tuning tips

[neomagus00]

yeah, so i'm getting bored with my system - i haven't totally screwed up the settings in the past 3 months, and it's that time again...

so i can get tonality down, within the limits of my 13-band eq (though i'm still less familiar with the bass part, so that takes a lot of work for me)... i have what i consider to be excellent imaging - basically the left and right limits are at the outside borders of the windshield (the sound seems to be coming from within the a-pillars at times).

the part that i'm shooting for now is staging - the stage right now is at eye level, and considering that my eyes are about 2 handspans from the roof of my car, i'd say that's pretty good. the killer for me is that there's no depth - the sound is bordered by the windshield, and i want it to be out in front of the car (i think).

so, my question - are there any tips or tricks anyone can provide that might help push the stage out in front?

[exalted512]

have you played with the polarity of your speakers?
-Cody

[neomagus00]

nope... how would that interact with TA?

[exalted512]

reversing the polarity of your driver side speaker is a poor mans time alignment. But just try it and see, it works different in different cars/setups.
-Cody

[MacLeod]

Reversing polarity could have some small effect I suppose but Ive never found it to make any difference whatsoever. Give it a try with different speakers and see if it makes a difference, if it does, great, but Im betting it wont.

As for depth in the stage, about the only way to do that is with speaker placement. Mounting the mids in the kicks as far to the front as possible will help as will keeping the tweeters as far forward as well.

The deepest stage Ive ever heard was Richard Paladino's Ford Focus. He had a mid range driver in the the center of the dash firing toward the windshield and his sounded like it was out on the hood.

As for tuning, the MECA SQ disc is the best Ive ever heard, even better than the IASCA disc. Here. I highly recommend getting this disc. It is a torture device for most systems but I assure you, once you get you wont regret it.

[MacLeod]

Here is some interesting speaker placement. This is Scott Selvidge's 300M. He has his 4 5" Scanspeak mids mounted in the dash with 2 running as midbasses. This car hit a 90.5 (out of 100) at a MECA show last weekend which is pretty much the highest score ever in MECA and it is the best sounding system I have EVER heard.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/803525

[neomagus00]

that is very interesting placement... i actually thought about that for a while, then decided pods were enough for me.

so i spent hours today - hours that should have been spent doing homework - messing with my speakers. i tried more or less every combination of phasing i could, and decided that in-phase all the way round was the best choice when combined with TA. i changed the angling of my tweets a little bit, and gained maybe an inch of depth and a couple inches in width, at the cost of maybe two inches in height, and i'm still deciding whether or not i like the tradeoff.

i'll be experimenting this summer with putting the tweets down on the mids, and possibly even higher up the a-pillars, but short of that do you guys have any other hints?

[exalted512]

scoot your seat back...makes your sound wider and more in front of you:D
-Cody

[MacLeod]

Yeah, that does work and I do slide my seat back before being judged BUT you can still place the stage relative to its location on the dash and although the stage will be further away, it wont seem really deeper.

[neomagus00]

hmm... 'nother question... what CDs/tracks do you guys use to tune, and WHY... for example, i use track 3 of breaking benjamin's 'we are not alone' to test equality of tweeterness for far left and far right, and to make sure the far left and far right don't collapse with the lack of a center image... i use the Bose Wave Music System demo CD for overall sound and detail, because it's recorded completely uncompressed, which makes for amazing clarity (especially in the drumline segment!), and i use the reprise of I'll Cover You on the RENT soundtrack for deep, mellow male vocals without any coverup...

any more suggestions?

[MacLeod]

Ill go back to the Chesky CD.

The first track is Rebecca Pidgeon's "Spanish Harlem" and its the best track on there to tune most of your system to as it covers everything from midrange,high range and especially bass reproduction as well as staging. Here is a clip off of CDNow.com.

The first 3 notes on the standup bass are murder on your system to reproduce accurately and they should all remain up front and not pull to the back. The third note was the hardest for me to keep up front but I think Ive got it pretty well now.

It also has a shaker in the last half of the song but its very faint and each strike is different although its very hard to hear the difference so its fun to try and dial that in. Next is a piano that is a bitch to get right.

There is also a good song for bass reproduction in Grandma's Hands. Its just an guy singing while snapping his fingers. The snapping is a good tool to dial in the midrage with. Also, the singer was tapping his foot while singing and although the tap doesnt come thru, the vibration from his foot went thru the floor and into the mike and is reproduced VERY low, like 25 or so Hz and is EXTREMELY hard to reproduce without having your subs overpower. Currently my system will not reproduce this without my sub level being so high that it is overpowering.

The list goes on and on. There is a narration before each track which is good for dialing in the center image, and just a ton of great tuning stuff which is precisely what this CD was designed for.

[neomagus00]

would that be this disc? or one of the others here?

[MacLeod]

Its the Ultimate Demonstration Disc. Ya gotta get it.