volume. Yes you can set your amp gains real low and run close to max volume (on units where you can switch off the hu's amp). But then, you're going to have 0 headroom. So you would set the gains at about 75-80% of max volume and have a bit of headroom.

IIRC on my hu which is rated at 5v, at 80% volume the signal is about 3 volts. The same would apply to your 8v. With the line driver if you were getting 12v and without it you're at 6v, thats a big drop.

If you reset your gains after removing the line driver then its down to tuning to get the mid bass right.

Balance across 40-200hz is the fourth issue
Oh, and also cut in the 100-200hz range.

^^^ not sure i understand these 2.

The punch at the low end is in the 40-60hz range. Your mid bass is about 70--200hz. Too much of 40-60 and you will lose the snap and clarity in mid bass. The bottom end will lose impact and the mid bass will be muddy.

If the 70-200 hz is hotter then it will sound boomy. So you need to balance these two ranges. In most cars the 100-300 range will need some toning down.