Project CompuMach: 2004 Ford Mustang Mach 1 - Total In-Dash install complete! - Page 9

pyros · 04-10-2006, 11:27 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by ibanez737

Chris, I got it working a bit after I posted that, but in the end it's still kind of messed up. When I lower the front left speaker volume, I think three of my speakers will go down, and then the other will go down with the front right. I think the woofers are acting on the same channel it seems. Other then that, it works haha. I'm trying to get some decent sound out of it and trying to balance the tweeters with the woofers. I have yet to acheive the sound I'm getting from the headunit. Did you have to tweak yours a lot? Thanks for the help/info.

If I remember correctly, the woofers are wired in front + back configuration, not left + right. Which means they are all mono. The highs are wired in left/right and front/back.

The wiring harness for the subs only gives you 2 channels... they appear as left/right.. but in all reality are front/back.

I'm assuming I would have the same problem if I tried to mess with left/right channels, but since I dont I've never noticed.

I don't really think there is a way around this without redoing the wiring for your car. Then you could run the woofers on the left side of the car in parallel as the left channel and the woofers on the right side of the car in parallel as the right channel. Or if you run them as 4 separate channels, you'd prolly need to go aftermarket amps all around. Then you could have left + right and front + back for the woofers.....

pyros · 04-10-2006, 11:28 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by itrends

Looking awsome my friend!

Dave

Thanks!

ibanez737 · 04-11-2006, 02:10 AM

Well I figured wiring it would be easier with different channels instead of having a million splitters from one port of the sound card. So, i guess I might try to just wire everything to the same port and leave it at that. But, does that mean that I have to split signal three ways (tweets, woofers, subs)? Or split Front/Back and just wire everything accordingly? My main concern is where to get the signal for my subs, because right now, with them connected to the center/sub channel from the 5.1 sound card setup, I get no signal it seems and havent heard a peep out of my subs, but everything else works fine. Any insight you can bring would be great lol.

EDIT: I will be dedicating a couple hours to messing with this stuff tomorrow so I'll see if I can figure anything out...in the mean time, constructive criticism is welcome

ibanez737 · 04-13-2006, 04:06 PM

Well, I ended up splitting the rear channel and plugged the subs in through that and it works...good enough for me. Still trying to acheive some good SQ. You have any tips or specific EQ's you're using Chris?

pyros · 04-13-2006, 04:36 PM

I don't use a million splitters, I just use a crossover.

It has 1 RCA input, and 3 RCA outputs:

1 - Highs
2 - Mids
3 - Subs

With the settings on the crossover, I can pick the frequencies each 'channel' above runs at.

With this, I only really separate from left/right, but, as you pointed out above, I'm not sure if its working for the woofers since I've never really tried it.

For the sub out on the sb audigy, I had the same problem when I was just testing it out. Then I remembered that I needed a crossover to filter out the frequencies I didn't want, so I abandoned figuring it out. I believe it is just how you define your speaker setup in the sound properties in the control panel. Mess around with that and you might get it working.

<EDIT> Also remember that the sub out on the audigy is a combined output with the centre channel since they are both mono. I believe the LEFT channel is the SUB OUT (mono!) and the RIGHT channel is the CENTRE CHANNEL OUT (mono!). So to input this to an amp, you'd need a RCA Y splitter to duplicate the mono output to a LEFT/RIGHT output to plug into the amp.</EDIT>

If you split the rear channel, how are you filtering out the crap frequencies? You shouldn't be feeding all frequencies to the sub.

I'm not using any EQ's right now, and I dont know if I will simply because of the configuration of my system: sound card in the trunk, i'd have to run 3 sets of rcas from back to front (for the eq input), front to back (for the eq output to the crossover), then back to front (for the mids rca outputs to plug into the metra wiring harness).

One thing that will improve your sound is a proper crossover. This will filter out frequencies from the speakers that aren't meant to get them. ie: Mids shouldn't be receiving 15k frequencies..

Which one to use, I'm not sure. I'm using an old one right now my buddy gave me. I'll be upgrading it shortly as I'm redoing the audio system hopefully.

Hope that helps.. good luck!

Chris

ibanez737 · 04-13-2006, 05:01 PM

Chris, thanks for the write ups. You make some very good points. As far as filtering out frequencies, I figured that the built in crossovers on my sub/tweeter amps would filter these out well enough? On the other hand, I think this might be whats causing my sound to not sound as good because my woofers seem to be getting frequencies all over the place. Also, about the center/sub channel being on the same and just needing to split the signal, that's also what I was thinking. I tried that, but when I tried it, the gain on my subwoofer amp was not turned up at all because I figured I would get some output without having to turn it up really loud. Well, turns out I needed the gain probably 3/4 of the way or more to actually hear the subs at low volume, and I wasn't that daring yet (first subwoofer setup). I might try to do this again.

I guess from this, my next question is how would I implement a crossover with three different audio outs (front, back, subs)? And then from there, would I have to buy a crossover to filter frequencies for the woofers and tweeters...

I guess ideally, I would like to get the sub working on the sub output on the soundcard...and then probably get a crossover for my woofers?

Thanks again for your help Chris. When this is all over, I'll repay you

ibanez737 · 04-14-2006, 12:35 PM

Well, I took your advice....turns out no matter how I plug it on, I can only control the sub volume thru the center channel in XP. Still debating on what to do about crossovers.

pyros · 04-14-2006, 02:39 PM

If your amps have built in crossovers you should be fine for whatever those amps are powering. The main reason I needed a crossover was for the woofers (NOT subwoofers, the midrange woofers that come factory) because the crossover was provided by the deck. Since I'm feeding them with RCA's from the soundcard, I needed a way to filter out frequencies. Thats where my crossover came into play..

I have the same problem with not hearing the subs until you turn up the volume. Right now I have a single 12" powered by a 300watt rms amp, and I dont hear it till my windows volume is at approx 50% (this is with the gain on the amp allllllll the way up). I'm trying to figure out how to fix this, and the EQ in RoadRunner helped a lot so far. I'm thinking of a possible external EQ, but I'm sure I can solve it software wise.

For the crossover with the 3 diff channels, you just need to find a crossover that takes atleast 3 inputs and has 3 outputs. But if your amps have built in crossovers, this may be overkill unless you really want to fine tune the sound. A simple 1 channel crossover may be fine.

For the centre channel in XP, I'm not too sure why that would be happening. Have you tried both rca outputs from that consolidated output on the audigy? You're ahead of me on this one, I never really tried it in all honestly because I just used the crossover....

Lemme know how it goes.

Chris

ibanez737 · 04-14-2006, 03:59 PM

Yea, thats pretty much waht i did on the sub/center 3.5mm output on the audigy..just threw a splitter on there and for some reasons, both channels were center channel output (meaning when i lowered the center channel volume in the Audigy software, the sub volume would go down, and the subwoofer volume meter affected nothing). So, as long as my amp is filtering this stuff out, I might leave it like this because it is getting pretty much the same output it was when it was wired from the rear speaker output, but now its on its own channel. How much do crossovers run for sumthing like this? Also, do you recommend inline crossovers?

ibanez737 · 04-14-2006, 04:02 PM

Well, after thinking about it, I'm wondering if i can figure out something in my software to maybe limit frequencies to a certain output. If I can do this, I might just wire all my woofers on one output and tweeters on the other instead of front and rear.

ibanez737 · 04-24-2006, 08:41 PM

Nothing software side....so I guess I will be buying some crossovers. On a different note, I got most of the sanding done on my bezel...still a few problem spots in the corners and stuff that are now a lot more noticable since I got excited and primered it...turned out well and I'm not sure if I want to perfect it more since it's in spots that are mostly hidden..pictures to come.

pyros · 04-25-2006, 03:37 PM

Sorry.. missed those posts from the 14th..

I was looking for a software solution also and I haven't found anything. I believe it is possible, but will (at the least) introduce some kind of delay.

It would most likely be a pre-processor, maybe even at a driver level. It would first have to capture the audio, filter out certian frequencies, then output to the correct channel (assuming different channels get different frequencies). So you could use your 'front' outputs for highs, 'rears' for lows, subwoofer for subwoofer, etc.

Basically, it doesn't seem feasible. A hardware soultion seems the only way right now unfortunately

Maybe there is a way to design a computer controlled hardware solution like in a regular HU, who knows :P

Good work on the bezel. If you're 'not sure' if you should perfect it more, then I definitely would! :P I'd rather over perfect it then miss a few spots like I did (on the underside of the screen, but it still bugs me).

AznRida · 04-25-2006, 09:42 PM

What kind of bondo did you use to smooth out the dash job? I was going to just do wood because I couldn't find something else to smooth it out, but this would be much easier.