New CarPC - this one for tuning - Page 13

Megalomaniac · 10-16-2007, 12:46 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by durwood

LOL. I always let them hear it from the passenger side first. Usually they are like sounds pretty good (probably just being nice). but then I have them sit in the drivers seat. The grins, smiles and people feeling my dash looking for extra speakers that just aren't there is fairly humorous to watch.

My fiance never understood what I was doing until she sat in my seat one day. Then she had an ohhhh now I understand moment.

But ya as a recent poster just said: Jan's install is way hardcore. So is turbocads.

yours is pretty hardcore too, but you sacrificed AC in your previous installs :yikes: im definately looking into that tg9 that you mentioned before; otherwise i'll try the hertz hl70 when funds permit

edit: i just got in contact with a hertz dealer down in houston, he gave me an superb quote!

meddler · 10-16-2007, 07:37 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by durwood

My fiance never understood what I was doing until she sat in my seat one day. Then she had an ohhhh now I understand moment.

They never "fully" understand.

RedGTiVR6 · 10-17-2007, 03:20 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by turbocad6

the reason is path lengths, sound travels relatively slow, & when the mids are up high, the left one is usually much closer to you that the right one..., which means that the sound from the left will reach your ear before the sound from the right, skewing any kind of sense of central location.

The 3" Be needs to be closer to the Be tweeter. It also helped us firm up our imaging.

Quote:

some will use time delay to delay the sound of the closer driver, this delay is only several milliseconds, but enough to put you back in a virtual central listening location. the biggest draw back to this approach though is, by delaying the left you can improve imaging to the driver, but at the same time you can make it even worse for the passenger.

True...sometimes...

Quote:

in competition no one cares what it sounds like to the passenger, it's all about getting that sweet spot at the judged location, which is why a competition car will be more likely to use this approach (red & durwood, perfect examples)

Hrmm - not quite...in the higher classes, both seats are judged, pass and drivers...we're competing in two seat classes in both IASCA and USACi. Full points on both sides. pass is judged at same score as drivers. They are averaged actually.

Quote:

by putting the drivers as far from you as practical though, you are evening out the differences of these lengths quite a bit, most who sware by kick installs are less likely to use delay for this equalizing of pathlengths, & that is why you'll see some really sware by kick installs, kick installs are a bit easier to get to sound good from both sides of the vehicle, although it will usually not be as great as if it was tuned for just the drivers seat alone, it's more of a comprimise & a matter of priorities.

You'll also have issues with stage height and what's called 'rainbow effect' on the sound stage.

turbocad6 · 10-17-2007, 04:16 PM

hey girl, where ya been, didn't think I'd ever see you away from here for 3 whole days

Quote: Originally Posted by RedGTiVR6

The 3" Be needs to be closer to the Be tweeter. It also helped us firm up our imaging.

that makes a lot of sense, to get it as close to a single point source as possible., I've always had a problem with mids down low & tweets up high...

I've never compeated in both front seats though, that's got to be tough, how do you deal with the path length differences & still keep a great image on both sides? I used to always go down low in the kicks & mount my tweeters down low too, just to try & have as close to a single point source as possible, I guess that's not ideal for a nice high sound stage though, although with a lot of playing around with aiming it can be pretty good & have nice imaging.

so how do you get nice imaging & staging on both sides when the opposite speaker is over 3 times the distance from you as the closer driver?

JasonWW · 10-18-2007, 12:19 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by turbocad6

so how do you get nice imaging & staging on both sides when the opposite speaker is over 3 times the distance from you as the closer driver?

Even though the drivers side speaker is closer to you it is going to be more off axis than the speaker on the passengers side. The more off axis a driver is the more attentuated it sounds, while the farther speaker being more on axis is going to sound louder. This is what's known as time/intensity trading.

Your horns do this as well, but in a different way. The horn shape is designed to have more output to the side then straight ahead. Combined with their extra long path lengths (kickpanel + a bit extra) they are able to create that nice stage for both listners.

Just for general knowledge to everyone reading this:

We as humans are much more sensitive to time differences in sound positioning left to right because our ears are on each side of our head. Makes sense, huh? On the other hand, we have a hard time determining sound positioning up and down. Our ears just weren't designed for it. That's why you can often seperate the mids and tweets vertically and still have a good single image. Even with the mids and tweets in the kicks you can have a nice high soundstage, although reflections from the dash underside or center console can complicate things. If you seperate them and have the tweets up high with the mids in the kicks you can still get good imaging as long as the path lengths are the same from both drivers to your ear.

Just look at any home speaker where dash boards and door panels are not a factor. You'll always see the drivers lined up vertically and never horizontally.

turbocad6 · 10-18-2007, 01:12 AM

ok, but attenuation is going to do nothing as far as the left reaching your ear slightly ahead of the right, this will give the perception of the right being further, & that should put a center at close to the left windshield pillar. as you delay the left speaker, you adjust that pinpoint center over towards the center of the windshield where it belongs, but then the passenger has the oposite results.

I'm always shooting for a center image in the center of the windshield, I'm wondering if when you put the drivers up that close to you, if your now getting a center image that's more in front of you than centered in the car? I guess that would sound good at each indevidual side really, this is the only way I can see it working.

if that's the case though, if you had 2 people in the front seat, both with eyes closed, a vocal in dead center, & asked each ocupant to point at where they thought the vocal was located, would they each point to a different spot? each slightly more in front of them than center of the windshield? with equal pathlengths both ocupants would point to the exact same spot, center of the windshield... how could that be acheived with the opposite driver 3-4X the distance from you?

oh & yeah, I get the vertical vs horizontal thing, it's very doable to get a nice high stage with all drivers mounted down low too

JasonWW · 10-18-2007, 02:53 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by turbocad6

ok, but attenuation is going to do nothing as far as the left reaching your ear slightly ahead of the right, this will give the perception of the right being further, & that should put a center at close to the left windshield pillar. as you delay the left speaker, you adjust that pinpoint center over towards the center of the windshield where it belongs, but then the passenger has the oposite results.

I'm always shooting for a center image in the center of the windshield, I'm wondering if when you put the drivers up that close to you, if your now getting a center image that's more in front of you than centered in the car? I guess that would sound good at each indevidual side really, this is the only way I can see it working.

if that's the case though, if you had 2 people in the front seat, both with eyes closed, a vocal in dead center, & asked each ocupant to point at where they thought the vocal was located, would they each point to a different spot? each slightly more in front of them than center of the windshield? with equal pathlengths both ocupants would point to the exact same spot, center of the windshield... how could that be acheived with the opposite driver 3-4X the distance from you?

The sounds don't need to reach your ear at the same time. We know that a louder speaker will always draw your focus over a quieter one and a sound reaching your ear first will draw your focus over one arriving later. There is a trading effect going on, hence the term "time/intenisity trading". Intensity being the loudness of course. If you have the further side louder (through the speaker mounting angle, not the balance knob) then your brain will balance them out and put the image in front of you (or where you want it).

In my car the image is not centered in the exact center of the dash, but that is OK. Each front listener hears the center image slightly closer to them. From my drivers seat I hear the center image not at 12 o'clock, nor at 1 o'clock (center of dash), but more at 12:30. Just a bit closer to me and I prefer it that way. The passenger will hear the center image at the 11:30 position. This is actually the best I could do image wise using the stock mid locations in the door and the tweets in the A-pillars. With a custom door panel that would let me re-angle the mids I might get the center image in the center of the dash for both listeners, but it would be a lot of work, plus I might not like the results. I really like the imaging as is, so that's why I haven't tried to change it.

turbocad6 · 10-18-2007, 09:05 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by JasonWW

In my car the image is not centered in the exact center of the dash, but that is OK. Each front listener hears the center image slightly closer to them. From my drivers seat I hear the center image not at 12 o'clock, nor at 1 o'clock (center of dash), but more at 12:30. Just a bit closer to me and I prefer it that way. The passenger will hear the center image at the 11:30 position. This is actually the best I could do image wise using the stock mid locations in the door and the tweets in the A-pillars. With a custom door panel that would let me re-angle the mids I might get the center image in the center of the dash for both listeners, but it would be a lot of work, plus I might not like the results. I really like the imaging as is, so that's why I haven't tried to change it.

see, that I could wrap my head around I guess, but I don't know that just changing the angles of the mids would bring the image to perfect center either...

I suppose really that having the driver hear a center at 12:30 & the passenger hearing it at 11:30 isn't all that bad, but I'm pretty old school, & I think I would have an issue with that as a true competition car, I mean the ultimate goal would be to try & have a truely centered image, I hear a lot of cars that have an image that's off to the side slightly, & the more off from center the less great it seems I guess, I still have a hard time understanding how a perfectly centered image could be achieved with the mids up higher in the dash & be centered for both sides of the car.

with your mids down low & your tweets up higher, i think you'll loose just a litle bit of the pin point acuracy in the imaging... the best analogy I can use to discribe that is like the actual focus point of a sound... the more pin point acurate the imaging the more precise a sound can be located... I think that's the improvement jan see's in her stage by bringing the mids closer to the tweets. it's like a click sound for example... in a really acurate soundstage that click can be located to within the location of say a dime... hard to discribe, but it's not there or there, but exactly THERE... the less acurate, the more wide window of location there is, so a click sound can be narrowed down to instead of the size of a dime, maybe the size of a baseball, which would also be pretty good, but not as precise. this works on all planes too & is 3 dimentional too as far as distance percieved. an average crap system may have the locating abilities of a basketball or worse... at this point it is said to just have bad imaging.

a visual parallel analogy would be like the focus or resolution of an image... the best soundstage would be the equivelent of an hd picture, so lifelike that you feel like you could reach out & touch it... sound works the same to your ears as far as realizim...

music is not just one click of course, it's a multitude of sounds in different locations, but the more pin point acurate it is, the more realistic & precise the overall system would be, & the more life like it will be. I wish I could hear jans car, it's obvious that her system is awesome in these regards... it's insane how anal this can get & it's fair to say jan is pretty anal about her imaging

JasonWW · 10-19-2007, 02:17 AM

It sounds as if your talking about 2 different things. You can have pinpoint imaging without the center location exactly in the center of the car.

Both the driver and passenger in my car can close their eyes and point to the individual instruments or the vocalist and that image is precise and does not wonder around, but at the same time they will not be pointing at the same exact imaginary spot. I really don't see anything bad with that.

Do you see that as a bad thing or maybe as a less than good imaging vehicle? Granted, I may not score perfect points in a competition due to that, but it's still way better than most cars competing and it sounds good to me. I think ultimately you have to satisfy your needs over the needs of others. This is one of the things I don't like about competing, you have to tailor your sound system for maximum points regardless of how it sounds to you. I'm sure there are even some hard core competitors than will tweak their sound to favor certain judges based on who is going to be judging their car. Some may call it sneaky or unfair, some may call it perfectly acceptable. To me it's a bunch of political BS. I think it should be more about the fun and excitement as opposed to winning at all costs.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

turbocad6 · 10-19-2007, 11:24 AM

oh, don't get me started on the political bs of competition... let's just say after a while I just wasn't having fun anymore & that was the only reason I saw to do it in the first place

& yeah, of course pin point imaging & image location are 2 different things. I agree that the system should be built for you to enjoy, that's how I build & that's why I usually call my system a street system rather than a competition system, weather it sounds better than some competition systems or not is another issue.

to me a street system will always have to deal with a higher noise floor & to me, there are different considerations depending on intended use, for example, I'm willing to trade off a slight amount of tonal acuracy for spl for example... but I love an acurate sound stage

JasonWW · 10-20-2007, 06:13 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by turbocad6

oh, don't get me started on the political bs of competition... let's just say after a while I just wasn't having fun anymore & that was the only reason I saw to do it in the first place

& yeah, of course pin point imaging & image location are 2 different things. I agree that the system should be built for you to enjoy, that's how I build & that's why I usually call my system a street system rather than a competition system, weather it sounds better than some competition systems or not is another issue.

to me a street system will always have to deal with a higher noise floor & to me, there are different considerations depending on intended use, for example, I'm willing to trade off a slight amount of tonal acuracy for spl for example... but I love an acurate sound stage

I agree.

What was this thread originally about?