# Optimal RTA curve "template"



## fcarpio

Is this something I should follow? Would this give a decent sound? Are there RTA curve standards that should be followed? My RTA curve is pretty flat right now and it sounds good but as you all know I wouldn't mind a tuning improvement. 











Maybe I should just try this and post back...


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## fcarpio

Now that I look at it I don't think I would want my sub crossed over that high, unless that is a combination of sub and mid towards 125Hz.


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## hpilot2004

I know that this curve would be way too bass heavy for my vehicle, I have to cut my sub @ 40 and 50 hz a bit for it to blend better with my mids. As far as the rest of the curve, mine does look similar.


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## JVD240

fcarpio said:


> Now that I look at it I don't think I would want my sub crossed over that high, unless that is a combination of sub and mid towards 125Hz.


This is simply a frequency response curve. It gives no indication of crossover points.


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## Hanatsu

fcarpio said:


> Is this something I should follow? Would this give a decent sound? Are there RTA curve standards that should be followed? My RTA curve is pretty flat right now and it sounds good but as you all know I wouldn't mind a tuning improvement.
> 
> 
> Maybe I should just try this and post back...


There is no "optimal" curve. However, the one you posted will most likely sound too bright. In a car you want a downwards tilted response from 20-20kHz.

In my last build I had a curve that looked like this (3-way front).


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## kaigoss69

Yep, that one would be a tad bright. I prefer the JBL curve myself.


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## PPI_GUY

Hanatsu said:


> There is no "optimal" curve. However, the one you posted will most likely sound too bright. In a car you want a downwards tilted response from 20-20kHz.
> 
> In my last build I had a curve that looked like this (3-way front).


Is that slight bump between 40hz and 50hz something you eq'd into the curve or simply the result of cabin gain? Very nice curve by the way!


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## Beckerson1

Hanatsu said:


> There is no "optimal" curve.


Agree'd... I was going to follow a curve but found out really quick it was pointless as in my particular setup it would mean some stupid amounts of boost and cuts.

So I did it by ear and I have a similar downward slope as above. A little flatter from 80-8K. 

I'm hardly done tuning but at least it sounds good. I need to fix some L/R Eq and fine tune everything else.


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## Hanatsu

PPI_GUY said:


> Is that slight bump between 40hz and 50hz something you eq'd into the curve or simply the result of cabin gain? Very nice curve by the way!


That was probably due to some modal peak, I brought 45Hz down by 15dB and it still peaked... damn efficient (power wise) though xD


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## fcarpio

Hanatsu said:


> There is no "optimal" curve. However, the one you posted will most likely sound too bright. In a car you want a downwards tilted response from 20-20kHz.
> 
> In my last build I had a curve that looked like this (3-way front).


Not quite the same but I am getting there. This does sound a little better than my previous flatter curve but I think I will have to make it a tad concave (like yours) rather than convex (like mine). 










The rate of change in my curve is increasing but yours is decreasing, which I can imagine how it could be more desirable. 

One thing I noticed is that my time alignment got out of whack with the new curve. I had to re do the TA but no big deal, I got that part down.


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## ErinH

is that the crutchfield curve? it looks familiar...


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## WestCo

Tuned in


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## ErinH

FWIW, there are a couple threads like this already. This is a good one:
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...iscussion/131029-target-curve-comparison.html


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## Ray21

Hanatsu said:


> There is no "optimal" curve. However, the one you posted will most likely sound too bright. In a car you want a downwards tilted response from 20-20kHz.
> 
> In my last build I had a curve that looked like this (3-way front).


This is the general curve my truck follows... somewhat sharp slope from 30hz to 100hz, and gently sloping from 100hz to 20khz. 

I noticed that without the sharper slope from 30hz to 100hz my bass sounded much too overpowering.


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## ccapil

Nice thread. There is no "optimal" curve all depends on who is tuning, what equipment, car etc. also depends on where ur crossover points are and what slopes u have & equalizing. couple of nice curves so far lol.


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## fcarpio

bikinpunk said:


> is that the crutchfield curve? it looks familiar...


I think it is.


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## fcarpio

I think I botched it but I am getting closer. This crsppy curve does not sound that bad at all, the main problem is that I increased the 40hz - 50hz range too much so the bass is clipping on high volume, at least I know what the problem is and will fix it. Had to play with levels as well, not just EQ.










I fixed the bass but this curve sounds a bit too dull for my taste. I think I am going to keep it almost the same, but between 90db and 70db.


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## Hanatsu

You need higher resolution that 1/3oct below 1kHz to see what's going on.

I'd lower ~40Hz by 5dB and increase 20-30Hz by 5dB instead


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## NoAudioFile

sub'd


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## avanti1960

After having done this (and still perfecting, closer every day) the JBL curve is a good starting point- however there are lots of variables that you need to adjust for with your own ears. Below are my adaptations on the theme: 
Bass plus 10 db from 20-60Hz, tapering down smoothy to 160Hz.
Flat from 160Hz to 1.2Khz (good for midrange presence)
1.2Khz to 5Khz is THE MOST CRITICAL RANGE IN THE SPECTRUM. This range contains the most ear sensitive frequencies. 
I prefer a bowl that dips from 1.2Khz to 5Khz with the bottom at -3db @ 3Khz then back to flat at 5Khz. 
Playing with this range is critical to getting it right. 
Then smoothly taper downward from 5Khz ~ 1 to 2 db per octave.


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## Hanatsu

avanti1960 said:


> 1.2Khz to 5Khz is THE MOST CRITICAL RANGE IN THE SPECTRUM. This range contains the most ear sensitive frequencies.


I rather put it like this; 

This is the range where any PEAKS in FR are most audible. A low Q EQ filter cut placed around 2-3kHz can often make the system sound "softer". Don't overdo it though, at some point it feels lifeless and dull.

I feel the most important range lies in getting 250-800Hz right, if the fundamentals ain't right any harmonics that follows will not sound right either. Most of the vocal staging also lies in that area.


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## Hanatsu

Also, I would like to point out that, the left/right side relative EQ is really important. A full system FR-plot won't show how close the channels match, if you care for staging at all, this should be one of your top priorities. I use an template to set the starting point, so L/R measures somewhat similar, then I go by ear from there. I use correlated noise in the vocal range together with T/A to set the center.

_Here's midrange channels, separately after fine-tuning. This is how close the channels should be. It took a fair bit of EQ work to get it this close, used both the P99 and my HelixDSP for shape the response. The deviation beyond 1,5kHz is intended btw._


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## Jcharger13

Han's REW tutorials on auto EQ and TA have helped me tremendously. 

I had my right side looking fairly close to my target curve. Left side wasn't. Ran auto EQ and was amazed with the results. Then had to fine tune, check TA. Thanks Han.


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## fcarpio

Hanatsu said:


> Also, I would like to point out that, the left/right side relative EQ is really important. A full system FR-plot won't show how close the channels match, if you care for staging at all, this should be one of your top priorities. I use an template to set the starting point, so L/R measures somewhat similar, then I go by ear from there. I use correlated noise in the vocal range together with T/A to set the center.
> 
> _Here's midrange channels, separately after fine-tuning. This is how close the channels should be. It took a fair bit of EQ work to get it this close, used both the P99 and my HelixDSP for shape the response. The deviation beyond 1,5kHz is intended btw._


Is the green drop after 1k by design?


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## Justin Zazzi

Hanatsu said:


> The deviation beyond 1,5kHz is intended btw.[/I]


Hanatsu, I have seem something very similar and tried it myself, but either I did not understand the concept or did not replicate it very well. Can you please explain more about this?


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## ErinH

I'm assuming you guys are referencing Jon W's left/right HF delta supposedly die to the influence of HRTF?

If so, I tried it once before and found no success with it myself, Jazzi. I have some ideas why but don't want to get in to that here just in case.


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## Hanatsu

I use a slightly different method to tune the center. I begin with a template ("housecurve") that I know works in my car. After L/R been set there's no problem finding the center in the 250-800Hz range with T/A using EMMA disc for staging evaluation. I then use bandpassed correlated noise around the center frequencies I'm tunkng to fine tune the center to one spot. After that's done I continue with 4-16kHz using the same approach, difference is that I set T/A by measuring impulse peak instead. The 1-4kHz is tricky cause it's actually hard to pinpoint the exact center. I've tried several methods and the best one yet is two-tone bursts. I've overlayed a 300-500Hz continuous noise with noise bursts with 1/3oct spacing, playing 1 second at the time. With L/R FR equal I hear right steering with the overlayed noise. After I've done with this range I try a before/after test and the stage is more coherent with the slight right side attenuation. What's the actual reason for this effect I don't know. The FR plot I linked is the result of tuning by ear. From 1,5-12kHz there is a continuous right side attenuation. To keep the center in the same spot, I want all frequencies to "stack" upon eachother. After I started to apply this technique the center focus is amazing. The EMMA disc left-center-right test now stages in 100% right. While listening to mono speech no sound at all can be heard from the speaker location, all sound lies in the acoustic center. I can share the files via dropbox if anyone's interested.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## Hanatsu

Hanatsu said:


> I use a slightly different method to tune the center. I begin with a template ("housecurve") that I know works in my car. After L/R been set there's no problem finding the center in the 250-800Hz range with T/A using EMMA disc for staging evaluation. I then use bandpassed correlated noise around the center frequencies I'm tuning to fine tune the center to one spot. After that's done I continue with 4-16kHz using the same approach, difference is that I set T/A by measuring impulse peak instead. The 1-4kHz is tricky cause it's actually hard to pinpoint the exact center. I've tried several methods and the best one yet is two-tone bursts. I've overlayed a 300-500Hz continuous noise with noise bursts with 1/3oct spacing between 1-4kHz, playing 1 second at the time. With L/R FR equal I hear right steering with the overlayed noise. After I've done with this range I try a before/after test and the stage is more coherent with the slight right side attenuation. What's the actual reason for this effect I don't know. The FR plot I linked is the result of tuning by ear. From 1,5-12kHz there is a continuous right side attenuation. To keep the center in the same spot, I want all frequencies to "stack" upon eachother. After I started to apply this technique the center focus is amazing. The EMMA disc left-center-right test now stages in 100% right. While listening to mono speech no sound at all can be heard from the speaker location, all sound lies in the acoustic center. I can share the files via dropbox if anyone's interested.
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


Sigh... can't edit post for some reason. Fixed the above quote.

Also. It's practically impossible to pull off with midrange drivers low in doors and a center console interfering. Works much better with drivers i ear height IME. Tried it on 5 cars now....

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## fcarpio

Hanatsu said:


> Sigh... can't edit post for some reason. Fixed the above quote.
> 
> Also. It's practically impossible to pull off with midrange drivers low in doors and a center console interfering. Works much better with drivers i ear height IME. Tried it on 5 cars now....
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


i have the mids low in the doors and there was a HUGE disparity between mid drivers when i rew'ed them. the tweeters faired a lot better, they are located in the dash firing towards glass.


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## Justin Zazzi

Hanatsu said:


> I can share the files via dropbox if anyone's interested.


If it's not too much trouble, please do. I always learn something new when using a new tool or technique! Thank you for sharing all the detail.


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## sqnut

On the near side bias 2-4khz, Han, are you setting the centre while looking straight ahead or at the rear view? I think it's also based on where your drivers are installed and the cross over points used. 

With the mids in doors and the tweets cross firing at the base of A pillars, x over 3.5khz and looking at the rear view, I find biasing the near side 2-5khz just pulls the image towards the near side.


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## Hanatsu

Well. I usually put a bit of tape where the acoustic center lies and focus on that. In my car it's slightly left of the physical center of the dash.

My crossover settings were IIRC;

20-55Hz 24dB L-R LPF (Sub)
65-180Hz 24dB L-R BP (Mid)
200-3700Hz L-R BP (Midrange)
3700Hz+ L-R HP (Tw)

All acoustic 4th order slopes. Midr drivers in sails, tweets right beside them onaxis... ^^


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## Kevin K

Thanks for the information. I have that left - left center - center - right center - right track and that has helped a great deal getting my alignment better. Was using the older left-center-right tracks from the IASCA cd which is a good tool in itself.

I would be interested in the other tracks you mentioned to help put the finishing touches on my tune.

Thanks.





Hanatsu said:


> I use a slightly different method to tune the center. I begin with a template ("housecurve") that I know works in my car. After L/R been set there's no problem finding the center in the 250-800Hz range with T/A using EMMA disc for staging evaluation. I then use bandpassed correlated noise around the center frequencies I'm tunkng to fine tune the center to one spot. After that's done I continue with 4-16kHz using the same approach, difference is that I set T/A by measuring impulse peak instead. The 1-4kHz is tricky cause it's actually hard to pinpoint the exact center. I've tried several methods and the best one yet is two-tone bursts. I've overlayed a 300-500Hz continuous noise with noise bursts with 1/3oct spacing, playing 1 second at the time. With L/R FR equal I hear right steering with the overlayed noise. After I've done with this range I try a before/after test and the stage is more coherent with the slight right side attenuation. What's the actual reason for this effect I don't know. The FR plot I linked is the result of tuning by ear. From 1,5-12kHz there is a continuous right side attenuation. To keep the center in the same spot, I want all frequencies to "stack" upon eachother. After I started to apply this technique the center focus is amazing. The EMMA disc left-center-right test now stages in 100% right. While listening to mono speech no sound at all can be heard from the speaker location, all sound lies in the acoustic center. I can share the files via dropbox if anyone's interested.
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## ErinH

Hanatsu said:


> Well. I usually put a bit of tape where the acoustic center lies and focus on that. In my car it's slightly left of the physical center of the dash.


I actually do the same, thing. Though, the whole process isn't done with tape. But the tape is certainly a tool I use to help. And thanks for mentioning this... I typed up a long reply to your quote and realized it's best I put it in my build log or somewhere else as to not take this off topic. It's a pretty good little trick that I forget to mention a lot of the time.


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## Jcharger13

Always was curious as to where most consider acoustical center in a car. Straight ahead seemed like to much gets squished between the pillar and center (sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I know how to explain it) and the right side is wide open. Didn't seem right. 

Just to the left of dash center is where I ended up at for my best results. So I guess I'm on the right track. 

A little off topic but at the moment my stage is very centered. Dsp crapped out & I'm playing through the factory 3.5" speaker in the middle of the dash only (only used for phone calls normally). Not very wide but has no phasing issues.


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## Hanatsu

bikinpunk said:


> I actually do the same, thing. Though, the whole process isn't done with tape. But the tape is certainly a tool I use to help. And thanks for mentioning this... I typed up a long reply to your quote and realized it's best I put it in my build log or somewhere else as to not take this off topic. It's a pretty good little trick that I forget to mention a lot of the time.


I'll take a look at your build log later 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## Libertyguy20

FCarpio, having sat in your truck before and comparred notes....it did sound good. We should hook up and compare again. Excited to see how your setup has evolved!


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## fcarpio

Libertyguy20 said:


> FCarpio, having sat in your truck before and comparred notes....it did sound good. We should hook up and compare again. Excited to see how your setup has evolved!


Sure, just let me know. Still got my number? For the past couple of weeks I've hooked up with loosecannonzs, pretty cool guy. I could ask him to see if he wants to join us.


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## cAsE sEnSiTiVe

Jcharger13 said:


> Always was curious as to where most consider acoustical center in a car. Straight ahead seemed like to much gets squished between the pillar and center (sounds ridiculous but that's the only way I know how to explain it) and the right side is wide open. Didn't seem right.
> 
> Just to the left of dash center is where I ended up at for my best results. So I guess I'm on the right track.


Here's a good thread regarding the acoustical center...

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/technical-advanced-car-audio-discussion/62466-where-exactly-should-center-located.html


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## quality_sound

fcarpio said:


> i have the mids low in the doors and there was a HUGE disparity between mid drivers when i rew'ed them. the tweeters faired a lot better, they are located in the dash firing towards glass.


Same here. My mids are DRASTICALLY different.


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## quality_sound

Hanatsu said:


> I can share the files via dropbox if anyone's interested.
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


I would be interested in this as well. I've been using FR pink noise and it's yielded less than stellar results.


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## james2266

Interesting subject and a cool read. I actually tried a few rather unorthodox methods on my last tune yesterday. Well things that I have not tried before but am pretty sure were suggested a while back and not sure by whom. I think I have tried most of the more standard methods and have gotten only mild success IMO. The big thing I tried was going with a much lower cross on my sub but with a shallow slope. I also tried out out having more of a rising response below about 50 Hz. Actually my end response was very similar to the one that Hanatsu posted earlier. Also working further on getting left to match right. My midranges are on the dash almost on axis and I am shocked at the amount of eq I had to use to get them close to matching. I thought there is no way this can sound right but in the end, my center is pretty damned rock solid now and wow the impact is incredible and virtually no pull to the back now. Quite impressed. Something still doesn't sound right down at the bottom but it is definitely more fun to listen to now. Maybe I need to lower the sub a db or so. Might try that on the way to work tomorrow. 

I will also relay that getting as much of the response coming from dash height is really quite important I am finding. I think I need to look at finding a 3 incher that can play alot lower nicer (sub 250 Hz or even below 200 would be great). Not sure what that would be tho. Any ideas not that I really want to spend more money on this right now. The two I keep coming back to are the Focal W3 Utopia and the HAT L3se. The first I've heard and was super impressed by everything but the price  and the latter I have been unable to hear at all. Someday soon I hope tho. Maybe in March.


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## Hanatsu

My ETON 3-400 3" driver can be used down to 160Hz with a 24dB slope. Actually below 3% THD with 94dB/1m at 160Hz. Impressive for a 3" driver. Not that expensive either.

I will post the dropbox link later

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## james2266

Hanatsu said:


> My ETON 3-400 3" driver can be used down to 160Hz with a 24dB slope. Actually below 3% THD with 94dB/1m at 160Hz. Impressive for a 3" driver. Not that expensive either.
> 
> I will post the dropbox link later
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


Thanks for the link. I had never checked that driver out before. It looks quite promising. It is about 6 mm wider diameter than my current midranges but hopefully I would be able to make them work. Do they make them in 4 phm? I guess it doesn't really matter as I have a tonne of power available to them I guess. How do you have your's installed anyways - sealed or ib? My setup would be ib and I am curious as to how they would do this way. Also, did you have to do a tonne of eq work on them to get them to match one another?


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## ErinH

james2266 said:


> I will also relay that getting as much of the response coming from dash height is really quite important I am finding. I think I need to look at finding a 3 incher that can play alot lower nicer (sub 250 Hz or even below 200 would be great). No.


FWIW, I wouldn't worry so much about crossing the driver low as I would focusing on the tune and determining what's causing the pull. Most likely, it's an out of phase issue that some t/a should help with. You don't have to cross your dash mids low to pull off good stage height. I've got my 5's crossed at 350hz. And I know other folks who have high(er) crossover points/slopes on their dash mids with no split stage. On the flip side, I know some people with dash mids crossed low and still have a split stage. So, it really does come down to integration. Just tossing it out there so you don't go gear swapping and potentially find you still have the same issue.


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## Hanatsu

james2266 said:


> Thanks for the link. I had never checked that driver out before. It looks quite promising. It is about 6 mm wider diameter than my current midranges but hopefully I would be able to make them work. Do they make them in 4 phm? I guess it doesn't really matter as I have a tonne of power available to them I guess. How do you have your's installed anyways - sealed or ib? My setup would be ib and I am curious as to how they would do this way. Also, did you have to do a tonne of eq work on them to get them to match one another?


They have about 100% the same FR measured on flat baffle. Inside the car it varies but that's not the drivers fault. IB is better I guess if you running them low, I will mount them sort of IB myself. There is a 4ohm version, dunno where to get them though. Check my build thread, I posted a few tests on them there a while back. You do not need a ton of power to drive them, for all intents and purposes I estimate 30-40w to be enough for them to get quite loud.

The upper limit would be 4-5kHz or so.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## avanti1960

Hanatsu said:


> I rather put it like this;
> 
> This is the range where any PEAKS in FR are most audible. A low Q EQ filter cut placed around 2-3kHz can often make the system sound "softer". Don't overdo it though, at some point it feels lifeless and dull.
> 
> I feel the most important range lies in getting 250-800Hz right, if the fundamentals ain't right any harmonics that follows will not sound right either. Most of the vocal staging also lies in that area.


Good points but with respect to tonality, for myself below 1.2K was easier to get right and more forgiving if you make changes. In other words, this range would sound very good if you tuned to RTA curves. 
Between 1.2K and 5K is a lot more critical, difficult and less forgiving. Adjusting this range (for me) MUST be done by ears and tuning to varieties of RTA curves does not yield satisfactory results. 

I do not hear much staging information below 800Hz but this is the cutoff frequency for my door midbass drivers.


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## bigfastmike

:thumbup:

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2


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## Libertyguy20

Bear with me....

I've always tuned to center of the dash. But yesterday while driving home, i noticed the "center of the dash" at the location where the dashboard touches the windshield glass, is actually a wee bit left when comparred to the "center of the dash" where the top of the consule is, centrally above my head unit. This is due of course to the angle of my head (via my seating location) and when taking into account the physical depth of the dashboard....thus center appears as two different points from my seating location when i look at the dashobard at the glass or at the point closet to my HU. I realized that at times i was tuning for "center of the dash" directly above my headunit at the top, and other times as i was tuning center of the dash as the central point of my dash where the glass hits my dashboard.

Curious to know what people think of this. My thoughts are I should locate the space exactly in between those two spots and use a piece of tape as Punk and Hanatsu use to focus on, but was curious if people think one should tune to either where the glass touches the dashboard or to the actual top center of the consule....either answer is difficult when trying to simutaneously account for soundstaging AND imaging and placement. Your thoughts


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## T3mpest

Libertyguy20 said:


> Bear with me....
> 
> I've always tuned to center of the dash. But yesterday while driving home, i noticed the "center of the dash" at the location where the dashboard touches the windshield glass, is actually a wee bit left when comparred to the "center of the dash" where the top of the consule is, centrally above my head unit. This is due of course to the angle of my head (via my seating location) and when taking into account the physical depth of the dashboard....thus center appears as two different points from my seating location when i look at the dashobard at the glass or at the point closet to my HU. I realized that at times i was tuning for "center of the dash" directly above my headunit at the top, and other times as i was tuning center of the dash as the central point of my dash where the glass hits my dashboard.
> 
> Curious to know what people think of this. My thoughts are I should locate the space exactly in between those two spots and use a piece of tape as Punk and Hanatsu use to focus on, but was curious if people think one should tune to either where the glass touches the dashboard or to the actual top center of the consule....either answer is difficult when trying to simutaneously account for soundstaging AND imaging and placement. Your thoughts


Your stage should have a depth out on the dash either at or past your glass. So i always go for what looks like the center when I look out as if I'm driving. In my car I have one of those light sensors just past my center channel up on the dash, sometimes I can see it's reflection on the glass, that makes it even easier.


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## avanti1960

i just want to hear things in the left and right ears equally. the stage will find its own center.


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## pionkej

avanti1960 said:


> i just want to hear things in the left and right ears equally. the stage will find its own center.


This. It's all going to be somewhat subjective, but my thought is that center should be center between left and right stage boundaries. I use pink noise panned left and right and work from there. I don't use music as some ambient sounds can travel beyond the noise boundaries, but that should still be roughly the same for both sides if done properly. 

Great thread by the way. I personally use 31-bands of pink noise with 1khz noise between each burst. I use it to reference both staging and "ear flat" tuning (which gives me a curve similar to what's been posted).


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## Hanatsu

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoc2vgb4e44ys2a/Disc%201%20%28Tuning%29.rar

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mi6lx03nqpp7lxy/Disc%202%20%28Testing%20%26%20Verification%29.rar

Eh... I never added the two-tone noise in those discs. I'll add them tomorrow. Gotta sleep now


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## james2266

bikinpunk said:


> FWIW, I wouldn't worry so much about crossing the driver low as I would focusing on the tune and determining what's causing the pull. Most likely, it's an out of phase issue that some t/a should help with. You don't have to cross your dash mids low to pull off good stage height. I've got my 5's crossed at 350hz. And I know other folks who have high(er) crossover points/slopes on their dash mids with no split stage. On the flip side, I know some people with dash mids crossed low and still have a split stage. So, it really does come down to integration. Just tossing it out there so you don't go gear swapping and potentially find you still have the same issue.


This is exactly what I have been doing lately. After a crap load of eq left versus right with my midranges mainly, I have pretty much everything above 200 Hz or so level left to right. I have the curve set flat more or less from about 300 - 4 kHz or so and then a slight taper down from there. The harshness is now gone with the exception of a very few songs which could be recording and/or my source unit IMO. The center is now rock solid and the height is good with no pulling to the floor at all. I agree with what you say BUT it just doesn't sound natural to me. I can't quite describe what is 'missing'. This is what I am focusing on now. Also still trying to get the midbass to sound correct too but I think alot of that is install related. I still have some pretty serious rattles/buzzing to take care of and that could be part of the issue in the midrange as well.



Hanatsu said:


> They have about 100% the same FR measured on flat baffle. Inside the car it varies but that's not the drivers fault. IB is better I guess if you running them low, I will mount them sort of IB myself. There is a 4ohm version, dunno where to get them though. Check my build thread, I posted a few tests on them there a while back. You do not need a ton of power to drive them, for all intents and purposes I estimate 30-40w to be enough for them to get quite loud.
> 
> The upper limit would be 4-5kHz or so.
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


Thanks for the info on the Eton's. They are an interesting looking driver. They are on my list for potential upgrade if I decide to go back to a cone midrange. The more I think about it, the more I like the 8 ohm driver over a 4 ohm. I think there might be more control from the amp as the damping should be better for one (if you believe that stuff). Even an 8 ohm driver would be able to pull up to 80 watts rms should be more than enough.



avanti1960 said:


> Good points but with respect to tonality, for myself below 1.2K was easier to get right and more forgiving if you make changes. In other words, this range would sound very good if you tuned to RTA curves.
> Between 1.2K and 5K is a lot more critical, difficult and less forgiving. Adjusting this range (for me) MUST be done by ears and tuning to varieties of RTA curves does not yield satisfactory results.
> 
> I do not hear much staging information below 800Hz but this is the cutoff frequency for my door midbass drivers.


I tend to agree with this somewhat. I will also add that getting the midbass-subbass balance/transition has been a ***** too. Room nodes are a ***** for me. Getting the 1-4 kHz range not to peak is always a challenge for me too. I have also found (from experience) that alot of the times that peakiness/screetchiness can be caused by a resonating enclosure and/or nasty reflections from nearby hard surfaces. I think moreso the first as I am not using a dash mat this time (so far) and my center is the most stable its ever been and the peakiness is more or less gone. Now if I can just get things to sound real. I want it to sound like I am at the front row of a concert if you know what I mean.


----------



## Hanatsu

james2266 said:


> Thanks for the info on the Eton's. They are an interesting looking driver. They are on my list for potential upgrade if I decide to go back to a cone midrange. The more I think about it, the more I like the 8 ohm driver over a 4 ohm. I think there might be more control from the amp as the damping should be better for one (if you believe that stuff). Even an 8 ohm driver would be able to pull up to 80 watts rms should be more than enough.


Nope, I don't believe higher damping factor will make any difference unless it's extremely low. With 80Wrms input you will exceed Xmax below 300Hz or so. 20-30W would be enough to push them to Xmax at 200Hz/24dB in IB config. 

I've added additional data on the drivers now btw.


----------



## fcarpio

For my ears this is the sexiest curve I could come up with so far. It sounds very good but it is still a tad harsh. I am going to keep it as a reference and start to slope it down a wee bit harder.










Now that I look at it again I think lowering the tweeter levels a bit should suffice, they are higher than they should be.


----------



## sqnut

Cut the peak ~ 1.6khz on the mids as that can add to harshness. Cut the tweeter level by 3-4db yes, but also roll off the tweeter response via the eq from ~ 2khz on, so that 16khz is about 5-6db below 1khz. General ball park.

p.s. if you find this sound 'dull' and a bit lifeless, open out at 10-12khz on the eq.


----------



## Hanatsu

fcarpio said:


> For my ears this is the sexiest curve I could come up with so far. It sounds very good but it is still a tad harsh. I am going to keep it as a reference and start to slope it down a wee bit harder.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now that I look at it again I think lowering the tweeter levels a bit should suffice, they are higher than they should be.



Fix phase at crossover between sub/mid. They doesn't sum fully.


----------



## sqnut

Hanatsu said:


> Fix phase at crossover between sub/mid. They doesn't sum fully.


Yes! You can do this by playing with ta for mids (won't worry about the sub. Wave lengths are too long. It is what it is). Cut the response on the mid in the 80-100 zone.


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## fcarpio

I love this thread, thanks for the tips.


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## sqnut

james2266 said:


> ;
> 
> I have also found (from experience) that alot of the times that peakiness/screetchiness can be caused by a resonating enclosure and/or nasty reflections from nearby hard surfaces. I think moreso the first as I am not using a dash mat this time (so far) and my center is the most stable its ever been and the peakiness is more or less gone. Now if I can just get things to sound real. I want it to sound like I am at the front row of a concert if you know what I mean.


9.9/10 the peaky harshness is not resonance or reflections but a response issue. Listen to a 3kHz tone and a 400 Hz tone, keeping eq flat. Which sounds louder? Now cut 3kHz till the two tones sound equal. How much did you wind up cutting at3? To get that dip at 3 you have to start tapering off around 1 so that you have a smooth and gradual roll off in the overall response. Tailing off at 4 is keeping the 2-4kHz range too hot. This is the zone where your ears are most sensitive. There is a difference between perceived loudness and measured loudness.


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## Jcharger13

sqnut said:


> Yes! You can do this by playing with ta for mids (won't worry about the sub. Wave lengths are too long. It is what it is). Cut the response on the mid in the 80-100 zone.


I always enjoy reading through one of these SQnut/Han tuning threads. I've had this issue and thought it was phasing but couldn't quite get it how I wanted. Thanks guys.


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## james2266

sqnut said:


> 9.9/10 the peaky harshness is not resonance or reflections but a response issue. Listen to a 3kHz tone and a 400 Hz tone, keeping eq flat. Which sounds louder? Now cut 3kHz till the two tones sound equal. How much did you wind up cutting at3? To get that dip at 3 you have to start tapering off around 1 so that you have a smooth and gradual roll off in the overall response. Tailing off at 4 is keeping the 2-4kHz range too hot. This is the zone where your ears are most sensitive. There is a difference between perceived loudness and measured loudness.


I do agree with this but an improper install will wreck any proper tuning. I have been there. I do think that what little issues I am having now are tuning related tho and thanks to all for the many suggestions. When I get some time again, I will try what tapering from about 1 kHz does for me.

So, I have a little to add now after last night too. When I was initially setting this one up, I came to the conclusion that one of my tweeters was out of phase somehow. By flipping one 180 out (pass. side I chose) it appeared to shift the center into the middle where it belongs. After playing around last night with band limited pink noise bursts at 1/3 octave, I was noticing it really hard to define a center image. In between these tunes I have really dialed in the left right eq to make everything match from about 200 Hz on up. Well, I decided to flip the polarity back to normal on the tweet and was noticing the center was pulling heavily to the right even after making sure to line up all of the tweeter frequencies (I had to move around a few). It didn't make sense to me that the band limited pink noise could all be centered (as best as I could muster - hard for me) but voices would pull to the right. Well, I decided to play with the ta on the driver tweet and only had to move it 3-4 clicks and it was back in the center again. I re listened and I had a bit of a wow sensation. I am going away for a 3 hour trip in a bit so we'll see if I still think it is 'wow sounding' after that. I really think that I had time alignment out enough to throw the polarity between tweeters in the critical staging frequencies of 2.5-4 kHz out by almost 180 degrees. If I recall the wave length in this ranges is in the inches correct? Anyways, I have decided to call what I had a 'false center'. It is interesting to me. I was noticing singers seemed to sound more 'real' too which is great and what was severely lacking before last night. I am curious what I will come back with after a nice long testing today.


----------



## avanti1960

sqnut said:


> 9.9/10 the peaky harshness is not resonance or reflections but a response issue. Listen to a 3kHz tone and a 400 Hz tone, keeping eq flat. Which sounds louder? Now cut 3kHz till the two tones sound equal. How much did you wind up cutting at3? To get that dip at 3 you have to start tapering off around 1 so that you have a smooth and gradual roll off in the overall response. Tailing off at 4 is keeping the 2-4kHz range too hot. This is the zone where your ears are most sensitive. There is a difference between perceived loudness and measured loudness.


absolutely right on the money. the Sheffield Labs "My Disk" has 1/3 octave steps limited pink noise tracks. I prefer this to frequency tones.

The RTA will read flat or smoothly decreasing- yet to your ears 2Khz, 3.1Khz and 6Khz (for me and my car) were painfully louder than the adjacent frequencies. 
This HAS to show up with music as well. I tamed the hot spots and the sound is immediately so much better.


----------



## james2266

avanti1960 said:


> absolutely right on the money. the Sheffield Labs "My Disk" has 1/3 octave steps limited pink noise tracks. I prefer this to frequency tones.
> 
> The RTA will read flat or smoothly decreasing- yet to your ears 2Khz, 3.1Khz and 6Khz (for me and my car) were painfully louder than the adjacent frequencies.
> This HAS to show up with music as well. I tamed the hot spots and the sound is immediately so much better.


Funny, I have been using the same method but Autosound 2000 'My Disc'. MIght even be the same recordings. That killed most of the noise that made me want to jump out of the vehicle. My main issues lately have been imaging related. I think I am on the right path again - at least I hope so. Still would like to have the option of crossing into the 200 Hz range with my midranges but that will be later. I will keep working on what I have right now.


----------



## Hanatsu

avanti1960 said:


> absolutely right on the money. the Sheffield Labs "My Disk" has 1/3 octave steps limited pink noise tracks. I prefer this to frequency tones.


Yes. Don't use sine tones, too narrow to tune anything with. They are way too sensitive to comb filtering effects and modal issues lower down. The 1/3oct bandpassed noise is indeed much better.


----------



## sqnut

avanti1960 said:


> the Sheffield Labs "My Disk" has 1/3 octave steps limited pink noise tracks. I prefer this to frequency tones.





Hanatsu said:


> Yes. Don't use sine tones, too narrow to tune anything with. They are way too sensitive to comb filtering effects and modal issues lower down. The 1/3oct bandpassed noise is indeed much better.


By tone I meant the pink noise tracks not the test tones . Should have been specific. I find test tones worthless above ~500 since they are more prone to reflections and hence combing.


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## Hanatsu

sqnut said:


> By tone I meant the pink noise tracks not the test tones . Should have been specific. I find test tones worthless above ~500 since they are more prone to reflections and hence combing.


Yeah, indeed


----------



## fcarpio

Still at it. This is working a lot better for me:










Took care of the sub out of phase, just a stupid mistake. But I cannot get rid of the two peaks at 550Hz and 1.5KHz to save my life.


----------



## Hanatsu

fcarpio said:


> Still at it. This is working a lot better for me:
> 
> Took care of the sub out of phase, just a stupid mistake. But I cannot get rid of the two peaks at 550Hz and 1.5KHz to save my life.


Is that measurement of both sides combined? In that case, only measure one side + sub at a time. If not, why can't you get rid of them?

Maybe the better question is, do they bother you? Narrow Q peaks are less audible than wide Q peaks in FR, overall it looks good otherwise - I have more HF tilt in my car though


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## fcarpio

Hanatsu said:


> Is that measurement of both sides combined? In that case, only measure one side + sub at a time. If not, why can't you get rid of them?
> 
> Maybe the better question is, do they bother you? Narrow Q peaks are less audible than wide Q peaks in FR, overall it looks good otherwise - I have more HF tilt in my car though


They bother me because they are there, no other reason really. I tried to copy yours (red) as closely as I could, it sounds better than my previous attempt but I think I am going to slightly increase from 8k and up. I need just a little more sparkle.












Another thing that crossed my mind is that I really like the way my headphones sound. I may run a sweep and try to copy that curve as well to see how it goes.


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## Earzbleed

Brilliant thread guys. This should be stickied. All info and no arguing or going off on tangents. This will be very helpful for what I have planned for today, especially the pictures of your curves. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience.


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## jpeezy

one of the problems with this is variables of different vehicles and different systems. Other problem is RTA's dont hear like humans, i've used a blower tool with compressed air and obtained a relatively flat response. What I am getting at is the RTA may show the same curve from two different sources, those sources to you and I can/and probably will sound vastly different. I always tell people to use RTA to get your system in the "ballpark", but that is it, find phase issues or level issues, or response issues. They just dont "hear" like we do.


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## Hanatsu

jpeezy said:


> one of the problems with this is variables of different vehicles and different systems. Other problem is RTA's dont hear like humans, i've used a blower tool with compressed air and obtained a relatively flat response. What I am getting at is the RTA may show the same curve from two different sources, those sources to you and I can/and probably will sound vastly different. I always tell people to use RTA to get your system in the "ballpark", but that is it, find phase issues or level issues, or response issues. They just dont "hear" like we do.


Well... I have to disagree with some of this.

I can replicate a similar sound every time in MY CAR with the SAME INSTALL with the SAME TARGET RESPONSE. I can easily find phase issues, response/level issues with measurement software. 

RTA is just an analyzer. You gotta have an excitation signal, we usually run Pink Noise for our purposes. With that said, RTA/PN is useless really to troubleshoot systems, noise together with an RTA won't register anything the time domain. MLS and SineSweep are much more useful. With those measurement techniques we can get an IR and extract FR, Distortion, Phase, ETC... and so on. This additional data can be used in several ways to determine issues that will take forever to do by ear with trial and error.

Systems with the same target responses (house curves) will sound different in different installs and cars. It's mainly the lows and highs that get affected, smaller cars need more tilt in the response (ie. more bass and less highs) than a larger car. Once you have figured out how the response "should look" for different installs it's easy to replicate with pretty decent precision. I can get a system 90-95% correct just by looking at measurements and compensating with my DSP. Afterwards, I ALWAYS fine-tune by ear with bandpassed correlated noise to center frequencies up a little better and do some smaller adjustments with EQ.

One thing I should add is that some systems won't sound good no matter how good you are at tuning by ear or interpreting measurements. The reason for this is often bad speaker placements, reflections cannot be tuned away. Especially center consoles tend to mess things up in the midrange if the drivers are mounted low.


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## james2266

Hanatsu said:


> Well... I have to disagree with some of this.
> 
> I can replicate a similar sound every time in MY CAR with the SAME INSTALL with the SAME TARGET RESPONSE. I can easily find phase issues, response/level issues with measurement software.
> 
> RTA is just an analyzer. You gotta have an excitation signal, we usually run Pink Noise for our purposes. With that said, RTA/PN is useless really to troubleshoot systems, noise together with an RTA won't register anything the time domain. MLS and SineSweep are much more useful. With those measurement techniques we can get an IR and extract FR, Distortion, Phase, ETC... and so on. This additional data can be used in several ways to determine issues that will take forever to do by ear with trial and error.
> 
> Systems with the same target responses (house curves) will sound different in different installs and cars. It's mainly the lows and highs that get affected, smaller cars need more tilt in the response (ie. more bass and less highs) than a larger car. Once you have figured out how the response "should look" for different installs it's easy to replicate with pretty decent precision. I can get a system 90-95% correct just by looking at measurements and compensating with my DSP. Afterwards, I ALWAYS fine-tune by ear with bandpassed correlated noise to center frequencies up a little better and do some smaller adjustments with EQ.
> 
> One thing I should add is that some systems won't sound good no matter how good you are at tuning by ear or interpreting measurements. The reason for this is often bad speaker placements, reflections cannot be tuned away. Especially center consoles tend to mess things up in the midrange if the drivers are mounted low.


Hmm, this one is VERY interesting to me. So, the frequency 'tilt' in the response curve can (or should) be different from vehicle to vehicle. It is also based on size of vehicle? I have always tried for a curve that most say to shoot for. ie. around 10 db difference from 60-100 Hz to around 160-400 Hz depending on which curve you look at and tail off starting around 2.5-4 Khz once again with the area in the middle as flat as you can make it. My problem is usually I find that my impact is missing and the midrange/tweets kind of dominate the sound. When I put the rta away and try setting levels up as best I can by ear to suit my tastes, I always end up with a lot more low end (up to 5 db more lift on the bottom end). I just finished a tune and while I had things centered up nicely and the stage was quite excellent there was no emotion and the impact/feel just wasn't there. I really noticed that sitting in my living room and listening to my home stereo. I was thinking to myself, I am missing that warmth/impact in my setup right now. the vehicle setup is probably clearer/louder and has more detail - just no emotion from the low end. Might have to relook at my target curve here, ya think? I might have to turn up the sub a little too again even tho the o-scope was showing distortion any higher. I was only using -5db set point too I guess. I usually set at -10 and have heard -15db is pretty safe usually too. I don't get stupid with it too often:laugh:


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## james2266

Honestly don't remember if I have posted a response in this specific thread but I have my latest from today. I was using REW the past few months but prefer Tru-RTA usually. I stopped using it before as it appeared to corrupt in that whenever I tried to take readings, the damned thing would max out off the charts no matter how high I set the measurements in Tru-RTA. Anyways, yesterday I decided to diagnose it a little and found that just resetting to default the calibration (which I didn't think I had done before) brought everything back into the screen. I actually had to raise things up a little to see it actually. Anyways, here's where I ended up for total response. Left and right response I have been working on before but always find it to not work too well. It gets me close tho but usually things get a little wonky in the 2-4 kHz range by a db or two only tho. I didn't save those readings this time however. Always wonder where I should place the mic to do separte left/right readings however and I think that is the disparity. I have set things after with band limited pink noise at 1/3 octave. Everything appears to be centered. Anyways, still have the issues I mentioned in previous post. What are everyone's thoughts here.


----------



## sqnut

james2266 said:


> My problem is usually I find that my impact is missing and the midrange/tweets kind of dominate the sound. When I put the rta away and try setting levels up as best I can by ear to suit my tastes, I always end up with a lot more low end (up to 5 db more lift on the bottom end).


Boosting the low end is one way. The other way is to try cuts in the 600-800 region and again in the 1.2-4khz and again in the 6-8khz range. Three separate ranges, but work them together. This should bring out a lot of the lower end without boosting there. At the very top end, rolling off 12-20khz also accentuates the lower end. The 12-20khz range makes the overall sound darker or brighter. Touch this end last.

While you're cutting, keep track of how it sounds. You don't want to lose the clarity and the slight bite in the vocals. If you cut 600-800 and say 1.25 too far, the vocals will be dull. Play a bit at 1.6khz for the bite factor. 3-4khz adds chaff to the sound.


----------



## pionkej

> My problem is usually I find that my impact is missing and the midrange/tweets kind of dominate the sound. When I put the rta away and try setting levels up as best I can by ear to suit my tastes, I always end up with a lot more low end (*up to 5 db more lift on the bottom end*).


Is there something wrong with "more lift"? If it sounds right I wouldn't really worry about what the chart looks like is my opinion. Most cars are going to follow a common theme, but they won't (and shouldn't) match each other exactly. 

I've made this suggestion in a few other threads, but take 31-bands of pink noise and interlace a 1khz band between each. By this I mean: 20hz, 1khz, 25hz, 1khz...250hz, 1khz, 315hz, 1khz...6.3khz, 1khz, 8khz 1khz. You are using 1khz as the reference to compare level at each freuqency. You are setting for "ear flat" (which WILL NOT measure flat). You can do all of this in Audicity (free download but not super easy) or you can purchase 31-band pink noise tracks (Autosound 200: My Disc has them) and you can use Audacity to interlace them (stupid easy). 

I say don't get hung up on what the chart looks like right now. Try this first. In fact, I'd be willing to bet if many people did this and posted it we would end up with a trend towards a similar curve but never achieve a true "target curve".


----------



## Mic10is

pionkej said:


> *Is there something wrong with "more lift"? If it sounds right I wouldn't really worry about what the chart looks like is my opinion. Most cars are going to follow a common theme, but they won't (and shouldn't) match each other exactly. *
> 
> I've made this suggestion in a few other threads, but take 31-bands of pink noise and interlace a 1khz band between each. By this I mean: 20hz, 1khz, 25hz, 1khz...250hz, 1khz, 315hz, 1khz...6.3khz, 1khz, 8khz 1khz. You are using 1khz as the reference to compare level at each freuqency. You are setting for "ear flat" (which WILL NOT measure flat). You can do all of this in Audicity (free download but not super easy) or you can purchase 31-band pink noise tracks (Autosound 200: My Disc has them) and you can use Audacity to interlace them (stupid easy).
> 
> *I say don't get hung up on what the chart looks like right now. Try this first. In fact, I'd be willing to bet if many people did this and posted it we would end up with a trend towards a similar curve but never achieve a true "target curve".*



^^^ This above^^^

Too many people get hung up on what the eq looks like when done tuning, like not cutting a band enough bc they feel they "shouldnt" need to cut that much or bringing up the bottom end more ...

there is this weird stigma that you can use too much eq.

you EQ as much as you need to get the sound to match your reference.


----------



## sqnut

You're not going to measure your way there. You have to hear your way there.


----------



## avanti1960

I read about the "ear flat" method in a home theater forum. This worked very well for me at frequencies at and above 250hz, especially taming the ear sensitive frequencies between 2Khz and 4Khz.
If I made frequencies below that "ear flat" there was an EXTREME amount of bass. Way overblown. That was the area where RTA worked very well for me and the "andy curve" was a great place to start.


----------



## pionkej

An alternative to the 31-band "ear flat" method is to use a set of good reference headphones. This in itself can take a bit to find. My personal favorites (in my budget range) are the Beyerdynamic DT880 with the Goldenears app EQ correction. Play 1khz on both the headphones and the stereo. Set the level to where it sounds the same as you transition from headphones to stereo (unmute as you remove headphones and it should sound the same loudnes). You have a matched reference. Now listen to the 31 bands and adjust the car to match the headphones. At the end you should be left with a near tonal match to your headphones with the spaciousness of NOT using headphones.


----------



## pionkej

Also, my sinuses can play a role in what my hearing is doing. So I often "calibrate" my ears with headphones first (since I like them as a tonal reference). I'll go through 31-bands there first and if something (say 2khz-4khz) sounds off (say louder compared to 1khz) I'll make a note of it and ignore it when I listen in the car. Otherwise I can end up tuning for my hearing that day instead of the stereo itself.

Just something else that may prove helpful.


----------



## fcarpio

pionkej said:


> An alternative to the 31-band "ear flat" method is to use a set of good reference headphones. This in itself can take a bit to find. My personal favorites (in my budget range) are the Beyerdynamic DT880 with the Goldenears app EQ correction. Play 1khz on both the headphones and the stereo. Set the level to where it sounds the same as you transition from headphones to stereo (unmute as you remove headphones and it should sound the same loudnes). You have a matched reference. Now listen to the 31 bands and adjust the car to match the headphones. At the end you should be left with a near tonal match to your headphones with the spaciousness of NOT using headphones.


Ha! My latest curve is based on an rta I did of my Shure 880's.


----------



## avanti1960

two very good points. i have a set of monoprice budget phones that sound really smooth and will definitely try this. 
and yeah, sinus affect me too- especially left and right differences. 

i'm just not sure how to play the test tones cd from my P99 into the headphones. 



pionkej said:


> An alternative to the 31-band "ear flat" method is to use a set of good reference headphones. This in itself can take a bit to find. My personal favorites (in my budget range) are the Beyerdynamic DT880 with the Goldenears app EQ correction. Play 1khz on both the headphones and the stereo. Set the level to where it sounds the same as you transition from headphones to stereo (unmute as you remove headphones and it should sound the same loudnes). You have a matched reference. Now listen to the 31 bands and adjust the car to match the headphones. At the end you should be left with a near tonal match to your headphones with the spaciousness of NOT using headphones.


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## pionkej

My wife and I both have iPods, so I borrow hers and just use one for the headphones and one for the car.


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## james2266

Never tried the headphones thing myself really but I can see how that would help someone with the listening learning. The phones would have to be high end however. I use my home setup (fairly hi line Denon with Klipsch ref. speakers) to get an idea of how a song should sound. I have found it to be pretty enlightening. Problem is that my car setup is approaching my house setup in alot of ways. The issue is impact as my listening space at home is a much larger space and I don't have near the sub power at home as I do in the vehicle.

Going back to my ride's setup. I was looking at the plot I posted last night after tuning and came to the conclusion that possibly my midbass might be turned down a little too much and that possibly my tweeters might be tamed too much as well. I did a little experiment on the way to and from work. As I still don't have control of my processor at my finger tips, I used the 7 band eq in the hu to simulate a 2 db rise on my midbass and a 2 db rise on my tweeter. I immediately was getting my impact back as soon as I simulated rising my midbasses. Once I got home, I hooked up the software and raised both my midbasses and tweets by 2 db. I didn't hook up the rta stuff as it is just too damned cold still here. I did lower down the 300-400 Hz bands on the midbass by a couple db and 4-6 kHz by a couple db too (my tweets have a couple db rise in this area naturally as shown by factory plots). Anyways, to my ears things sounded a lot nicer. We'll see what tomorrow brings with my rested ears. It is also supposed to warm up in the coming days here (lord I hope so) so I will see about getting some more readings and see where things are at now.


----------



## jpeezy

Hanatsu said:


> Well... I have to disagree with some of this.
> 
> I can replicate a similar sound every time in MY CAR with the SAME INSTALL with the SAME TARGET RESPONSE. I can easily find phase issues, response/level issues with measurement software.
> 
> RTA is just an analyzer. You gotta have an excitation signal, we usually run Pink Noise for our purposes. With that said, RTA/PN is useless really to troubleshoot systems, noise together with an RTA won't register anything the time domain. MLS and SineSweep are much more useful. With those measurement techniques we can get an IR and extract FR, Distortion, Phase, ETC... and so on. This additional data can be used in several ways to determine issues that will take forever to do by ear with trial and error.
> 
> Systems with the same target responses (house curves) will sound different in different installs and cars. It's mainly the lows and highs that get affected, smaller cars need more tilt in the response (ie. more bass and less highs) than a larger car. Once you have figured out how the response "should look" for different installs it's easy to replicate with pretty decent precision. I can get a system 90-95% correct just by looking at measurements and compensating with my DSP. Afterwards, I ALWAYS fine-tune by ear with bandpassed correlated noise to center frequencies up a little better and do some smaller adjustments with EQ.
> 
> One thing I should add is that some systems won't sound good no matter how good you are at tuning by ear or interpreting measurements. The reason for this is often bad speaker placements, reflections cannot be tuned away. Especially center consoles tend to mess things up in the midrange if the drivers are mounted low.


Yes, in your car this is possible, but the OP was looking for a template that could be applied to all cars or all systems. There are enough variances in equipment, even in the same car with same equipment, that you could have measurable differences. All i was getting at, with due respect to availabilty of measuring devices, is that our ears are ultimately the end consumer, and that we should rely on them more so than a slew of measurement devices, that the average person doesnt have access to. What i was trying to get across originally is that some 20 years ago when i was building SQ cars, time was valuable and I too looked for a way to create a template for setting up cars via RTA and it just didnt work, from the perspective of listening with our ears.Yes I could set up a car with a template to get a fairly flat RTA response but, it didnt usually sound very good.that is all. Your points are all correct and excellent, but from a (simpleton point of view) Me  I just dont have the luxury of having lots of free time to make that many measurements,sorry.


----------



## MustangMichael

New guy here. Want to thank fcarpio for this thread and for sharing his sound curves. That latest one is working excellent for me! Thanks to other contributors as well for excellent info. 

If you're irritated by long posts, you may wish to click out now. Details if you have the time and interest:

Me: Hardcore car guy heavily trained in mechanics and auto body/paint, but lacking in stereo knowledge and skills. Early retired 2/2004. Former musician (piano, accordion, treble baritone) so I know what I like for sound. Just not how to get there in car audio. 

Vehicle: 2006 Ford Mustang GT - supercharged, intercooled, etc

Stereo system: Alpine CDE-148BT HU, OEM Shaker 500 door sub amp with inline subsonic filters, Kicker 8" 1 ohm door subs, custom door speaker enclosures (correcting off axis and comb filtering defect) replacing door 6x8 speakers with 3" CDT mid accent fill speakers, Q-Logic Q-Form kick panels (sealed around the edges as best I could with various materials) with CDT HD-62AS drivers, 2nd set of "upstage" tweets in upper corners of windshield aimed at center dash, Soundstream Picasso Nano 520w 4 channel amp and mid accent fill controller under passenger seat, ebay trunk sub enclosure with Infinity Kappa 12" sub and Alpine 500w sub amp.

FWIW, the custom door speaker enclosures and disconnecting the package tray JL Audio C2-570X speakers helped tremendously with getting rid of comb filtering and squirrelly tuning interactions.

Test rig: Sony Vaio laptop, XP pro, TrueRTA's 1/6 octave version, Dayton Audio EMM-6 mic, older M-Audio Mobile Pre USB mic preamp with phantom power.

Things I learned in here: Quick Sweep might be misleading depending upon the car interior and such. Using TrueRTA pink noise with averages at 10 worked much better for my tuning. Averaging to 100 for finer results.

The first screen shot below is a "House Curve" I created in a dot txt file to be used in TrueRTA as a target "Inverse House Curve". Below is NOT the inverse. I copied this curve from what fcarpio posted and it works WAY better than any target curve I have tried before. Many thanks, FC!










Next pic is what I actually achieved. This is what the curve looks like after the "Inverse House Curve" tool is turned off. Certainly not identical to what fcarpio kindly posted but the stereo finally sounds like what I'll call: "The low end of excellent". Being that I'm not very knowledgeable about car audio, I'm tickled to have it sound this good (finally!).

The purple trace is actual. The green trace has some smoothing applied. 










I'll probably do some touch-up tuning and tuning by ear but I want to take care with that because this is the best by far the system has sounded. And I've got a lot of hours in mostly failed tuning already... so I don't want to mess it up. I'll make some good records of settings before changing anything. 

Below is a pic of one of the door speaker enclosures. It's obviously a "short angle" PVC drain pipe 45 degree elbow and a piece of cheap ebay carbon fiber plate. I aimed them at the opposite side headrest. They look kinda' funky but sure solved some sound problems. 










Below is the ugly side. Although I sanded the elbows thoroughly and used adhesion promoter, I always wonder if anything will stick to PVC. Hence the pop rivets after the epoxy/glass mat cured. Info was that these 3 inch mids work better without air suspension, so I vented them into the doors. Doors have the usual (sealed up, Dynamat Extreme, etc).

The work is sloppy on the inside but ya' know how that goes. Was looking for the quick way. I'd have rather had some laminating resin but these days, I use what's already on hand in "El Garagienda". 





































Ok, well that'll hopefully be my only marathon post.

Thanks again. Very happy.  

mm


----------



## fcarpio

Glad it worked out for you MustangMichael, but I do not want to take all the credit. My curve is based on Hanatsu's curve, I just ran with it and created one I liked based on his.


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## avanti1960

MustangMichael said:


> New guy here. Want to thank fcarpio for this thread and for sharing his sound curves. That latest one is working excellent for me! Thanks to other contributors as well for excellent info.
> 
> If you're irritated by long posts, you may wish to click out now. Details if you have the time and interest:
> 
> Me: Hardcore car guy heavily trained in mechanics and auto body/paint, but lacking in stereo knowledge and skills. Early retired 2/2004. Former musician (piano, accordion, treble baritone) so I know what I like for sound. Just not how to get there in car audio.
> 
> Vehicle: 2006 Ford Mustang GT - supercharged, intercooled, etc
> 
> Stereo system: Alpine CDE-148BT HU, OEM Shaker 500 door sub amp with inline subsonic filters, Kicker 8" 1 ohm door subs, custom door speaker enclosures (correcting off axis and comb filtering defect) replacing door 6x8 speakers with 3" CDT mid accent fill speakers, Q-Logic Q-Form kick panels (sealed around the edges as best I could with various materials) with CDT HD-62AS drivers, 2nd set of "upstage" tweets in upper corners of windshield aimed at center dash, Soundstream Picasso Nano 520w 4 channel amp and mid accent fill controller under passenger seat, ebay trunk sub enclosure with Infinity Kappa 12" sub and Alpine 500w sub amp.
> 
> FWIW, the custom door speaker enclosures and disconnecting the package tray JL Audio C2-570X speakers helped tremendously with getting rid of comb filtering and squirrelly tuning interactions.
> 
> Test rig: Sony Vaio laptop, XP pro, TrueRTA's 1/6 octave version, Dayton Audio EMM-6 mic, older M-Audio Mobile Pre USB mic preamp with phantom power.
> 
> Things I learned in here: Quick Sweep might be misleading depending upon the car interior and such. Using TrueRTA pink noise with averages at 10 worked much better for my tuning. Averaging to 100 for finer results.
> 
> The first screen shot below is a "House Curve" I created in a dot txt file to be used in TrueRTA as a target "Inverse House Curve". Below is NOT the inverse. I copied this curve from what fcarpio posted and it works WAY better than any target curve I have tried before. Many thanks, FC!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Next pic is what I actually achieved. This is what the curve looks like after the "Inverse House Curve" tool is turned off. Certainly not identical to what fcarpio kindly posted but the stereo finally sounds like what I'll call: "The low end of excellent". Being that I'm not very knowledgeable about car audio, I'm tickled to have it sound this good (finally!).
> 
> The purple trace is actual. The green trace has some smoothing applied.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'll probably do some touch-up tuning and tuning by ear but I want to take care with that because this is the best by far the system has sounded. And I've got a lot of hours in mostly failed tuning already... so I don't want to mess it up. I'll make some good records of settings before changing anything.
> 
> Below is a pic of one of the door speaker enclosures. It's obviously a "short angle" PVC drain pipe 45 degree elbow and a piece of cheap ebay carbon fiber plate. I aimed them at the opposite side headrest. They look kinda' funky but sure solved some sound problems.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Below is the ugly side. Although I sanded the elbows thoroughly and used adhesion promoter, I always wonder if anything will stick to PVC. Hence the pop rivets after the epoxy/glass mat cured. Info was that these 3 inch mids work better without air suspension, so I vented them into the doors. Doors have the usual (sealed up, Dynamat Extreme, etc).
> 
> The work is sloppy on the inside but ya' know how that goes. Was looking for the quick way. I'd have rather had some laminating resin but these days, I use what's already on hand in "El Garagienda".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ok, well that'll hopefully be my only marathon post.
> 
> Thanks again. Very happy.
> 
> mm


just out of curiosity what did the comb filtering sound like?


----------



## MustangMichael

fcarpio said:


> Glad it worked out for you MustangMichael, but I do not want to take all the credit. My curve is based on Hanatsu's curve, I just ran with it and created one I liked based on his.


Well said. Thanks to Hanatsu, too!



avanti1960 said:


> just out of curiosity what did the comb filtering sound like?


Not sure if this is germane to your screen name, however, my brother is a Studebaker fan. He's been collecting pieces for a 63 (or 4?) Daytona he intends to restore someday. He's a former Avanti owner. I don't remember the year, but it was Stude powered, not Chevy powered. 

In answer to your question: I doubt I articulated that correctly. Chalk it up to n00bishness.  Well, I'm not sure I was really "hearing" comb filtering, but here is what the defect sounded like when the RTA showed bad comb filtering: Only rarely did any music really sound right. Some music just sounded empty like important frequency areas were missing - because they were. Or maybe more correctly, the freqs might have been there but quite a few ranges were apparently causing cancellation and those darnable octave echo defects up the sound curve. Additonally, some male baritone vocalists sounded excessively nasal and trying to adjust for it would wreck other areas. It was also a tail chase. Try to fix one hole or peak and the octave echoes would go nuts. 

Getting rid of the defect was a big improvement and probably saved my sanity in tuning. More music was "listenable" without sounding empty. Then add finally having a much better target curve courtesy of FCarpio and Hanatsu makes music very full and most songs sound very good to excellent. Very few sound lacking. 

To any other beginners, here are 2 things that just helped me quite a bit and let me improve the sound even more (IMO). Apologies if this is too obvious or wrong... but hey, it worked for me! :

1.) I had doubts about the pink noise generator in the TrueRTA. So I ordered a "Flat Pink" CD from eBay figuring I may as well try it. Subjectively, it sounded to my ears like it covered a wider range of frequencies. Objectively, it created a somewhat different curve from the TrueRTA pink noise and in fact took that flat spot at 20 to 30hz and angled it up like Hanatsu's sound curve. Not that what it looks like matters so much; it just confirmed a doubt I had because I thought I was driving that area pretty hard. 

Flat Pink would have me believe that I found a sizable "hole" at and surrounding 100hz and another at 5.8kHz that were easily correctable. So which generator is more accurate? I have no way of knowing. Relying on the Flat Pink gennie to at least give it a try and fixing some problems suggested by FP really brought certain performer's music to life that were maybe still a little lacking before. Examples: Brad Paisley, Boston, Beethoven (mainly Ode to Joy), etc. I know it may not exactly be a symphonic sound curve, but I like it for everything.

I'm not saying the gennie in TrueRTA is defective. I was probably using it wrong or something. 

2.) As mentioned, I have an old M-Audio Mobile Pre usb mic preamp. I'd read that I could loop the 3.5mm line out to the 3.5mm mic in to do the TrueRTA hardware correction. I recently read that the preceding may be incorrect and that I should probably buy an adapter cable from 3.5mm to quarter inch phono plug so I could instead loop 3.5mm line out to phono line in. This resulted in a significantly different correction. 

I can't say that either of these 2 things is/are right or wrong. Just that it produced a different curve and caused me to make somewhat different corrections; and correcting that to the Hanatsu/FCarpio form sounds even better to my ears.  

fwiw & ymmv


----------



## Hanatsu

Comb filtering can have an "interesting" effect, just like harmonic distortion. If it's too much it can cause listening fatigue and it get worse with higher volume. I think it can mess with the perception of staging as well, no proof of that though. I've reduced comb filtering as far as possible by using steep slopes and directionality control above 6kHz, it sounds different, subjectively more "dampened" "transient" or something like that. Only done limited research into this...


----------



## Hanatsu

For anyone measuring and have access to L/R EQ: DON'T MEASURE WITH BOTH SIDES PLAYING! It will cause irregularities in the plot that ain't that "there" really. Only measure left OR right side independently and merge the response in the software instead.


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## MustangMichael

Hanatsu,

Good info! Thank you. 

My Alpine HU's built in EQ is fairly rudimentary so I can't tune right and left separately. Nevertheless, I will plot right and left channels separately to see what I learn.


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## subterFUSE

Sub'd


----------



## MustangMichael

*Hanatsu house curve*

Like much of the US lower 48, my locale got dumped on with snow last night. So during downtime when I really can't be tinkering on my car stereo - and in preparation for my next stereo tuning binge, I created a txt file house curve based on Hanatsu's kindly shared sound curve.

I figured since FCarpio's curve helped so much and since his was based upon Hanatsu's, I ought to give the originating curve a try. 

Not sure if all RTA's are like this or not; I suspect it is a common feature. In TrueRTA, I can apply the house curve and then use a tool called "Apply Inverse House Curve". That way, my target during tuning is a somewhat flat line. Anyway, I'll post back with my impressions whenever I get to test this.

I have a lot of testing to do this next time with R/L and some other stuff I want to try to nail down.

A question and ya I searched. Can't seem to find it. Is it a good idea to RTA before and after time alignment? Or before only? Or does it even matter? Seems to me like it would.

This is what the house curve I created based upon Hanatsu's sound curve looks like when displayed on my TrueRTA screen. This is obviously not during testing; this is just what the data entered in the txt file looks like on screen:










A question for Hanatsu: I've seen first hand how and in reading how real time sound curves are never perfectly smooth so no criticism is intended in this question. I assumed I should probably level any sharp peaks and valleys for the above target curve. Were any of the peaks or valleys intentional? Mainly, I don't want to level out anything that was from design or development. Thanks again!

edit: 

Note to thread: My servimg account got corrupted or hacked or something. I have a new password and believe it's stable again. Earlier images I posted may not survive. It's unclear right now. If the pics are of any interest to Mustang owners, I respectfully suggest you download them now before they evaporate.


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## MustangMichael

I installed the curve Hanatsu kindly shared (the target curve is in the post above). Using proper time alignment on the main channels and mids sure made the curve easier to adjust with very little guff.

I tested R/L separately as suggested by H. This was revealing. 


The two were thankfully very similar  except: Right channel had a largish hole or valley at and surrounding 100hz. I tried what limited things I had available mechanically and electronically and had just about given up when I came across something that helped a lot. That is, I experimented with different door sub time alignment delays. For whatever reason, by the time I had the door subs delayed 30 inches each or better 40 inches, the hole was largely repaired.

(Note: My newer Alpine CDE-148BT for whatever reason doesn't have time alignment adjustments like older Alpines. While the owner's manual incorrectly says otherwise, in the actual UI, the only available adjustments are cm or inches.) 

My impressions of Hanatsu's curve in my Mustang: I like it a lot. :beerchug: The time alignment from the calculator website has the sound in a place I like a lot. Its apparent location is about the center of the hood of the car. 

However, probably due to my sizable hearing damage and high frequency tinnitus and perhaps because of the car's idiosyncrasies, it seems a bit blunted in the higher mid-range and treble. The bass seems a little strong but I'm betting I'll appreciate that on the road since this 'cheaper' car has a lot of road roar. 

The upside of that is: Alpine's "MX" or "music expander" is now usable without ear piercing high freqs for the first time since I've owned this HU. And MX1 seems to create a very likeable sound to my damaged ears. So I want some road time with this tuneup and MX.

MX probably has no place in a car audiophile's arsenal. But for a hearing damaged guy like me, it might be worth something. Sometimes. In some literature, Alpine says it is for dealing with road roar. Other places, they say it is for bringing MP3 music back to life.

Later, I'll probably come up with a house curve target roughly averaging Hanatsu's and FCarpio's sound curves and give that a try.

...or how about now? below..


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## MustangMichael

*Averaging house curves and exporting to text file*

Ok, this is probably obvious for some, but I'll post this for us new guys.

Probably not uncommon in a thread like this, but I tried two curves and wanted to split the difference. Say you want to average 2 house curves (target curves)? Here's how I did it in TrueRTA (TRTA hereafter).

I wanted to average Hanatsu and FCarpio's (somewhat modified by me) house curves I'd previously replicated in a text file so it could be loaded as a "House Curve".

Opened TRTA.  Audio I/O pulldown. Open House Curve File. Open Hanatsu's txt file. Alt1 to temporarily save in working memory 1. Open FCarpio's txt file. Alt 2 to temporarily save in working memory 2. Utilities pull down. Average. Select a new temp memory to save the average to. Makes a nice pretty curve down the middle as in the below.  

File - export RTA data. Save. Derned if the thing doesn't make a text (txt) file with everything necessary. Testing the saved txt data creates the same "down the middle" curve as in the below.

It takes about 2 minutes versus a lot longer to eyeball it. Easy peasy.

The center curve will be my next target.

I knew averaging could work on RTA files, just didn't know it would work so easily on txt files (in and out). 

fwiw

Micke


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## Hoptologist

I had a pretty flat response curve a while back and it sounded so blah, so I've been following this thread looking for new ideas. Bringing my car to the shop tomorrow, will hopefully have my current response measured and then some eq work done. I just switched amps and my current response sounds off, pretty bright in parts, so I'll see what's going on. I'd really like a more laid-back, smooth sound overall, something that I could listen to for days with no fatigue. I had it a while back, but just recently made some big changes, so everything is kind of different now.

Whenever you guys swap amps, do you usually re-eq?


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## Hanatsu

That curve I made is a "perfect" reference. Everything in it is intended. The tilt of curve might need some modification depending on cabin size.

MX is just EQ. Measure with and without and you'll see 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## MustangMichael

Info appreciated. Thank you!


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## tjswarbrick

Just set up REW for the very first time and took measurements of my Silver RS6's in position at home. NOT saying this is a good curve for in-car. Still, it'll be fun (for me) to see how closely I can approximate it in the car - and see if I like it, or if there's way too much treble.

Old-school RadioShack SPL meter; ASUS Essence STX; Behringer Tube Ultragain MIC100 to get the PC to see the levels I heard and saw on the SPL meter.

Both, with meter forward; Left only with meter pointed at it and upped 6dB; Right only with meter pointed at it and set to same level as previous left. Shocking how closely they overlaid each other - bass peaks were identical; L and R were VERY similar to each other, but upper mids and above were elevated 1-2dB over the pointed-forward measurement. Anyhow, this is all three, averaged, with 1/3 Octave smoothing:



No, it didn't average 110dB in my room. It was about 75 - but I'm still figuring out the gain matching in REW.


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## sqnut

You want your car to sound like your room, not measure like it. In a car how it measures and how it sounds are two very different things. If you're using the room measurements as a benchmark for how your car should measure, then it won't sound anything like your room.


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## Hanatsu

I think he said that... 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


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## sqnut

Hanatsu said:


> I think he said that...
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


True, but he's still trying the room curve in the car. Just for that alone


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## thehatedguy

I couldn't convince you to maybe make a CD like that for me could I? Don't have the slightest idea on how to do that stuff.

I have all of the AS2K disks somewhere...crap, they might be on a hard drive from a dead computer. Need to check that out.




pionkej said:


> I've made this suggestion in a few other threads, but take 31-bands of pink noise and interlace a 1khz band between each. By this I mean: 20hz, 1khz, 25hz, 1khz...250hz, 1khz, 315hz, 1khz...6.3khz, 1khz, 8khz 1khz. You are using 1khz as the reference to compare level at each freuqency. You are setting for "ear flat" (which WILL NOT measure flat). You can do all of this in Audicity (free download but not super easy) or you can purchase 31-band pink noise tracks (Autosound 200: My Disc has them) and you can use Audacity to interlace them (stupid easy).


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## tjswarbrick

Then there are those who say If It Measures The Same, It Sounds The Same.
(I don't personally subscribe to that theory.)
Anyway, I only have graphic EQ at 31, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100, and 125 on the sub, and 125, 175, 250, 500, 1000, 2000 and 8000 on the front stage. So I am fairly certain I won't be able to replicate it. Mostly I took it as a baseline to see how far off my mic and mic preamp are. And to see how much it varied from Han's and the JBL curve's. It looks like the mic and pre are in good shape. 

As far as the in-car curve goes, I just want to shelve the bass accurately and blend it to the midbass smoothly, see if I can smooth out the response from the fronts, and tame a midbass peak which is totally unnoticeable on well-recorded discs but nearly unlistenable on certain ones (Bad Company and Limp Bizkit, in particular.) I'm having a heck of a time figuring out where the peak is centered, and every time I think I fixed it I either didn't, or I killed all my MB impact. I'm hoping REW will help me hone in on it.

Either way, I'll post some snapshots and share comments when I dive a little deeper in to it.


----------



## Hanatsu

sqnut said:


> True, but he's still trying the room curve in the car. Just for that alone


Lol. I'm sure it will sound "great" 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


----------



## Hanatsu

thehatedguy said:


> I couldn't convince you to maybe make a CD like that for me could I? Don't have the slightest idea on how to do that stuff.
> 
> I have all of the AS2K disks somewhere...crap, they might be on a hard drive from a dead computer. Need to check that out.


I've made such a disc... it's on my dropbox. I'll put up a link later.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


----------



## Hanatsu

tjswarbrick said:


> Then there are those who say If It Measures The Same, It Sounds The Same.
> (I don't personally subscribe to that theory.)
> Anyway, I only have graphic EQ at 31, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100, and 125 on the sub, and 125, 175, 250, 500, 1000, 2000 and 8000 on the front stage. So I am fairly certain I won't be able to replicate it. Mostly I took it as a baseline to see how far off my mic and mic preamp are. And to see how much it varied from Han's and the JBL curve's. It looks like the mic and pre are in good shape.
> 
> As far as the in-car curve goes, I just want to shelve the bass accurately and blend it to the midbass smoothly, see if I can smooth out the response from the fronts, and tame a midbass peak which is totally unnoticeable on well-recorded discs but nearly unlistenable on certain ones (Bad Company and Limp Bizkit, in particular.) I'm having a heck of a time figuring out where the peak is centered, and every time I think I fixed it I either didn't, or I killed all my MB impact. I'm hoping REW will help me hone in on it.
> 
> Either way, I'll post some snapshots and share comments when I dive a little deeper in to it.


You want to shelf the lows at 160-250Hz instead of the 60-80Hz in your plot. 

Regarding "if it measure the same it sounds the same" I agree with you if you're talking about the curve alone. Same curve in different installs sound different. However if a system measure "the same" in terms of HD/IMD, power response, CSD/BD, phase response/GD etc etc then it will sound the same. In reality no car or install will ever measure the same, therefore all custom made systems (not OEM) will sound different.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


----------



## thehatedguy

That would badassed!



Hanatsu said:


> I've made such a disc... it's on my dropbox. I'll put up a link later.
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy 3 via Tapatalk.


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> Then there are those who say If It Measures The Same, It Sounds The Same.
> (I don't personally subscribe to that theory.)


If it measures the same , it will sound the same as long as the room remains the same. Measuring in a room and applying that in a car won't work. Like wise a curve that works in one car may only partly work in another car and install, like Han explained.



tjswarbrick said:


> Anyway, I only have graphic EQ at 31, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100, and 125 on the sub, and 125, 175, 250, 500, 1000, 2000 and 8000 on the front stage. So I am fairly certain I won't be able to replicate it. Mostly I took it as a baseline to see how far off my mic and mic preamp are. And to see how much it varied from Han's and the JBL curve's. It looks like the mic and pre are in good shape.
> 
> As far as the in-car curve goes, I just want to shelve the bass accurately and blend it to the midbass smoothly, see if I can smooth out the response from the fronts, and tame a midbass peak which is totally unnoticeable on well-recorded discs but nearly unlistenable on certain ones (Bad Company and Limp Bizkit, in particular.) I'm having a heck of a time figuring out where the peak is centered, and every time I think I fixed it I either didn't, or I killed all my MB impact. I'm hoping REW will help me hone in on it.
> 
> Either way, I'll post some snapshots and share comments when I dive a little deeper in to it.


Some things you may want to keep in mind when dialing in mid bass:

1. Setting correct arrival times between sub and mid bass is important.

2. Using your eq to shape the 40-200hz range is very important. Some key frequencies, 50-60hz is good for mass and rumble, 80hz adds fatness but if in excess it will make your sound bloated very quickly so watch that. 100-125hz is great for energy in your mid bass. Excess at 160 will make the mid bass too fat too little and the sound is paper thin. Too much at 200hz and the sound is boomy. 

3. The most important thing for a tight and snappy mid bass is a correct response in your mid range 500-4khz. If the mid range frequencies are too hot its going to kill your perception of mid bass, the sound will thin out real quick. 600hz, 1.25khz, 1.6khz and 3-4khz are typical culprits. If these frequencies are hot, you will lose a ton of mid bass. If you want more mid bass start by cutting here. If you cut too far you will lose clarity in vocals. 

4. At the top end a steeper roll off in 12-20khz will give a a slightly darker sound with more lower end. Bring this range up for added brightness. I usually touch this range last. 

Most often in a car getting an accurate bass response has more to do with cutting the mid and upper midrange, than about boosting the lower end.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Hanatsu said:


> You want to shelf the lows at 160-250Hz instead of the 60-80Hz in your plot.
> 
> .


Thanks for the tip! That's the plan. I'm really curious to see where it is right now. If I could stop fiddling with the Remote Bass Control...

(In the home system, in the plot, I have no Sub and no EQ. Was just taking a reading.)


----------



## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> If it measures the same , it will sound the same as long as the room remains the same. Measuring in a room and applying that in a car won't work. Like wise a curve that works in one car may only partly work in another car and install, like Han explained.
> 
> 
> 
> Some things you may want to keep in mind when dialing in mid bass:
> 
> 1. Setting correct arrival times between sub and mid bass is important.
> 
> 2. Using your eq to shape the 40-200hz range is very important. Some key frequencies, 50-60hz is good for mass and rumble, 80hz adds fatness but if in excess it will make your sound bloated very quickly so watch that. 100-125hz is great for energy in your mid bass. Excess at 160 will make the mid bass too fat too little and the sound is paper thin. Too much at 200hz and the sound is boomy.
> 
> 3. The most important thing for a tight and snappy mid bass is a correct response in your mid range 500-4khz. If the mid range frequencies are too hot its going to kill your perception of mid bass. 600hz, 1.25khz, 1.6khz and 3-4khz are typical culprits. If these frequencies are hot, you will lose a ton of mid bass.
> 
> 4. At the top end a steeper roll off in 12-20khz will give a a slightly darker sound with more lower end. Bring this range up for added brightness. I usually touch this range last.
> 
> Most often in a car getting an accurate bass response has more to do with cutting the mid and upper midrange, than about boosting the lower end.




Thanks for the guidance. This is what I've been learning, but it's great to have it confirmed by people who have been there, and to have the pointers and frequency ranges narrowed down and consolidated in one place.

Any tips on setting front to sub time alignment? I did left to right and, for the most part, vocals are out in front just below the mirror so I know that's good. Midbass mostly sounds up front, down in the doors, even approaching the crossover point, but as the bass goes lower (where it should not be directional) it seems to me to come more from the rear, or possibly all around the car. So I think it's close, but would welcome a more scientific way to confirm if/when it is optimized.


----------



## Hanatsu

T/A on sub might be unnecessary if you got adjustable phase control. 

If you wanna go the measure route there's several ways to do it. I find this technique most straight-forward. It can even be done by ear with pretty good precision... 

http://medleysmusings.com/category/odds-n-ends/car-audio/


----------



## Hanatsu

thehatedguy said:


> That would badassed!


https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoc2vgb4e44ys2a/Disc%201%20%28Tuning%29.rar

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mi6lx03nqpp7lxy/Disc%202%20%28Testing%20%26%20Verification%29.rar

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qhgic8b8ee517gf/Disc%203%20%28Tones%29.rar

Here you go... my compiled test discs. I have a new CD as well for more advanced tuning... I gotta upload it first.

CD1 contain bandpassed pink correlated noise with a Q of 5.5 centered around ISO-band frequencies 200-250-315Hz.... these are to be used for L/R EQ centering. Make sure T/A is correctly set. Swap between 200-400Hz noise and 4000-6000Hz noise. They should "stack" upon each other if the system is correctly tuned. (This will give you an insane focus, if the install allows for it)


----------



## tjswarbrick

Hanatsu said:


> T/A on sub might be unnecessary if you got adjustable phase control.
> 
> If you wanna go the measure route there's several ways to do it. I find this technique most straight-forward. It can even be done by ear with pretty good precision...
> 
> http://medleysmusings.com/category/odds-n-ends/car-audio/


Thanks for the link! I'll check it out.
I don't have adjustable phase, but have sub-to-front T/A on the order of .3msec steps (AudioControl DQ-61.) That's how I set it by ear so far. Took more steps than the math said it should have, but it is pretty focused up front most of the time.


----------



## Hanatsu

tjswarbrick said:


> Thanks for the link! I'll check it out.
> I don't have adjustable phase, but have sub-to-front T/A on the order of .3msec steps (AudioControl DQ-61.) That's how I set it by ear so far. Took more steps than the math said it should have, but it is pretty focused up front most of the time.


The amp might got a phase knob?


----------



## tjswarbrick

Hanatsu said:


> The amp might got a phase knob?


I'll look again, but haven't seen one. Just sensitivity, bass boost and crossover point. But I can flip the wires easy enough for 180degrees.
It's JL's JX500/1D.


----------



## Hanatsu

tjswarbrick said:


> I'll look again, but haven't seen one. Just sensitivity, bass boost and crossover point. But I can flip the wires easy enough for 180degrees.
> It's JL's JX500/1D.


It doesn't have one :<

Well, see how far T/A takes you. You can observe the system delay if you measure one side + sub. Look in the group delay tab. in top right corner, generate minimum phase response and look at the excess group delay in RoomEQ/REW.

Imo, the easiest way to see if the sub need T/A. This takes the enclosures inherited GD in account as well.


----------



## MustangMichael

*Next target curve*

Good info above.

FCarpio's modification of Hanatsu's curve makes me believe I'm finally in the home stretch. I did an average (roughly) of the 2 curves because I wanted a little less bass than H's curve but less treble than FC's.

These aren't criticisms. My 'stang has like subcompact cabin volume... AND my ears are kinda' damaged. As others have said, in the end, (..."There Can Be Only One...") :laugh: oops, I digress. Meant to say, each person will have to tune to personal preference. 

Then, because of Hanatsu's input, I went ahead and added quite a few other features taken directly from his kindly shared sound curve. 

Last night, I upgraded to the version 4 of TrueRTA. That was revealing. House curves I'd been building prior to that had a lot of severe excesses built into them because of the comparatively coarse resolution of the 1/6th octave TRTA. Anyway, below is my next target. If I can figure out how, I'll try to post the text file in case it is of use to anyone. Takes a lot of time to replicate a house curve, IMO, and having the house curve text file on hand for apps like True RTA might save someone some time?

Everything below is obviously a clone of Hanatsu's and FCarpio's work, so sincere credit given and many thanks. 










If you compare the finer details in the above to Hanatsu's sound curve, you will see many similarities. 

Edit: Re - posting the text file, I hope? 

Ok, the below may or may not work. I'm trying to share a dot txt file of the above graphed house curve. It appears some tabs between columns and such have gone missing during upload, so anyone trying to use the below will probably have to do at least some minimal maintenance before usage.

For TrueRTA at least, it appears that 2 tabs between the freqs column and the db column are at least one thing that works.

If you are using TrueRTA with resolution of 1/6 octave or less, the attached will look all wrong. Horrific, in fact. The below was done using 1/24th octave TrueRTA. 

If Hanatsu or FCarpio have any disagreement with me sharing this text file, please say so and I will take it down. It is as described above.

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc7/view.php?id=3970&da=y

I've no knowledge of whether this site tends to nuke links or not, so if you want the text file, suggest you download it sooner than later. 

Constructive criticism welcomed. Especially if you mail me a beer to compensate for hurt feelings.  jk


Re-edit: dammit. appears "keepandshare" will require anyone wanting the above file to sign up and sign in to see it. Anyone have any options? How about if I see if I can post the text below. keepandshare, u fargin' bastiges. 

Ok, here is a simple copy paste. At least for TrueRTA, just placing this in a text file (and then adding proper tabs) should work as a house curve. Note that the tabs between columns all went away again: 

15.874 9.3
17.818 9.7
20.000 10.359
22.449 10.520
25.198 9.8
28.284 9.4
30.000 8.9
31.000 8.6
32.000 8.1
33.000 7.6
35.636 6.7
36.000 6.6
37.000 6.0
38.000 5.8
40.000 7.8
41.500 9.0
42.000 9.5
43.000 9.6
43.600 9.9
44.898 9.7
45.000 9.5
46.000 9.4
47.000 8.0
48.000 7.5
50.397 4.2
51.870 2.7
54.000 4.1
56.000 4.1
62.000 3.1
63.496 2.9
65.000 1.1
68.000 1.8
71.272 1.7
78.000 1.3
80.000 1.1
85.000 -0.3
89.797 0.0
100.794 -1.0
113.137 -1.643
126.992 -2.3
142.544 -3.0
155.000 -3.8
160.000 -3.6
170.000 -2.8
179.594 -3.0
184.000 -3.2
190.000 -3.6
201.587 -4.6
213.000 -5.3
226.274 -5.0
246.000 -4.5
253.984 -4.3
277.000 -4.6
285.088 -4.2
295.000 -4.2
310.000 -4.4
320.000 -4.6
330.000 -5.1
359.188 -6.4
369.00 -6.1
391.000 -6.9
403.175 -6.6
410.000 -6.3
427.000 -6.7
452.548 -6.133
465.000 -6.2
470.000 -6.133
488.000 -8.0
507.968 -9.5
518.000 -8.0
530.000 -6.8
570.175 -6.6
586.000 -6.9
600.000 -6.2
621.000 -5.8
640.000 -6.4
658.000 -8.9
690.000 -7.2
715.000 -8.0
720.000 -9.0
739.000 -8.7
750.000 -7.0
761.000 -6.5
815.000 -5.0
820.000 -4.9
825.000 -4.7
830.000 -4.6
879.000 -6.5
905.000 -5.9
915.000 -5.9
931.000 -5.9
975.000 -6.9
1000.000	-7.4
1015.937 -7.4
1076.000	-7.9
1140.350 -7.934
1280.000 -7.934
1356.000	-8.3
1436.751 -8.209
1500.000	-8.9
1612.699 -8.393
1650.193 -8.473
1750.000	-8.5
1800.000	-9.5
1850.000	-8.6
2031.873 -8.6
2091.000	-8.3
2280.701 -8.85
2416.000	-9.8
2560.000 -9.0
2873.503 -9.1
3225.398 -9.4
3400.387 -9.6
3600.000	-11.5
3700.000	-9.6
4000.000	-9.6
4300.000	-9.5
4561.401 -10.1
4900.000	-12.0
5120.000 -10.1
5400.000	-9.8
5747.006 -10.2
6100.000	-12.5
6300.000	-10.6
7000.000 -10.9
7600.000	-13.0
7800.000	-13.5
7850.000	-12.5
7900.000	-11.1
8050.773 -9.5
8127.493 -9.7
9000.000	-10.5
9123.000	-10.7
9200.000	-11.0
9800.000 -13.5
10100.00	-12.8
10500.000	-12.0
11494.011 -9.2
12000.00	-8.9
12901.592 -11.1
13280.000	-10.6
13691.000	-10.2
14481.547 -10.0
15000.000	-10.9
16000.000	-13.0
16254.987 -13.2
16500.000	-13.5
18245.606 -14.0
18780.000	-13.5
20480.000 -14.2
22988.023 -14.5
25803.183 -15.0


----------



## FG79

sqnut said:


> If it measures the same , it will sound the same as long as the room remains the same. Measuring in a room and applying that in a car won't work. Like wise a curve that works in one car may only partly work in another car and install, like Han explained.
> 
> 
> 
> Some things you may want to keep in mind when dialing in mid bass:
> 
> 1. Setting correct arrival times between sub and mid bass is important.
> 
> 2. Using your eq to shape the 40-200hz range is very important. Some key frequencies, 50-60hz is good for mass and rumble, 80hz adds fatness but if in excess it will make your sound bloated very quickly so watch that. 100-125hz is great for energy in your mid bass. Excess at 160 will make the mid bass too fat too little and the sound is paper thin. Too much at 200hz and the sound is boomy.
> 
> 3. The most important thing for a tight and snappy mid bass is a correct response in your mid range 500-4khz. If the mid range frequencies are too hot its going to kill your perception of mid bass, the sound will thin out real quick. 600hz, 1.25khz, 1.6khz and 3-4khz are typical culprits. If these frequencies are hot, you will lose a ton of mid bass. If you want more mid bass start by cutting here. If you cut too far you will lose clarity in vocals.
> 
> 4. At the top end a steeper roll off in 12-20khz will give a a slightly darker sound with more lower end. Bring this range up for added brightness. I usually touch this range last.
> 
> Most often in a car getting an accurate bass response has more to do with cutting the mid and upper midrange, than about boosting the lower end.


I wonder how necessary it is to do all of this work to tune midbass?

Good recordings rarely need much EQ for bass to sound good....it just does. Bad recordings are essentially unfixable and EQing to make them sound good is not worth it.

If midrange frequencies are unnaturally high, they will take away bass response, yes. But efficiency in that region also helps with the punch too. Good horn systems sound punchier than normal conventional ones for this reason. 

Given their significant efficiency advantage in the midrange, for the mids to be the culprit they would have to be boosted so much to be obviously unnatural sounding. I doubt that stuff would happen by accident.


----------



## REGULARCAB

Hanatsu said:


> https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoc2vgb4e44ys2a/Disc%201%20%28Tuning%29.rar
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/mi6lx03nqpp7lxy/Disc%202%20%28Testing%20%26%20Verification%29.rar
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/qhgic8b8ee517gf/Disc%203%20%28Tones%29.rar


I know what im downloading tonight


----------



## tjswarbrick

FG79 said:


> I wonder how necessary it is to do all of this work to tune midbass?
> 
> Good recordings rarely need much EQ for bass to sound good....it just does. Bad recordings are essentially unfixable and EQing to make them sound good is not worth it.
> 
> If midrange frequencies are unnaturally high, they will take away bass response, yes. But efficiency in that region also helps with the punch too. Good horn systems sound punchier than normal conventional ones for this reason.
> 
> Given their significant efficiency advantage in the midrange, for the mids to be the culprit they would have to be boosted so much to be obviously unnatural sounding. I doubt that stuff would happen by accident.


All I know is when I compared my (already purchased, sight unseen) C5-650's to a set of (way out of my budget) Focal Be's on different sound boards at the same local shop, the Focal's sounded detailed, open and inviting, and the JL's sounded dark, closed and muffled. Both had surprisingly strong bass sans subwoofer, but the Focals sounded much more articulate and natural. When I installed my C5's in the car, with no EQ, sub or HP crossover, all I heard was midbass (a slight exaggeration, but it was VERY overemphasized.) Now, with the sub, crossovers, tweeter aiming, T/A and a bit of EQ it's much better (very good, actually, on well recorded or properly remixed jazz, rock and vocals) but the excessive midbass sometimes rears its ugly head. Just hoping to tame it a bit more and even things out.


----------



## sqnut

FG79 said:


> I wonder how necessary it is to do all of this work to tune midbass?


You're tuning across the spectrum. Mid bass is a part of it. 



FG79 said:


> Good recordings rarely need much EQ for bass to sound good....it just does. Bad recordings are essentially unfixable and EQing to make them sound good is not worth it.


If you're listening in a proper room then yes you don't need eq. But in a car you can't do without one if you want your car to sound like the room. Minimal eq and good sound are antonyms in the context of a car. 



FG79 said:


> If midrange frequencies are unnaturally high, they will take away bass response, yes. But efficiency in that region also helps with the punch too. Good horn systems sound punchier than normal conventional ones for this reason.
> 
> Given their significant efficiency advantage in the midrange, for the mids to be the culprit they would have to be boosted so much to be obviously unnatural sounding. I doubt that stuff would happen by accident.


You need the right balance in your response between the 50-200hz range and the 500-4khz range, so that you don't lose vocal clarity while retaining the mid bass perception. 1kz and 2 khz are useful for bringing out the harmonics which give the mid bass its tightness and punch. 

The horn made the mid bass punchy cause it was giving the correct response. Not because it is a horn or has higher efficiency. Thanks to all the reflections in your car your ears perceive the midrange frequencies louder in a car than in a proper room.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Well, I stayed home with a sick child this morning, and took the opportunity to take some measurements.

I did a bunch - right and left, facing forward or facing the speaker. There were a couple dips in each that weren't in the other, but they actually overlaid each other quite nicely. Since I don't have L/R EQ, I decided to just go combined.
Interesting that full-range, the fronts roll off below about 40Hz. Here they are with EQ defeated and amp X-Over defeated:



This is how it looked from the driver's seat with EQ and Sub added, and X-Overs turned on:



Not bad, but a little lumpy and the transition from 100 to 200Hz should be concave, not convex.

Sub amp filter was set around 100Hz, but response really fell off around 70:

I bumped it to ~110, which gets actual roll-off very close to 80Hz.
Switching the front stereo amp filter from Off to HP made the response really drop off below 40Hz, but moving the control from 50Hz to 200Hz (initial default was 100) had very little effect at all. 

Since the main midbass problem with the initial curve was in the 150-180Hz range, I cranked the HP X-Over to 200Hz, and turned down the 175Hz control on the EQ. I also turned up 40, 50, 63 and 80 on the LF EQ to get more of a shelf - but it didn't seem to make much difference in the measurement. I nudged 1K and 8K a hair to smooth out the humps.
This is how the system looks after about 2hrs of measurement and tweaking:



Bass seems a little overpowering, but I've only tried a couple tracks. I'm going to fiddle with the RBC and listen for a couple days and see if I need to do more work or not.
I did notice that when turning down the bass with the knob, 40-60 fell (with a deep valley around 47.5Hz) but 30Hz and 80Hz didn't move at all. But if I turn it up to fill in the 40-60 range, it just becomes too much. 
Great - I just figured out I need to turn up the knob and turn down the amp gain. Which means more measuring... I'll see if I can hold off a day or two and get a handle on the rest of the sound first.
Thanks for the tips. Let me know if you see anything else you can recommend.

I'll point out now that 200, 500 and 1000 look good, and I don't have control over 300-350Hz or 1200Hz to flatten the humps. But they just add a little life to the sound, and don't seem to contribute chestiness or harshness (in first listen, anyway.)

- Tom


----------



## FG79

sqnut said:


> If you're listening in a proper room then yes you don't need eq. But in a car you can't do without one if you want your car to sound like the room. * Minimal eq and good sound are antonyms in the context of a car. *


"Minimal eq and *maximizing the potential sound* are antonyms in the context of a car." is more like it. 

EQ in general means nothing. It has to be done right. A system with just one or two EQ changes can sound "good" , without a doubt. 

My minimal EQ car with passive crossovers is not perfect but it sounds better to me than many, many heavily EQ'd active setups. A heavily EQ'd system can often be a disaster more than amazing. 

And there are similar analogies with active vs. passive crossovers. You can have a passive sounding nice with 1-2 hours of tuning. Active takes a lot more than that just to match the quality....exceeding it even more. 

Once you start playing with EQ, you affect so many things at once. My minimal EQ is just treble cutting at 10khz. 

Gotta be careful with the definition of "good sound", because IMO 99% of cars would not qualify with that statement -- you know, a car that sounds like a home system.

The idea that the fullest or even 75% potential of a path (EQ, active) is always reached in every install is one of the biggest fallacies in all of car audio. "Go active and EQ or else your car will sound like crap"........

I'd edit it to say "Go active and EQ and without the right skill, assistance,persistence and luck , your car will sound like crap or at best average". 

It's like those Amway, Primerica and other nonsense MLM companies. Yes, some of those people make lots of money, but most barely even sniff a middle class income doing it.


----------



## sqnut

If you want your car to sound like your home 2ch, then:

1. You need DSP. You will use all aspects of time and response correction eg TA, xovers and eq extensively. There is no minimal here. Step 1 you need to correct for what you measure and step 2 you correct based on what you're hearing.

2. You're not tuning for the recording, you're tuning to eliminate as much of the environments (cars) effect, as possible. 

3. In a car it is 95% about getting the right response. So you will use everything to achieve that. Xovers, slopes, eq _and TA_

Above statements are based on the assumption that one knows how to tune, or has the patience to learn over time. Everyone starts off as a novice, so yes most cars with dsp and novice tuners, will sound 'meh'. It's easy to make the system sound worse than stock, with incorrect dsp use. 



FG79 said:


> EQ in general means nothing. It has to be done right. A system with just one or two EQ changes can sound "good" , without a doubt.


Good compared to what? Good compared to a 2ch? Unlikely. Good compared to a normal stock setup? quite possible. EQ means a lot if you know how to use it. But yes you need to learn how to use it and you're only going to learn by trial and error.



FG79 said:


> My minimal EQ car with passive crossovers is not perfect but it sounds better to me than many, many heavily EQ'd active setups. A heavily EQ'd system can often be a disaster more than amazing.


A great sounding car will also use eq extensively. So it's down to implementation sure. Listen to some of the top competition cars for an accurate benchmark for your system.



FG79 said:


> And there are similar analogies with active vs. passive crossovers. You can have a passive sounding nice with 1-2 hours of tuning. Active takes a lot more than that just to match the quality....exceeding it even more.


Unless you're an expert tuner it will take you a while to while (a year or two) to get the car sounding like your room. But that's a learning curve everyone goes through. So while a passive system may sound tonally better than an active setup in the hands of the novice, over time the as he/she learns to tune, the active system will be light years ahead of the passive one. Active is good for the possibilities it gives you, passive is what it is and will stay that way over time. 



FG79 said:


> Once you start playing with EQ, you affect so many things at once. My minimal EQ is just treble cutting at 10khz.


Sorry but in a car, that's just not enough. Of course, it depends on what your benchmark is. 



FG79 said:


> Gotta be careful with the definition of "good sound", because IMO 99% of cars would not qualify with that statement -- you know, a car that sounds like a home system.
> 
> The idea that the fullest or even 75% potential of a path (EQ, active) is always reached in every install is one of the biggest fallacies in all of car audio. "Go active and EQ or else your car will sound like crap"........
> 
> I'd edit it to say "Go active and EQ and without the right skill, assistance,persistence and luck , your car will sound like crap or at best average".
> 
> It's like those Amway, Primerica and other nonsense MLM companies. Yes, some of those people make lots of money, but most barely even sniff a middle class income doing it.


Agree with you. See we agree on some things at least.


----------



## therapture

sqnut gets it.

I'll speak from the standpoint of someone that just got into active/dsp a year ago.

After 2 or 3 months, I thought I had some stuff figured out, thought my stereo sounded _good_.

I was wrong! I listened to an old tune file the other day, it was horrible...overbloated 100-240 hz, tinny high end, muddy, uggggg.

Every 2-3 months I had a major discovery or learning process and things got better _every single time_.

Just a few weeks ago, I made _yet another _ improvement. I am starting to get the hang of it now and I finally do have what I consider a very nice sounding car stereo system. I can listen to my high quality Audio Technica headphones (which sound fantastic) and my car is still pretty satisfying, and has a better stage than the heaphones to boot. If you can't get a dsp system sounding good compared to a passive system, you just need more experience.


I will never go back, I love the dsp systems, and with 12+ months of experience behind me, I am still learning, still improving, something you will never be able to do with the same passive parts.


----------



## Hanatsu

FG79 said:


> "Minimal eq and *maximizing the potential sound* are antonyms in the context of a car." is more like it.
> 
> LOL NO. An adequate amount of EQ needs to be applied. EQ is not evil, it RESTORES how the system is supposed to sound. Minimal EQ and car audio should not be in the same sentence.
> 
> EQ in general means nothing. It has to be done right. A system with just one or two EQ changes can sound "good" , without a doubt.
> 
> Disagree. You need L/R EQ to attain a stage first off. The minimal amount of EQ power would be 31-b GEQ per channel to be able to fix the response errors of a typical car. Parametric is often required in the modal range.
> 
> My minimal EQ car with passive crossovers is not perfect but it sounds better to me than many, many heavily EQ'd active setups. A heavily EQ'd system can often be a disaster more than amazing.
> 
> Passives, minimal EQ often equal minimal system optimization. Without active crossovers you can't even shape the response. People who doesn't know how to tune is another discussion which doesn't belong here.
> 
> And there are similar analogies with active vs. passive crossovers. You can have a passive sounding nice with 1-2 hours of tuning. Active takes a lot more than that just to match the quality....exceeding it even more.
> 
> What? No. It's the opposite, getting a passive system to sound right is tedious work. I've done it once, never again. Had to design very complex filters, different for each side, modeled in LEAP. It's both expensive and time consuming. Actives are sooo much easier to setup.. and what quality? Come on. You don't seriously suggest that passives somehow "sound better" than a typical active filter?
> 
> Once you start playing with EQ, you affect so many things at once. My minimal EQ is just treble cutting at 10khz.
> 
> Like what? You affect the frequency response and phase response. You can actually improve both at the same time if you EQ in a minimum phase region.
> 
> Gotta be careful with the definition of "good sound", because IMO 99% of cars would not qualify with that statement -- you know, a car that sounds like a home system.
> 
> Won't happen... You actually expect that? ...and without EQ, active filters, T/A etc etc. You need a real multichannel DSP with summing to create a sense of a larger room. You will never ever attain the width of a home setup, it's limited because of the major crosstalk between side windows.
> 
> The idea that the fullest or even 75% potential of a path (EQ, active) is always reached in every install is one of the biggest fallacies in all of car audio. "Go active and EQ or else your car will sound like crap"........
> 
> Doesn't agree. Adding a DSP will improve any system. If you don't know what you're doing, just get one with auto setup or let a professional setup the system. "Like crap" wouldn't be the words I'd use but often when people complain about their systems, it's to 95% a response issue which can be fixed with EQ, period.
> 
> I'd edit it to say "Go active and EQ and without the right skill, assistance,persistence and luck , your car will sound like crap or at best average".
> 
> I can agree somewhat with that...
> 
> It's like those Amway, Primerica and other nonsense MLM companies. Yes, some of those people make lots of money, but most barely even sniff a middle class income doing it.


^.^ >.<


----------



## Hanatsu

sqnut said:


> ... not tuning for the recording, you're tuning to eliminate as much of the environments (cars) effect, as possible.
> 
> 3. In a car it is 95% about getting the right response. So you will use everything to achieve that. Xovers, slopes, eq _and TA_


sqnut certainly gets it. 

UNDERSTAND THIS!!!

It's the bloody environment which brings need for RESTORATION. You use EQ for this... it's won't sound good otherwise. No car does.


----------



## Hanatsu

therapture said:


> sqnut gets it.
> 
> I'll speak from the standpoint of someone that just got into active/dsp a year ago.
> 
> After 2 or 3 months, I thought I had some stuff figured out, thought my stereo sounded _good_.
> 
> I was wrong! I listened to an old tune file the other day, it was horrible...overbloated 100-240 hz, tinny high end, muddy, uggggg.
> 
> Every 2-3 months I had a major discovery or learning process and things got better _every single time_.
> 
> Just a few weeks ago, I made _yet another _ improvement. I am starting to get the hang of it now and I finally do have what I consider a very nice sounding car stereo system. I can listen to my high quality Audio Technica headphones (which sound fantastic) and my car is still pretty satisfying, and has a better stage than the heaphones to boot. If you can't get a dsp system sounding good compared to a passive system, you just need more experience.
> 
> 
> I will never go back, I love the dsp systems, and with 12+ months of experience behind me, I am still learning, still improving, something you will never be able to do with the same passive parts.


Exactly... 

Tuning is my favorite part. You can archive SO MUCH with tuning alone. Real improvements, not the amp, DAC, cables "character" BS which cannot be put into numbers. I dislike everything about audio that cannot the quantified. It's science, all science to me.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Tuning is my favorite part, until I spend over an hour and don't know if I even improved things...
Ah well. I ordered an external active crossover which will hopefully allow me to cut some bass from my front stage - allowing it to run much more freely, and finally alleviate the too-much-bass muddy/thickness/bloat sensation.
Just for grins, I rolled a bag of polyfil into 2 yards of wool batting and bundled that up into a yard of trunk carpet. Stuck it behind the right wheelwell across from the sub as a bass-trap. 2 albums in, it seems to have tightened things up. But time will tell for sure.
REW is kind of a hassle to set up (desktop system 30 feet from my car) so I probably won't take more measurements until after I install the X-Over.


----------



## Hanatsu

tjswarbrick said:


> Tuning is my favorite part, until I spend over an hour and don't know if I even improved things...
> Ah well. I ordered an external active crossover which will hopefully allow me to cut some bass from my front stage - allowing it to run much more freely, and finally alleviate the too-much-bass muddy/thickness/bloat sensation.
> Just for grins, I rolled a bag of polyfil into 2 yards of wool batting and bundled that up into a yard of trunk carpet. Stuck it behind the right wheelwell across from the sub as a bass-trap. 2 albums in, it seems to have tightened things up. But time will tell for sure.
> REW is kind of a hassle to set up (desktop system 30 feet from my car) so I probably won't take more measurements until after I install the X-Over.


Just be careful when tuning by ear. Not more than 10-15min max, more will cause listening fatigue. I remember a year back when I was tuning for an hour or so and it sounded WOW. I left the garage and took the car out the day after when I was driving to work, I turned the stereo on and WTF? It sounded dreadful... had to redo everything again lol. 

I measure with a stationary computer in the garage, bought an USB extender to the DSP and a 10m (33ft) mic cable. I just put the cable in loopback when I calibrated the external soundcard to compensate for any frequency response deviations with the cable included.

I recommend getting a MiniDSP instead if don't got a DSP already. It's pretty cheap and can be tuned with a computer. It got T/A, L/R EQ, mixer, active crossovers etc etc.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Thanks Han.
I was looking at MiniDSP, but I don't have a laptop and don't want to get one just to tume the stereo.
I picked up the AC DQ-61 - which is all manual knobs for EQ and T/A. Not the most adjustable or smallest of steps, but it actually does a really nice job. I have a couple 25ft RCA cables and a ton of adapters for mono to stereo and RCA to TRS to hook up to the soundcard, mic amp, and H/U Aux Input. When I had just a couple cables and the mic pre in the loopback I got a ton of feedback. When I added the longer cables and a headphone amp (for the signal into the Aux input) the loopback came back clean, but I think there's just too much stuff in the loop. Yanking the pre and headphone amp I can't get the input signal to be within 6dB of the REW output, but it looks cleaner. So maybe I'll stick with -12dB difference (-12 out, -24 in) with all my cables and adapters and see how that looks.

Regardless, I think I jacked up my JL midranges somewhere along the line. With or without FMOD's inline keeping the low frequencies out, if I get over about 80dB total output, when moderate bass in the 50-80Hz range hits they totally sound like they're hitting X-Max and flapping all around. Which is just wrong.
The stockers in the back doors play just fine (minimal output in that range), and the sub sounds nice and tight. So now I've got to look for some 6.5" mids that can blend smoothly with my single 10, but play all the way up to the JL tweets at 5KHz.
(I do have some Polk db6501 passives around, but if the C5-075t will play at 2K, I don't know why JL brings 'em in at 5. So, more research...)


----------



## subterFUSE

Hanatsu said:


> I recommend getting a MiniDSP instead if don't got a DSP already. It's pretty cheap and can be tuned with a computer. It got T/A, L/R EQ, mixer, active crossovers etc etc.


Was just checking the miniDSP website, and it seems there are a lot of choices under the Product heading. Could you suggest which one would be most appropriate for car audio tuning?


----------



## tjswarbrick

subterFUSE said:


> Was just checking the miniDSP website, and it seems there are a lot of choices under the Product heading. Could you suggest which one would be most appropriate for car audio tuning?


I was recommended the 2x4 for my minimalist setup; 2x8 seems popular for full active systems. PPI and SoundStream have car-audio-specific units based on the the MiniDSP with their own GUI now. But with a BitOne I doubt you'd need any of that. (Unless it's for another system, of course.)


----------



## subterFUSE

Oops. I was totally confused about the miniDSP.

Was thinking it was an RTA type device to aid with tuning.

Yeah, my BitOne pretty much does most of that stuff.


----------



## Hanatsu

MiniDSP 2x4 can be used for a simple 2-way front. The sub can be tuned somewhat with the amp's crossovers. 2x8 for full 3-way front+sub active. 4-way Advanced plug-in does the job.


----------



## Hanatsu

tjswarbrick said:


> Thanks Han.
> I was looking at MiniDSP, but I don't have a laptop and don't want to get one just to tume the stereo.
> I picked up the AC DQ-61 - which is all manual knobs for EQ and T/A. Not the most adjustable or smallest of steps, but it actually does a really nice job. I have a couple 25ft RCA cables and a ton of adapters for mono to stereo and RCA to TRS to hook up to the soundcard, mic amp, and H/U Aux Input. When I had just a couple cables and the mic pre in the loopback I got a ton of feedback. When I added the longer cables and a headphone amp (for the signal into the Aux input) the loopback came back clean, but I think there's just too much stuff in the loop. Yanking the pre and headphone amp I can't get the input signal to be within 6dB of the REW output, but it looks cleaner. So maybe I'll stick with -12dB difference (-12 out, -24 in) with all my cables and adapters and see how that looks.
> 
> Regardless, I think I jacked up my JL midranges somewhere along the line. With or without FMOD's inline keeping the low frequencies out, if I get over about 80dB total output, when moderate bass in the 50-80Hz range hits they totally sound like they're hitting X-Max and flapping all around. Which is just wrong.
> The stockers in the back doors play just fine (minimal output in that range), and the sub sounds nice and tight. So now I've got to look for some 6.5" mids that can blend smoothly with my single 10, but play all the way up to the JL tweets at 5KHz.
> (I do have some Polk db6501 passives around, but if the C5-075t will play at 2K, I don't know why JL brings 'em in at 5. So, more research...)


Never seen such an unit before. Is it some some of psuedo analogue DSP?

You shouldn't run a 6.5" to 5kHz, there will be serious beaming there. I'd cross a 6,5" around 2-2,5kHz.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Hanatsu said:


> Never seen such an unit before. Is it some some of psuedo analogue DSP?
> 
> You shouldn't run a 6.5" to 5kHz, there will be serious beaming there. I'd cross a 6,5" around 2-2,5kHz.


No, it's real. On the DQ-61, the DSP is digital, it's just controlled with a knob and .3ms steps (not the .02 most PC-controlled units seem able to do.) Delay's the fronts compared to sub, and FL compared to FR. 
It has Audio Control's speaker-level input and is designed as an easy-instal DSP for systems utilizng a factory H/U. In that respect, it suits me perfectly.

I don't know why JL runs their 6.5 to 5k, but their tweeter FR starts at 4k and is recommended 5k and up. Running the mid to 2k will mean either:
Huge gap between mid and tweet;
New Tweet and Crossover;
Smaller midrange in between - with new crossover (and probably more amp channels.)
This was supposed the be a simple build with minimal budget and space constraints to get me through until I buy a new car. So none of those are desirable at this time. Which means I need a 6.5 which can run up to 5kHz.


----------



## sqnut

Rather than looking for a 6.5 that plays higher, I would look for a tweeter that plays lower. If you're going / have gone active, look for a tweeter that will let you xover around 3khz on a steep slope.


----------



## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> Rather than looking for a 6.5 that plays higher, I would look for a tweeter that plays lower. If you're going / have gone active, look for a tweeter that will let you xover around 3khz on a steep slope.


That's all well and good, but my tweets are beautiful (and installed, and functioning) while my woofers are blown.

I have not gone active, and am very much resistant to it on this vehicle. (No room, no budget, too much time invested already, and I'm not going to keep it for THAT much longer.)
So, I'm looking for a 6.5 which will play relatively high without falling apart. I started a new thread on it because I think I've cluttered this one up enough. 
I'll be back here when I get the new X-Over and mids installed and take some more measurements. I was hoping to get a better mic, but the budget's going toward replacement woofers. So I think I'm stuck with the Radio Shack SPL meter, at least through the next round.


----------



## rlee777

On the subject of tuning, sometimes it seems like a never-ending battle. One day it sounds "great", then with certain songs, it sounds off. What helped me was a reference set of headphones.

I have a HT system with a Denon receiver using the Audyssey room correction. Works fairly well and had been my reference for tuning my cars. However, recently I purchased a set of the Sony MDR-7506 headphones -- the studio monitor cans that are very common in recording studios. I was so surprised at how flat, clear, and wonderfully natural the vocals come through the MDR-7506. Also marvelled at the high resolution. Ended up relistening to all my favorites and enjoying _the music_.

Now, there is a boost in the lower treble through these headphones, but does not touch the vocal range. I now have a new reference -- neutral, natural vocals and high resolution that does not fatigue the ears in any sense. My HT system and my cars now sound "off". When tuning by ear, it is extremely helpful to have a consistent reference on hand and the MDR-7506 headphones is a good one -- just don't try to match the lower treble which is exaggerated -- aim for the natural vocals.

Finally got my 03 Camry with the Kenwood 1800P components dialed in. You know you are close when you listen to a variety of music, no longer touch the EQ, and are drawn into the music -- not looking for sonic flaws.


----------



## MustangMichael

*Hanatsu's house curve in txt file*

I've been putting some road miles on my car and have several tunes stored under different PEQ presets. I waffled for awhile between the tunes, but definitely *when on the road* with my particular car and system, I am liking the tune I made based upon Hanatsu's house curve the best. 

Below is a link to a text file I created that seems to accurately produce Hanatsu's detailed house curve (aka, "target curve") in TrueRTA version 4. I don't know if other RTA programs use txt files for their house curves or if the curve would look accurate outside TrueRTA. But anyway, below is a link to the text in case it might save anyone some time.

The below doesn't require a sign in to view or copy it. It didn't even require sign up to create it. Kinda' cool, actually. 

If anyone disagrees with the below being posted here, say so and I'll take it down.

Sincere thanks again to Hanatsu. I really like the curve.  

#8974425 - Pastie

Amateur tip: For other people new to TrueRTA like me, the above linked text page would be used as follows:

After hardware (mic preamp) calibration and applying mic calibration file, the house curve would be applied next: 

Copy the text from the page linked above and paste it into a text (txt) file and save it somewhere easy to browse to. Start TrueRTA and click the Audio I/O drop down and click "Open House Curve File". Browse to where you saved the txt file, select it and click "open". This should install the house curve, place the curve on screen in TrueRTA and should also activate the tool "Use Inverse House Curve". 

Then during real time analysis due to the Inverse House Curve tool being ON, one then tunes for a flat line to achieve the installed house curve.


----------



## Babs

Anyone have positive opinions on the iPhone RTA apps for quick and ugly reading? Just curious.


----------



## MustangMichael

Babs said:


> Anyone have positive opinions on the iPhone RTA apps for quick and ugly reading? Just curious.


When I was looking to buy RTA software and hardware, I happened upon buyer feedback from Dayton Audio's website for their imm-6 microphone which is a very compact and low cost mic made for smart phones and sometimes used with RTA apps. These mics include a calibration file stored and accessible by serial number in DA's website. 

It appeared quite a few people found the mic and iPhone app to be accurate. What caught me was feedback from 3 or 4 people saying they do audio sound stage setup for a living and that they found the mic and iPhone app to be surprisingly accurate in direct comparison to their professional RTA rigs.

I don't remember if they mentioned in their feedback which app(s) they were using. 

There was a small amount of negative feedback, but clearly there are a lot of reasons why a product may not perform properly - and some of those are user mistakes. 

That's not firsthand experience and could be all wet. So I hope you'll get some hands on info from the DIYMA membership. Still, I thought I'd mention it.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Haven't tried an iPhone app. Have tried 3 different Android phone apps - and stock RazrHD microphone. They all seem adequately accurate in the midrange, but they're all over the place in the bass, and show peaks in the treble which don't really exist. Since my primary concern is integration of low bass to midbass, I've spent hours and hours toying with them yet have found them mostly frustrating, but not completely useless. 
I THINK, from what I've read, the iPhone ones are a bit better because they have a better handle on how the on-board mic affects the readings. With the Android ones, they don't necessarily know what phone it's going to be used with - so how can they account for it?


----------



## Hanatsu

Still can't figure out why you're using TrueRTA. It's inferior to the free RoomEQ software 

Glad you liked the response. How big is your car and how is your front stage mounted? Just curious...

Tapaaatalk!!


----------



## MustangMichael

Hanatsu said:


> Still can't figure out why you're using TrueRTA. It's inferior to the free RoomEQ software
> 
> Glad you liked the response. How big is your car and how is your front stage mounted? Just curious...
> 
> Tapaaatalk!!


TrueRTA is kinda' what I got used to. But I'll certainly listen to your input and give RoomEQ a try. Is that the one called REW aka Room EQ Wizard?

The car is what I would call a mid-size fastback although it seemed sub-compact to me when crawling my arthritic chassis all over inside the darn thing. It is a 2006 Mustang GT. The front stage is as follows:

CDT HD-62AS kit 6.75" woofers and tweets in Q-Logic Q-Form kick panels with some polyfill and edges somewhat attenuated with foam.

CDT Upstage tweets from the kit in the upper corners of the windshield aimed at center dash.

Custom door speaker enclosures to put the 3" CDT mids on axis and to eliminate a comb filtering problem well known and easily measured with the stock door speaker location on this car. The custom enclosures are set up to approximately target the opposite side headrest. Those are in the upper doors where the stock 5x7's used to be.

1 ohm 8" Kicker subs in the stock Shaker 500 door sub enclosures. They're not part of the front stage per se, but they are in the front of the car. 

The remainder of the system is as follows. This got too wordy so it probably shouldn't be read by anyone:  

Rear deck speakers are currently JL C2-570X but are disconnected as they were causing comb filtering problems. That surprised me because pushing the fader to full rear actually made the back speakers by themselves sound very good. I suppose by themselves, they are at or nearly phase coherent? I might install another amp and hook those back up if I go with a DSP that might use them as surround speakers in simulated 5.1. 

OEM Shaker 500 amp with subsonic filters in front of it driving the door subs; main amp is a Soundstream Picasso 4 channel amp under the pass seat - front channels driving the HD62-AS passive x-overs; rear channels driving the door mids; Alpine sub amp in trunk running a 12" Infiniti Kappa trunk sub in ebay enclosure. 

I'm using the Alpine CDE-148BT HU's active crossovers in front of CDT's passives and Alpine's 9 band PEQ so I can't currently really target all the fine details in your house curve. A surprise to me is that certain details of your house curve are accurately reproduced by CDT's passive x-over engineering. 

Still, system and tuning measures are a kludge due to being built in various evolutions - but I do find that using the Alpine can clean up some problems in the curve from the CDT passive x-over's in this car. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the HU's PEQ boost and cut and active x-over functions are still responsive even though the signal later goes through the passive x-overs from the HD-62AS kit and the mid accent fill kit (3" door mids). 

There were a lot of things interacting between active and passive x-over's various adjustments, levels and switches, amp gain leveling affecting freq's more than I expected (probably due to how the passives were responding differently to different levels). 

So it has taken a lot of work but the sound has finally exceeded my initial goal.

The first hardware and tuning iteration of the stereo upgrade was unmistakably sub-par, so I moved on to later iterations. To take it significantly farther, I need a DSP but the more I research the topic, the more I don't know which way to go. And I'm not going to have 500 to 1000 clams or more to throw at DSP for quite awhile. miniDSP looked good at first. I'm hoping they'll address some issues and maybe I'll go that way at some point. 

The very latest hardware iteration of this car's audio along with various misguided sound curves was considerably better than the previous very weak front sound stage but it still wasn't really near my goal until I found this thread. 

I am very thankful for everyone here sharing info. 

This system would benefit from going fully active but I've got it sounding good enough that I'm no longer motivated to spend the time or money (or pain) for all of that.


----------



## MustangMichael

Hanatsu,

Say, I downloaded the files you shared. Thank you for sharing those.

For general/basic RTA testing and EQ... and I do mean basic, should I use correlated pink noise or uncorrelated?

Thanks,

mm


----------



## Hanatsu

Uncorrelated noise for full system frequency response measurements.

Correlated noise to tune T/A and L/R EQ by ear. 

Using MLS or Swept Sine (Avilable in ARTA and RoomEQ/REW) you can get much more data than using noise / pink noise. You can even T/A by looking at the impulse response.


----------



## Hanatsu

MustangMichael said:


> TrueRTA is kinda' what I got used to. But I'll certainly listen to your input and give RoomEQ a try. Is that the one called REW aka Room EQ Wizard?


Yes. RoomEQ got a RTA function as well. IMO it's superior to TrueRTA in all aspects and really easy to work with.


----------



## MustangMichael

Info appreciated. Thank you.

edit: Forgot to mention: I've downloaded and set up REW and I'm going to start working with that.


----------



## Hanatsu

MustangMichael said:


> Info appreciated. Thank you.


Np ;=)


----------



## Kevin K

Hanatsu said:


> Uncorrelated noise for full system frequency response measurements.
> 
> Correlated noise to tune T/A and L/R EQ by ear.
> 
> Using MLS or Swept Sine (Avilable in ARTA and RoomEQ/REW) you can get much more data than using noise / pink noise. You can even T/A by looking at the impulse response.


Tell me a little more on the impulse response for TA work please.


----------



## T3mpest

Kevin K said:


> Tell me a little more on the impulse response for TA work please.


It sends out a quick burst of sound. You look at the response graph for that quick sharp peak and then delay the driver based on how much sooner the peak reached the mic in one speaker vs the other. NPDANG has a tuning tutorial that's stickied on here that covers it, IIRC.


----------



## fcarpio

T3mpest said:


> It sends out a quick burst of sound. You look at the response graph for that quick sharp peak and then delay the driver based on how much sooner the peak reached the mic in one speaker vs the other. NPDANG has a tuning tutorial that's stickied on here that covers it, IIRC.


Can you please post the link?


----------



## MustangMichael

*IASCA pink noise and Hanatsu's house curve; best still*

Disclaimer: This is a long read; might be worthwhile for newer car audio people. Could be a waste of time for car audiophiles. It's just some added steps that are working out for my weird combo. 

I tried and struggled with REW for awhile but never really got a handle on it. Some software had some problems I couldn't figure out, so I went back to TRTA since I can usually work that ok. 

John at TRTA was pretty insistent that the (very fast) quick sweep feature of that software would be my best bet so I put some more time into that today. I'm sure it may be best in some cars - or maybe with a different target curve??, but I spent a half a day of tuning today and the result didn't sound right. Male and female vocals were hollow and nasal; bass was excessive for my taste.

I then tried various pink noise making sure none of it was overdriven, distorted or noisy. Some changes in sub active x-over plus tuning with as best a copy as I could make of Hanatsu's sound curve as a house curve or target and using IASCA pink noise (the best pink noise for my system so far) has come up with the best tune I've been able to do yet. I used Audacity to turn the IASCA pink noise into a 30 minute track and stored it on a USB flash drive for today's tuning since that input is what I listen to most.

As before, some areas sound kind of overdriven, but not when driving on the road. My amateur take is that some of the target is to overcome road roar. 

I can't prove it, but I believe the eBay "Flat Pink" noise CD is very close to or maybe the same as the IASCA pink noise. 

I couldn't really target the fine detail due to only having the HU's onboard 9 band PEQ of my Alpine and a few other adjustable controls but even so, most music sounds very good to excellent. It's in the range to cause some proper emotional responses with music ranging from Tchaikovsky to Bach, Nickel Creek (the A capella lead in to "Sabra Girl" is stellar), Heart acoustical ("Dog & butterfly" - wow), Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, Skid Row, Styx, etc. I'm pretty happy that such a wide range of genres can sound so good without changing anything. It's not globally perfect, but better than I hoped for. 

This HU has some fairly noticeable freq variance depending upon input. So I'll copy down the PEQ settings, then set it to flat. The HU then allows for MX (music expander) "custom" settings which is basically all the 9 band PEQ settings but each setup of "MX Custom" affects only one input. My next work will be fine tuning on CD and AUX, then on to some guestimates and 'by ear' tuning of the various radio inputs.

I got rid of the big hole at 100hz by setting the Alpine HU active crossover (subwoofer channels only) to flat. I tried a lot of things before trying that and it is what works best. The hole is totally gone. I am guessing that the Alpine x-over was doubling up with the permanent non-adjustable settings of the Ford OEM Shaker 500 door sub amp, the CDT 6" woofer's passive x-over and the trunk sub amp's x-over. With that change, the bass range is pretty on target. In fact, the entire curve is pretty good; not for fine detail, but overall.

The sub x-over change is a big improvement and I like it a lot.  However, comparing between my best EQ preset today and my last/previous/best EQ preset is actually pretty close other than the sub x-over improvement; mainly, most song's vocals sound spot on whereas with the last best tune, maybe slightly fewer song's vocals were spot on.

I suppose a lot of this is specific to my oddball car and audio system build. Still, I thought I'd mention what is working for me in case it is of use to anyone. I'm a bit low on knowledge but trying to learn. So please evaluate the above in that context. :blush:

IOW, your mileage will vary.


----------



## tjswarbrick

I got REW to work by lying about the actual level on the SPL meter. Since it's putting out a -12dB signal, I added 12dB to the reading and all my problems with clipping, too low output, etc went away.
I'm using a UMIK-1 with it, so no Mic preamp to mess with.

After several days of measuring, resetting all component gains, and playing with the EQ this is what mine currently looks like:



I have the crossover set at 80Hz, but the first freq I can touch on the front EQ is 125 - so I did the best I can, but can't nudge 100Hz down very easily.

Also only have controls through the midrange at 500, 1K, 2K and 8K - so I can't do a thing about 800, 1200 or 3200. 

3200 I think is because my mids are beaming but my tweets (passive JL C5 crossovers and C5-75t tweets) don't come on board until 5K.
Ah, well. Sounds pretty darn nice, but I'll keep an eye (ear?) on overall LF level and front to sub T/A for a bit and see if further tweaks are necessary.


----------



## sqnut

I'm assuming the graph above is for all drivers playing.

Looks there is too much content in the 80 to 160hz range. I'd look at cutting 80, 100 and 125 almost all the way down on the sub eq. Next I'd cut 175 and 250 some on the front eq.

In the mid-range I would cut 1khz a bit. With fewer eq bands on the DQ-61 the eq will have wide Q's. So a cut boost at 1 will affect frequencies all the way to 1.6khz etc. I wouldn't worry about the dip at 3 for now. Oh and cut 8khz almost 2/3 of the way. 

Try this and see how it sounds.


----------



## subterFUSE

tjswarbrick said:


> I got REW to work by lying about the actual level on the SPL meter. Since it's putting out a -12dB signal, I added 12dB to the reading and all my problems with clipping, too low output, etc went away.
> I'm using a UMIK-1 with it, so no Mic preamp to mess with.


If you have the UMIK-1 then you don't need to set the SPL calibration at all. The UMIK is calibrated already. If the cal file gets loaded properly, then REW will skip the SPL calibration pop-up window when you click measure for the first time.


----------



## BigRed

What is your mid/tweet crossover point?


----------



## sqnut

5 khz on passive


----------



## BEAVER

Mines finally coming together. Dropped my sub level 5 or 6 db since this and everything is sounding pretty decent, overall. Still have a little work to do...


----------



## avanti1960

tjswarbrick said:


> I got REW to work by lying about the actual level on the SPL meter. Since it's putting out a -12dB signal, I added 12dB to the reading and all my problems with clipping, too low output, etc went away.
> I'm using a UMIK-1 with it, so no Mic preamp to mess with.
> 
> After several days of measuring, resetting all component gains, and playing with the EQ this is what mine currently looks like:
> 
> 
> 
> I have the crossover set at 80Hz, but the first freq I can touch on the front EQ is 125 - so I did the best I can, but can't nudge 100Hz down very easily.
> 
> Also only have controls through the midrange at 500, 1K, 2K and 8K - so I can't do a thing about 800, 1200 or 3200.
> 
> 3200 I think is because my mids are beaming but my tweets (passive JL C5 crossovers and C5-75t tweets) don't come on board until 5K.
> Ah, well. Sounds pretty darn nice, but I'll keep an eye (ear?) on overall LF level and front to sub T/A for a bit and see if further tweaks are necessary.


 Bass is about 5-db too strong but other than that this probably sounds pretty nice. You have a built-in "BBC dip" at 3Khz which cuts the most irritating ear sensitive frequencies.


----------



## avanti1960

BEAVER said:


> Mines finally coming together. Dropped my sub level 5 or 6 db since this and everything is sounding pretty decent, overall. Still have a little work to do...


try cutting 2-3 db between 2.5 and 5 Khz.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Thanks again, guys. I listened a bit last night before I went to bed and, you're right, bass is good and punchy but a bit strong. I'll turn down the amp gain a hair. And mids are a touch chesty, and image a bit low, so I'll pull 175 and 250 back down.
I couldn't figure out what to do with 1000, but perhaps you're right - I'd be better off with it level with 800 rather than adding to the peak at 1200.

100 and 125 are all the way down on the sub, and I don't have 100 on the fronts. I'll see if turning down 80 on the sub has any effect.

BigRed, sqnut is right, 5k passive mid/tweet xover.

subterFUSE, REW recognizes my UMIK-1 but still wants me to cal the SPL each time I start it. So I do. It also asks if I want to use my default Cal file. I say yes, and it asks me to choose a Cal file... 

Thanks again for the help, guys. Getting closer and closer.


----------



## tjswarbrick

I turned down the sub by ~ 5dB (measured in the trunk just under a meter from the driver with an analog SPL meter.) The cut 80 all the way in the LF channel. It was good, but a little light.

Measurements showed a dip around 80. so I turned it up a har, and got this:


Mic is about an inch lower than last week, pointing forward from the middle of what would be my chin. As you can see, the "BBC curve" presence dropout is GONE. Like, a small boost now. But last week's that showed it were taken from 3 different positions!

As I made minor adjustments, it kept making changes that made no sense (like sometimes dropping off 10Hz higher, or showing peaks & dips in different places.) Above 200Hz they all overlaid perfectly, but the bass is all over the place.

The above was taken 5 measurements in a row, which nearly overlaid each other, then averaged. I turned down 80 a touch, and up 63 a hair, afterward. Could not get a consistent reading in 10 tries with no changes in between, so it's not shown.

I will say, I used to love playing my car stereo not because it sounds better than my home system (it doesn't, by a long shot) but because I was not afraid to feel the low notes shake me a bit. Now that I've gone all SQ I'm not sure I'm enjoying it as much...
Nah, it's still great fun. Just different.

Anyway, I think my factory H/U and Amp have some shaping and automatic adjustments that they perform, which is making it really hard to get consistent results. I guess I just need to listen and enjoy for a while.


----------



## fcarpio

Looking a lot better ^^^


----------



## Hanatsu

tjswarbrick said:


> I turned down the sub by ~ 5dB (measured in the trunk just under a meter from the driver with an analog SPL meter.) The cut 80 all the way in the LF channel. It was good, but a little light.
> 
> Measurements showed a dip around 80. so I turned it up a har, and got this:
> 
> 
> Mic is about an inch lower than last week, pointing forward from the middle of what would be my chin. As you can see, the "BBC curve" presence dropout is GONE. Like, a small boost now. But last week's that showed it were taken from 3 different positions!
> 
> As I made minor adjustments, it kept making changes that made no sense (like sometimes dropping off 10Hz higher, or showing peaks & dips in different places.) Above 200Hz they all overlaid perfectly, but the bass is all over the place.
> 
> The above was taken 5 measurements in a row, which nearly overlaid each other, then averaged. I turned down 80 a touch, and up 63 a hair, afterward. Could not get a consistent reading in 10 tries with no changes in between, so it's not shown.
> 
> I will say, I used to love playing my car stereo not because it sounds better than my home system (it doesn't, by a long shot) but because I was not afraid to feel the low notes shake me a bit. Now that I've gone all SQ I'm not sure I'm enjoying it as much...
> Nah, it's still great fun. Just different.
> 
> Anyway, I think my factory H/U and Amp have some shaping and automatic adjustments that they perform, which is making it really hard to get consistent results. I guess I just need to listen and enjoy for a while.


Dunno what kind of processing you use but if you can, cut 650Hz by 5dB with a ~Q5. Cut 2,5kHz by 5dB, Q3. Cut 9kHz by 3-4dB, Q4.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Hanatsu said:


> Dunno what kind of processing you use but if you can, cut 650Hz by 5dB with a ~Q5. Cut 2,5kHz by 5dB, Q3. Cut 9kHz by 3-4dB, Q4.


Thanks Hanatsu. Processor is an Audio Control DQ 61. No PEQ - just Graphic (knobs, actually) at 125, 175, 250, 500, 1k, 2k and 8k.

I actually trimmed 2k and 8k by a couple dB yesterday afternoon after posting this, and it seemed to remove a trace of hardness from the highs. So, thanks for that!

It took me quite a while to get 500 where it sounds good (not too boxy, not too shouty) and a dip at 1k sounds really dark and recessed to me, so I don't think I'm going to play with those at all to try to correct 650. But I'll definitely keep that in mind if I hear anything amiss in the future.

Listening to Paul Rodgers and Diana Krall yesterday, the only weakness I could make out was a slight dullness to the upper harmoinics on kick drum. A small thud where I thought there should be a snap.
I don't have any control anywhere between 4k and 6k, and 5k is the crossover region on my passives. I'm reluctant to turn up 1000 for fear of what it'll do to the peaks surrounding it. So I'm afraid I may be stuck with it. 

Thanks again for all the help! You guys are awesome.


----------



## sqnut

Cut 8 Khz some more. Notice how the vocals have a bit of grainy stretch? A touch of harshness? Focus on that and cut 8khz. Typically a 6-8 db cut from where you have it will help cut sibilance and that grainy stretched sound. 

Now cut at 2khz 3-4 db because you have fewer frequencies the Q at each frequency would be much wider. So a cut at 2 will affect ~1.25-3khz. Now go back and open up a bit at 1-1.5 db at 1khz, maybe a touch at 500. Rework the 500 / 1 khz balance by opening it up. This should bring out a lot more dynamics. Snap instead of a thud. 

Curious to see if this works.


----------



## Kevin K

Take a look at where I'm at this morning and see what you think.

Granted this is just RTA but is a tool. To the ear it does sound pretty good.

1/24 measuring and 1/24 smoothing 










now 1/24 measuring with 1/1 smoothing


----------



## sqnut

Try cutting at 3khz by 3db and at 8 khz by ~4-5 db. Try and open up 12 khz by about 2-3 db. See how that sounds.


----------



## Hanatsu

Kevin K said:


> Take a look at where I'm at this morning and see what you think.
> 
> Granted this is just RTA but is a tool. To the ear it does sound pretty good.
> 
> 1/24 measuring and 1/24 smoothing
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> now 1/24 measuring with 1/1 smoothing


I'd probably boost everything from 60-100Hz by 10dB or so, your graph indicates that there's very little midbass compared to subwoofer output.


----------



## Hammer1

I just got the Audio Tools app by Studio Six. Question is should I use the signal generator with pink noise to use with the RTA for tuning.


----------



## REGULARCAB

Might as well throw this up here and get a few more eyes on it. It has already been quite the fight to get L/R to match and get everything to this point. Any suggestions im all ears.










I cant really touch the dip at 160hz, it just doesnt move. And the tweeter really doesnt fall off at 5k like that, its just happens sometimes when I measure, suppose I should post one without that anomaly.


----------



## fcarpio

REGULARCAB said:


> Might as well throw this up here and get a few more eyes on it. It has already been quite the fight to get L/R to match and get everything to this point. Any suggestions im all ears.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I cant really touch the dip at 160hz, it just doesnt move. And the tweeter really doesnt fall off at 5k like that, its just happens sometimes when I measure, suppose I should post one without that anomaly.


Are you tuning both sides (L/R) separately and then measuring together? I tune one channel at a time and I make sure each side (tweeter, mid and single sub) is where I want it to be. But when I measure both sides combined it is a crapshoot. The curve is not pretty when combined but my ears like the result A LOT.


----------



## BEAVER

I'll play along. What should my next move be?


----------



## REGULARCAB

fcarpio said:


> Are you tuning both sides (L/R) separately and then measuring together? I tune one channel at a time and I make sure each side (tweeter, mid and single sub) is where I want it to be. But when I measure both sides combined it is a crapshoot. The curve is not pretty when combined but my ears like the result A LOT.


For me its a little bit of everything. I started tuning one speaker at a time mainly to get the levels matched between like speakers, and take down any peaks. Then I started on one whole side at a time to smooth out transitions between speakers (measuring one side then tuning) and eq'ed a bit to get a better shape and match up one side to the other better. I finally moved to measuring the whole system just to see where everything is at, and yeah the whole system is certainly messy compared to the Left / Right measurements.

I would love to take all my un eq'd and uncrossed measurements and throw them in REW to see what it recommends I do, but I haven't sat down to input a target curve yet.


----------



## BEAVER

Hammer1 said:


> I just got the Audio Tools app by Studio Six. Question is should I use the signal generator with pink noise to use with the RTA for tuning.


You can do that and it works, but intend to use a CD instead, personally.


----------



## sqnut

Hanatsu said:


> I'd probably boost everything from 60-100Hz by 10dB or so, your graph indicates that there's very little midbass compared to subwoofer output.


You've been MIA for a while, welcome back.

Me thinks he has enough mid bass for now. 80 is ~ 15db down from 40 which is ok but yeah maybe 50-60 could be raised a bit. Mid bass 60-300 is ~ 5db up from lower midrange, which is on the higher side. He can actually try raising the 500-1khz range a bit, maybe. 3-4 khz and 8 khz need to be cut for sure.


----------



## sqnut

Going by this, just some general comments.

If blue and green are L/R response, then one side is consistently hotter than the other by 2-3 db I'd look at that.

I'm not sure where you're crossing the sub and mid, but try crossing in the 50-60hz range, if you're crossing higher.

I'd cut that peak at ~ 200 by 5db. That will take a lot of the bloat out of the sound.

Cut 600 a bit and bring up 800 maybe 1.5-2 db each. Cut 1.6-2khz by 2 db. Cut 3-4 khz by 3db. Lastly cut 8khz by ~ 4-5db.

Now listen to it. How does it sound?


----------



## sqnut

fcarpio said:


> Are you tuning both sides (L/R) separately and then measuring together? I tune one channel at a time and I make sure each side (tweeter, mid and single sub) is where I want it to be. But when I measure both sides combined it is a crapshoot. The curve is not pretty when combined but my ears like the result A LOT.





REGULARCAB said:


> For me its a little bit of everything. I started tuning one speaker at a time mainly to get the levels matched between like speakers, and take down any peaks. Then I started on one whole side at a time to smooth out transitions between speakers (measuring one side then tuning) and eq'ed a bit to get a better shape and match up one side to the other better. I finally moved to measuring the whole system just to see where everything is at, and yeah the whole system is certainly messy compared to the Left / Right measurements.
> 
> I would love to take all my un eq'd and uncrossed measurements and throw them in REW to see what it recommends I do, but I haven't sat down to input a target curve yet.


The combined L/R response will be different from the individual L/R response, in part due to cancellations / summations occurring with both drivers playing. 

Typically I will balance L/R for one set of drivers, L&R midbass, midrange, tweeters. Then I will play drivers on one side and smooth out the transition between midbass/midrange and tweeter/midrange. Then do the same thing for the other side. I'm not tuning for tonality while doing this.

Next I will play all drivers and check for L/R. On 24 db slopes, I look at the area an octave above and below the xover point very closely. Depending on where where I need to tweak the L/R a bit, I will tweak either the LP or HP driver or a combination of both. I'm tweaking this by-pass region for better balance in the all pass range of the two drivers. I do this by ear. Doing this right just seems to give cleaner sound.

Next I will tune for tonality with all drivers playing. If in need to cut something in that +/- 1 oct band, I will split that cut again between the LP/HP drivers. The percentage for each driver depends on where in the band the cut falls.


----------



## BEAVER

sqnut said:


> Going by this, just some general comments.
> 
> If blue and green are L/R response, then one side is consistently hotter than the other by 2-3 db I'd look at that.
> 
> I'm not sure where you're crossing the sub and mid, but try crossing in the 50-60hz range, if you're crossing higher.
> 
> I'd cut that peak at ~ 200 by 5db. That will take a lot of the bloat out of the sound.
> 
> Cut 600 a bit and bring up 800 maybe 1.5-2 db each. Cut 1.6-2khz by 2 db. Cut 3-4 khz by 3db. Lastly cut 8khz by ~ 4-5db.
> 
> Now listen to it. How does it sound?


The blue is peak, where as the green is live. I'm good to go, as far as that is concerned.

I'm curious as to why you regularly mention 50-60 hz crossover points for the sub to midbass transition. What is it about the chart that I've posted that would lead you to believe that would help me? Just curious...

200 hz, check... I'll give that a try, for sure. I do notice a bit of bloat, on occasion.

As for the rest of it, while I feel like things are balanced pretty well, I'll give these a try to see if it helps.

Thanks for chiming in, btw.


----------



## sqnut

BEAVER said:


> I'm curious as to why you regularly mention 50-60 hz crossover points for the sub to midbass transition. What is it about the chart that I've posted that would lead you to believe that would help me? Just curious...


Better integration with the mid bass and keeps the mid bass frequencies in stereo. You have a ~5 db roll off from 40-80 which generally means a higher xover or higher gains on the sub.


----------



## Hanatsu

REGULARCAB said:


> Might as well throw this up here and get a few more eyes on it. It has already been quite the fight to get L/R to match and get everything to this point. Any suggestions im all ears.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I cant really touch the dip at 160hz, it just doesnt move. And the tweeter really doesnt fall off at 5k like that, its just happens sometimes when I measure, suppose I should post one without that anomaly.


The dip at 160Hz is most likely a modal cancellation. 

I'd lower 50Hz by 2dB, Q4
Cut 1,2kHz by 2dB, Q3
Boost 2,5kHz by 3dB, Q4

Try it out


----------



## Hanatsu

REGULARCAB said:


> For me its a little bit of everything. I started tuning one speaker at a time mainly to get the levels matched between like speakers, and take down any peaks. Then I started on one whole side at a time to smooth out transitions between speakers (measuring one side then tuning) and eq'ed a bit to get a better shape and match up one side to the other better. I finally moved to measuring the whole system just to see where everything is at, and yeah the whole system is certainly messy compared to the Left / Right measurements.
> 
> I would love to take all my un eq'd and uncrossed measurements and throw them in REW to see what it recommends I do, but I haven't sat down to input a target curve yet.


If you measure both side at the same time you get lots of FR deviation that's not really there. If you measure the full system, smooth the plot by 1/3oct to get a better representation of how the response really looks.


----------



## Hanatsu

sqnut said:


> You've been MIA for a while, welcome back.


Thanks. I was in a motorcycle accident and I sort of lost interest in stuff for a while but now I'm back on my feet again


----------



## sqnut

Hanatsu said:


> Thanks. I was in a motorcycle accident and I sort of lost interest in stuff for a while but now I'm back on my feet again


Dude take care while driving those 2 wheelers. Glad you're ok now.


----------



## Airforceyooper

What are you measuring with? If you use REW, you can take several measurements and sum them together. I think that helps alot regarding irregularities in measurements as well. You can take measurements in both seats, center, etc. also. Get an overall frequency reponse vs. just one measurement where the mic was at that one particular point in time.


----------



## fcarpio

Hanatsu said:


> Thanks. I was in a motorcycle accident and I sort of lost interest in stuff for a while but now I'm back on my feet again


Dude, I hope you are OK. Earlier this year I had a "bicycle" accident and broke my elbow. Sheeezzz...


----------



## fcarpio

sqnut said:


> The combined L/R response will be different from the individual L/R response, in part due to cancellations / summations occurring with both drivers playing.
> 
> Typically I will balance L/R for one set of drivers, L&R midbass, midrange, tweeters. Then I will play drivers on one side and smooth out the transition between midbass/midrange and tweeter/midrange. Then do the same thing for the other side. I'm not tuning for tonality while doing this.
> 
> Next I will play all drivers and check for L/R. On 24 db slopes, I look at the area an octave above and below the xover point very closely. Depending on where where I need to tweak the L/R a bit, I will tweak either the LP or HP driver or a combination of both. I'm tweaking this by-pass region for better balance in the all pass range of the two drivers. I do this by ear. Doing this right just seems to give cleaner sound.
> 
> Next I will tune for tonality with all drivers playing. If in need to cut something in that +/- 1 oct band, I will split that cut again between the LP/HP drivers. The percentage for each driver depends on where in the band the cut falls.


Good advice. I sort of do this but at the time I felt too lazy to type it up. Been typing all day...


----------



## Hanatsu

fcarpio said:


> Dude, I hope you are OK. Earlier this year I had a "bicycle" accident and broke my elbow. Sheeezzz...


Yeah, it can be quite dangerous on those two wheelers. There was a car which drove right into me from side... I damaged the left leg/foot but it's mostly ok now. 

On topic... I'm currently researching how these house curves relate to tonal balance, speaker setup, proximity and room size. Hopefully I have some conclusive results by the end of the month...


----------



## sqnut

Airforceyooper said:


> What are you measuring with? If you use REW, you can take several measurements and sum them together. I think that helps alot regarding irregularities in measurements as well. You can take measurements in both seats, center, etc. also. Get an overall frequency reponse vs. just one measurement where the mic was at that one particular point in time.


My take on multiple readings is slightly different. My thinking is that multiple measurements are useful for eliminating measuring error and the varying response in the small range of space that your ears occupy while you are in the car. So looking ahead or slightly left / right. That is the space where you need to measure. What's happening outside this zone is really irrelevant. 

So once I have measured and set L/R one driver at a time, I will mark a point where I want all the frequencies to focus. I try and focus everything at or just under the rear view. Mark a small X with tape on the wind shield just under the rear view. Now with all drivers playing play the PN tracks and get all the frequencies to focus up at this point. If something left or right of the X correct accordingly. 

In case you made an error while measuring and went ahead and corrected for that, you'll catch that when you do the above step. You're also correcting for the summations / cancellations from all drivers playing. You're not getting this when you set one driver at a time.


----------



## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> My take on multiple readings is slightly different. My thinking is that multiple measurements are useful for eliminating measuring error and the varying response in the small range of space that your ears occupy while you are in the car. So looking ahead or slightly left / right. That is the space where you need to measure. What's happening outside this zone is really irrelevant.


I agree. I'm just a little stuck since my UMIK-1 stand has a different bolt than either of my other tripods - so I'm stuck trying to strap it to the headrest.

I also figured out why my two curves changed so much between post 161 and 170. The first one had the rears playing! I turn 'em on for the kids, and didn't reset fader to the front before measuring. Stock speaks running off factory amp - really no way to integrate or EQ them. They really honk up the sound! I had them on most of the weekend (lots of driving the girls around.) Now that I have the front stage and sub mostly integrated and tuned, the bass blump and presence dip they cause really suck the enjoyment out of most of my music.


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> They really honk up the sound! I had them on most of the weekend (lots of driving the girls around.) Now that I have the front stage and sub mostly integrated and tuned, the bass blump and presence dip they cause really suck the enjoyment out of most of my music.


Based on the frequencies you control, cut 500 and 1khz to get rid of the honk. Did you cut 8Khz? Just hold the mic at your ears and measure. That's good enough. Let's see what the curve looks like.


----------



## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> Based on the frequencies you control, cut 500 and 1khz to get rid of the honk. Did you cut 8Khz? Just hold the mic at your ears and measure. That's good enough. Let's see what the curve looks like.


I did. Drafted a huge reply. Lost it.

Based on graph in post 170 (rears 100% faded out) and comments received, I had Cut 2k and 8k a bit more. I thought you said to boost 500 and 1k to add some snap to the drums... Anyway, I did, and the honk got bad. Real bad. So I kept 1k up (only by like 1-2dB - minimal) and I put 500 back where it came from. I'm very, very pleased. Overall bass sounds a little light, but it's tight, detailed, nuanced and quick. Finally! Honestly, I don't hear the sub at all and sometimes wonder if it's just the Silver Flutes doing it - but they're cut ~ 80Hz, so I doubt it. It's actually quite good for a home system in that regard, but I've always liked a little extra in the car. Moving up the range, piano is smooth and even; boxiness and honk have been tamed; women don't shout and ladies don't screach; highs don't pierce unless I really blast it. Image still pulls down on bass guitar and male speaking voice, but other than that is very solid and centered. I know it isn't perfect, but it sounds so much more realistic and engaging than it used to, and I can't consistently pick out a frequency range that's out of balance or overtly colored. I hope to get some consistent measurements - maybe this weekend - and post 'em up, but I'm still getting used to the sound and don't have any aberrations to seek out so it hasn't been a big priority. 

Did I thank you for your input yet? I don't know how you can do it so accurately from looking at 1 little graph, but your help has been indispensable.


----------



## Hammer1

Questions for you guys. I am using the Studio six app for IPad and need to get a microphone for it. What do you think would work well I see some but they have the older 30 pin connector not the lighting connector


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> I did. Drafted a huge reply. Lost it.
> 
> I thought you said to boost 500 and 1k to add some snap to the drums... Anyway, I did, and the honk got bad. Real bad. So I kept 1k up (only by like 1-2dB - minimal) and I put 500 back where it came from. I'm very, very pleased. Overall bass sounds a little light, but it's tight, detailed, nuanced and quick. Finally! Honestly, I don't hear the sub at all and sometimes wonder if it's just the Silver Flutes doing it - but they're cut ~ 80Hz, so I doubt it. It's actually quite good for a home system in that regard, but I've always liked a little extra in the car. Moving up the range, piano is smooth and even; boxiness and honk have been tamed; women don't shout and ladies don't screach; highs don't pierce unless I really blast it. Image still pulls down on bass guitar and male speaking voice, but other than that is very solid and centered. I know it isn't perfect, but it sounds so much more realistic and engaging than it used to, and I can't consistently pick out a frequency range that's out of balance or overtly colored. I hope to get some consistent measurements - maybe this weekend - and post 'em up, but I'm still getting used to the sound and don't have any aberrations to seek out so it hasn't been a big priority.
> 
> Did I thank you for your input yet? I don't know how you can do it so accurately from looking at 1 little graph, but your help has been indespensable.


My first reaction to your post? You _really_ need to get yourself a proper dsp as and when you can. You will really appreciate how far it can take you. 

Making a difference for you and your appreciation gets me good karma. I am always on the lookout for that so thank you.

500-1khz or the lower midrange is good for clarity. But too much and it gets honky as you found out. I should have mentioned this in my post sorry. It's tough to give exact numbers looking at a graph but you got the gist. The tightness of the drums and your mid bass comes from the harmonics of percussion that lie in this range. 

1 khz is great for dynamics, but it can thin out the sound a bit if over done. Try backing down here a bit. It should bring out some more lower end. If you do this and now feel....yeah but I've lost dynamics, then raise 1 a bit and try raising a touch at 250. You should get more low end the piano should sound fatter and more real. 

A lot of the benefits on vocals are due to the cuts at 2 and 8khz. 8 khz is something that needs a drastic cut in all cars, all installs etc.


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> Honestly, I don't hear the sub at all and sometimes wonder if it's just the Silver Flutes doing it - but they're cut ~ 80Hz, so I doubt it.


In a balanced setup your midbass should carry 80% of your low end. Turn off the sub and see how much of the low end is actually from the silver flutes. The silver flutes have great low end potential. You can even try crossing them a little lower 50-60 range. If you're good with your hands make small 0.3 cu ft enclosures for them. You can then run them down to 40 and that is an experience.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Hammer1 said:


> Questions for you guys. I am using the Studio six app for IPad and need to get a microphone for it. What do you think would work well I see some but they have the older 30 pin connector not the lighting connector


I wonder if the MicW i436 is any good. "Designed for iPhone or iPad" but looks like it uses an analog jack. 34dB min and only 102dB max SPL.

Doesn't the iPad have USB? If so, you should be able to use the USB version of the Dayton EMM-6 or UMIK-1.


----------



## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> In a balanced setup your midbass should carry 80% of your low end. Turn off the sub and see how much of the low end is actually from the silver flutes. The silver flutes have great low end potential. You can even try crossing them a little lower 50-60 range. If you're good with your hands make small 0.3 cu ft enclosures for them. You can then run them down to 40 and that is an experience.


I've considered myself good with my hands, but my first experience with fiberglass has told me otherwise... Bing and JOey are nearby, though, so when I really get into it I have somewhere to turn. I'm glad I did it once, but I just don't see myself doing that again. Pods would be great - I do still get some midbass vibration in the doors - but I'm considering this build "done" and just focusing on tuning. Otherwise I'll go broke, my wife'll leave me, and I probably still won't be satisfied.

Funny, at home, a solid 40Hz bottom end is just fine - desirable, even. And I thought I could be happy with it in the car. But when I KNOW there's a big ole sub in the trunk (okay, it's only a single 10 in a small enclosure) I expect the lows to shake things loose. If I can get over that, I think I can be really happy with this system.

Pods, active, DSP; I have big plans for my next car...


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> But when I KNOW there's a big ole sub in the trunk (okay, it's only a single 10 in a small enclosure) I expect the lows to shake things loose. If I can get over that, I think I can be really happy with this system.


It's like quitting smoking. Give your ears some time to settle in on the new sound. The first few days are tough. After a while you won't miss the flexing shaking bass. It's not real in any case


----------



## Hammer1

tjswarbrick said:


> I wonder if the MicW i436 is any good. "Designed for iPhone or iPad" but looks like it uses an analog jack. 34dB min and only 102dB max SPL.
> 
> Doesn't the iPad have USB? If so, you should be able to use the USB version of the Dayton EMM-6 or UMIK-1.


Nope IPad does not have a usb port just the lighting cable port.


----------



## Hanatsu

sqnut said:


> You _really_ need to get yourself a proper dsp


Best advice yet lol


----------



## Hanatsu

sqnut said:


> In a balanced setup your midbass should carry 80% of your low end. Turn off the sub and see how much of the low end is actually from the silver flutes. The silver flutes have great low end potential. You can even try crossing them a little lower 50-60 range. If you're good with your hands make small 0.3 cu ft enclosures for them. You can then run them down to 40 and that is an experience.


No need crossing _any_ mids lower than 50-60Hz imo... well unless you ain't got a sub.


----------



## sqnut

Hanatsu said:


> No need crossing _any_ mids lower than 50-60Hz imo... well unless you ain't got a sub.


I was just making a point


----------



## Hanatsu

sqnut said:


> I was just making a point


Me too


----------



## therapture

You two guys  always in interesting threads.

I am following this thread, nice info and stuff.


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> but I'm considering this build "done" and just focusing on tuning. Otherwise I'll go broke, my wife'll leave me, and I probably still won't be satisfied....


Accept the fact that you'll never be satisfied. Damn thing is always WIP no matter how good it gets. Let's tune with what you have, don't want you getting in trouble. 

As longs as you can put up graphs give detailed feedback like you did on how it sounds, lets try and play with what you have. Do you have a 2ch at home? Close your eyes and listen to The Great Gig In The Sky from DSOTM (almost everyone has this album) on a 2 ch. Pay attention to both the screaming parts and the softer solo's where Tory hits the highs. How airy and natural do these parts sound?

Now listen to it in the car. Go back and forth a few times and you will start to pick the differences. As long as you keep hearing what's wrong and tuning for it, the sound will keep getting better......over a period of time......and you'll be hooked good and proper.


----------



## Hanatsu

I considered my build "done" four years ago. Rebuilt it three times since then xD


----------



## sqnut

Hanatsu said:


> I considered my build "done" four years ago. Rebuilt it three times since then xD


You need to stop reinventing the wheel and spend four year tuning it.......by ear


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## therapture

sqnut said:


> You need to stop reinventing the wheel and spend four year tuning it.......by ear


I live and die by both of you guys advice.

And I am finding value in ear tuning...I have damaged hearing, and what I hear vs. what the plots say don't match all the time. I spend 80% of my time in the car alone, so I tune only for the driver's seat. My family could care less as long as they hear it, so I get to be selfish.

I really need to mic it since I am really happy right now but I have no idea what the curve looks like anymore...I am curious to see if what I hear, aligns with what I expect to see on the plots.


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## Hanatsu

Both methods are required. The midrange (1-3kHz) can be really hard to center up by ear for example. I always do the final tuning by ear, believe it or not ;P

I gonna post a fine tuning guide sometime soon, where both measurements and tuning by ear is required. I have to admit though, sqnut is better than me explaining stuff in subjective terms ( and I'm not referring to the audiophoolery mumbojumbo  ).

There's a lot of things to consider and the install affect greatly how easy the system is to tune. Some systems sound diffuse no matter how you setup EQ and T/A because there's too many phantom images. That's one reason why I oppose putting midrange drivers low in doors/in kickpanels etc.


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## sqnut

I honestly don't remember where I've kept my mic. But I've never felt the need for it these past few years. On the rare occasion that I play the PN tracks (mainly to check L/R or level) the free sound pro and rta app on my android are all I need. The rest is all by ear.

I spent a few years measuring and calibrating and thought I had good sound. But it was never a WOW factor. A few things were excellent some were decent but a fair bit just sucked. I had L/R balanced, acoustic slopes were matched with an overall smooth response slope from 20-20khz, it was decent but it sounded nothing like the simple 2 way monitors in my room. The car could get loud but it wasn't dynamic. Vocals were always stretched and not relaxed and airy like on my Scan monitors at home. I had plenty of bass that was never a problem. This was about 6 years ago.

I got into tuning by ear thanks to my mentor Aaron Thomas (Macleod) who patiently taught me whatever little I know. It took about 2-3 years to get intuitive with the eq and another couple of years for the car to sound more like my home 2ch. Along the way for large periods of time the sound was really crappy. I was frustrated as hell but kept going. I'm glad I did. There were lot's of tuning sessions where I couldn't solve what I was trying to and I'd feel like ripping the everything apart. I'd console myself by getting out of the car and kicking the tyres....hard.

You need to measure for the basics, arrival times and response from each driver/side. Once you have this in place and you have dialed in the basic slanting slope from 20-20 it's all about tuning for what you're hearing.


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## james2266

sqnut said:


> I honestly don't remember where I've kept my mic. But I've never felt the need for it these past few years. On the rare occasion that I play the PN tracks (mainly to check L/R or level) the free sound pro and rta app on my android are all I need. The rest is all by ear.
> 
> I spent a few years measuring and calibrating and thought I had good sound. But it was never a WOW factor. A few things were excellent some were decent but a fair bit just sucked. I had L/R balanced, acoustic slopes were matched with an overall smooth response slope from 20-20khz, it was decent but it sounded nothing like the simple 2 way monitors in my room. The car could get loud but it wasn't dynamic. Vocals were always stretched and not relaxed and airy like on my Scan monitors at home. I had plenty of bass that was never a problem. This was about 6 years ago.
> 
> I got into tuning by ear thanks to my mentor Aaron Thomas (Macleod) who patiently taught me whatever little I know. It took about 2-3 years to get intuitive with the eq and another couple of years for the car to sound more like my home 2ch. Along the way for large periods of time the sound was really crappy. I was frustrated as hell but kept going. I'm glad I did. There were lot's of tuning sessions where I couldn't solve what I was trying to and I'd feel like ripping the everything apart. I'd console myself by getting out of the car and kicking the tyres....hard.
> 
> You need to measure for the basics, arrival times and response from each driver/side. Once you have this in place and you have dialed in the basic slanting slope from 20-20 it's all about tuning for what you're hearing.


Couldn't agree with you more. The first to turn me onto this was Steve Head while I was down in Florida a while back. I always kept coming back to the measuring and testing but always left expecting more. Due to alot of extra work stuff going on lately and the fact I now have the ability to tune anywhere/any time (thanks to RUX) I have it sounding so good there is a part of me that doesn't want to touch anything for fear of never getting the sound I have back again. I know that will not happen as this hobby is a sickness and I know that I can get it back in time if I do make further changes (which are planned). For the first time ever, I actually don't feel a need to upgrade anything really. That is a nice feeling and the wife certainly agrees too.


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## Hanatsu

The big problem is how to use measurements, how to relate what you hearing to what you're measuring. It's more to it than just a FR plot. I went a different route than you. I've been in to electronics all my life and started building loudspeakers when I was 10 years old. Back then it was all about getting as much bass as possible lol, never cared about the acual theory behind it. About 6 years ago I got my first real DSP and had not too much knowledge how to set it up so I learned all I could about tuning a system on various sites. The first time I got one of those "wow" effects was when I measured the system for the first time and fixed all the response issues properly.

I've built around ~30 systems now and from my experience I can tell you that it would be quite impossible to pull off a full system tune and optimize it in any reasonable amount of time.

I might even be so bold and say that you can't optimize a system without measurements. Tuning crossover slopes? Finding optimal crossover points? Detecting non-linear distortion or ringing in the linear domain? Detecting mid/high-Q cancellations? This would by all means be very hard to do by ear, even if you're good. 

*I can attain similar results every time with measurements, provided that the install is not too different and that in no time. 
*Troubleshooting is extremely easy if you know what to look for. 

*With parametric EQs and measurements you could make very fancy EQ filters that wouldn't be able to even think of when you setup by ear.

I basically use measurements for about everything except final tuning.

Example; If I hear something in a song that sounds off, let's say some instrument that is too prounounced I simply load the audio file into Audacity, generate a spectrum analysis of the section where I heard that particular sound. Enter the frequency in the DSP and lower it by the appropriate amount. Most often it's possible to confirm such an issue with a simple FR plot but it could be excessive distortion as well. 

Different installs needs different tuning as well and some systems are easier to tune than others. Reflections in the wrong places can destroy the image so much that no amount of processing can fix it.

My point? We should take advantage of the measurements as much as possible, learn how to correlate what we hear with how it measures and then being able to perform repetitive similar results every time. Tuning by ear as a final touch is an important step as well. I never use anything else than pink noise though and it's for improving center focus. Usually it's around 1dB +/- at that point. I always do T/A by ear as well, simply because it's faster. It takes like two minutes or so with correlated pink noise. Phase settings I check by measuring it beforehand though...


----------



## james2266

Sounds like our processes are similar actually. I can't stress the 'final tune by ear' part enough however. You are 100% right about needing the rta for finding big problems and for choosing proper crossovers for each driver. I never had any luck when doing single drivers however. I always do readings for separate pairs of drivers now. I found I always added far too much eq when doing each separate driver and it ultimately sounded like bunk. Now, i get my crossovers all set and knock out any large wide peaks in the response. Then I spend alot of time with pink noise, band limited pink noise and most importantly (for me anyways) that 'My voice is in phase/my voice is out of phase' track (Huge thanks to my buds in Cali for properly instructing me on how to use that track fully) to get my time alignment and driver levels right. Then I do everything by ear from there to get things centered up and tonally correct. I always seem to have to knock alot out in the 2-4 Khz or so range. Maybe my ears are just sensitive to these frequencies?


----------



## strakele

sqnut said:


> In a balanced setup your midbass should carry 80% of your low end. Turn off the sub and see how much of the low end is actually from the silver flutes. The silver flutes have great low end potential. You can even try crossing them a little lower 50-60 range. If you're good with your hands make small 0.3 cu ft enclosures for them. You can then run them down to 40 and that is an experience.


I tend to disagree with this, though I do believe it depends quite a bit on what type of music you listen to.

I've seen statements like that all over this site, and believed it for a while, probably repeated it a few times, and went through like 10 sets of midbass drivers searching for it. The bottom line is 6.5's are not good mid/bass drivers. Any of them. Regardless of cost. Some are certainly better than others, but none are "good" or capable of faithfully reproducing low end at a realistic level. Unless you listen to music that really has very little low end content. 

I've squeezed some Dynaudio almost-8's into my Lancer doors. On a heavy kick drum hit, about 65-70% of the impact comes from my front sub, around 20% from the rear subs, and 10-15% from the midbass. Even in the truck I just got with ported 12's on 250W each for midbass, the majority of the hit that you feel is from the subs. Midbass is not bass. And at a concert, it's not the vertical line arrays with a bunch of horns and 8's or 12's slamming you in the chest, it's the row of ported 18's along the ground.

If you only listen to music that's unamplified and unprocessed, then yeah you don't have much need for a good sub. But for most, I argue that you absolutely do, and it should do more than play up to 35Hz.

The only car I've ever heard that challenged my above statements was using Scanspeak woofers as subs/midbass (8" Revelator, IIRC). Lots of power in a complex ported enclosure that went from the kicks, along the sill, and under the seats to get enough internal volume and the required tuning. That thing was nuts. Gave me a whole new respect for ported boxes.


----------



## therapture

Now, I have not really gotten into using the plots to determine cross over settings. That has been done by ear, but I need to try my hand at that method. Time to go to school again...


----------



## sqnut

strakele said:


> I tend to disagree with this, though I do believe it depends quite a bit on what type of music you listen to.


I agree and I should have mentioned that. Not only the type of music one listens to, but also where and how one crosses the sub and mid. Both together will determine the percentage of the low end (40-100hz) being played by the sub and the mid. 

So for my music ranging from classic rock, to 80's, to Jazz and R&B with an acoustic xover of 70hz between sub and mids the mid bass are doing a fair bit of lifting.



strakele said:


> I've seen statements like that all over this site, and believed it for a while, probably repeated it a few times, and went through like 10 sets of midbass drivers searching for it. The bottom line is 6.5's are not good mid/bass drivers. Any of them. Regardless of cost. Some are certainly better than others, but none are "good" or capable of faithfully reproducing low end at a realistic level. Unless you listen to music that really has very little low end content.


IMHO 8-9" mid basses in doors / kicks are a bit of a fad, I don't have issues with it. If you can fit an 8-9" woofers in your door/kick while eliminating resonances, that would be great. But if you're telling me that a 6.5" with a sub cannot reproduce the low end from a kick drum (50-100hz) without 90% of it being carried by the sub (hence a higher xover between sub and mid) then I have to disagree with you.

Heck a lot of floor standers run dual 7 mid bass. My 2.1 way setup at home has scan monitors with 6 3/4" woofers. A lot of monitors use 6-7" woofers. 



strakele said:


> I've squeezed some Dynaudio almost-8's into my Lancer doors. On a heavy kick drum hit, about 65-70% of the impact comes from my front sub, around 20% from the rear subs, and 10-15% from the midbass. Even in the truck I just got with ported 12's on 250W each for midbass, the majority of the hit that you feel is from the subs. Midbass is not bass. And at a concert, it's not the vertical line arrays with a bunch of horns and 8's or 12's slamming you in the chest, it's the row of ported 18's along the ground.


Let's say the fundamental of that kick drum hit lies in the 50-100hz range. Say 60hz. 80% of that will be from the sub in my set up. If the hit is at 100hz then 90% is from my mid. However in both cases the snap and tightness AND the impact comes from harmonics higher up. So if you're telling me one needs an 8" mid bass to experience that kick drum hit in its totality, I have to disagree with you. 



strakele said:


> If you only listen to music that's unamplified and unprocessed, then yeah you don't have much need for a good sub. But for most, I argue that you absolutely do, and it should do more than play up to 35Hz.


Again I have never said you don't need a sub. Either I don't write clearly or you're reading my posts through tinted glasses.

I've never said you don't need a sub. You need a sub for the first couple of octaves. Yes a 6-7" mid bass is not going to cover that. But unless you're playing dub or EDM the content in the first 2 octaves will not be more than 20% of total music content.......if that. 



strakele said:


> The only car I've ever heard that challenged my above statements was using Scanspeak woofers as subs/midbass (8" Revelator, IIRC). Lots of power in a complex ported enclosure that went from the kicks, along the sill, and under the seats to get enough internal volume and the required tuning. That thing was nuts. Gave me a whole new respect for ported boxes.


Both Scans and Silver Flutes have low Fs and low Qts. Put them in small sealed or ported enclosures and they will put a lot of bigger woofers to shame when it comes top low end. Plus in a 2 way they are MUCH better in midrange than the 8-9" woofers. The bigger woofers have to be used as part of a 3 way.


----------



## sqnut

Hanatsu said:


> The big problem is how to use measurements, how to relate what you hearing to what you're measuring. It's more to it than just a FR plot. I went a different route than you. I've been in to electronics all my life and started building loudspeakers when I was 10 years old. Back then it was all about getting as much bass as possible lol, never cared about the acual theory behind it. About 6 years ago I got my first real DSP and had not too much knowledge how to set it up so I learned all I could about tuning a system on various sites. The first time I got one of those "wow" effects was when I measured the system for the first time and fixed all the response issues properly.
> 
> I've built around ~30 systems now and from my experience I can tell you that it would be quite impossible to pull off a full system tune and optimize it in any reasonable amount of time.
> 
> I might even be so bold and say that you can't optimize a system without measurements. Tuning crossover slopes? Finding optimal crossover points? Detecting non-linear distortion or ringing in the linear domain? Detecting mid/high-Q cancellations? This would by all means be very hard to do by ear, even if you're good.
> 
> *I can attain similar results every time with measurements, provided that the install is not too different and that in no time.
> *Troubleshooting is extremely easy if you know what to look for.
> 
> *With parametric EQs and measurements you could make very fancy EQ filters that wouldn't be able to even think of when you setup by ear.
> 
> I basically use measurements for about everything except final tuning.
> 
> Example; If I hear something in a song that sounds off, let's say some instrument that is too prounounced I simply load the audio file into Audacity, generate a spectrum analysis of the section where I heard that particular sound. Enter the frequency in the DSP and lower it by the appropriate amount. Most often it's possible to confirm such an issue with a simple FR plot but it could be excessive distortion as well.
> 
> Different installs needs different tuning as well and some systems are easier to tune than others. Reflections in the wrong places can destroy the image so much that no amount of processing can fix it.
> 
> My point? We should take advantage of the measurements as much as possible, learn how to correlate what we hear with how it measures and then being able to perform repetitive similar results every time. Tuning by ear as a final touch is an important step as well. I never use anything else than pink noise though and it's for improving center focus. Usually it's around 1dB +/- at that point. I always do T/A by ear as well, simply because it's faster. It takes like two minutes or so with correlated pink noise. Phase settings I check by measuring it beforehand though...


I get what you're saying and sure you can do all that, but the reality is that apart from measuring for L/R response and setting you overall initial curve you really don't have to measure much. 

Consider this, the guy who mentored me used nothing apart from a basic spl meter and his ears. And yet he was runner up at MECA Finals in his class 4 years in a row with scores in 80's. He was always second to Kirk Proffit, a couple of years it was by 0.5 points. So yeah maybe if he had measured a bit more he could have had the championship. It just puts things in perspective. The MECA competitors know both KP and Aaron Thomas.


----------



## strakele

sqnut said:


> I agree and I should have mentioned that. Not only the type of music one listens to, but also where and how one crosses the sub and mid. Both together will determine the percentage of the low end (40-100hz) being played by the sub and the mid.
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> So for my music ranging from classic rock, to 80's, to Jazz and R&B with an acoustic xover of 70hz between sub and mids the mid bass are doing a fair bit of lifting.
> 
> For your music preference, agreed.
> 
> IMHO 8-9" mid basses in doors / kicks are a bit of a fad, I don't have issues with it. If you can fit an 8-9" woofers in your door/kick while eliminating resonances, that would be great. But if you're telling me that a 6.5" with a sub cannot reproduce the low end from a kick drum (50-100hz) without 90% of it being carried by the sub (hence a higher xover between sub and mid) then I have to disagree with you.
> 
> If you're telling me a pair of 6.5's can reproduce the low end of a kick drum at a realistic level without the sub doing 75-80% of the work, then I disagree.
> 
> Heck a lot of floor standers run dual 7 mid bass. My 2.1 way setup at home has scan monitors with 6 3/4" woofers. A lot of monitors use 6-7" woofers.
> 
> And I've never heard a pair of floor standers that can do it with authority. Mine have dual 5.25 mids and a ported 8" woofer. Still can't.
> 
> Let's say the fundamental of that kick drum hit lies in the 50-100hz range. Say 60hz. 80% of that will be from the sub in my set up. If the hit is at 100hz then 90% is from my mid. However in both cases the snap and tightness AND the impact comes from harmonics higher up. So if you're telling me one needs an 8" mid bass to experience that kick drum hit in its totality, I have to disagree with you.
> 
> I'm thinking a lot of the areas we disagree are coming from listening to different types of music. The fundamental of a kick drum in a hard rock track is much lower than a less processed one in a jazz recording. For the drum track on the Chesky disc, you don't need a sub at all if you have decent midbass. For Metallica's new live album, the best midbass in the world isn't gonna cut it.
> 
> I don't think you necessarily need 8" midbass - I think you need a good sub. Regardless of how big your midbass is, if you're crossing it like a midbass, the majority of the punch is still coming from the sub.
> 
> I've never said you don't need a sub. You need a sub for the first couple of octaves. Yes a 6-7" mid bass is not going to cover that. But unless you're playing dub or EDM the content in the first 2 octaves will not be more than 20% of total music content.......if that.
> 
> I know you never said you don't need a sub. But when you said midbass should carry 80-90% of your low end, it seemed you were implying the sub wasn't very important.
> 
> Both Scans and Silver Flutes have low Fs and low Qts. Put them in small sealed or ported enclosures and they will put a lot of bigger woofers to shame when it comes top low end. Plus in a 2 way they are MUCH better in midrange than the 8-9" woofers. The bigger woofers have to be used as part of a 3 way.


I doubt Josh's car (the one I was talking about) would have been anywhere near as impressive if the woofers were in small sealed enclosures. He had them built to the optimal specs for the woofer - 1.2 cubic feet ported (don't remember the tuning frequency). My front sub enclosure is .5 cubic feet and takes the whole footwell. 










Each of his kickpanel enclosures had more than twice the internal volume, which is why they ran from the kicks all the way to under the seats. You'd never know it by looking - they were incredibly well integrated. But that's the kind of thing it took to make the speakers able to do what they did.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Before:
Taken 8-29 using REW output into AUX input, and UMIK-1 mic located about where my chin is in listening position.



tjswarbrick said:


> Measurements showed a dip around 80. so I turned it up a har, and got this:


Made some tweaks - notably turning down 8kHz to about 9:00.
Got judged, and learned a few things. 

I replaced the wimpy factory speaker mounts in my doors with 3/4" HDPE; added the triple pack of F.A.S.T. Rings; rolled on a bunch more deadening; and padded down the tweets 1.5dB while I was in there. (Passive crossovers in the doors.) Door vibration is ameliorated. Bass Impact is finally clean and solid! And lows no longer pull to the rear. At All.

Took the this morning. Red is right ear position; blue is left; green is average. All speakers playing, with DSP and EQ active:



Based on that, I turned the 8kHz knob back to 12:00; it was a little hot, so I nudged i down just a hair. It sounds really good and musical now, though slightly thick/congested in the midbass (I'm forever fighting with the midbass.) 

Within the limitations of my QD-61: EQ only at 31, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100, and 125 Hz on sub-out; 125, 175, 250, 500, 1K, 2K and 8k Hz to the fronts; and crossover slopes set at 12dB/Oct both directions - can you see anything I can do to clean it up?

Real DSP will come later - on my next car.

Thanks!
- Tom


----------



## Hanatsu

Bring down 500Hz a bit and bring up 1000Hz then... 600-650Hz seems to peak a little. Try balance it out.

Full system measurements can be a bit devious to look at. Lots of dips and peaks that "ain't there" in reality. Better if you measure left and right side independently and combine them in RoomEQ.


----------



## tjswarbrick

After starting, I realized I should have balanced right for right ear and left for left, at least to start. But I was 1/2 done and it was much too hot to sit in the car, in the sun, and start over. So I stopped.

Took your advice, though, and 2 songs in it seems better!
Thanks again.


----------



## Alextaastrup

It is funny people trying to adjust FR withín the whole range 20-20000Hz having max 31 filters. Oh, yes, it is possible to work out some peaks - but to tell about optimal RTA is far from the truth. Some time ago I also tried to be a part of this infinite battle. You rescue one band - problem comming from another side. Hours and hours of tuning (kicking front wheel as a result). No satisfaction at all. Every time I realised that it was just beginning of the jorney towards optimal sound (best RTA). After all these attempts I began to understand that it is almost impossible (I am not an expert) to adjust frequency response with the help of only 31 band filters. Started looking after something more advanced and finally found APL1 from Raimond Skuruls. Do not blame me, but just one hour spent one year ago for fine-tuning with the help of APL1 and its software was enough, and it is still enough for me. I've got what I wanted: quick and effective way to adjust speakers in my car. I do not want to spoil rest of my life tuning all long nights. It has more than 4000 filters and customized turget curves, which could be adjusted for both channels in no time. I tried before some autocalibration techniqs (mostly from Alpine) but was not satisfied with it. My suggestion - try APL1 (you could find it on this forum) and exchange experience. I will participate in discussions with pleasure. This is realy great device for making an optimal RTA. BESIDES, SOME PRESETS (HOUSE CURVES) WILL BE SOLD ALONG WITH THE DEVICE. Many others is easy to produce with its software.


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## Hanatsu

You can't have a perfect response curve in a car or in any room for that matter. You need a true anechoic chamber to avoid all the issues associated with the linear distortion induced by the environment. A "house curve" shouldn't be targeted more than 1/12oct below 1000Hz and perhaps 1/6oct or even 1/3 above that. I agree that a 31b GEQ is limited. You can fix alot more with a parametric, so that's the preferred choise. EQing non-minimal phase regions will lead to distortion and that's what happening when you try to match a curve 100%. Much better to allow for some dips and focus on getting the relative FR between left&right side right instead. It's the overall shape of the curve that determines the actual "character" of the sound - not some narrow dips/peaks.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## Raimonds

Hanatsu said:


> You can't have a perfect response curve in a car or in any room for that matter. You need a true anechoic chamber ...


Must clarify about what kind of response we are talking.
The Sound Power Frequency Response of loudspeaker historically has been measured in reverberation chamber (opposite to anechoic chamber). Therefore a room or a car environment are not barriers to get an accurate SPFR. And you can find lot of sources that express importance of SPFR. But only one source to run a field measurement of SPFR.
It is possible to have prefect SPFR of loudspeaker in any environment. It is property of loudspeaker not of environment.


----------



## nickt

tjswarbrick said:


> Before:
> Taken 8-29 using REW output into AUX input, and UMIK-1 mic located about where my chin is in listening position.
> 
> 
> Can you tell me exactly how to connect REW output into AUX input? Do you physically connect your laptop to your radio/DSP, or you change some settings in the computer control panel? Thank you.


----------



## subterFUSE

nickt said:


> Can you tell me exactly how to connect REW output into AUX input? Do you physically connect your laptop to your radio/DSP, or you change some settings in the computer control panel? Thank you.


Depends on your sound card.

I'm using a pretty advanced sound card that has all sorts of outputs. So generally, I just run an 1/8" to RCA cable from the sound card directly into my DSP.

However, my car is about to have 2 different audio sources that I use regularly.

1. Audison BitPlay HD
2. MoBridge DA1


Both sources will plug into my DSP via optical inputs. However, I will need to test and tune both sources separately because it's entirely possible the Audi MMI system can color the sound differently than the BitPlay. It is already doing this currently via the Bose factory stereo.

I purchased a Behringer sound card that has an optical input so that I can evaluate both of these audio sources and determine if they are sending flat signal.

For the BitPlay, it will be a simple connection of the optical out to the optical in on the Behringer sound card. I can use a recording of a sine sweep and check it in REW.

For the MoBridge, it's a little more complicated. I will need to connect the Behringer analog output to the analog input of the MMI system in my car, and then run an optical out from the MoBridge preamp back into the Behringer sound card. Run a sine sweep, and then check for flatness. 

Hopefully all of the funky Bose equalization will be gone when I bypass the Bose amplifier by adding the MoBridge.


----------



## Hanatsu

Raimonds said:


> Must clarify about what kind of response we are talking.
> The Sound Power Frequency Response of loudspeaker historically has been measured in reverberation chamber (opposite to anechoic chamber). Therefore a room or a car environment are not barriers to get an accurate SPFR. And you can find lot of sources that express importance of SPFR. But only one source to run a field measurement of SPFR.
> It is possible to have prefect SPFR of loudspeaker in any environment. It is property of loudspeaker not of environment.


Yes I'm referring to the sound power response. It's the sum of direct and reflected sound we hear. To be able to EQ out an irregular FR we need to EQ the direct sound together with the reflected, so it helps using drivers in their optimal range where power response is close to the on-axis FR.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


----------



## nickt

subterFUSE said:


> Depends on your sound card.
> 
> I'm using a pretty advanced sound card that has all sorts of outputs. So generally, I just run an 1/8" to RCA cable from the sound card directly into my DSP.
> 
> Can you recommend a sound card for me w/o the digital outputs? And you hook up the sound card to your lap top? BTW, I have the PS8 DSP. Thank you.


----------



## nickt

subterFUSE said:


> Depends on your sound card.
> 
> I found this and I think it would work.
> 
> Behringer: U-CONTROL UCA202


----------



## fcarpio

nickt said:


> tjswarbrick said:
> 
> 
> 
> Before:
> Taken 8-29 using REW output into AUX input, and UMIK-1 mic located about where my chin is in listening position.
> 
> 
> Can you tell me exactly how to connect REW output into AUX input? Do you physically connect your laptop to your radio/DSP, or you change some settings in the computer control panel? Thank you.
> 
> 
> 
> I go from my headphone out in the laptop to the aux input in my processor. You may have to adjust the levels (check levels in REW) and possibly select the appropriate input/output device.
Click to expand...


----------



## Raimonds

Hanatsu said:


> Yes I'm referring to the sound power response. It's the sum of direct and reflected sound we hear. To be able to EQ out an irregular FR we need to EQ the direct sound together with the reflected, so it helps using drivers in their optimal range where power response is close to the on-axis FR.


Oh, how easy you find SPFR by “the sum of direct and reflected sound” : )
Can you describe more in details your method to obtain SPFR?
You also get “the sum” of two speaker sounds when you are listening your stereo system. Did you try to measure (capture) this sum by mic?


----------



## nickt

fcarpio said:


> nickt said:
> 
> 
> 
> I go from my headphone out in the laptop to the aux input in my processor. You may have to adjust the levels and possibly select the appropriate input/output device.
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you. I will give it a shot.
Click to expand...


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> Took the this morning. Red is right ear position; blue is left; green is average. All speakers playing, with DSP and EQ active:
> 
> 
> 
> ................ though slightly thick/congested in the midbass (I'm forever fighting with the midbass.)
> 
> Within the limitations of my QD-61: EQ only at 31, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100, and 125 Hz on sub-out; 125, 175, 250, 500, 1K, 2K and 8k Hz to the fronts; and crossover slopes set at 12dB/Oct both directions - can you see anything I can do to clean it up?
> 
> Real DSP will come later - on my next car.
> 
> Thanks!
> - Tom


Hey Tom,

To clear up the mid bass cut 200 hz on the front and 80hz on the sub. Cut both halfway to max. Cut 500 a little and raise 1khz a touch. Cut 2khz by about 2db. Cut 8khz till you loose dynamics in the sound, then back up a little.

Arun


----------



## subterFUSE

nickt said:


> I found this and I think it would work.
> 
> Behringer: U-CONTROL UCA202


Yes, those are one of the better of the basic-level sound cards recommended for Room EQ Wizard. However, just keep in mind that sound card does NOT have a phantom-power input for a microphone. If you are using a USB mic like the UMIK-1, that won't be important. But if you want to use an XLR mic for measuring impulse response for time alignment, you would need a phantom power device to make that sound card work. (or another sound card with phantom power) You can buy a phantom power box for about $40.


For a short time, I used the M-Audio M-Track sound card. It was $100, and it had phantom power with XLR inputs for mic.

I moved on from that to a Behringer FCA610 when I decided I wanted to have an optical input for measuring digital sources directly. It also has mic inputs with phantom power. (This card is total overkill for REW, generally speaking.. but it works great for me).


----------



## Hanatsu

Raimonds said:


> Oh, how easy you find SPFR by &#147;the sum of direct and reflected sound&#148; : )
> Can you describe more in details your method to obtain SPFR?
> You also get &#147;the sum&#148; of two speaker sounds when you are listening your stereo system. Did you try to measure (capture) this sum by mic?


But you are measuring the power response unless you gate out the first reflection (which you can't with sufficient resolution in a car). Just average the response around the "headspace" and you'll obtain the power response, not harder than that. A very large amount of what you hear is reflections. To do a pwr response measurement of a speaker system or raw drivers it takes some work as you need a large amounts of measurements to average together.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


----------



## tjswarbrick

nickt said:


> tjswarbrick said:
> 
> 
> 
> Before:
> Taken 8-29 using REW output into AUX input, and UMIK-1 mic located about where my chin is in listening position.
> 
> 
> Can you tell me exactly how to connect REW output into AUX input? Do you physically connect your laptop to your radio/DSP, or you change some settings in the computer control panel? Thank you.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't have a laptop. In my desktop PC, I have an ASUS Xonar Essence XTR sound card, which has Headphone and RCA outputs. REW only outputs on 1 channel, so I used a few adapters and a long cable to go from single RCA to dual RCA to "stereo" 3.5mm jack. My Factory H/U has an optional Aux In harness, with the 3.5mm plug in the glove compartment, so I plug the jack into that receptacle and am good to go.
> 
> Most laptops have a headphone out. You should be able to configure REW to use that as the output. But you'll need to have a way to get that signal into your system.
> 
> On a side note, I actually get more consistent, repeatable results using pink noise from a CD in the H/U with REW set for External source.
Click to expand...


----------



## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> Hey Tom,
> 
> To clear up the mid bass cut 200 hz on the front and 80hz on the sub. Cut both halfway to max. Cut 500 a little and raise 1khz a touch. Cut 2khz by about 2db. Cut 8khz till you loose dynamics in the sound, then back up a little.
> 
> Arun


Thanks, Arun.

I don't have control at 200Hz. Trimming 175Hz, I lose impact; trimming 250 just makes vocals sound thin.

Actually, I chucked the flimsy factory speaker mounts in favor of 1.5" of HDPE, added a bit more sound deadening to the doors, installed a F.A.S.T. Ring system, turned down 500Hz a tad and boosted 1kHz a hair. Midbass is tight, solid and clean, central image stays put, and everything (including drums, synth, bass guitar, and low rumbles) emanates from the front of the vehicle. I can't believe what a difference it made.

I do need to take some more measurements, but I think I'm approaching the resolution of the components I have at hand. Plus I'm in the middle of a kitchen remodel, so it'll be a while before I have the time to hook it back up to the PC. And even longer before I have funds for a laptop!


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> Thanks, Arun.
> 
> I don't have control at 200Hz. Trimming 175Hz, I lose impact; trimming 250 just makes vocals sound thin.
> 
> Actually, I chucked the flimsy factory speaker mounts in favor of 1.5" of HDPE, added a bit more sound deadening to the doors, installed a F.A.S.T. Ring system, turned down 500Hz a tad and boosted 1kHz a hair. Midbass is tight, solid and clean, central image stays put, and everything (including drums, synth, bass guitar, and low rumbles) emanates from the front of the vehicle. I can't believe what a difference it made.
> 
> I do need to take some more measurements, but I think I'm approaching the resolution of the components I have at hand. Plus I'm in the middle of a kitchen remodel, so it'll be a while before I have the time to hook it back up to the PC. And even longer before I have funds for a laptop!


With both 175 and 250 cut till vocals thin out and then just back up a bit. That should eliminate a lot of the mid bass bloat. Try cutting at 80 on the sub. 500hz is good for clarity but excess can make the sound honky, out of a pipe, cheap raio speaker kind of sound. If it's cut too far the sound becomes dull. So find the right balance. 1 kz is good for dynamics and snap in the mid bass frequencies.

Good luck with the kitchen re-build.


----------



## Raimonds

Hanatsu said:


> But you are measuring the power response unless you gate out the first reflection (which you can't with sufficient resolution in a car). Just average the response around the "headspace" and you'll obtain the power response, not harder than that. A very large amount of what you hear is reflections. To do a pwr response measurement of a speaker system or raw drivers it takes some work as you need a large amounts of measurements to average together.


You are right about large amount of measurements.
But, if you have possibility to capture 3 measurements per second (180 per minute) it is not a problem. And the number of measurements grate than 160 gives as accuracy as high as parts of dB (Yang and Ellison).
There are lot of ways to average – in sound pressure domain, in sound pressure level domain, in sound intensity domain, in sound intensity level domain. So, it is not so simply as to say : )
Even industry grands did errors in that.
If you put loudspeaker in corner you have 8 speakers working together (same as 8 lamps in picture attached, actually 1 lamp). And there no other way to describe performance of this 1-8 loudspeaker system as by help of SPFR.
The surfaces nearby speaker become parts of a speaker (part of a horn) .
You do not need to gate out rather than in a concert hall.


----------



## Hanatsu

Raimonds said:


> You are right about large amount of measurements.
> But, if you have possibility to capture 3 measurements per second (180 per minute) it is not a problem. And the number of measurements grate than 160 gives as accuracy as high as parts of dB (Yang and Ellison).
> There are lot of ways to average – in sound pressure domain, in sound pressure level domain, in sound intensity domain, in sound intensity level domain. So, it is not so simply as to say : )
> Even industry grands did errors in that.
> If you put loudspeaker in corner you have 8 speakers working together (same as 8 lamps in picture attached, actually 1 lamp). And there no other way to describe performance of this 1-8 loudspeaker system as by help of SPFR.
> The surfaces nearby speaker become parts of a speaker (part of a horn) .
> You do not need to gate out rather than in a concert hall.


All right, seems like you got access to stuff I don't lol. The light bulbs are a nice analogy btw. 

Sound pressure, sound pressure level, sound intensity - isn't that the same thing? I've never heard of this before and what is "Yang and Ellison"? A method, algorithm or some kind of software? I'm using RoomEQ for acoustic measurements and I assume it simply uses SPL mean values for calculation. 

You seem to know more than me regarding this so please explain so we all can learn


----------



## Raimonds

Hanatsu said:


> All right, seems like you got access to stuff I don't lol. The light bulbs are a nice analogy btw.
> 
> Sound pressure, sound pressure level, sound intensity - isn't that the same thing? I've never heard of this before and what is "Yang and Ellison"? A method, algorithm or some kind of software? I'm using RoomEQ for acoustic measurements and I assume it simply uses SPL mean values for calculation.
> 
> You seem to know more than me regarding this so please explain so we all can learn


Yes, the “sound power” gives us very high and interesting level to judge our loudspeaker systems and golds in competitions also.
The authors Yang and Ellison did beautiful work in the field of the sound power measurement.
It is not easy to describe the sound power concept in few words.
Let’s start with already available materials.

The thread here in DIY mobile: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...apl1-equalizer-system-acoustic-power-lab.html

About SPFR on APL website: Acoustic Power Lab :: SPFR

It is hard to understand value of SPFR “in theory”. The real evaluation says everything. Let’s put it on evaluation!
Any questions are welcome!


----------



## Hanatsu

Raimonds said:


> Yes, the “sound power” gives us very high and interesting level to judge our loudspeaker systems and golds in competitions also.
> The authors Yang and Ellison did beautiful work in the field of the sound power measurement.
> It is not easy to describe the sound power concept in few words.
> Let’s start with already available materials.
> 
> The thread here in DIY mobile: http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...apl1-equalizer-system-acoustic-power-lab.html
> 
> About SPFR on APL website: Acoustic Power Lab :: SPFR
> 
> It is hard to understand value of SPFR “in theory”. The real evaluation says everything. Let’s put it on evaluation!
> Any questions are welcome!


I'll check it out later, always fun with a little reading material.


----------



## NotInMySpeedos

Hanatsu said:


> There is no "optimal" curve. However, the one you posted will most likely sound too bright. In a car you want a downwards tilted response from 20-20kHz.
> 
> In my last build I had a curve that looked like this (3-way front).


@Hanatsu...
Could you share the power response before any EQ please?


----------



## Hanatsu

NotInMySpeedos said:


> @Hanatsu...
> Could you share the power response before any EQ please?


Long time ago since I made those, this MIGHT be the one.


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## NotInMySpeedos

Great stuff, thank you.
I dont feel so bad now about the 8dB cuts I'm having to make in the 250-300Hz area.


----------



## Luke/Peaandham

This is mine, I have since dropped 6.3khz - 20khz another 2db.


----------



## sqnut

Luke/Peaandham said:


> This is mine, I have since dropped 6.3khz - 20khz another 2db.


Can you take a reading at 1/6 octave and post that?


----------



## Luke/Peaandham

Sadly I dont have a copy of that, I used a friends laptop and Umik RTA, I plan to purchase my own soon.


----------



## Luke/Peaandham

Got my Umik delivered today, downloaded TrueRta but sadly without paying its extremely limited.

Using REW but having trouble getting it working. Id much rather use True at this point but unless I want to pay a decent amount to get 1/12 im screwed.


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## Hanatsu

Don't use TrueRTA... get Rew working instead. What's wrong with it?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## fcarpio

Luke/Peaandham said:


> Got my Umik delivered today, downloaded TrueRta but sadly without paying its extremely limited.
> 
> Using REW but having trouble getting it working. Id much rather use True at this point but unless I want to pay a decent amount to get 1/12 im screwed.


There are a few tutorials on the web about getting started with REW. It isn't evident at first but once you go through the tutorials things will start to click.


----------



## JVD240

Yep. REW is pretty simple. I think Erin did a video a while back on the basic operation.


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## Hanatsu

REW's RTA function is very easy to use. Just start the generator (pink noise), then press RTA and record. Or use a noise track on CD and press record in the RTA tab.

Before you do this you need to setup yoyr soundcard in the preferences.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


----------



## req

i have NOT read this whole thread,

but here is a cheap and quick tip for people trying to look for the 'center' of the stage based on the physical center of the windshield but adding in *parallax error *from the driver seat angle that takes 2 seconds.










put a CD on the dash in the physical middle. the reflection off the glass will give you a 'bullseye' to aim for 

sorry to distract.


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## fcarpio

req said:


> sorry to distract.


No distraction, that is a good tip. I just use my rear view mirror as a reference as the image is at the same height.


----------



## Rs roms

fcarpio said:


> No distraction, that is a good tip. I just use my rear view mirror as a reference as the image is at the same height.


And i have placed a small sticker in the bottom of windshield. 

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk


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## req

thanks  

i dont like to use the rear view mirror because for me, it is better to have the depth to stage be nice and far. i also do not like the stage to feel above my head as the rear view is quite higher than eye level (im 6'2" btw).

so putting the CD on the dash lets me have a more eye level focal spot that is easy to adjust depth wise. it has more of a holographic look for me and i can use this trick without modifying any vehicle i sit in - and it automaticall fixes parallax error as well.

with the rear view mirror, parallax error on the foreground of the stage will make the rear-boundary of the stage pull way far left (in referring to the drivers seat). so putting the 'bullseye' in the middle of the front\back stage boundary is better for me focus wise.


----------



## Hanatsu

req said:


> i have NOT read this whole thread,
> 
> but here is a cheap and quick tip for people trying to look for the 'center' of the stage based on the physical center of the windshield but adding in *parallax error *from the driver seat angle that takes 2 seconds.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> put a CD on the dash in the physical middle. the reflection off the glass will give you a 'bullseye' to aim for
> 
> sorry to distract.


Good idea ^^


----------



## Luke/Peaandham

Hanatsu said:


> Don't use TrueRTA... get Rew working instead. What's wrong with it?


I finally got it working and now its taking meausrements. I find with Rew everytime I try to change the bounadaires the bloody thing keeps zooming in on me and wont zoom out fully, what settings do you guys use?


----------



## subterFUSE

Luke/Peaandham said:


> I finally got it working and now its taking meausrements. I find with Rew everytime I try to change the bounadaires the bloody thing keeps zooming in on me and wont zoom out fully, what settings do you guys use?


Yeah, that can happen sometimes. I usually have to be careful when using my trackpad on my MacBook Pro, because it's easy to accidentally zoom in or out.


----------



## Hanatsu

Luke/Peaandham said:


> I finally got it working and now its taking meausrements. I find with Rew everytime I try to change the bounadaires the bloody thing keeps zooming in on me and wont zoom out fully, what settings do you guys use?


Set the viewing range in "set graphs limits" in the top right corner.

20-20000Hz would probably be a good idea depending on what you measuring.


----------



## Luke/Peaandham

Did my first proper RTA on my own tonight, I measured left vs right and then adjusted them to bring them as close to one another as possible.


----------



## Kevin K

Did you measure with both sides playing? Would be interesting to see that graph with the above to see how in phase everything is.


----------



## fcarpio

Luke/Peaandham said:


> Did my first proper RTA on my own tonight, I measured left vs right and then adjusted them to bring them as close to one another as possible.


Just FYI, see that camera icon at the top left? You can click that and save a screenshot of the curve, then upload that into PhotoBucket.  Not that there is anything wrong with what you are doing but WE will be able to better read the text in your screen.

EDIT: By the way, there is a peak between these two frequencies (







) that you may want to tame a little.


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## fcarpio

Just kidding, I am referring to 3k and 4k but I hope you get the point.


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## Hanatsu

Pull down 200, 1200, 3500Hz by 5dB. Perhaps Q3-4 if you got PEQ.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## Alextaastrup

Just to mention - it might be usefull to use "A/B over" funktion in REW to see actual deviation between the channels.


----------



## Luke/Peaandham

How can you tell if its in phase by looking at the RTA?
Im assuming you would measure each set of speakers individual and see if the wave forms interfere with one another or whether they following the same line to put it simply? Im running full 3 way active.

This is what they looked like prior to eq'ing the left vs the right.



Then the obvious after.


Please keep in mind this is my first time doing an RTA.....

I am also using a P99 so I only have GEQ


----------



## Kevin K

Now do both sides playing and sweep the mic and post that graph with the left and right. With both sides playing, and if in phase, the amplitude should be about 3db higher roughly


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## subterFUSE

Luke/Peaandham said:


> How can you tell if its in phase by looking at the RTA?


You can use an RTA to determine if your speaker sets are generally in phase with each other at the crossover point. An RTA is not going to give you as much information as an Impulse Response, but it can still be useful to verify phase alignment between sets of drivers.

The focus is the range where the drivers are crossed-over. Good phase alignment will result in higher SPL in the crossover range. Poor phase alignment will give you lower SPL.

In the most basic example you would start off by making sure your tweeters are in-phase with themselves, and the mids are in-phase with themselves. Then you would play the speakers (midrange + tweeters) and measure the SPL while paying attention to the crossover region. Then you flip polarity of either both tweeters or both midrange, and measure again. Compare the SPL level between measurements in the crossover region. The combo with the best SPL support through the crossover region would be the "more in-phase."

I made a specific point to say "more in-phase" because phase is not as simple as yes or no, in or out. Think of phase in terms of angles in a circle. 360 degrees is a full rotation. Flipping polarity gives you either 0 degrees or 180 degrees angle adjustment. But the actual phase might be somewhere in between. So you might have an RTA measurement that shows better SPL support, but the actual phase angles could still be off somewhat. This is where time alignment can help. Time alignment can act like a frequency-dependent phase angle adjustment, but it can be adjusted in smaller increments than the 180 degrees by simply flipping polarity.




> Im assuming you would measure each set of speakers individual and see if the wave forms interfere with one another or whether they following the same line to put it simply?


Actually, you can't get any phase information on a single driver using a traditional RTA. You need Impulse Response for that. An RTA will only show you frequency and SPL. Impulse Response will give you more data, like timing and phase angle. Phase angle measurements in a car are REALLY tricky, though. There are so many early reflections in a car that the phase plots get very congested and difficult to read. It's hard to tell what's coming as direct sound and what are the reflections. One time I had some success using them in Room EQ Wizard, but most other times I never could get a clean reading.


----------



## Alextaastrup

Luke/P. Congratulations with your first RTA. Not bad at all, taking into account that a difference less 1,5dB is not audible for a normal ear.

Just one comment - please dip 3kHz a little bit (for both channels) and you might get afterwords more relax tonal balance.


----------



## Alextaastrup

Regarding phase problems in the car environment - according to vendor declaration, software till APL1 processor is able to solve small phase problems (up till 30 degrees). Acoustic Power Lab :: TDA. Could it be a solution?


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## Hanatsu

You can view if a driver is in or out of phase at the crossover point by measuring the speakers individually, then observe if they sum or null in the xover region by looking at the magnitude response. Looking at the overall FR of both drivers playing will not give you any meaningful data regarding phase really. As it as been previously mentioned, you need an IR to derive phase information. Noise/RTA won't do.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## Luke/Peaandham

Thanks for the advice guys, im hoping to get back on the RTA tonight.

You may be interested to know since ive started doing Sound Quality comps i've always struggled to get the intergration of 3 way right, I used to do well 2 way but since going 3 way I have always struggled to do well.

However on the weekend I travelled to a more expereince state and took out 2nd Place in the Expert class, and I have the advice of you guys to thanks for that aswell


----------



## Alextaastrup

Comfortable RTA:
Used to listen to music in the car 3-4 hours per day. Began to think over optimization of RTA, which could make sound more relaxing, less stressing, more pleasant to hear during many hours without being tired of. Are ther any logic in this thinking or it is just a bulshit from a man having already almost perfect sound in the car? 

I am thinking of some frequences, which should be corrected a little bit (2-4 dB), f.ex. I do not like 1-2 kHz, it sounds for my ears quite metallic. Don't like if sub is dominating and masking some information from other frequency ranges. On the other hand, too much high frequences might be unrealistic in performing reverberation effects of the records (meaning ambient reproduction: club, church, stadion, studio, big concert hall, etc.). Does all this have a meaning?


----------



## fcarpio

Alextaastrup said:


> Comfortable RTA:
> Used to listen to music in the car 3-4 hours per day. Began to think over optimization of RTA, which could make sound more relaxing, less stressing, more pleasant to hear during many hours without being tired of. Are ther any logic in this thinking or it is just a bulshit from a man having already almost perfect sound in the car?
> 
> I am thinking of some frequences, which should be corrected a little bit (2-4 dB), f.ex. I do not like 1-2 kHz, it sounds for my ears quite metallic. Don't like if sub is dominating and masking some information from other frequency ranges. On the other hand, too much high frequences might be unrealistic in performing reverberation effects of the records (meaning ambient reproduction: club, church, stadion, studio, big concert hall, etc.). Does all this have a meaning?


It sure does have a meaning. One thing many people do not mention is that we all hear different. For once I cannot hear much past 16k, so I boost that range to compensate. That may sound terrible to you but it sounds great to me. I think the house curve should only be a starting point to balance your system, the you can take it from there to make it sound the way you like. I have a set of somewhat fancy headphones (Shure) that I love the way they sound, so I RTA'd them to get their curve. As it turns out there is this thing called the "Shure Veil" that characterizes the Shure sound. I used that curve to model my car stereo sound with very impressive results. It deviates from the "common" house curve by a bit in some areas and by a lot in other areas but it sounds more pleasing to my ears. I think I have posted that result somewhere earlier in this thread.

EDIT: Never mind, I don't think I ever posted the curve of the Shure headphones.

Here is an RTA of the Shure headphones. This is not my image but this is the idea. I had to tame the peak but this sounded very nice in my truck. I don't run this curve anymore as I decided to create my own, which is basically a hybrid of this curve and a regular house curve.


----------



## fcarpio

Hanatsu said:


> Also, I would like to point out that, the left/right side relative EQ is really important. A full system FR-plot won't show how close the channels match, if you care for staging at all, this should be one of your top priorities. I use an template to set the starting point, so L/R measures somewhat similar, then I go by ear from there. I use correlated noise in the vocal range together with T/A to set the center.
> 
> _Here's midrange channels, separately after fine-tuning. This is how close the channels should be. It took a fair bit of EQ work to get it this close, used both the P99 and my HelixDSP for shape the response. The deviation beyond 1,5kHz is intended btw._


Hanatsu, is this a mid range only curve or is it a mid range and mid bass curve. It is very hard for me to get something like this in my two way system without compromising volume levels.


----------



## Hanatsu

Only part of the curve. It's the midranges only. I can reach 110dB or so in the midrange so output is not an issue. They are specced 15w continous but that's BS. The left side have a small null at 680Hz, other than that nothing. They ain't mounted in some crappy stock location so I guess that is a contributing factor.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## Hanatsu

Following any curve above 10-12kHz is not a good idea. Everything is directional there, you need a crapload of measurement points/angles to get proper results. It's easy to do by ear, I usually lower everything above 17kHz to zero (just lowpass it). I can't hear it, it just has the potential to degrade the sound as IMD products can form lower in frequency. Might not be a big issue but it's still meaningless to reproduce inaudible frequencies imo.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## Alextaastrup

Well known effect called PRESENCE - moves the vocal closer to listener (around 8 kHz) - should RTA be adjusted for it? Perhaps +1-3 dB?

Regarding overall hearing degradation - my ears - both  - are 56 years old. I also have problem listening over certain level (12-14 kHz) while using pure sinusoidal signal from generator. But when I adjust EQ in my headphones or in the car - difference is rather significant after dropping the range above 16 kHz. Hard to explain, maybe abberations?


----------



## Hanatsu

Alextaastrup said:


> Well known effect called PRESENCE - moves the vocal closer to listener (around 8 kHz) - should RTA be adjusted for it? Perhaps +1-3 dB?
> 
> Regarding overall hearing degradation - my ears - both  - are 56 years old. I also have problem listening over certain level (12-14 kHz) while using pure sinusoidal signal from generator. But when I adjust EQ in my headphones or in the car - difference is rather significant after dropping the range above 16 kHz. Hard to explain, maybe abberations?


Well unless it's a brickwall filter- dropping 16k will affect adjacent frequencies as well. Everything below Q10 at 16kHz will affect the range you hear. I hear 16,7k on my left ear and 16,4k on the right, been like that for 10 years now lol. Fortunately, there's very little content up there with most music - at least the music I listen to. If you got crappy tweeters with high amounts of non-linear distortion that propagates in the 15-16kHz range it can be extremely annoying since the level will high compared to the music content...

I also remember a pair of widebanders I had (some Tang-band drivers) which had a massive breakup at 18-20kHz and it induced enormous amounts of IMD. The distortion propagated in the 1-3kHz range giving them an unnatural edge with music that contained lots of HF-content (this is NOT common though). After I placed a notch at 18k, they suddenly sounded less colored. Theoretically high resolution audio (24/96) could be worse than a mp3 file in this aspect.


----------



## Hanatsu

Alextaastrup said:


> Comfortable RTA:
> Used to listen to music in the car 3-4 hours per day. Began to think over optimization of RTA, which could make sound more relaxing, less stressing, more pleasant to hear during many hours without being tired of. Are ther any logic in this thinking or it is just a bulshit from a man having already almost perfect sound in the car?
> 
> I am thinking of some frequences, which should be corrected a little bit (2-4 dB), f.ex. I do not like 1-2 kHz, it sounds for my ears quite metallic. Don't like if sub is dominating and masking some information from other frequency ranges. On the other hand, too much high frequences might be unrealistic in performing reverberation effects of the records (meaning ambient reproduction: club, church, stadion, studio, big concert hall, etc.). Does all this have a meaning?


Since I began messing with the APL software I learned that the common "RTA curves" like the ones in this thread doesn't apply. APL and RoomEQ gave me completely different results even with the same measurement method. What's interesting is that flat with APL software does not sound "flat" as it would if I tuned the system to measure flat in RoomEQ. Obviously APL collects and derives the curve in a completely different manner, it also corrects with FIR and not with IIR so that's a difference as well...

I'm getting a unit btw ^^


----------



## fcarpio

Alextaastrup said:


> Regarding overall hearing degradation - my ears - both  - are 56 years old.


I would be totally puzzled if one ear was older than the other.


----------



## Alextaastrup

You are right, perhaps the method of collecting information is rather different for APL method and REQ. RTA is just one point (or close to this) on the whole surface measured by APL by sweeping the mic. Did you try to imitate this surface with the mic during measurement with RoomEQ? Have you used the same microfon? I got some problems with calibrating of mine. Before correct calibration (used at the beginning generic cal. file from the cerificate?! supplied by the manufacturer) the results were simply owfull.

As I understood from Rajmond Skuruls, this method (APL) got a prise as the best innovation in 2007. There are some more information about awards on the vendor's homepage. 

Anyway, congratulations with this amazing unit.


----------



## fcarpio

Hanatsu said:


> Since I began messing with the APL software I learned that the common "RTA curves" like the ones in this thread doesn't apply. APL and RoomEQ gave me completely different results even with the same measurement method. What's interesting is that flat with APL software does not sound "flat" as it would if I tuned the system to measure flat in RoomEQ. Obviously APL collects and derives the curve in a completely different manner, it also corrects with FIR and not with IIR so that's a difference as well...
> 
> I'm getting a unit btw ^^


What is APL? Can you link up please?


----------



## fcarpio

This?

Acoustic Power Lab :: Home


----------



## Hanatsu

Alextaastrup said:


> You are right, perhaps the method of collecting information is rather different for APL method and REQ. RTA is just one point (or close to this) on the whole surface measured by APL by sweeping the mic. Did you try to imitate this surface with the mic during measurement with RoomEQ? Have you used the same microfon? I got some problems with calibrating of mine. Before correct calibration (used at the beginning generic cal. file from the cerificate?! supplied by the manufacturer) the results were simply owfull.
> 
> As I understood from Rajmond Skuruls, this method (APL) got a prise as the best innovation in 2007. There are some more information about awards on the vendor's homepage.
> 
> Anyway, congratulations with this amazing unit.


Yes, same method using noise/RTA (but it's not one point - it's spatial averaging). The averaging algorithm is completely different. I used a cal file, same mic - same everything... still differs. It doesn't matter anyway, there is no way I could replicate the inverse EQ filter it created into a normal DSP and get the same result.


----------



## Hanatsu

fcarpio said:


> This?
> 
> Acoustic Power Lab :: Home


Yes.


----------



## Hanatsu

The one I measured using "the normal method" (No EQ applied)



The one APL measured left side (without sub);



At 1kHz for example APL shows a dip, the other measurement shows a peak. Almost looks like the frequencies are offset or something, idk. You can't compare them right off either, because APL was set to match target response to flat. Take it with a grain of salt.

Long story short, I can make it sound great correcting with my "standard method". Imaging and tonality are both good. APL does the same job twice as good than any setting I can pull off, it stages better than my home system now (and this in my simplest, cheapest, "standard"-build). I admit I was a bit skeptical about it first but it's seriously the best auto EQ function (sorry I will simply be calling it that) I've ever come across. Not yet tried it out in my main build, hoping to do so this weekend.


----------



## fcarpio

Looks promising, please keep us up to date.


----------



## Alextaastrup

(Yes, same method using noise/RTA (but it's not one point - it's spatial averaging). 

It is actually what I ment when saying one point - spatial averaging based on the measurements around your head placement in the car (those 8 points), correct?


----------



## Hanatsu

No. I did it by the same method described by APL just to compare the averaging algorithm 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## Alextaastrup

Is it before or after EQ? 

What is rather positive, that APL method gives very good repeatibility (within few dB) despite the fact the under the measurements my mic has been moving quite different paths (used no more than 150 point).


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## Alextaastrup

Found in my archive this curve - optimal curve for Hi-Fi equipment by Bruel & Kjaer

http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd381/mitchatola/bandk.jpg


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## Hanatsu

For a home audio system that's probably a good one.

In a car we want about 10dB more output in the lower two octaves. 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## fcarpio

Alextaastrup said:


> Found in my archive this curve - optimal curve for Hi-Fi equipment by Bruel & Kjaer
> 
> http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd381/mitchatola/bandk.jpg


I much prefer a hump in the low end.


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## Alextaastrup

Yes, correct it was not for car audio. Bruel & Kjaer has used it for varification of the room loudspeakers. Environment of the room is much different from the car acoustics, not a surprise. That is why this curve is not interesting for us in a low frequency end. On the contrary - mid and high reagon looks very much like my present EQ preset in the car. Sounds great - especially talking how perfect it is in reproduction of the environment acoustic during the recording (echoes, reverberation, sceene depth). The only major difference is my EQ preset has a dip around 3 kHz. 

By the way - just for fun: my fron speakers at home (Snell EIII) have very similar to B&K curve and sound quite satisfactory.


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## stevemk07

FWIW, I tune my home theatre that way without ever seeing the same curve represented anywhere else.

In the car I have a higher bump from 30-275.... in my car they tuned all the noise from the car to being the 250-300 range or thereabouts so my bump is extended a little bit to compensate for all the noise in that particular region. Yeah.... about 10dB. Perhaps a little more between 30-80 but not much....

I also use no processing outside the stock Head Unit, just custom made crossovers... tweaked and tweaked until it sounds near perfect.


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## tjswarbrick

Finally got a laptop. Runs REW with UMIK-1 much more consistently than the desktop.

Took 3 measurements in each of 3 positions yesterday - approximately left ear, right ear, and nose; all facing forward horizontally.
Average looks like this:



Made a note to smooth frequencies I can control as follows:

80hz: +5dB
125Hz: +1dB
175Hz: +3dB
250Hz: -1dB
500Hz: +2dB
1kHz: Flat to -1dB
2kHz: Flat to + .5dB
8kHz: -1dB

Will make changes before leaving in the morning.
May not get to measure again for a few days...


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## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> Finally got a laptop. Runs REW with UMIK-1 much more consistently than the desktop.
> 
> Took 3 measurements in each of 3 positions yesterday - approximately left ear, right ear, and nose; all facing forward horizontally.
> Average looks like this:
> 
> 
> 
> Made a note to smooth frequencies I can control as follows:
> 
> 80hz: +5dB
> 125Hz: +1dB
> 175Hz: +3dB
> 250Hz: -1dB
> 500Hz: +2dB
> 1kHz: Flat to -1dB
> 2kHz: Flat to + .5dB
> 8kHz: -1dB
> 
> Will make changes before leaving in the morning.
> May not get to measure again for a few days...


Are the eq changes before or after you measured? *Based on the curve* I would make the following cuts.

175: -3db
250: -5 db
500: +1 db
2khz: -2 db
3khz: -4 db
4khz: - 5 db
8khz: -6 db


----------



## tjswarbrick

EQ changes are what I am doing this morning, after taking the above measurements. They are relative to where the settings already are.

Thanks for the guidance. Sadly, my EQ does not have controls at 3k or 4k. Jumps fro 2 to 8.
My passive crossover from mids to tweets is about 5kHz.
I can pad the tweeter down another 3dB if I remove the door panels again to access the crossovers, but frankly the highs already sound a tad recessed to me. So perhaps the optimal curve isn't optimal for me.
I could turn the sub gain up a hair to - relatively - step everything above that down - but I'm not sure how much good that'll do so I'll wait on that.

Current mid HP is ~ 120Hz at 24dB/oct, and sub LP is 80Hz at 12dB/oct. In-car, the crossover point appears to be right around 80Hz. Which makes that part a bit hard to tune. But bringing either the mids lower or sub higher causes a huge modal peak at 100Hz so it's the best compromise I can come up with.


----------



## Babs

sqnut said:


> Are the eq changes before or after you measured? *Based on the curve* I would make the following cuts.
> 
> 175: -3db
> 250: -5 db
> 500: +1 db
> 2khz: -2 db
> 3khz: -4 db
> 4khz: - 5 db
> 8khz: -6 db


Agreed.. Cut rather than add whenever it is at all possible to avoid adding.


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> EQ changes are what I am doing this morning, after taking the above measurements. They are relative to where the settings already are.
> 
> Thanks for the guidance. Sadly, my EQ does not have controls at 3k or 4k. Jumps fro 2 to 8.
> My passive crossover from mids to tweets is about 5kHz.
> I can pad the tweeter down another 3dB if I remove the door panels again to access the crossovers, but frankly the highs already sound a tad recessed to me. So perhaps the optimal curve isn't optimal for me.
> I could turn the sub gain up a hair to - relatively - step everything above that down - but I'm not sure how much good that'll do so I'll wait on that.
> 
> Current mid HP is ~ 120Hz at 24dB/oct, and sub LP is 80Hz at 12dB/oct. In-car, the crossover point appears to be right around 80Hz. Which makes that part a bit hard to tune. But bringing either the mids lower or sub higher causes a huge modal peak at 100Hz so it's the best compromise I can come up with.


At the bottom try and keep a matching xover for sub and mid. Try 60hz @ 24 db all round. A couple of db's bump at 100 vs 80 is desirable. Try turning down 125 by a couple of db and 175 as suggested. 

At the top end make sure you cut at 8khz and then play around with the cut at 2khz and 500hz.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Thanks guys, you're right.
My changes just made it sound midbass-heavy (a little chesty) on the first 3 totally unrelated tracks I heard this morning.

In my car, a hump at 80 or 100 takes away all definition in the lower registers - sounds thumpy and one-notey. Flat there is good, but I have no EQ below 125Hz on the fronts, and running 'em down to 100 causes a massive bump (and some door rattles at high volume.) So my best compromise, with this system, is to HP 'em higher than that. Bringing the sub up a little higher I can localize the low frequencies, and that is even more distracting. But I know I can do better, so I'll incorporate what I can from your advise above and report back. Regardless, it does sound very, very good - I'm just trying to perfect it as best I can with the tools and equipment at my disposal.


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## tjswarbrick

Set EQ to flat and tried again.
REW in RTA mode with 1/6th octave smoothing though uMic1 into Windows 8.1 laptop, with uncorrelated pink noise from a CD source.
Took 9 measurements around driver's headrest location: pointing up ~ 45 degrees, pointing forward, and pointing downward ~ 45 degrees. Left side, with balance set full left; right side with balance full right, and center with balance set to equal. First set I did just the fronts, followed by just the sub, and averaged the 18 readings.



I then applied just a touch of EQ, with the only boost being 1-2dB at 175. For this one I used the 9 positions, but full-range signal:



Sadly, I can't touch 200Hz except through 175 and 250. On some tracks I do hear a bit of excessive chestiness, warmth or thickness. But it blends well, midbass has impact and clarity, and mostly it sounds quite awesome.


----------



## sqnut

What are the frequencies you control?......NM scrolled up and saw it .


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## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> What are the frequencies you control?... .


Not Enough!


----------



## sqnut

Let's tighten up the mid bass and make it more snappy. Let's add a touch of clarity to the vocals and reduce the chesty sound of vocals.

Cut 80 by -1 
Cut 175 by - 1
Cut 250 by -3 this will reduce the chesty effect and reduce the bloat in the mid bass.

Are you cutting a lot at 500 and 1 khz? If so ease back on those cuts, if not raise a bit here. 500hz is good for vocal clarity. 1 khz is good for overall dynamics, for the snap in your midbass. So raise this range a bit.

Now cut in small increments of 0.5db at 8 khz. As you cut you will notice the sound getting cleaner and clearer while becoming less 'shouty'. Cut here till you get it sounding right. Typically 8khz is where you have to cut a fair bit.


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## tjswarbrick

sqnut said:


> Let's tighten up the mid bass and make it more snappy. Let's add a touch of clarity to the vocals and reduce the chesty sound of vocals.
> 
> Cut 80 by -1
> Cut 175 by - 1
> Cut 250 by -3 this will reduce the chesty effect and reduce the bloat in the mid bass.
> 
> Are you cutting a lot at 500 and 1 khz? If so ease back on those cuts, if not raise a bit here. 500hz is good for vocal clarity. 1 khz is good for overall dynamics, for the snap in your midbass. So raise this range a bit.
> 
> Now cut in small increments of 0.5db at 8 khz. As you cut you will notice the sound getting cleaner and clearer while becoming less 'shouty'. Cut here till you get it sounding right. Typically 8khz is where you have to cut a fair bit.


I forgot to say "Thank You!"

I had unknowingly been trying to "drown out" the problem areas by boosting nearby frequencies to match. 

Took your advice - cut about a dB at 8k, brought up 500 the tiniest bit and 1K a tiny bit more; reduced 175 and 250 a bit - then went in and did just a bit more. (It's not like I have an accurate readout for the boost/cut range - just little dials with -12 on one side and +12 on the other.) I also readjusted the sub gain to get a little plateau (showed about +6dB referenced to 500Hz). If I recall correctly, this allowed me to leave 80Hz where it was.
Haven't put the meter back on it, but wow, vocals are lifelike, bloat is gone, impact is tremendous (depending upon content), and I have never been so happy with a car stereo. It's still not up to the level I heard in Papasin's Civic or DRTHJTA - but considering the cost of my gear, and my (lack of) installation skill level, it more than exceeds my expectations.
But once the deadening is in place, things are secured properly, and everything's pointed in the right direction - it really is all about the tune.


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## Hanatsu

Sqnut - the online tuning 'Wiz' xD

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk


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## Aw335tt

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to tuning and I am wondering how you guys are connecting your laptop to the car to run Room eq wizard. 

My set up right now is.. Audison Bitplay going digital into PS8 then into my Zapco amp. How would I run REW to get measurements for my car? Any help is greatly appreciated.


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## subterFUSE

Aw335tt said:


> Hey guys, I'm fairly new to tuning and I am wondering how you guys are connecting your laptop to the car to run Room eq wizard.
> 
> My set up right now is.. Audison Bitplay going digital into PS8 then into my Zapco amp. How would I run REW to get measurements for my car? Any help is greatly appreciated.


You must route the audio from the sound card into the DSP. The exact connections and cable requirements will depend on your sound card, and the type of measurements you are taking.

For example, if you are just doing Frequency Response measurements then you only need a single cable from the sound card into the DSP.
But if you want to do Impulse Response with Loopback Timing Reference, then you will need to run 2 cables. 1 for the main signal, and 1 for the loopback.

For basic FR measurements without Loopback, you will need to use either a Y-cable (to feed both Left & Right inputs on the DSP) or use the Input Matrix in the DSP software to temporarily assign 1 input to all output channels.

For IR with Loopback Timing, you need to use 2 cables from the sound card into the DSP. In the Input Matrix you must set all of the channels that feed speakers to 1 input, and then use an extra output to send the Loopback into the sound card. In the Matrix that output must get assigned the other input.


Also, since you are using Digital in to the PS8 there are multiple options possible:

Option 1 - Get a sound card with an Optical output and use a PC to run REW. (Optical out won't work on the Mac version of REW)

Option 2 - Use the Analog inputs on the PS8.


----------



## Aw335tt

subterFUSE said:


> You must route the audio from the sound card into the DSP. The exact connections and cable requirements will depend on your sound card, and the type of measurements you are taking.
> 
> For example, if you are just doing Frequency Response measurements then you only need a single cable from the sound card into the DSP.
> But if you want to do Impulse Response with Loopback Timing Reference, then you will need to run 2 cables. 1 for the main signal, and 1 for the loopback.
> 
> For basic FR measurements without Loopback, you will need to use either a Y-cable (to feed both Left & Right inputs on the DSP) or use the Input Matrix in the DSP software to temporarily assign 1 input to all output channels.
> 
> For IR with Loopback Timing, you need to use 2 cables from the sound card into the DSP. In the Input Matrix you must set all of the channels that feed speakers to 1 input, and then use an extra output to send the Loopback into the sound card. In the Matrix that output must get assigned the other input.
> 
> 
> Also, since you are using Digital in to the PS8 there are multiple options possible:
> 
> Option 1 - Get a sound card with an Optical output and use a PC to run REW. (Optical out won't work on the Mac version of REW)
> 
> Option 2 - Use the Analog inputs on the PS8.


Thank you for your reply, that illustration was very helpful. Is there any sound cards you recommend, that won't break the bank, and will get the job done.


----------



## subterFUSE

Aw335tt said:


> Thank you for your reply, that illustration was very helpful. Is there any sound cards you recommend, that won't break the bank, and will get the job done.


I don't know if they are still available or not, but the Behringer UCA222 is a good and inexpensive USB sound card. $30 I think?
It does not have a mic input, however. So you would need either a USB microphone or a mic preamp and some adapter cables.


I'm using a Behringer FCA610, personally. I got that card because it has everything I wanted in one box: 2 Mic inputs with phantom power, Digital inputs and outputs, fully adjustable gains on each input.


If you plan to do IR with Loopback Timing, the USB microphones won't with REW for that purpose. You must have a standard microphone for the Loopback Timing. You will also need an SPL meter to calibrate the levels if you have a standard mic. USB mics come pre-calibrated.


----------



## Aw335tt

subterFUSE said:


> I don't know if they are still available or not, but the Behringer UCA222 is a good and inexpensive USB sound card. $30 I think?
> It does not have a mic input, however. So you would need either a USB microphone or a mic preamp and some adapter cables.
> 
> 
> I'm using a Behringer FCA610, personally. I got that card because it has everything I wanted in one box: 2 Mic inputs with phantom power, Digital inputs and outputs, fully adjustable gains on each input.
> 
> 
> If you plan to do IR with Loopback Timing, the USB microphones won't with REW for that purpose. You must have a standard microphone for the Loopback Timing. You will also need an SPL meter to calibrate the levels if you have a standard mic. USB mics come pre-calibrated.


Thank you for the recommendations, I will look into it. I really want to go 3 way, might just hold off on all this REW stuff till after.


----------



## Alias essSQuee

sqnut said:


> Let's tighten up the mid bass and make it more snappy. Let's add a touch of clarity to the vocals and reduce the chesty sound of vocals.
> 
> Cut 80 by -1
> Cut 175 by - 1
> Cut 250 by -3 this will reduce the chesty effect and reduce the bloat in the mid bass.
> 
> Are you cutting a lot at 500 and 1 khz? If so ease back on those cuts, if not raise a bit here. 500hz is good for vocal clarity. 1 khz is good for overall dynamics, for the snap in your midbass. So raise this range a bit.
> 
> Now cut in small increments of 0.5db at 8 khz. As you cut you will notice the sound getting cleaner and clearer while becoming less 'shouty'. Cut here till you get it sounding right. Typically 8khz is where you have to cut a fair bit.


This is how I have done my EQ curve for years in the upper bass, lower midrange. The vocal clarity is improved by doing this and it works wonders to make a system sound clean. It even helps a listener's ability to hear more sounds in the mix (at least for me it does). 

Your recommendation, IMO, is one of the best ones to recommend to people for EQ curves.


----------



## Kevin K

Here is my latest RTA. Opinions, suggestions welcome. Of course the ear is final judge but you can tell a bit from RTA so I consider this listening from a distance.








Thanks.


----------



## sqnut

tjswarbrick said:


> I forgot to say "Thank You!"
> 
> I had unknowingly been trying to "drown out" the problem areas by boosting nearby frequencies to match.
> 
> Took your advice - cut about a dB at 8k, brought up 500 the tiniest bit and 1K a tiny bit more; reduced 175 and 250 a bit - then went in and did just a bit more. (It's not like I have an accurate readout for the boost/cut range - just little dials with -12 on one side and +12 on the other.) I also readjusted the sub gain to get a little plateau (showed about +6dB referenced to 500Hz). If I recall correctly, this allowed me to leave 80Hz where it was.
> Haven't put the meter back on it, but wow, vocals are lifelike, bloat is gone, impact is tremendous (depending upon content), and I have never been so happy with a car stereo. It's still not up to the level I heard in Papasin's Civic or DRTHJTA - but considering the cost of my gear, and my (lack of) installation skill level, it more than exceeds my expectations.
> But once the deadening is in place, things are secured properly, and everything's pointed in the right direction - it really is all about the tune.


Just saw this one. If tuning is beginning to make sense on the DQ then you owe it to yourself to get a proper dsp. The distance you've come is a fraction of whats possible when you use a full blown dsp. The span of control and the resolution is what it takes to get the car sounding really good. That and about 10,000 hours of tuning. Learning to tune by ear once you're done measuring, can take your sound to a different level.


----------



## tjswarbrick

Thanks sqnut. Saving that for my next build. Coming soon!


----------



## Aw335tt

Alias essSQuee said:


> This is how I have done my EQ curve for years in the upper bass, lower midrange. The vocal clarity is improved by doing this and it works wonders to make a system sound clean. It even helps a listener's ability to hear more sounds in the mix (at least for me it does).
> 
> Your recommendation, IMO, is one of the best ones to recommend to people for EQ curves.


+1 on this. I cut those frequencies yesterday, after reading this thread. The improvement in sound is very noticeable and, it gave me better imaging, as well.


----------



## tjswarbrick

New car. Proper DSP (DA3.) Just getting started.

Black curve is the average of summing all 7 drivers' nearfield responses (taken with all channels driven, but UMIK-1 about an inch from each respective cone.)

Red curve is a single measurement taken from the middle of where my head goes while driving.



Not bad, except the peak at 55Hz is a bit excessive, and the dip at 80 is ridiculous. Electrical crossover is set at 60LP on sub and 70 HP on MB's. Installer noted that even without a sub the MB's are terribly strong to 50 no matter where he set the high-pass between 40 and 100.
Going to work on midbass to sub time-alignment when I get some time, then confirm midbasses are working as a team. If I can tune out the 80 Hz cancellation I can probably better deal with the 55Hz peak.

Here's how that transition looks up close, right MB and sub measured individually in nearfield and summed - but again, all drivers were playing full-range test signal (REW.)



Where's the acoustic crossover???

Yes, I'm going to measure again with individual drivers driven and rest turned off - but not tonight.

Here's how the right MB, mid, and tweet play out - much better:


Funny how the upper acoustic crossover is around 2200Hz. Electrically, it's currently set for 18dB/oct 3500Hz LP on mid, and 12dB/oct 4000Hz HP to tweet.

I should mention that it sounds open, spacious, detailed, and tonally quite good except for some tubiness in the bass. Punchy, clean, and sweet with just a tad of brightness when I turn in up LOUD. Quite a bit less cardboardy and closed-in than when the electrical mid-to-tweet crossover was symmetrical 12dB/oct at 2500Hz (with a big cut at 7200.)


----------



## Alextaastrup

Really funny, but I will recommend to move upper acoustic crossover away from the region 1-3 kHz with the biggest sensivity according to the equal-loudness contours are often referred to as Fletcher-Munson curves.

Mine is about 5 kHz in the present setup.









As one can see - no any phase problem within the range 1-4 kHz.


----------



## sqnut

Alextaastrup said:


> Really funny, but I will recommend to move upper acoustic crossover away from the region 1-3 kHz with the biggest sensivity according to the equal-loudness contours are often referred to as Fletcher-Munson curves.
> 
> Mine is about 5 kHz in the present setup.
> 
> View attachment 94321
> 
> 
> As one can see - no any phase problem within the range 1-4 kHz.


Just because our hearing is most sensitive in the 2-4 khz range, hence we shouldn't cross over in this range, is a myth. Yes our ears are very sensitive in this range, but if you're hearing issues crossing in this range, it's most likely an eq/slope issue, or to a lesser degree a TA issue. 

An acoustic xover of 5 khz on a two way+sub is going to kill the stage height, apart from requiring a ton of eq to manage beaming. Easier to tune and sounds better when you keep the drivers largely within their omni pass band.


----------



## Alextaastrup

Agree, but my present setup is 3-way with the crossover points at 500 and 5000 Hz.

Beaming problem is settled with the help of the APL Workshop soft by 2 consequent measurements (total and direct). Corrections below 1 kHz are set to nul, above this they are within 2-3 dB for both left and right channels.


----------



## Alextaastrup

How much time usually has been used to tune a car? I spent a lot in the past using different DSPs, incl. one with Imprint from Alpine. I will present my present RTA. It took to me only 1 hour (to test, calculate, upload the target curve and recheck to confirm the results). Another half an hour to make the additional test to solve the problems with beaming of the mids and tweeters. That's it. Of course - some days after tuning - to listen to different music genres, vocal pieces, applauds, various musical instruments with the focus on brass group, which is of great importance to me. I am quite satisfied with this result and have no intention to change it, but any suggestions and recommendations are very welcome.

Here is result of my last tuning:








Why I have chosen this target curve? I was happy with it in my previous install. It sounds rich, dynamic but velvet at the same time, many details and no masking. I was recommended this curve after it proved to be a really good one. 2 first places at EMMA Eurofinals in 2014 with this RTA + best sounded car in 2013 (EMMA final in 2013). Quite impressive, I might say. But my car is not for the competitions. I use it 4-5 times per day listening different music (mostly jazz, big bands, funk, classical, etc.). What I have noticed - with this RTA I've never been tired despite quite high volume.


----------



## strohw

Little necro

Took almost a year of playing around but I've found a curve I'm quite happy with so I thought I'd share. System is 10" sub - 8" mid bass - 3" full range. 

It's a mish mash of a few popular curves. Only 5.5db of roll off in the top end but enough cut in the 2-4k area to allow you to listen to things are high volume. For more critical listening I'd do a 5db transition between 20hz and 50hz instead of the 7db listed. 

20 0
50 -7
100 -11.5
200 -16.5
1000 -18
1600 -18.5
2000 -19.5
3000 -22.5
4000 -21
5000 -21.5
8000 -22
12000 -23
16000 -23.5


----------



## fcarpio

strohw said:


> Little necro
> 
> Took almost a year of playing around but I've found a curve I'm quite happy with so I thought I'd share. System is 10" sub - 8" mid bass - 3" full range.
> 
> It's a mish mash of a few popular curves. Only 5.5db of roll off in the top end but enough cut in the 2-4k area to allow you to listen to things are high volume. For more critical listening I'd do a 5db transition between 20hz and 50hz instead of the 7db listed.
> 
> 20 0
> 50 -7
> 100 -11.5
> 200 -16.5
> 1000 -18
> 1600 -18.5
> 2000 -19.5
> 3000 -22.5
> 4000 -21
> 5000 -21.5
> 8000 -22
> 12000 -23
> 16000 -23.5


Have you done a sweep of this curve? I would like to see what it looks like as it is the most "different" house curve I have seen. Mine is pretty much constant from 1k up, but I need to taper it down a bit in the upper range, I just have not gotten around to do it.


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## strohw

fcarpio said:


> Have you done a sweep of this curve? I would like to see what it looks like as it is the most "different" house curve I have seen. Mine is pretty much constant from 1k up, but I need to taper it down a bit in the upper range, I just have not gotten around to do it.


Here you go.

This was my last sweep I saved. Only difference is the 900-1k area was brought down 1db. Please note the scale on the left. Finally, this is after everything was level matched using band limited pink noise from 100hz on up. There may look like there are peaks in places but they sum to center.


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## Majik

I'll play along. I just read through some of this thread and took a quick measurement with my phone mic (LG G2) and AudioTool. This is a brand new install. No subs yet...just started a rear deck IB for 2 IDMAX 15s. This measurement is just the front stage...2 way active.

I spent several hours experimenting with crossover points and level setting. This is what I've found sounds the best in this vehicle. 

Processing via Eclipse CD7200 MKII
Image Dynamics XS69 mids. HP 80(12dB) & LP 3.15k (24dB)
Boston Acoustics Pro60 tweeters - HP 3.15k (24dB)

Right off the bat, I had huge peaks at 250 Hz and 8khz. I cut both of these as much as my PEQ would allow for, both with a very narrow Q, and based the rest of the adjustments around these results. I also boosted 3.15k about 3db with a medium Q as there was a notable valley regardless of crossover settings. Any other adjustments were cuts.

Not sure how accurate the phone mic is. For some reason my Dayton iMM6 doesn't work in the LG G2. The levels drop to 0 dB as soon as I plug it in. I don't know. It works with my last phone. 

* I do not have independent EQ of the L & R channels
* Time alignment fairly good. Some times it wanders left a bit.
* 60 second averages...20 seconds moving around each ear and 20 seconds sweeping mic around my head/face area

Open to suggestions on the tune from the veterans!


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## strohw

What does your Eclipse allow you to do crossover/eq wise? Hopefully you can get your imm6 working.


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## Majik

strohw said:


> What does your Eclipse allow you to do crossover/eq wise? Hopefully you can get your imm6 working.


Yeah, like I said, the iMM6 worked with my last phone and when I compared it to the phone mic, the results were within +/- 1-2dB from 100Hz-16k. The iMM6 gives more resolution above and below these frequencies but the phone mic is fairly accurate within the bandwidth that I'm concerned about right now, which is what my screen shot shows.

11-band PEQ with selectable frequencies and adjustable Q factor. 5 bands for mid + 5 bands for highs + 1 band for lows. For mids and highs I can assign any of the following frequencies to any band.

63, 80, 100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 315, 400, 500, 630, 800, 1 k, 1.25 k, 1.6 k, 2 k, 2.5 k, 3.15 k, 4 k, 5 k, 6.3 k, 8 k, 10 k, 12.5 k, 16 k

For the low EQ (which is irrelevant until I get the subs installed) I only have 1 band of EQ and can choose any of the following:

20, 25, 31.5, 40, 50, 63, 80, 100, 125, 160, 200, 250

Q curve pattern changes in the following order but the exact Q factor is not specified.

WIDE ↔ Mid WIDE ↔ NORMAL ↔Mid NARROW ↔ NARROW


Crossover is pretty flexible:

M-LPF/Hi:

200 Hz ↔ 250 Hz ↔ 315 Hz ↔ 400 Hz ↔ 500 Hz ↔ 630 Hz ↔ 800 Hz ↔ 1kHz ↔ 1.25kHz ↔ 1.6 kHz ↔ 2 kHz ↔ 2.5 kHz ↔ 3.15 kHz ↔ 4kHz ↔ 5kHz ↔ 6.3 kHz ↔ 8kHz ↔ 10 kHz

M-HPF/Low:

20 Hz ↔ 25 Hz ↔ 31.5 Hz ↔ 40 Hz ↔ 50 Hz ↔ 63 Hz ↔ 80 Hz ↔ 100 Hz ↔ 125 Hz ↔ 160Hz ↔ 200 Hz


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## Majik

Just did a little more tweaking. I tried to get a little more midbass, so I boosted 100 Hz +3 dB with a "Mid NARROW" Q. Yes, I have more midbass presence and it sounds better to me, but I'm a little uncomfortable with boosting the most demanding frequency in the midrange's passband (power-wise).

I also increased 4k +2 and 6k +1 to level out the top end a bit. I'd like to reduce 8k a little but I ran out of cutting capabilities with my existing EQ. 8k is already at -9db!

This is a 1/6 Octave measurement. Suggestions?


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## strohw

Your current curve with a pretty basic curve overlay. I would cut 1khz with a narrow Q about 1db to 1.5db, remove 1db to 1.5db out of that 3.15khz boost you added and then do my best to fit 125-400hz to red curve. Either through eq or crossover changes. If the Q on the narrow filter is around 3 like an Alpine then I would change the q on the 3.15khz boost to narrow instead of medium.

Your lack of midbass is probably an issue with the 150-400hz range drastically overshadowing it. If you can cut that area back you probably won't need much of a boost at 100hz. Maybe try a 200hz wide Q cut then add back in areas it cuts too much.


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## Majik

strohw said:


> I would cut 1khz with a narrow Q about 1db to 1.5db, remove 1db to 1.5db out of that 3.15khz boost you added and then do my best to fit 125-400hz to red curve. Either through eq or crossover changes. If the Q on the narrow filter is around 3 like an Alpine then I would change the q on the 3.15khz boost to narrow instead of medium.
> 
> Your lack of midbass is probably an issue with the 150-400hz range drastically overshadowing it. If you can cut that area back you probably won't need much of a boost at 100hz. Maybe try a 200hz wide Q cut then add back in areas it cuts too much.[/IMG]


I'd love to be able to try all that you mentioned, but I only have 5 bands of EQ for the entire midrange. I had to get creative to achieve (close to) your suggestion. I pulled 300 down quite a bit with a wide Q but this reduced 500hz a lot, so I had to boost 500hz + 5db to bring it back up to the baseline. 

With such a limited amount of processing, this is the best I could come up with, right now at least. The mid-upper midrange aligns to your overlay pretty well but I haven't figured out how to tame 200-250 hz any further than it already is. Remember, 250 is already down by 9db, which is the limit of my the CD7200. So 200-250 and 8k are pretty concrete in their placement. There isn't much else that I can do with them

I threw your overlay on the new measurement to make is easier to see the changes.


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## strohw

How do you think it sounds right now? Is it better or worse than what you had prior?


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## Majik

Now we're getting somewhere. It took a few sessions to get this response but the sound is much improved...more natural and delicate; certainly more detailed. It sounded a little subdued to me so I bumped 4khz intentionally and I like the overall sound quite a bit. I think the dip at 80-ish hz is cancellation at the crossover point. Not sure what I can do to fix it. The peak at 160 is a challenge too since I'm out of EQ channels. Kind wish I had more kick in the 100-125 region but overall it sounds beautiful.

I used subtractive EQ only on the mids, whereas the tweeters needed some boosting and cutting. 

strohw's target curve overlayed

(obviously the mic I'm using rolls off in the lower frequencies, so no detail down there.


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## strohw

Pic isn't showing up


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## Majik

Strange. I see it. I'll try again:


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## Majik

I uploaded to a 3rd party. This should work.








[/URL]


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## strohw

Looks pretty good overall. I'm sure you'll tweak it here and there to get it even closer to your preference. If you get around to adding a dsp then you can make even bigger strides.


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## fcarpio

strohw said:


> Little necro
> 
> Took almost a year of playing around but I've found a curve I'm quite happy with so I thought I'd share. System is 10" sub - 8" mid bass - 3" full range.
> 
> It's a mish mash of a few popular curves. Only 5.5db of roll off in the top end but enough cut in the 2-4k area to allow you to listen to things are high volume. For more critical listening I'd do a 5db transition between 20hz and 50hz instead of the 7db listed.
> 
> 20 0
> 50 -7
> 100 -11.5
> 200 -16.5
> 1000 -18
> 1600 -18.5
> 2000 -19.5
> 3000 -22.5
> 4000 -21
> 5000 -21.5
> 8000 -22
> 12000 -23
> 16000 -23.5


I see what you did here, you started with your higher number at 0. If I add 18 to all the numbers you have I end up with pretty much my current house curve (Andy W - JBL).


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## strohw

fcarpio said:


> I see what you did here, you started with your higher number at 0. If I add 18 to all the numbers you have I end up with pretty much my current house curve (Andy W - JBL).


Andy's house curve is flat 160hz-3khz and then rolls off to about [email protected] Mine is 1.5db down at 1khz and 6db down at 3khz then picks up a little to maintain a similar roll off. They should sound quite different. 

Andy's 20hz-200hz is good and his overall roll off of the highs is good at 6db but it starts too late for me. I need the midrange down a little and the 2-4khz range down at least 4-6db from 200hz.


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## fcarpio

strohw said:


> Andy's 20hz-200hz is good and his overall roll off of the highs is good at 6db but it starts too late for me. I need the midrange down a little and the 2-4khz range down at least 4-6db from 200hz.


I have noticed that and I like the way it sounds, but I am going to try pulling the roll off a little back and see what I get (just for ****s and giggles).


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## captainobvious

Curious...when you guys are tuning to these curves, are you arriving at that curve after you're done tuning and by doing a spacially averaged measurement? Because using a single stationary mic you may be hearing (and arriving at) something different than what you think you are tuning to.


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## captainobvious

Here is a nice base curve to work from. Make sure you pay close attention to the SCALE for freq and output relative to the whole curve... There is about a 22.5db difference between the loudest point on the graph (20hz) and the softest point (20khz). If you have questions, let me know.






Once you get it tuned here, you can make a few easy adjustments for your preference.

(With standard 1/3 octave EQ and standard Q slope...)
Want a little more top end detail? Add +1db at 10k, +1.5db at 12.5k, +2db at 16K, +3db at 20k.

Want a little more refined midbass? Drop 80hz, 100hz and 125hz by 1db-2db.

Drop 1.2k by 1.5db.


Use spacial averages in the head listening space and make sure you match the left and right side response as closely as possible to the curve and more importantly- to each other. That will put you on the right track to some good sound.


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## Babs

captainobvious said:


> Here is a nice base curve to work from. Make sure you pay close attention to the SCALE for freq and output relative to the whole curve... There is about a 22.5db difference between the loudest point on the graph (20hz) and the softest point (20khz). If you have questions, let me know.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Once you get it tuned here, you can make a few easy adjustments for your preference.
> 
> (With standard 1/3 octave EQ and standard Q slope...)
> Want a little more top end detail? Add +1db at 10k, +1.5db at 12.5k, +2db at 16K, +3db at 20k.
> 
> Want a little more refined midbass? Drop 80hz, 100hz and 125hz by 1db-2db.
> 
> Drop 1.2k by 1.5db.
> 
> 
> Use spacial averages in the head listening space and make sure you match the left and right side response as closely as possible to the curve and more importantly- to each other. That will put you on the right track to some good sound.


Wish I could "stickie" a post.. This one is epic. Copying to my own notes.


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## strohw

captainobvious said:


> Curious...when you guys are tuning to these curves, are you arriving at that curve after you're done tuning and by doing a spacially averaged measurement? Because using a single stationary mic you may be hearing (and arriving at) something different than what you think you are tuning to.


I assume most people who use a standard RTA do an averaged high sample sweep and most people who use REW use averaged samples per ear.

The curve you posted is very very close to the JBL curve. Only about 1db different in a few spots.


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## captainobvious

Here is the curve with some of the modifications mentioned. It's a very solid curve.

My "Mod Curve".


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## Babs

I did a little rubbing and massaging in jazzi's spreadsheet and came up with:

Frequency	Captain
20	15
25	14.5
31	13.5
40	12.5
50	11.25
63	9.5
80	7.75
100	6.25
125	4.75
160	3.5
200	2.5
250	1.75
315	1.25
400	0.8
500	0.5
630	0.25
800	0.15
1000	0.1
1200	0
1600	0
2000	-0.1
2500	-0.2
3100	-0.3
4000	-0.4
5000	-0.6
6300	-0.8
8000	-1.3
10000 -1.8
12000 -2.5
16000 -3.2
20000 -4

Dunno how far off that is, but I think I tend to migrate towards a slightly flatter curve with similar slope. 

I think I'll try to mate up to it.. I guess the appropriate means would be:
1. EQ left side to the curve
2. EQ right side to the curve
3. EQ all to the curve

Would be a good exercise in any case because I'll see if I have any transitional phase issues left between tweet/mid/midbass/sub at least at the side levels.. Granted things get funky like a monkey anyway when you combine left and right, even when timed well and in phase.. Gotta love the car environment.


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## strohw

I do steps 1 and 2 but then I do band limited pink noise from 100hz to 16khz to center the image. Then I go back through and check differences in right vs left to re-evaluate and make sure things look like they sound. Once that's done I try my best to raise/lower left and right to maintain both curve and center imagine since I'm on PEQ not GEP. 

I'll use high sample averages in RTA mode mainly for midbass areas where one side may have a large boost over the other mainly from cabin modes. They center but it's hard to tell at what output level. One side could be +5db over another in the 150hz area but they sum to center and to the curve so I consider that correct.


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## Babs

strohw said:


> I do steps 1 and 2 but then I do band limited pink noise from 100hz to 16khz to center the image. Then I go back through and check differences in right vs left to re-evaluate and make sure things look like they sound. Once that's done I try my best to raise/lower left and right to maintain both curve and center imagine since I'm on PEQ not GEP.
> 
> I'll use high sample averages in RTA mode mainly for midbass areas where one side may have a large boost over the other mainly from cabin modes. They center but it's hard to tell at what output level. One side could be +5db over another in the 150hz area but they sum to center and to the curve so I consider that correct.


Yep sounds fairly consistent to what I've attempted to keep myself adhering to.. Stay as close to straight up 1/3 octave 31 band through the driver EQ portion, then after 1/3 octave pink noise work as you mentioned, switch to parametric for the few strategic cuts for the final curve, knocking down the bumps. 

There's Kyle's method of individual drivers, then L/R pairs, then 1/3 centering, then group. Then we now have what we're talking about here.. Individual drivers, then sides from top down, then balance sides, then centering, then group. I guess there's more than one way to skin a cat. 

Isn't it interesting though you can have left side and right side beautifully overlapping when plotted individually, then when you play together the modes and reflections rear their ugly heads on the graph. My midbass drivers can have a nicely EQ'd balance then when together even after verifying TA and phase, the bottom falls out of 160hz.


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## captainobvious

Babs said:


> I think I'll try to mate up to it.. I guess the appropriate means would be:
> 1. EQ left side to the curve
> 2. EQ right side to the curve
> 3. EQ all to the curve


EQ one side to the curve and then EQ the other side to match the already adjusted side and fine tune to get them both as close as possible.
After that, then adjust BOTH sides together to make tonality adjustments without adversely affecting left vs right.


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## Babs

captainobvious said:


> EQ one side to the curve and then EQ the other side to match the already adjusted side and fine tune to get them both as close as possible.
> After that, then adjust BOTH sides together to make tonality adjustments without adversely affecting left vs right.


Right.. forgot that method.. Hanatsu once told me the same thing. 
Side A to curve.
Side B to A
Both sides to Curve
Left = Right = Curve

I imagine it's iterative process too.. working each side back and forth a bit to make them conform to each other and to the curve.



Ah just thought of a question here.. So looking at left side for example and need cuts in several places.. 

Will you _*link*_ Left tweet/mid/midbass and do the cut to all, _*or isolate*_ in individual driver by itself for the cut at a given frequency.. Such as mid only for cutting at 500hz? I'd imagine if the drivers are linked, there's less EQ induced phase stuff happening since the filter is the same on all three, even if way outside their pass band.. Did I just stumble on something there?


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## truckguy

In rew rta mode settings what do you guys use for FFT length, window , max overlap and etc?


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## Babs

truckguy said:


> In rew rta mode settings what do you guys use for FFT length, window , max overlap and etc?


That's actually an excellent question.. Notice if you're in "RTA" mode, it's flatter than if in "Spectrum" mode. If memory serves correctly I have 75% overlap if that's correct, in 1/12 RTA mode. Rest is default I think. The rest I think mainly affect time and cumulation, but the one that affects the slope of the plot is whether you choose an RTA mode or a Spectrum mode, be it 1/3, 1/6, 1/12, etc.


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## naiku

Here is how mine currently looks:










I think the dip around 500Hz is my fault, as in I think I may have fat fingered one of the crossover settings on my mids.


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## truckguy

Babs said:


> That's actually an excellent question.. Notice if you're in "RTA" mode, it's flatter than if in "Spectrum" mode. If memory serves correctly I have 75% overlap if that's correct, in 1/12 RTA mode. Rest is default I think. The rest I think mainly affect time and cumulation, but the one that affects the slope of the plot is whether you choose an RTA mode or a Spectrum mode, be it 1/3, 1/6, 1/12, etc.


I take my initial measurements in rta 1/48. If you use any of the rta slopes You need to have the Adjust RTA Levels selected. I have no idea if the rest of my options are correct which is why I'm asking. What is Use 64-bit FFT used for? I don't have it selected. 

FFT 65536
Averages Forever
Window Hann
Max overlap 87.5
Update Interval 1


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## Justin Zazzi

truckguy said:


> In rew rta mode settings what do you guys use for FFT length, window , max overlap and etc?


I'm going to quote something I wrote earlier about this, so I apologize if it is not exactly perfectly answering your question.



Jazzi said:


> There is nothing magical about "professional" pink noise. In fact, most pink noise is not very useful because it is not periodic so you have to wait for a very long time in order to get a reasonable average over time.
> 
> Try this instead.
> 
> Download Room EQ Wizard. It's free. Open it up, click on the "Generator" button in the top toolbar. Choose "Pink PN" from the drop down menu, "full range" from the buttons underneath, set an RMS level of zero, and make a note of the sequence length (I think it's 65,536 by default. Click that WAV button and save the file anywhere on your computer.
> 
> Boom. Done. 60 seconds of proper pink noise for anyone to use. You could stop here, but it gets better.
> 
> In REW, open the RTA window and then click on the gear in the top-right corner to access some settings. Make sure Mode is set to one of the RTA options like 1/48 Octave. Smoothing should be greyed out when you're done here. FFT Length needs to match the sequence length of the periodic pink noise you generated earlier (if you forgot it's the first number of the file name). Averages should be none. Window needs to be rectangular. The last two options Overlap and Interval and your choice.
> 
> Play that periodic pink noise and turn on that RTA module. The graph will update *perfectly* every time without any need to average tons of samples over time. You can still use spatial averaging to average many samples over a 3D space near your head if you like though, just change the Averages from None to Infinite and do as much as you like.
> 
> If you have some spare time and want to know why this "periodic" thing is so cool, you can watch the video below to see how it works. It's not super technical and should be easy to understand, but it is a little on the long side.


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## elijahscott

Thought id bring back this great thread with some of my rew graphs.


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## Alextaastrup

Do not forget to make a little dip about 3khz

Sendt fra min SM-G960F med Tapatalk


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