# - - A Mini Tuning Guide for the Active User - -



## mvw2

*Overview*

I'm writing this as a basic setup guide for people running active.
This guide is just my particular way of tuning a system. It is not an end-all, just my humble aproach

*Coverage*

Driver balance
EQ balance
Time alignment
Stage balance
Subwoofer integration

*Driver Balance*
When pairing two or more drivers together, it is important to get an initial balance between each driver to account for the relative sensitivity differences that exist. You can generally start off with a rough guess using manufacturer specs, but you can work on the fly as well. This can be done listening to music and balancing out the relative intensity so neither overwhelms the other or via test tones or my preferred pink noise. I've come to love pink noise quite a bit and pretty much use it exclusively for tuning. This guide will follow my little route for tuning, so I will focus on pink noise use exclusively. It doesn't have to be pink noise, but, for me, it works very, very well.

Approach driver balance one side at a time. Set balance all the way to the left or right only so you're working with just one set of speakers. This makes things easier. I will follow the same approach later with EQing. Run the right speakers only. Play the pink noise track. Adjust relative output between the woofer and tweeter till both have the same relative intensity. Now run the left speakers only and balance relative intensity. Realize at this point, we are not really EQing the speakers. We are just getting a good starting point where the woofer and tweeter aren't too far off from each other. At this point, I won't bother with the subwoofer yet. I suggest focusing on the front stage only till it's finished. Then the subwoofer can be integrated in from there.

*EQ Balance*
Now that we have a rough starting point, we can come in and fine tune the response across the entire frequency spectrum. Now this step will be approached in several ways depending on what type and level of EQing you have. The setup from here will depend on if you are running a parametric or graphic and if you have separate left and right EQ control. I have a personal preference towards graphic of about 10 bands or more and have become very fond of seperate left and right EQing ability. I'll explain the differences as we go through this. Again, adjust so only the right side plays, and again play the pink noise track. 

For the graphic EQ folks, simply run through each band and raise or lower the level to get a flat response. No band should overpower another and every frequency range should sound equal in intensity. No band should stand out or be lacking. Take your time with this and run through each band a few times till you feel it's good. Once you're done, move over to the left pair of speakers only and repeat. Write down on paper the curve you made for each side.

For the parametric EQ folks, you'll need to do the same approach but since yours are adjustable, it would be best to test and record bumps or cuts as you test each frequency point but don't set anything in stone yet. Get a full list of what you did and if you only have a few parametric points, pick the worst spots and fix them. Once you're there, play around with the values a little and see what's better. Raise or lower the bump or cut a tiny bit, bump the frequency point down or up one notch, and raise or lower the Q value. Pick the best fit. If you've got more parametric bands, 5 or 7 as some have, you have a lot more power and can really flatten out the curve. However, you kind of see how much harder it is than the simple hack and slash you do with a graphic type. I kind of find parametric bitter sweet. Once you're done with the right side, go to the left side only and repeat and get a different curve. Record both the right and left curves on paper.

Now for those of you who have a single, shared EQ, it's time to sacrifice. You have two, different curves you made that represent the (ear) flat output for each side. The final setup will be somewhere in between both. If you want, you can simply cut the difference in half and set the EQ there. This would be a halfway compromise for each side and provide a decent overall response. You might also try playing both sides together and retuning the EQ playing both the left and right together. Just try to find a happy medium.

For the folks with seperate left and right EQs, you have your two curves. Set them and you're done for the moment.

I will note that in my experience, I found pink noise to not really be influenced by time alignment settings. Since it's just a constant noise, there really isn't an issue with dominance by order received by the ear. In normal notes, the dominant sound is the one that reaches your ear first. With pink noise, it's just always there and always constant so the mind only interprets raw intensity. Basically, I'm just saying if you're worried about TA messing this up, don't be.

*Time Alignment*
Now it's time to get everything synced together. It's useful to start off with physical measurements using just a simple tape measure. It will get you a very close starting point. From there you should be withing a couple notches of spot on.

Play whatever music you like. You might find certain songs to fair better than others. It's useful to know what is in the song in terms of center, left, and right singers and instruments. Some songs fade back and forth for effect, and some move around, so ease of setup for time alignment can be song dependent. The goal here is to create a coherent, in-sync presence.

Again, start with just the right side speakers. Play the music and fine tune the relative delay between each. If you listen carefully as you adjust, you can feel the sound pull you to the woofer and then the tweeter and back again, depending on whichever gets to your ear first. Set the TA in the middle so that both sound in sync and neither overshadowing the other. Now move to the left side and repeat.

Finally, run both the left and right together and sync the left and right to a coherent presence. The relative TA between the tweeter and woofer should stay the same. You are now only adjusting the whole side in or out. You should be able to feel the stage pull towards the left or right as one side becomes dominant and then the other. Again, you are finding the middle spot where both are equal and the stage is centered. I'll make one note here. This stage setup is dependent on the relative outputs of the right and left side, so you may have a tough time finding the center till we address the final step. We'll probably have to go back and forth between the final step and readjusting the overall right and left TA to dial it together. Just find a happy medium right now, and we'll dial it in later.

*Stage Balance*
This is the final process to get everything sewn together neatly. This is more of a fine tuning process but does come in two parts.

_Part 1: Adjust relative right and left outputs._
Now, we have yet to address relative output between the right and left speakers. We addressed the woofer <==> tweeter relationship through attenuation and later EQing, but we haven't addressed the left <==> right relationship. At this point, we are simply adjusting the balance between the left and right speakers till both are of the same relative loudness. As you adjust the left louder, the presence should pull left and become dominant. If you make the right louder, the presence pulls right. Note that TA will have the same effect. This means that we actually need to adjust both at the same time to really dial it in. This may take a little fiddling, but focus on getting the relative intensity the same between the left and right sides. At the same time, adjust TA so that the presence isn't pulled towards the left or right but rather is centered. If the stage is right side dominant, we have the option of both lowering the right side output or decreasing the delay of the right side to make the left side more dominant. Realize that this isn't a "either one works" thing. Only one option is correct, so you sort of have to try it and then try it again. In the end, we want equal intensity AND a centered stage. It sounds tricky, but it's actually pretty straight forward and we should have been pretty close with the tape measure to begin with. It should just be minor tweaking really.

_Part 2: EQ balance_
The final step is to equalize the relative intensity throughout the frequency spectrum. We should have gotten very close already from the earlier right and left EQing sessions. Now we just have to run a check. Go through the frequency spectrum again and bump or cut a notch at each point and see where it pulls the stage presence. You should be able to notice the stage at that frequency range move right or left as you adjust. Again, the focus is center. We want the stage centered at every EQ frequency. It should really only take 1dB here or there(or 0.5dB for some folks) or a minor tweak in Q to get everything centered as best you can. The goal with this final step is to create a solid and consistent center image. Not doing this step can create the wavy center and noticeable changes in position as the music moves up and down the frequency spectrum. With the intensity equal at all frequency points(well as close as we can get it), the center remains center, left stays left, right stays right, and everything in between stays where it should be. This is the goal at least.

*Subwoofer Integration*
After all the above fun, the subwoofer should be pretty straight forward. Again, you are following similar steps. Adjust relative intensity to blend and match with the front stage. Adjust TA to sync the sub to the front stage. A tape measure is a very good tool to start with and fine tune from there. Those with ported boxes, think about group delay. You might be 10 to 20 milliseconds off already, so adjust for it if you need to. It's best to toy by ear till it sounds right and in sync. Again, work through any available EQing bands to flatten out the response. Some of you may have a good amount of EQing power available down low, some not. Get a happy medium. Again, TA will affect relative perception, so work with a mix of TA and attenuation till you get a seemless integration with the front stage. You're really just doing a repeat of the above steps, just anding one more driver to the mix. It's just easier because there's just one, not 4, and there's no relative centering involved. Like I said, after the above stuff, this should feel pretty straight forward and easy.

*Final Notes*
I'll make one final note. This setup is tuned for one person, the main listener. The tune should be done with the listener in the car, sitting in the normal listening location. Make note of hand and leg positions. For the folks with door and kick-panel installs, just the location of your leg can make or break the stage. The final step will actually vary a little bit depending and where and how you sit, so keep that in mind. You also see why it's kind of nice to run tweeters up in the a-pillar versus in the door or kick or stepping to a 3-way with both the mid and tweeter up high and unobstructed. If you want, you may even consider tuning with a passenger in the car if that's the common configuration(many days of car pooling).

Also keep in mind subwoofer location. Move it around and see where you like it best. Generally as close to the rear as possible is best. I've become fond of upward facing subs(hatch/wagon install), but rearward facing scooted all the way back is the most common and is generally considered the best. Just realize if the sub moves, relative intensity changes, both by proximity and the time domain so attenuation and TA needs to be readjusted.

That's it. This is basically how I approach my setup. It's not the only way of doing things. Heck, it may not be a great way of doing things, but it's something I've found that works well for me. I do find graphic EQs easier and quicker to use but agree parametric ones give a little better, smoother response. That's really just a preference in how you want to interact with the response curve. I feel about 10 graphic bands do plenty well, but if you have more you're better off. The more you have, the smoother the final response. For the reasons mentioned earlier and through the general approach of this tune, it's easy to see that separate left and right EQs are quite handy and can be the final tool on your side to dial in the stage. I've become quite fond and do suggest looking into options if you do not already have this nice feature. I love pink noise. I just find it...unbiased, and given a little ear accustoming, your mind can discern relative changes quite easy. It just doesn't work for TA.


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## azngotskills

thanks for taking the time to write this up....hopefully it will help the members new to active setups get started


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## mvw2

Yeah, I just keep thinking of this stuff every time I fiddle with my HU. I figure it would be useful written down.

I'm open to comments and suggestions from anyone. I'll also tweak the original post a little if I find typos or want to add a small bit of info. At some point, the edit feature becomes disabled(day, week, whatever it's set to). If so, additional additions would be via my latest post.

I'll note I've been fiddling with a full system build guide too, most likely in Word document form as it's a bit long, and I may have fun with pics, graphs, etc. That will be a full system approach including hardware selection, install considerations, and a light coverage of tuning basics for an active setup. I may just do a copy/paste of this as part of it. I plan to release a beta v0.5 kind of thing and get input from folks, and I'd be open to suggestions or tweaking of the .doc file from others to include/edit info, add pics, graphs, links, etc. I'm only about a thrid done, so that won't be a while, just a heads up, lol.


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## Candisa

Nice tutorial, and I fully agree on most of the things. I'm also a fan of graphic equalisers, left and right seperate. 
Positive side on this is that you can get the sound left and right identical on listening position, downside is that it disturbs the balance on the passenger side, so I never exaggerate to get left and right identical, but try to get something that's close to perfection on the drivers side, without making it sound wack on the passenger side... Off course, if you're building a pure 1-seater, that's not very important and you shouldn't make that compromise.
I neither don't bother to much about minor peaks and dips (about 1-1.5dB). Larger peaks and dips must be corrected, but I never flatten them completely out as it makes the music sound forced and rather played trough speakers in stead of approaching a live concert most of the time. 
Minor peaks and dips can make the music more alive and dynamic. A perfectly flat RTA response is good for the RTA test on a SQ-game, for listening, its better to approach 'perfection' without actually being there...

I'm also not a big fan of using TA to get the stagecenter right, to my humble opinion, TA is a great way to make the groups of drivers blend with each-other (after trying to get the pathlengts as identical as possible physically and experimenting with phases and crossovers), like pulling the midbass and sub on the dashboard. 
To get the stage right, it might be a last step when you are allready close after aiming balancing and eq-ing, but every TA-tweak you do just to get the center in the middle on the drivers side, makes the stage worse on the passenger side. Also, this is something that's not that important in a pure one-seater, but you have to know, when you pull thing that are really out of place right with TA, the chance is big it'll sound 'processed'...

Please don't think this is criticism, it's just an addition of the humble opinion from somebody that finds the pleasure of myself *and* my passengers more important than that extra point on a SQ-game! I think most people will agree that the best sounding cars aren't the ones that actually win at SQ-games most of the time  

greetingz,
Isabelle


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## jj_diamond

nice!

i love looking at your avatar btw.


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## MadMaxSE-L

Nice write up. Only thing I would want to add (or maybe ask???) is regarding the subwoofer integration; if the subs are the farthest drivers from the listening position, wouldn't you not want to delay them at all, and delay the closer drivers more? This is the only problem I can forsee when trying to integrate a subwoofer as an afterthought.

I would just think that front stage setup would be different with or without a sub, and the whole system should be taken into consideration on setup.

But I am by no means an expert, so I could be way off :blush: 

-Matt


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## mvw2

Yeah, the sub thing is something I thought about but forgot to mention. Yes, the subwoofer will have zero delay and the rest of the speakers will be adjusted from it. The relative difference between the entire front stage will be constant but will be shifted as a whole as needed to sync the sub. Some HUs work off the millisecond time, some off distance. The once I have used are distance based, so you're just setting say 90cm for 3 feet away, 105cm for 4 feet away, etc. The sub may be 150cm to 250cm. The millisecond ones, you'll have to break out the calculator. The tape measure in the first place should have gotten everything pretty close to within a tick or three of dead on(some HUs/processors have a little better resolution than others).

I am sort of taking the approach of this mini guide in the manner that you pretty much know how everything works, but you just haven't really gone through and tuned the setup, at least not extensively as a whole.

One thing I haven't mentioned is crossovers. I think I'll add a part on that, but the gist I'll give, at least in my thinking, is set it to a point within the tweeter, woofer, and sub usable ranges. It doesn't really matter where exactly, but no driver should be stretching or straining to play a frequency. If so, and there's no way around this, one should really consider changing hardware match stuff that better fits each other. It's of little use to buy a midwoofer that can only play to 2kHz and a tweeter that can only play to 3kHz. You'll have a gap that neither are happy playing, and it's very hard to make that range work. I've come to lover overlap in capability, a tweeter that can do 2kHz and a woofer that can do 4kHz. That way you can cross at 3kHz and both are very, very happy playing there. The x-over setup is a breeze and the sound is good right from the start. I tend to personally cross as low as I can to not worry about dispersion and beaming when using off-axis installs. This helps minimize the relative difference between the EQing of the right and left sides. This is also why aiming is so important. If you can get both the right and left sides at the same off-axis angle, EQing should turn out identical, or at least very, very close. Proper install can negate the need seperate left and right EQs.


jj, you like the Forester? 
17" Rota Subzeros wrapped in 245 RE01Rs. The car sits down around 1" on Swift FXT springs and has a 20mm rear bar. Along with WRX front rotors and the "H6 upgrade" rears with grippy Carbotec AX6 pads and DOT4 fluid plus disabled ABS(hate it), she's a whole lot of neutral in every way. With a full array of GroupN and Whiteline/Kartboy bushings/mounts, she's precise too(MUCH unlike stock). It sees auto-x, rally-x, and ice racing throughout the year, on a regular basis if all goes well.  If you understood any of that, good. If you didn't, I wholely understand, lol. 

Some people may go, oh a Forester's a SUV. Yeah, sort of, but it's really just an Impreza underneath, just an uber-wagon body and on an inch longer struts. Impreza and STI parts are direct bolt on, if $$$ allows, lol. Mmm...300HP turbo with 6sp gearbox and adjustable center diff under a Forester... That's why you buy a FXT which is basically the uber-wagon WRX with the STI block and just a smaller turbo/intercooler which you can happily tune for a good deal more power. Too bad mine's a lowly NA with it's 165HP of might(~110HP to the ground), lol. Mods can get you to around 150HP-160HP to the ground which is stock WRX territory with no turbo lag.

After a fresh wax:
http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/1850/ForesterShine2.jpg


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## jj_diamond

mvw2 said:


> jj, you like the Forester?
> 17" Rota Subzeros wrapped in 245 RE01Rs. The car sits down around 1" on Swift FXT springs and has a 20mm rear bar. Along with WRX front rotors and the "H6 upgrade" rears with grippy Carbotec AX6 pads and DOT4 fluid plus disabled ABS(hate it), she's a whole lot of neutral in every way. With a full array of GroupN and Whiteline/Kartboy bushings/mounts, she's precise too(MUCH unlike stock). It sees auto-x, rally-x, and ice racing throughout the year, on a regular basis if all goes well.  If you understood any of that, good. If you didn't, I wholely understand, lol.
> 
> Some people may go, oh a Forester's a SUV. Yeah, sort of, but it's really just an Impreza underneath, just an uber-wagon body and on an inch longer struts. Impreza and STI parts are direct bolt on, if $$$ allows, lol. Mmm...300HP turbo with 6sp gearbox and adjustable center diff under a Forester... That's why you buy a FXT which is basically the uber-wagon WRX with the STI block and just a smaller turbo/intercooler which you can happily tune for a good deal more power. Too bad mine's a lowly NA with it's 165HP of might(~110HP to the ground), lol. Mods can get you to around 150HP-160HP to the ground which is stock WRX territory with no turbo lag.
> 
> After a fresh wax:
> http://www.gigafiles.co.uk/files/1850/ForesterShine2.jpg


i understand your jargin'. sweet!!! the avatar looks like the drop is more than an inch. i like to see cars sittin' in the weeds. wagons and small SUV's look nice with the right drop. 165HP is fine. keeps the speeding tickets to a minimum.  still looks nice, IMO.









^ not my ride


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## mvw2

Oh, to answer your PM and the other thread with the Seas tweeter, I'd attempt to aim them more on-axis into the cabin. Reflections in the dash area can be nasty. Pointing them away from these hard surfaces can help a lot. Cross the tweeter low since the mids are well off-axis. This minimizes the dispersion/beaming difference in upper midrange frequency response. Whatever you don't fix via the lower crossover point needs to be addressed with EQing. As you say, you get a drop starting at 1.25kHz which is about right for dispersion and the change from omni-directional to directional sound. A quick guide for folks:
172,000/diameter(mm) = transition point
For a 6.5" woofer, this is right around 1kHz. That means even crossing at 2kHz, we will still see a small difference in response between 1kHz and 2kHz before the tweeter steps in. The tweeter too will be effected starting above 6000-7000Hz. If you take the time to do seperate EQs right and left, you can actually see this difference visually through the EQ bands.

The best approach is always through physical aiming of the speakers in the first place. If the axis angle is equal, the frequency response will be equal. You don't need everything directly on-axis, but if the far one is 15 degrees off, the near one should be 15 degrees off. This way, the frequency response is the same. The only difference will be relative loudness due to distance and the time delay. There may also be cabin gain differences here or there too though.

My speakers right now are down in the door firing horribly straight across. The near is a heavy 60 degrees off and the far 30 degrees off. Physically, this is a horrible setup and passive setups suffer a lot. However, everything can be addressed via software through attenuation, TA, and EQing to get a very even, coherent stage. It just takes a lot more work with a poor install. My 3-way listed in my sig below is waiting to go in once I fab up enclosures. Aiming and proper location will be a big first step. This will create a far better starting point and much less need for processing to get a good end result. You either address it through install or through tuning. Not everyone has the tuning power on hand, so many should take great effort to get the install right first.


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## donpisto

Great write up. I have been wondering where to start on tuning myself rather than having someone help me. It's nice getting help but I would like to give it a stab and see what I can do...at least I can say I made an attempt. Thanks for the mini tut!


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## ringo

Man, I wish you would hang over at subaruforester.org... nice group of very passionate people about their cars without all the silliness of some other Subaru forums.

Do you have any pics of the inside? I have a new 08 FXT and am planning the audio setup.


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## mvw2

I do some.


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## Mr Burns

Thank's for the write up. It has helped me more than anything I've read in a long time. I never really did level balancing correctly until I read your tutorial. Thank's for taking the time to pass on some of your knowledge.


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## innsanes

I just started my active setup today, using an alpine 7998 and cdt es-630 2 way comps with pg 100.4 to power them. I am very confused on where to set my slopes at for each driver. right now this is the setting

lows crossed @ 80hz , mid low hp @ 80/12 db, mid highs LP @ 4k/6db, highs hp @ 3.2k/12db

Forgot to mention that my sub is a 12" arc flatline powered by a sundown 1500D

Some help is greatly appreciated


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## kittan

This is a really great guide


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## capnxtreme

innsanes said:


> I just started my active setup today, using an alpine 7998 and cdt es-630 2 way comps with pg 100.4 to power them. I am very confused on where to set my slopes at for each driver. right now this is the setting
> 
> lows crossed @ 80hz , mid low hp @ 80/12 db, mid highs LP @ 4k/6db, highs hp @ 3.2k/12db
> 
> Forgot to mention that my sub is a 12" arc flatline powered by a sundown 1500D
> 
> Some help is greatly appreciated


1) Don't use 6db slopes
2) Don't overlap--you'll want to underlap, if anything... my first thought is that your mids are playing way too high, but you'll have to just play around to see what sounds best.


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## caraudiofan21

mvw2, great writeup. I'm going to try this out. One question - is there a reason why you recommend balancing L-R output towards the end instead of at the beginning when one is balancing level between tweeter & woofer?


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## mvw2

Well, I just do things in steps and in a manner that isolates certain aspects. Since there are multiple factors influencing the response, it's useful to go through the tunning in a process that lets you isolate each part, set it right, and then move to the next.

You're actually EQing from early on but just one side at a time. You level balance the woofer and tweeter. Then you EQ the whole frequency spectrum. This is done with pink noise. Since it's a constant noise, TA isn't a factor. After that you TA the woofer and tweeter together using music. One side is done, and then you repeat the whole thing with the other. This gets each side correct, but you have yet to interact both together.

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed you are doing quite a few little things already to adjust the response and behavior of the speakers. If you were doing all 4 from the start, it would be much more difficult to decipher all the individual parts. Doing it in steps and isolating out the sides first, we don't have this problem. We cut away the mess. By the time we get to integrating the left and right together and setting TA and outputs left and right, everything else is correct, and we don't touch it. That means we don't do any more EQing and we don't adjust TA between the woofer and tweeter. We already have all that done and there's no more guess work there. We just TA between the sides and adjust output levels between the sides. Then we're finished. It's just me seperating the whole process into steps.


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## BigRed

thanks for sharing mw....question: how do you adjust sensitivity with pink noise between 100hz and 5k? In other words there seems to be a big disparity in loudness to the ear. 

Last question: what about a 3 way? If you cross your midbass at say 70-200, and the mid 200-5k, and tweeter 5k and up, would your method for intensity testing change? Its hard to figure out time alignment by ear at the midbasss and other drivers per side. Your suggestions?


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## dejo

very nice write up, and thanks for taking the time to post


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## mvw2

BigRed said:


> thanks for sharing mw....question: how do you adjust sensitivity with pink noise between 100hz and 5k? In other words there seems to be a big disparity in loudness to the ear.
> 
> Last question: what about a 3 way? If you cross your midbass at say 70-200, and the mid 200-5k, and tweeter 5k and up, would your method for intensity testing change? Its hard to figure out time alignment by ear at the midbasss and other drivers per side. Your suggestions?


Well, part of it is training your mind. I'll say this, the first time I attempted tuning via simultaneous frequency (9 tones at once, one for each EQ band) and pink noise, it took me about 15-20 minutes just to begin to seperate frequency ranges. When you start out, most of the time is spent teaching your mind to seperate the frequency spectrum to where you can hear frequencies like 100Hz, 500Hz, and 3kHz separately and together at the same time. I would literally drive down the road heading home listening to the test tones or noise the whole time and fiddling with EQ bands. It just took time for the mind to figure out and separate the data. As you do this more, it becomes easier and quicker. Now I can listen to pink noise and zip up and down the EQ bands a couple times and be set pretty well in a matter of a few minutes. Because I've done it enough, I don't have to just sit there for 20 minutes listening to static, lol, and try and focus on the frequency bands that I'm playing with.

As far as level balancing between midbass and mid and between mid and the tweeter, it's just listening to the noise track and balancing the output. If both are not balanced, one should be dominent and over pronounced from the other. Time alignment has no effect at this point since it's a pink noise track. Noise is just noise. Time alignment doesn't do anything because there is no start and stop time or notes to distinguish delay. The noise is just constant and always. This allows you to set gains/attenuation to level balance and to run through the entire frequency spectrum with your EQ bands with zero influence by TA. The EQ is a blanket application. Even if you were off with attenuation between drivers, EQ will still go over this and correct it. You may just be 2dB up over the entire midrange area instead of flat if you were low 2dB when attempting to attenuate and level balance. Then later you can play music and dial in the TA and you won't have to worry about attenuation or EQ because that's already been taken care of.

I do personally find it very hard to EQ the lower frequencies with pink noise. For example, 200Hz and under becomes increasingly difficult to balance. Our ears and mind don't pick up subtleties in this lower range as easy. For example, it's very hard for me to focus on the 63Hz band specifically and compare that to the rest of the frequencies. For the most part it's just a low rumble, and that's what you're attempting to pick up on, isolate, and compare. Comparatively, the higher frequencies are a breeze, especially the midrange area where our ears are most sensitive.

Really, all of this takes time. For anyone starting out, I wouldn't expect them to balance a system in under 30 minutes, just because it takes that much time to sort of "get in the zone" if you will and have your mind start seeing the entire frequency spectrum. It just takes that long because at first, it really is just noise. Then you have to start fiddling with EQ bands and recognizing the frequency point in the noise. Then you have to be able to find another frequency point as you fiddle with the next band. After that, you have to be able to compare to the two in output. You repeat this over the 5, 10, 15 bands you may have. When you get better, you start to be able to see more and eventually all the bands at the same time, simultaneous but separate. This is hard to do. This is also why you are sitting there for the first 20 minutes trying to do this.

I'll say it's not easy at first, but it does get easier and quicker the more you do it. As well, if your HU has fewer bands, it's easier. Heck, my HU has a 20 band and 10 band selectable EQ. I still only use the 10 band simply because the 20 band is hard to work with, well that and I've never been compelled to need that resolution.


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## BigRed

makes alot of sense. thanks for taking the time to respond


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## demon2091tb

Very nice write up Mvw, very nice. Definently a good positive read, i couldn't explain it better, in easier terms....Very nice.


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## johnny52

I take the risk that some laught at me but I must know this information before trying to tune with this method. I'm in my first steps in tuning. 

Balancing is OK. 

For example, when EQing, did I set the EQ in the 1000khz band, and listen to pink noise or a 1000khz test tone? Please I'm very practical could you give me more details on How to do.

When it is mentioned: For the graphic EQ folks, simply run through each band and raise or lower the level to get a flat response. Sorry but, what did he mean by Flat response. 

Thank you.


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## mvw2

Well, I've used test tones and noise tracks. For example, with my old JVC HU, it had a 9-band graphic EQ. I made test tones for each band and played them simultaneously. From there, I balanced out the levels. I even used a little warble to help localize each easier and to make sure I was tuning at and around that EQ point. I also used pink and white noise tracks balance. In the end, I just like pink noise the best, so I've stuck with it. Its insensitivity to time alignment is also useful in being able to tune without influence and keeping the EQ and TA processes seperate.

By flat response, I mean a response that sounds even and balanced to your ear. For example, if you have a 3-band EQ at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz, when you are done EQing, the 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz should all sound equally loud to you, all present but none overpowering the other. This isn't "real flat" but is "ear flat," at least to your ears. The human ear does not hear flat. It's rather a curve, and this curve varies from person to person. The curve varies by day a little for the same person. It even varies a little by loudness. This is why it's useful to level balance with the pink noise track(or whatever you feel like using) the the volumes you normally listen to. As well, don't be surprised that EQing may be a little different if you EQ a week from now. You might be up or down a dB here or there from last time. It can be useful to jot down past settings and record the changes over time. For example, retune the system every week for a month. See if there are any changes. At the end of the month, average out the 4 EQ settings and use the average.


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## snaimpally

Your comments about integrating the sub totally make sense. I recently got a sub and sub amp installed and was playing around with the delay feature of the RD 3sixty.2. Through trial and error I found that I found the best soundstage was when both channels were delayed slightly, with the right more than the left. At the time I was puzzled as to why both needed to be delayed but I trusted my ears so I left it. When I read your post today it made total sense because I find the sub is now well integrated into my setup. Between that and turning down a few high frequencies to tame the harshness of the PG tweets, I am totally enjoying the sound of my car setup!


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## txbonds

Thanks for posting this. Tagging for future reference.


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## mattyjman

bump... i found this in some searching, felt like this could be helpful to some other people on here as well as myself... a year a half later...


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## Jprice2708

mvw2 said:


> I've been fiddling with a full system build guide too, most likely in Word document form as it's a bit long, and I may have fun with pics, graphs, etc. That will be a full system approach including hardware selection, install considerations, and a light coverage of tuning basics for an active setup. I may just do a copy/paste of this as part of it. I plan to release a beta v0.5 kind of thing and get input from folks, and I'd be open to suggestions or tweaking of the .doc file from others to include/edit info, add pics, graphs, links, etc. I'm only about a thrid done, so that won't be a while, just a heads up, lol.


Any updates or progress on that?


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## steffanan

so helpful!


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## littlejuanito

Any more inputs on this?


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## redbaronace

Really nice tuning thread. Glad some others turned me on to it.


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## Ankit69

really helped me. thanks!


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## slvrdrgn123

Thanks for all the info, I really need to learn all of that.


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## Cruzer

so no speaker should be time alignment 0? i remember reading another tutorial on here and they said put subs at 0 and t/a the mids and tweets

thanks for the write up, but one thing that really sucks for me is its all by ear. what i think might sound good or right, could be completely wrong and far off to someone know actually knows how its supposed to sound.


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## hc_TK

havent read all comments, but its a bad idea to use EQ before time alignement. Because of phase shifting caused by TA the EQ will look different before and after TA.


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## sbaumbaugh

I see this thread has gathered some dust, but still find value in its contents.

To make a long story short, or shorter...

I've been tuning my active 3 plus sub system for some time now.

Using many of the techniques with in this tutorial.

I get close one day, and the next it sounds off, psychoacoustic isn't just a term but possibly a lifestyle? I have had numerous audio junkies listen to my SQ setup and every time I get " I can't believe how good it sounds" or " it sounds like they are standing on the hood of your truck"

My response is usually, " it sounds like garbage today, you need to have your ears checked by a professional" 

I'm sure even the SQ professionals get in their car and say " what the hell is that sound" 

So I guess my question is actually a multitude of many questions...

1. What are some characteristics of correct Time Alignment? ( center, left of center, right of center) what would be the actual Goal other than what sounds good to my ear Today? 

2. Frequency Response, ( flat, mids attenuated, highs attenuated, )
Other than this is for the listener to decide what sounds best.

I guess I'm looking for some sort of Industry Standard if there is one, or do we simply tune everyday because we can hear that something is out of place due to time of day, temperature, etc??? 

I use the techniques in this tutorial and thank the person who took the time to write the steps down... But is there a way to gather some of the smaller details?

Where and what does correct time alignment look like or sound like?

I'm a firm believer in analyzing my system atleast once a week via RTA or some form of looking into things that bother me. I've come to realize we all analyze and scrutinize our systems as much as we listen to the actual music. 

But to what end result? When do I ( a non car audio professional ) know when I have accomplished step 1, the step 2? 

Is it simply when it sounds good to me, or some measurable point in time that when I hear this or see that on an RTA I know I'm there?

I know this is deep, and may not add value to this thread, and I am very thankful for the original posted tutorial, but what else can be added to some finer detail? Can it be taken further? 

Thank you,
Shawn


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## GLN305

This thread needs a bump, the first post is very well done.


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