# Kenwood KDC-X995, DTA (Digital Time Alignment) vs Car Type Fine Adjustments



## ikari2_2000 (Dec 30, 2010)

*Kenwood Excelon KDC-X995 DTA(Digital Time Alignment) & Car Type Fine Adjustments*

.

This unit comes with both options. *DTA* & *CTFA*

What's the difference?
Do I need to configure both?
Will one supersede the other or do they work in conjuction?

*DTA(Digital Time Alignment)*
I 'm not sure how to set up DTA. Do I enter the same variable as in the CTFA settings?


*CTFA(Car Type Fine Adjustments)*
Speaker distances from "Reference Point" for my WRX.

Front = 3"
Rear = 2.6"
SubWoofer = 4.75"

Distance entered into head unit
Front + 1.75
Rear + 2.15
Subwoofer +0

Am I on the right path?


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

I believe both of these end up added up. To keep things simple go into adjustments menu and set all distances to 0. Go into DTA settings for your position, set everything to zero too. Now turn on a music track with prominent vocals in it. Start adding distance to the front speaker that's closest to you. This effectively delays its output. The actual measurement is irrelevant. Just keep doing it until the sound stage shifts to the center to the dash. If the voices shift all the way to the left speaker, then back down a bit. 

For the rear fill speakers, I prefer no TA, or delay them to the max amount (so add like 15ft in the fine adjustments menu and 5 ft in the DTA menu). I haven't played with the sub yet.


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## tyroneshoes (Mar 21, 2006)

Hmm, I bypass the car type and just use the dta.


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## Bluliner (May 16, 2011)

Here's the idiot's guide to time alignment [hope I don't sound like an idiot];

Insert a non-crap CD. If the music you're playing is off your phone or can be heard on MTV, ask your parents or older siblings for something more radio friendly. 

Start with the driver's front door speaker. Don't worry about the rears or subs at all. 

With the music playing at a moderate volume, start delaying it slowly. You'll hear the music sound like it's coming from your feet and it'll slowly start sounding more and more like it's coming from the center vent in your dashboard. Keep turning the delay up and you'll hear the music start shifting over almost in front of you. When you get to this point, you've gone too far...delay it less. 

If you delay it more or keep it so that the music sounds like it's coming from your instrument cluster; try another track. Sounds like crap right? All the left and right channel stuff sounds like its coming from the floor yet the vocals are screaming at you from your odometer. Yuk. 

Go to where the music sounds like its coming out of the center of your dash. Adjust 1 click higher, did the music sound like its a little higher or did it sound like it shifted over? If it shifted over, go back to where you were. If it's a little higher, keep adjusting until you find that 'shift'. 

Once you have it centered, leave it alone. Viola, done...

99.9% of people out there are entirely happy with this type of arrangement. The 00.1% are audio nutcases and have their front speakers bi-amped with dedicated channels for time correction. 

If you're in the 00.1%...book a solid weekend (maybe two) to get things right. Keep turning knobs, pushing buttons, and using your ears. Time correction is more of a black art than a science. Alpine used to give out tape measures with time steps so installers can measure from their right ear to the speakers. It never sounded right...

Fiddle around and let your ears guide you. If worst comes to worst; reset the radio. No biggie...


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## tyroneshoes (Mar 21, 2006)

Bluliner said:


> Here's the idiot's guide to time alignment [hope I don't sound like an idiot];
> 
> Insert a non-crap CD. If the music you're playing is off your phone or can be heard on MTV, ask your parents or older siblings for something more radio friendly.
> 
> ...


Nice guide. 

But this is about the kenwood decks that have two types of delay, one that has you choose your car type (suv, sedan..) and speaker size and delay (f,r,c,s). You can not delay front left for example, just fronts, rears and subs in general. 

Then they also have typical digital time alignment where you can adjust right or left and other speakers individually. This is the only one I use and I dont see the benefit of the other first one mentioned.


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

tyroneshoes said:


> Nice guide.
> 
> But this is about the kenwood decks that have two types of delay, one that has you choose your car type (suv, sedan..) and speaker size and delay (f,r,c,s). You can not delay front left for example, just fronts, rears and subs in general.
> 
> Then they also have typical digital time alignment where you can adjust right or left and other speakers individually. This is the only one I use and I dont see the benefit of the other first one mentioned.



I think Kenwood shot itself in its foot by adding so many layers of complexity. Anyways, regardless of what values you have in either of those menus. Set them all to 0 in both menus, then do as stated in the guide.. Bluliner's guide is entirely appropriate for Kenwood or any other head units with comparable settings. Set everything to zero, then set DTA position to left (that is, driver), and do as Bluliner says. Then switch the DTA position setting to right, and do the oppositve of what you did for the left position (this last step is only necessary, if you would like at times to improve the sound for your passenger by making it worse for the driver).

On an unrelated note, this is an example of why companies like Apple rules the world of technology and not companies like Kenwood or others who habitually ship products with half baked user interfaces.. and incomprehensible manuals.


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

tyroneshoes said:


> Nice guide.
> 
> But this is about the kenwood decks that have two types of delay, one that has you choose your car type (suv, sedan..) and speaker size and delay (f,r,c,s). You can not delay front left for example, just fronts, rears and subs in general.
> 
> Then they also have typical digital time alignment where you can adjust right or left and other speakers individually. This is the only one I use and I dont see the benefit of the other first one mentioned.


By the way, to clear things up a little, those two menus are meant to work together, not separately. The car fine adjustments menu is meant to configure the time alignment for the "reference" position in your car, which is meant to be the center of your car, or precisely the area half way between the heads of the two front passengers. Because of this, there is no separate right/left settings in that menu.

The TA settings that you enter in the DTA settings menu, are added to the settings from the above menu. The idea is that the DTA settings are meant to adjust the "fine adjustements" settings, for either the right or left passenger. In reality, the Kenwood way of doing things is just too complicated. It's better to set everything to 0 in both menus, and then add delay only to the front speaker that closest to you as described above. Others settings perhaps could be useful for more advanced users. I personally am not interested in adding delay to both of my front speakers so that the wave from the rear fill speakers reach me at the same instant as the fronts. My rear speakers are just for rear fill to add some ambient sound, and their volume is turned down anyways. Some experts claim that it is actually better to add additional delay to the rear speakers, something like 20ms, and this is actually possible with Kenwood x994/x995. You can enter up to 15 ft in the fine adjustments menu, and about 5 ft in the DTA settings menu, which should be close to being equivalent to a 20ms time delay for rear speakers. I tried it and couldn't tell much difference..


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## nineball (Jan 17, 2008)

ZAKOH said:


> By the way, to clear things up a little, those two menus are meant to work together, not separately. The car fine adjustments menu is meant to configure the time alignment for the "reference" position in your car, which is meant to be the center of your car, or precisely the area half way between the heads of the two front passengers. Because of this, there is no separate right/left settings in that menu.


my 993 allows for multiple positions, i.e. front left, center, front right.


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

nineball said:


> my 993 allows for multiple positions, i.e. front left, center, front right.


Yes, but those are the DTA menu settings, which further adjust the above settings for specific locations.


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## tyroneshoes (Mar 21, 2006)

My kenwood deck is seriously complex and not user friendly at all. Im considering going back to my sony 770bt because it also had delay and a MUCH easier, user friendly interface. Also looks nicer and I dont need all the features since Ill be using dc ref amps. I do like garmin and two usbs though.


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## ikari2_2000 (Dec 30, 2010)

I ended up trying all of your advice. When all said and done, I did not like the CTFA. In theory and in a different environment, the speakers would've sound great. This was not the case in my car and I've reverted all the settings back to zero.

As for DTA, adjusting only the driver side speaker was the best and easiest solution. Thank you all for you posts. I have learned something new!

BTW, I was tuning with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Division Bell". No cRap music in this ride.


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## noumen_arete (Jul 7, 2011)

*Re: Kenwood Excelon KDC-X995 DTA(Digital Time Alignment) & Car Type Fine Adjustments*



ikari2_2000 said:


> .
> 
> This unit comes with both options. *DTA* & *CTFA*
> 
> ...



Hello this is my first post, Im planning on buying the 995, but once I read the manual, I didn't understand the time correction/alignment settings, the manual suggest that you can only center the soundstage to the center of the car, but that sounds stupid to me as the speakers are symmetrically installed.

However there is an option that is called Listening Position Fine Adjustments, it seems to make you able to set the delay individually (rights and lefts). Dos that mean I can delay the front left and front right speakers separately to match my sub? For example, set 2.5 ft for front left and say 4.5 ft for the front right? Thank you!


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## kopeah (Jan 12, 2007)

I have that same head unit and never use CTFA .. only DTA.


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## 000zero (Mar 12, 2011)

On a side note, I have the x994 and I was curious what is the maximum volume you guys go up to on your Kenwoods?


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## ikari2_2000 (Dec 30, 2010)

000zero said:


> On a side note, I have the x994 and I was curious what is the maximum volume you guys go up to on your Kenwoods?


32. Though, the 995 can go up to 35.


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