Team-BHP - Car Audio Advice from the Audio Gurus: Use "Search thread" before posting a new Q!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DerAlte (Post 2671414)

1. I expressed a (subjective) personal opinion having listened to them
2. Quite humbly I didn't attempt to rank them - I found the Reference a bit more to my liking and that is what I expressed
3. I don't believe cost should have an impact on judging whether one likes the speakers or not. Also, it is incorrect to have a prejudice that the higher cost speaker *must be better* - to me many speakers 3 times the cost of entry-level components sounded indistinctive.

Nice. Class D, no wonder it didn't have humming. Doesn't matter now, but your car / previous install must have serious grounding 'problems' to get ground loop hum inside the amp. Class D, which inherently has a digital coupling (probably optocoupler) to final output stage, would be impervious to that.

Well actually its a very tricky situation. Even though my installer is very supportive and takes extremely good care, I always doubted that maybe he had made some serious wiring mistakes. I made him redo the whole wiring twice and the humming was still there, now just to satisfy me he took out a basic Pioneer system from his shop, powered it up and connected the RCA cable going into my HU to the Pioneer system and...... Whoosh... No humming sound whatsoever, crystal clear sound output. So its definitely got to do something with my HU, which infact I have got replaced from the Mahindra dealer as there was a buzzing noise whenever I played CD, USB (the humming sound was there in my previous HU as well).

Also, please note that even in the Hertz HDP4, there was very minimal humming sound when connected to through RCA cables. To overcome that, my installer tried taking speaker level input and then the humming disappeared. Also the humming does not increase or decrease with the RPM speed, but is noticeable only when the Volume level are at 1 or 0.

But yes, must confess, never expected Hertz amp to perform so well. I somehow always rated Audison higher, realised yesterday only that Hertz and Audison have the same parent company.

I currently have infinity 6530 components in the front and a jbl1215 sub in the boot running off a GT5-S644 jbl amp.The 9633i are in the rear powered by the HU.
I was looking for a 2 Channel/mono amp for my car for sometime but couldn't get it due to time constraints.Now i am getting an year old blaupunkt 1250pnp mono amp and a brand new JBL GT-X424 (B&W) for the same price.Considering the sub/setup i have, does the brand new X424 makes sense or the year old 1250pnp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DerAlte (Post 2671414)

Thank you. When you say the Reference series was more to your liking, are you saying that they were more mellow than the Kappa speakers (since in earlier posts you have indicated that you generally prefer mellower sound signatures), and that the Kappas are brighter? I ask since very soon I would be choosing between the two.

Also, while I agree that cost should not be the sole differentiating factor, to a layman like me, the difference of almost Rs.4000 should logically give certain additional benefits. If you can help me understand where this cost differential is manifested, it would be great. Is it something like the quality of materials being used to construct the hardware?

Quote:

Originally Posted by arindambasu13 (Post 2671688)

... that the Kappas are brighter? I ask since very soon I would be choosing between the two. ...

No, the Kappas are not brighter, just slightly 'different' from the Reference. Driven from a powerful amp, the Kappas can go quite loud, much more than the References.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arindambasu13 (Post 2671688)

... to a layman like me, the difference of almost Rs.4000 should logically give certain additional benefits. ...

That's what I was trying to explain: not necessarily in this area, since the judgement is subjective.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arindambasu13 (Post 2671688)

... Is it something like the quality of materials being used to construct the hardware?

No, the materials themselves: cone material, surround material, magnet size, etc. etc. If you say 'quality', the materials have to be the same for comparison.

Quote:

Originally Posted by arindambasu13 (Post 2671688)

If you can help me understand where this cost differential is manifested, it would be great. Is it something like the quality of materials being used to construct the hardware?

Without getting into the specifics, there are differences in terms of materials as well as construction details which may be invisible to the eye. Also research has its own cost, which gets added to the product. Marketing is what illuminates these differences, so correlating cost to benefits is always going to be iffy.

To wit, a more expensive variant may have nothing more than a copper sleeve inside the magnet structure. This sleeve helps create a more linear field and reduce distortion as the coil moves within the gap. This will obviously be an invisible difference, but (IMO) far more impact on sound quality than a blind change of (say) cone material.

Guess which one marketing will choose to flog? And yes, marketing is key part of these kind of decisions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cranky (Post 2671980)

... a copper sleeve inside the magnet structure. This sleeve helps create a more linear field and reduce distortion as the coil moves within the gap. ...

How is copper - which is a non-magnetic material - help in creating a more linear field? Many turns of insulated copper may (if shorted at the ends, like shorting the second coil of a dual-coil sub), but a sleeve coaxial to the coil travel?

Amortizing dev cost over likely (low) offtake/sales seems to be the more significant reason for 98.9% of cost increase for 1% benefit appreciated only by 0.1% of the market. :p :D

^^Nice Q.

The magnetic field of a typical driver is exerted within the magnetic gap consisting of the pole piece and the actual magnets (usually as a ring around the pole piece).

What basically happens is that the field gets weaker along the length of the gap, so the ability of the driver to be modulated by the applied signal decreases as the coil moves towards the end of the gap. This results in distortion at high levels, as the excursion increases.

The way the copper sleeve works is two fold. One, it basically acts as a short-circuit for the magnetic back-EMF. Two, the larger magnet (required because of the larger gap) creates a more linear field. There are different strategies for different drivers, some have rings and some have sleeves.

Faraday ring in louspeaker driver, what is it? - diyAudio

:)

Edit: More detailed explanation: The way a dynamic driver works is by the interaction of the static magnetic field of the magnet, and the moving magnetic field of the coil. When an metal is subjected to a changing magnetic field, it will generate within itself an electric current. Visualise the pole piece of a driver, and the effect of the current through the voice coil. This magnetic field alternates within the material of the pole piece, with two effects:

1. Attraction or repulsion which moves the coil back and forth on its suspension

2. Generation of electric currents within the magnetic structure consisting of the pole piece and the actual magnet.

The electric current in the magnetic structure fights the existing magnetisation, and a copper sleeve or ring basically short-circuits all of this current (called eddy current, no offense to Eddy). This helps in retaining magnet strength and reducing distortion.

Clear as mud, maybe I am.

thanks to everyone for their suggestions, this is what i ended up buying for my wagon R :)
Front - JBL 609C JBL GTO-609C - 3700
Rear - JBL GT6-S366 details - 2100
HU - Kenwood 349S Kenwood - KDC-U349S - 4000

About 1000 to cover installation and socket charges.

The tweeter was placed at the corner of the dashboard facing the driver and passenger, it sounds a little bright, great overall.

thanks to everyone for their suggestions :)
Total fatka Rs 10800

Team,

Need urgent clarification from the Audio guru's

I have recently bought the Manza Aura which comes with OE Audio unit, Im planning to install to my old Amp and woofer but when I checked with dealer he told me that we cant fix directly and we need to have a converter to fix this ( cost Rs 2500 ) is it true ? and also does this will void my warranty by any means even if I fix it in showroom or external dealer?

Regards

Quote:

Originally Posted by soarer (Post 2683193)

... need to have a converter to fix this ( cost Rs 2500 ) is it true ? and also does this will void my warranty by any means even if I fix it in showroom or external dealer? ...

Yes, you would need a Line Output (or High to Low) Converter, *unless* your amp can take speaker level inputs directly - please check the amp manual first. This box will connect to the speaker connections coming out of the OE HU, and give output on RCA sockets, which can be connected to your amp with RCA cables.

No, this would not void the car warranty, and yes, you can get it done at any external dealer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhX (Post 2682086)

What is the difference between getting a 4V pre-out from the HU vs a 2V pre-out from the HU? How does this affect the sound?

Not if you do not use an external amp. a 4V pre out only helps if the car's enviroment is particularly noisy and/or your installer does not use common sense while runnning the HU-AMP RCA cables.

2 V pre out is adequate for most clean installs. 4 V or higher is almost redundant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by navin (Post 2684245)

I did some research on this while I waited for replies, and corroborates with what you said :)

What I read is that a higher voltage pre-out reduces the hiss in the silent parts of the track or in between tracks, i.e. SNR is higher for the amplifier. This seems to make sense.

As of right now, I am thinking of getting a basic setup with just speakers and HU. Later, I intend to go for a sub-woofer, and an amplifier (if required). Bearing in mind that I won't change my car or my HU for at least 4-5 years (target as of now), do you think 2V vs 4V pre-outs should be a major criteria in the decision-making process?