Bryan G
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Posts posted by Bryan G
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I was looking for something healthier. I was using polypropylene glycerol Marlboro flavored juice, I like the real cigarette flavor but knew this wasn't safe. I found this place than uses vegetable glycerine instead and flavors it with natural ingredients and I didn't care how it tasted. I ordered what they call "Best Damn Tobacco" and was surprised, it tastes like I'm smoking mild pipe tobacco, or a strong Marlboro. Just throwing this out there for anyone who likes the real tobacco flavor https://www.virginvapor.com/products/organic-best-damn-tobacco-e-liquid?variant=14134406724
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I can't move the xover up, the subs just have a dial that is 50hz on one end and 500 on the other, so I would never find where 60hz is. But it's all good, I had Rush YYZ on today and the mid drums (toms?) almost made me blink every time they hit.
Before I get some different crossovers or adjust anything, I need to get the SDS and seal & deaden the doors. If that makes any improvement I'll be satisfied for a while.
I would like to know where I'm lacking though, I'm so close to the level I want, just can't tell if it's the front amp of the speakers that max out. My guess is the speakers, so eventually I'll want to upgrade.
I just wish there was someone that lived around here I could have listen to my system and give me an evaluation.
you shouldn't trust the dial at all. pick a test tone, say 60 hz and play that through the sub. now start with the dial at 50 and slowly move up until the test tone starts to decrease in loudness. that will roughly be the -3db point.
its not so much that you should pick the xover frequency ahead of time. that doesn't make sense. This is more so for comparing different xover points (ie. 50 vs 60 vs 80 and so forth). lets say you find that 60 is good but 80 isn't. next you would try something in between. repeat until you find the magic number.
you can do this for the hpf on your mids as well. in this case you pick 80hz for example, start with your dial ABOVE (instead of below), and listen for the -3db point.
Common sense, sometimes I just over look it. I have a CD with all the test tones, don't know why I didn't think of this. I do like the sound I have with it set at 50hz, but 55, 60 or higher might give me a little more punch on the fronts.
It's worth the time to check it out.
Thanks.
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I can't move the xover up, the subs just have a dial that is 50hz on one end and 500 on the other, so I would never find where 60hz is. But it's all good, I had Rush YYZ on today and the mid drums (toms?) almost made me blink every time they hit.
Before I get some different crossovers or adjust anything, I need to get the SDS and seal & deaden the doors. If that makes any improvement I'll be satisfied for a while.
I would like to know where I'm lacking though, I'm so close to the level I want, just can't tell if it's the front amp of the speakers that max out. My guess is the speakers, so eventually I'll want to upgrade.
I just wish there was someone that lived around here I could have listen to my system and give me an evaluation.
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Back when I was removing the rear speakers I went over all the setting on my amps and noticed I had it all screwed up, don't know how I did it. First, the subs were crossed over at around 200hz. I thought I had the subs at 50hz and the fronts at the same. This might explain why the bass on the fronts got louder when I would turn the subs off, I'm assuming the matching freqs between 50hz and 200hz were canceling each other out.
Then I looked at the front amp, it was set at 50hz like I wanted, but I noticed the LPF-OFF-HPF was set to off, so the crossover wasn't even on.
So I turned the front crossover on (set to 50hz), turned the sub crossover back down to 50 hz, then things changed. I'm now able to turn the fronts way up, well, the whole system way up without over driving the fronts.
I'm now happy with my system. I still need to deaden the door, but it's not such a priority. I was playing some Aerosmith last night is it was almost perfect, certain CD's have powerful mid punch but the overall quality is, well, perfect. I would like more volume, but to me, precision is more important than loudness.
I wish I would have found this forum before I bought my system, then I could have use the money I wasted on the rear speakers and bought better fronts but all and all, at least I did find you guys and was able to get things right.
And yes, I can tell just having fronts is better. For the last few weeks before I sold the rears, I would play around with having all 4 on, then back to just fronts, and I did notice the dead spots. The fact that some music would come from the rear and some from the front wasn't a good thing like I thought, the sounds moving around were dead spots and drop outs (I think that's how to put it), unwanted behavior. Once I knew what was happening I could not argue, the rears were messing up the fronts.
Thanks for being here and helping.
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I sold the rear speakers, so now I have the money to get some SDS. But I have a question, is the Speaker Tweaker Kit worth the money?
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Acoustic wave. There is one that comes from the front of the speaker and the same out of phase completely from the rear speaker. In a perfect world when you combine a wave that is 180deg out of phase (or out of phase completely) together with a normal wave they cancel out to zero completely. This is why you need to isolate the interior of the door from what you visually see on the speaker. Until you do that you will not have midbass.
Cone area & new speakers come later, you need to fix your install first otherwise it is a waste of money.
To block acoustic waves you need mass. Exactly why styrofoam sucks.
Sorry for sounding dumb, but I'm not sure on this. I thought I heard this years ago, that you need not only the right size box for a speaker, but the right shape.
So, let me see if I'm getting this.
The box will only fix my problem if it is the right size & shape. Because I can't do this properly, I need to have some material to absorb the back wave so it doesn't reflect??
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My money is on SDS from now on for sound deadening purposes. Google sound deadener showdown and click on the first link that shows up. Read everything on that site and it should help you to better understand what you do and don't need to do. It helped me a ton and if you look in my build log, you will see how I went about doing it.
Thank you, I will read that when I get back home tonight.
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Have you sealed off the back wave yet?
Building a box can be detrimental to a driver not really designed for it. 90% of car audio drivers were designed to run IB (at least ones that actually have a design). Putting that driver in an enclosure without measuring t/s parameters and determining what the enclosure should be could actually net you much worse midbass.
The other problem you have is you are proposing lightweight materials. You need MASS to block a wave, not material.
Not sure what you meant but "back wave".
I know that Styrofoam is light, but I was going to cover the entire box with the sound deadener. The thing is, I usually am sitting with the car off when I listen to music, the fronts just don't have the mid to low bass that the rears 6x9's had. So maybe my first thing is to just buy new front speakers, at least the woofers and deaden the door without sealing anything off.
That is why I came here to ask before starting, I had a feeling that the speakers might not be meant to be in a sealed environment but I've learned to ask as I have a lot to learn..
I think I have another problem I'll have to look into, I adjusted the sub crossover and think I brought it up to where it overlaps the front woofer and that might be canceling out the fronts lower mid bass. I'll try and re-adjust that.
Okay, so for now, until I get money, I'll just wait. First I'll fix/deaden the door, then if I need to I'll get the speakers replaced, but I won't box off the speaker in the door.
Would 8" be better for the door or will 6"s work just fine?
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They never called back. I'm not going to worry yet, I'll just keep them posted on craigslist.
Right now I'm working on what to do with the doors. I came up with an idea. I was thinking about using that Styrofoam they use in construction (3" thick) to seal off the door, making like a box. I'm thinking I'll roll the window down, then put the Styrofoam up against it then use that expanding foam to seal it, fill in the gaps. After that I'll get that high density stuff and coat the whole thing, should make a nice sealed box and improve the bass. I'm pretty sure that the speakers have too much freedom, I'm not sure of the proper term, but there is no back pressure, the speakers sometime just can't play the bass, they just move too much and no sound comes out.
The blue on this picture shows where I'll put the Styrofoam. Am I out of my mind, or would this be a good idea?
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Someone just offered me $100 for my rear speakers. I paid $170 last August and they're still under warranty. I was thinking at least $125.
Rear speakers: Kicker 40CSS694
Should I take the $100 or hold out for more?
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I found a site where you can make your own tones for anyone looking.
Here you can make a single tone you choose the frequency: http://www.audiocheck.net/audiofrequencysignalgenerator_sinetone.php
and here you can choose 2 freqs and it will make a sweep from one to the other: http://www.audiocheck.net/audiofrequencysignalgenerator_sweep.php
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This is progressive music, it continually gets better as the song progresses.
Yes - Dreamtime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=302ui77e3MI
and if you like that, this is just as progressive and it will make any system sound even better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvBknHFa8PQ
I've been into Yes since 1980 and I never get enough.
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k lets get the survey started .....
1. How old are you?
51
2. When did you get into car audio?
1978
3. How did you first get into car audio?
I've always been into music, all my life, when I got my license dad let me put a system in his red ford galaxy 500 stationwagon, wha a geek car that was
4. Whats your favorite color
purple
5. Male or female?
male
6. Your first Car?
1965 Monte Carlo
8. How did you find out about this site?
Google
9. What was your first system?
Pioneer super tuner, the obe with the round tuner, 7 band eq powerbooster and Jenson 6x9's in a homemade box
11. Were do you live?
Wisconsin
12. Whats you favorite car audio brand?
Kenwood
15. Who is our hero in the car audio industry?
16. Whats your dream system?
17. Whats your dream car?
Ferrari 458 Italia
18. Whats the fastest car you have driven/ridden in?
my 2nd car, 1978 Z28, it was not stock
19. Were do you buy most of your car audio products?
Crutchfield
20. What is your job?
Computer technician
21. Whats your favorite saying?
24. Whats your favorite brand of cars?
Toyota
25. What do you like better, cars, vans, trucks, or suv's?
Vans
29. Whats is the most recent thing you have purchased?
mountain bike
31. Who do you think is the most knowledgeable person on SSA?
32. What is your personal best on the TL? and with what equipment?
33. SQ or SPL? why?
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The not as full with just fronts is highlighting the install issue. First step is to fix that. IF you want to learn about deadening go here: http://www.sounddeadenershowdown.com/
As for your bookshelf comment, good ones don't have a bunch of speakers. Marketing departments, not engineers add them to shitty ones. Heck the ones in my office don't even have a tweeter and unless you have some real money in cans they sound better than headphones.
Inteference can be constructive and destructive. It will create all sorts of pits and mountains in your frequency response. WAY worse in a car as well with all the reflective and strange spaces.
I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. My bookshelf speakers have 3, but now I realize that they are all crossed over so there is no overlapping in freqs, I understand what you mean now. I have Ohm C3's and they are unbeatable for realism, just can't use them, even at a low volume, the neighbors complain, that's why I'm building the car up, I hope I can get the car to sound close to them.
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- The infinity are fine
- Sell the 6x9's.
- bridge the 4 channel to the fronts
- sub and sub amp are fine if you're happy with them. Watts are watts
- EQ is unnecessary. The 3 parametric built into the headunit is way more powerful than a 7 band graphic
- sell the EQ- see above
- deaden the doors, SDS has the cheapest most effective option, in my opinion.
not sure what you mean by:
The sub amp is 20-20k hz so it's okay, but I just found that the speakers only go as low as 30hz.the sub amp only needs to reproduce 30hz to ~100hz basically. fullrange amps accomplish this obviously. I assume you've set the LPF appropriately (subsonic filter isn't required for a sealed setup)?
how about you just go over all your settings on the amp and hu.
as far as deadening goes you should be able to sell your unused equipment to buy everything to deaden the front doors.
this is a rough estimate:
- 1 x 13.5sqft sheet of mlv
- 1 x 13.5 sqft sheet of ccf
- 1 roll - butyl rope
- velcro strips
- 1 can contact cement
- ~12 - 15 cdl tiles
Thats what? 100 bucks or something? Those 6x9 are $170 on the sonicelectronix link you posted. You should be able to sell the 6x9s and EQ, buy deadener, and still come out ahead.
Sounds like a plan, I'm putting them on craigslist as soon as I can get them out of the back deck.
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Listen and complain. Can't want better and not know what that means
Sorry, I have no idea what you mean.
I have to do something with the 6"s, right now they're mounted to the door frame, there is around a 3" to 4" gap between the speaker and the door panel so I need to make some kind of adapter. I was going to make an adapter to bring the speakers out to the door panel and cut out the grill on the door panel, is that what I should do next?
the gap between the speaker and the door trim is fine. you need to use a baffle between the metal door and the speaker. what you're wanting to do is a little unnecessary but you could do that if you wanted to.
I probably didn't explain it right, but that's what I plan on doing. I'm going to use some wood. I have a 6 1/2 hole saw, I could glue a couple of pieces of 3/4" particle board together, use the hole saw to make the whole, screw it to the metal door then screw the speaker to that.
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Well, I've been using just the fronts for a few days now and I get it, I can hear it. Last night I was listening to some Supertramp and I thought I'd bring the back speakers into play, just a little to see. Yea, the sound started coming all around me, but I noticed the areas that were missing but instead of adjusting the built parametric EQ I just turned the rear back off. Now I understand why I had to use the HU's eq. to stretch the sound so much before, because certain areas were getting canceled out. As I faded to just the fronts again I could hear the frequencies that were lacking come back and the fullness returned.
Since I've been using just the fronts I've noticed I can almost run the HU's EQ almost flat. The treble used to be +3 or higher, now, for most albums it's +1 or 0, mid was always at least -3 but I run that flat, 0. The base I still keep up at +3 but I can tell that got down once I seal the door.
The biggest plus on this whole thing, I was driving with my girls to pick up one of their friends on the south side of Milwaukee, about a 1 hour round trip. I was able to crank the music to where I was enveloped yet they could talk to each other in the back seat without yelling, all they really hear is the subs, but they can talk through that easily.
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When I try to add the avatar from gravics, I get this error:
Sorry, you don't have permission for that!and when I try to import an avatar from a URL I put the address in and click "import" then I get this message: member_profile_disabled
Try it now.
I didn't even have to try. I don't know what you did, but my avatar just appeared.
Thank you.
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When I try to add the avatar from gravics, I get this error:
Sorry, you don't have permission for that!and when I try to import an avatar from a URL I put the address in and click "import" then I get this message: member_profile_disabled
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I looked and searched but couldn't find any information on this. I would like to add an avatar but when I try it says member_profile_disabled.
Is there a minimum number of posts before it's active, or is this feature permanently disabled?
Click on your "user name" at the top right.
There is a drop down list, then click on "my profile"
Then hover over where the avatar would be to the left of your user name. You will see a "change" button. Click that.
Nope, nothing works, I can't upload and gravitar doesn't work.
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Listen and complain. Can't want better and not know what that means
Sorry, I have no idea what you mean.
I have to do something with the 6"s, right now they're mounted to the door frame, there is around a 3" to 4" gap between the speaker and the door panel so I need to make some kind of adapter. I was going to make an adapter to bring the speakers out to the door panel and cut out the grill on the door panel, is that what I should do next?
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I looked and searched but couldn't find any information on this. I would like to add an avatar but when I try it says member_profile_disabled.
Is there a minimum number of posts before it's active, or is this feature permanently disabled?
Click on your "user name" at the top right.
There is a drop down list, then click on "my profile"
Then hover over where the avatar would be to the left of your user name. You will see a "change" button. Click that.
That is what I did, but every time I try to upload an image I get the message "member_profile_disabled", It won't let me upload, so I tried the gravitar and that worked.
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As for the sub, it is BY FAR the easiest portion of the spectrum to reproduce. BY FAR. Focusing on making the rest sound good is definitely a good idea as bang for the buck that time will pay off the most.
I was right about something, finally. That's why I bought the Dual brand for the sub and sub amp, I figured that would be the easiest part to reproduce, these cheap ones would take care if the low end for a while.
Flush may not be what you want, that isn't clear. What you want is a baffle, isolation, and separation of the front/back wave. Until you do that no matter what gear you have it will sound lackluster.
I do understand what you're saying. There was a company in Grand Rapids Mi. that made super high quality speakers, not just the cabinets but every part from scratch. They had a display with a pair of speakers that were loud, clear and full range. This was like 30 years ago so I can't remember the size but I think they were around 6". So these little 6" speakers, in some rather small cabinets was filling the whole showroom, you'd figure the amp had to be putting out some good power, but it wasn't. They had a meter on it showing how all that sound was coming from only 1 watt of power. They were showing the same thing you're saying, with the proper acoustics, a little goes a long ways.
So how do I figure out what I want to do?
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Rear speaker problem, no separation.
in Subwoofers / Speakers
Posted
Well, it's been a while but I thought I'd give a final update.
I decided to just make the fronts sound as best they can. Using tones, I set the crossover to as low as I could go before they started losing sound. That turned out to be around 60, when I went lower, they just didn't play it. Then I adjusted the sub amp to the same point tones.
I wonder if time has anything to do with this, do speakers wear in? It sounds better now than ever. Drums from the front punch, loud, the bass is perfect and the high end is crisp and clear. My system does not have much power, but the sound quality is what I wanted, and have.
My head unit blew up, I think that cheap Dual amp for the subs did it. It was making popping noises for the last year. Now I'm just using the KAC-8405 for the fronts and subs, and I swear it sounds better. I replaced the KDC-X397 with a KDC-X302, this one plays .flac so no more .mp3's, no more lossy music.
I really want to thank everyone here, all the advice helped me to achieve my goal, quality sound.