[ntomer]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Yes, the amp will do fine with the speakers.

For setting the amp (you will need someone to assist you in either listening, or turning amp knobs):
1. Set the gain control knob on the amp to 0, and also switch off any LPF/HPF setting
2. Set the HU volume to a point where the rear speakers sound comfortable in the rear seat (I assume the Infinity ovals are wired to HU, since you have a 2ch amp)
3. Gradually raise the amp gain control till you hear the front components just slightly louder than the rear speakers. At this point, you should have to bend into the rear seat area to hear the rear speakers. Remember, the rear speakers are putting out more bass than the front components, so compare voice or instruments in the mid region - ignore bass
* Mark this point on the gain control with a glass marker, so that you know where it was if someone fiddles with it later

Thanks for your response.

Should I run the amp at 4 ohms (when it'd give 55w output) or at 2 ohms (80w output)?

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by ntomer

... Should I run the amp at 4 ohms (when it'd give 55w output) or at 2 ohms (80w output)?

You can't actively control that. It depends on the impedance of the speakers, which are 4 ohms in this case.

Actual output power depends on
- speaker impedance (load)
- loudness of music passage, and
- mix of frequencies (type of music). Lower frequencies carry more power than high frequencies - tweeter is driven with very little power

Don't go by absolute values (like 55W, 80W) - that is the maximum power that the amp can put out without distorting. In reality, electrical power flowing through speakers varies from 1W (soft) to about 30W (very loud) in normal listening conditions. Forget 80W, even 55W actually flowing through the speakers is likely to drive you crazy if the windows are closed.

[msharma_79]

Hi Gurus,

I need recommendation/ Suggestions on following topics.
1. Good Head Unit with Display Panel with possibility of connecting camera for Storme LX. Since I can't have double din unit (Design issue with storme) I may have to opt for pop up screen or solution which is being offered with explorer kit.
2. Connecting phone with system.

Thanks in Advance,

Best regards,

Manu

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by msharma_79

... 1. Good Head Unit with Display Panel with possibility of connecting camera for Storme LX. Since I can't have double din unit (Design issue with storme) I may have to opt for pop up screen or solution which is being offered with explorer kit.
2. Connecting phone with system. ...

Motorized flip-out screens don't really sell in India, so you will have to trawl the dealers, especially grey market, to find one. Pioneer or JVC would be your best bet, Dapic etc. would work but wouldn't have great sound. Search in the threads in the DIY section - there is someone, maybe @mercedized but I am not sure, who had fitted a similar unit in his Safari (same problem - 1DIN space). Yes, these units come with inputs from a rearview camera. Not sure about navigation interface - that would require a separate input for interfacing a hide-away navigation box from MMI.

If it is being offered as a kit by the dealer where you are buying your Storme from, find out the make, model and price, and compare features. A barebones unit would cost upwards of 18K at least in grey.

I doubt if any of these flip out screen units have BT, but then you could always check. BT would be required to interface your phone for calls. For playing music from phone, there would be an Aux-in input.

[im_srini]

Hello I.C.E Gurus,

I have a couple of questions :

Question A :

Do audio equipment or hardware have a "shelf life" ?
Like with tires, do audio equipment degrade, especially if idle for several years ?

Background :
I've been "collecting" I.C.E "stuff" for the past several years.
While most items are "New" ( as in BNIB ), some of the stuff is used.
Almost all of the hardware is from the Team-Bhp Classifieds, the rest is from eBay & online retailers.
Since I was collecting piecemeal, most of the items have been sitting idle at home tucked away into corners & under furniture.

Current Query :
One such item is a BNIB Focal-165-V2-PolyGlass component set which I'd bought way back in June 2009.
Recently, I opened the box & while handling the speakers, got the distinct impressions that the speaker magnets had become quite "tame".
Could the speaker magnets, sitting side-by-side in the box for several years, have lost some ( if not most ) of their flux ?

Here's a list of the items & when they were bought :



I presume I do not have to worry about the shelf-life of the amplifiers, processors, & cables.
However, I'm assuming I might have some trouble getting the glue to work on the Dynamat damping sheets.
How about the speakers - the ID8-D2 in particular, which has been sitting idle since July 2010 ?
Are there any other items on the list that could underperform due to being idle for several years ?

Question B :

Background :

The items in the list are meant for 2 cars ( both are Altos ).
The setup I'm envisaging for both cars is quite basic :
- Head-Unit
- Processor
- Amplifier
- Components ( front doors )
- Monoblock
- Subwoofer ( boot )

The equipment at the bottom of the list marked "Installed" & highlighted in Pale-Yellow is currently in one of the Altos.
The remainder of the equipment is to be divided among the 2 cars so that both have reasonably good equipment.

Current Query :
Do some items in the list work better or are more in tune with some other items in the list ?
For example, considering the chain of Processor -> Amplifier -> Speakers, what combinations of the equipment in the list are most likely to sound good or be "in tune" ?
I would prefer the best possible setup ( limited to the items in the list ) to be in one of the Altos, the other Alto would get the remaining hardware.

Other than more damping, I would prefer to not buy any more equipment & would like to use just the existing hardware.

Please help, especially with the shelf-life query...

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by im_srini

... Do audio equipment or hardware have a "shelf life" ? ...

Yes and no.

Much depends on how and where the item is stored. For example, a mid-bass is stored in a place exposed to direct sunlight, the rubber surround is likely to gradually go hard and crack after some time. Of if the mid-bass is stored in a place with a very strong varying magnetic field nearby (like an unshielded high power transformer), the magnet is likely to lose strength.

Kept covered, away from sunlight and strong varying magnetic fields, there is unlikely to be any deterioration.

Originally Posted by im_srini

... One such item is a BNIB Focal-165-V2-PolyGlass component set which I'd bought way back in June 2009.
Recently, I opened the box & while handling the speakers, got the distinct impressions that the speaker magnets had become quite "tame" ...

The business end of the magnet is inside - and you are not testing there. Testing for magnetic strength on the outside of the magnet is not a sanguine way to establish magnetic strength.

Originally Posted by im_srini

... I presume I do not have to worry about the shelf-life of the amplifiers, processors, & cables.
However, I'm assuming I might have some trouble getting the glue to work on the Dynamat damping sheets. ...

* The glue on the damping sheets are likely to be fine even after 5 years

* It is likely that the damping sheet will become stiff as the plasticizer in the material evaporates

* The plasticizer evaporation problem could occur with speaker wires also

[linuxmanju]

@DerAlte @navin and other Audio gurus. I am a noob here who spent a lot in search of a good sound quality and yet not satisfied with the results. To start with I have the below setup.

1) Car:- Punto 90 HP
2) HU:- Kenwood 8016BT
3) Amp:- Cervin Vega 600.4
4) Speakers :- Infinity reference components on the front and Infinity coaxials in the rear.
5) Sub:- Polk audio 10" sub ( Dual coil one )

Now with the above setup, I am not too happy with the audio quality. Its too bright for my taste and not warm like the way I prefer it. Even my SoundMagic E10 paired with Karbon mobile sounds better than my car audio. For some reasons I feel that my setup was not tuned well by the installer and planning to take the matter in my own hand and tweak it myself close to what I like.

On that matter, I appreciate some help from experts here, on the best approach I can take on the below ( to start with ).

1) My HU has Xover and so does Cervin Vega Amp, what is the recommended way of setting up Xover, in HU or in AMP please suggest. Personally I find it convenient to to set it up in HU by disabling HF and LF in the amp so that I can easily play around with it, please suggest.

2) Whatever I do, I am not getting this timing alignment correct. It changes with the song and the music being played, with some songs vocals seem to come from under the Dash in others its way off. Is it usual in TA or am I missing something?.

3) Bluetooth audio played from my Karbon mobile through A2DP does not sound as good as the same song played from the USB. Is that a limitation in BT or the Karbon's DAC is spoiling the fun here, please suggest ?.

Thanks in advance.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by linuxmanju

... I am not too happy with the audio quality. Its too bright for my taste and not warm like the way I prefer it. ...
1) My HU has Xover and so does Cervin Vega Amp, ...

1. Set LPF on the channels powering the sub. Set frequency to 80Hz

2. For the components, set both LPF and HPF off

3. Infinity Ref are not bright by themselves. Check the Infinity crossovers for a tweeter level switch. I have a feeling it is at +2dB. If so, change it to 0dB or even -2dB - this will attenuate some of the high frequencies and take away the feeling of being bright

Originally Posted by linuxmanju

... 2) Whatever I do, I am not getting this timing alignment correct. ...

Measure the distance from tweeters to your ears (both L & R and Front and Rear). Ditto for the mid-bass. Enter these numbers in the Custom TA setting (as opposed to the coarse Car Type setting)

Originally Posted by linuxmanju

... 3) Bluetooth audio played from my Karbon mobile through A2DP does not sound as good as the same song played from the USB. Is that a limitation in BT or the Karbon's DAC is spoiling the fun here, please suggest ?. ...

Nothing wrong with the DAC. This is Kenwood 8016 / x994 specific - hope they have replaced the BT section and the A2DP profile implementation. The BT implementation works fine for voice bandwidth, but music performance is not good.

Better use EP Out with Aux-in.

[linuxmanju]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

1. Set LPF on the channels powering the sub. Set frequency to 80Hz

Thanks DerAlte, really appreciate it. Will try 80Hz LPF on the sub and see how it works out for me.

But the core question still remains, If I have the facility to set LPF and HPF in both my HU as well as in Amp. Should I disable cross over in Amp and set all LPF and HPF in HU or the other way around ?.

2. For the components, set both LPF and HPF off

After reading few forums and doing research, I thought of setting LPF of 60Hz on the Sub with -12db slope and HPF of 100Hz with -24db slope for the components. Is it the right thing to do please advice ?.

3. Infinity Ref are not bright by themselves. Check the Infinity crossovers for a tweeter level switch. I have a feeling it is at +2dB. If so, change it to 0dB or even -2dB - this will attenuate some of the high frequencies and take away the feeling of being bright

Spot on sir, Managed to open the door and check. It was set to +2dB, set it to 0 and there is a difference in the signature. At the first sight, that seems to be the problem. Thanks again.

Measure the distance from tweeters to your ears (both L & R and Front and Rear). Ditto for the mid-bass. Enter these numbers in the Custom TA setting (as opposed to the coarse Car Type setting)

Thanks, will try that.

[DerAlte]

[quote=linuxmanju;3355971]... If I have the facility to set LPF and HPF in both my HU as well as in Amp. Should I disable cross over in Amp and set all LPF and HPF in HU or the other way around ?. ...[quote]At the external amp. Reason:
* If the HU is driving the speakers with it's internal amp, you set it at the HU to limit what goes to the speaker
* Since your speakers are connected to the external amp, you set at the amp - not the HU
* Some HUs have a dedicated Sub-out on which LPF can be set (I think 8016 has that). There is no hard and fast rule in this case - either HU or Amp LPF can be set

Originally Posted by linuxmanju

... After reading few forums and doing research, I thought of setting LPF of 60Hz on the Sub with -12db slope and HPF of 100Hz with -24db slope for the components. Is it the right thing to do please advice ?. ...

There is no right or wrong in this - different settings have a slightly different effect. This is relative to speaker capabilities. Please experiment, by all means, but critically listen to music for a sufficient length of time so that you are able to spot the differences (not difficult). Only your ears will be able to judge what it likes or doesn't.

One caution though - setting LPF at 60 and HPF at 100 with a very sharp cutoff, you are creating a 'hole' in the response - a region which neither the mid-bass nor the sub will play. Unless a mid-bass driver behaves badly when fed with less than 80Hz, it is better to use 80Hz as a common point with 12dB fall-off.

You could experiment with 60/80/100/120Hz and see the effect. The higher you set your LPF, the sub will reproduce more mid-bass (most subs can reproduce till 250Hz) and more the front image will be pulled rearwards. The further apart you set the LPF and HPF, the more music information that goes missing in that band gap region. Nothing is absolute, so it is always better to experiment and decide.

[linuxmanju]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

* If the HU is driving the speakers with it's internal amp, you set it at the HU to limit what goes to the speaker
* Since your speakers are connected to the external amp, you set at the amp - not the HU
* Some HUs have a dedicated Sub-out on which LPF can be set (I think 8016 has that). There is no hard and fast rule in this case - either HU or Amp LPF can be set

Perfect sir, makes sense. Will try that. Thanks.

One caution though - setting LPF at 60 and HPF at 100 with a very sharp cutoff, you are creating a 'hole' in the response - a region which neither the mid-bass nor the sub will play. Unless a mid-bass driver behaves badly when fed with less than 80Hz, it is better to use 80Hz as a common point with 12dB fall-off.

Thanks for clearing the cloud, even I was thinking what would happen to the missing frequencies in that range. Will experiment with lower values and try.

Thanks again for the wonderful replies. Will experiment some and get back to you people with more questions if any.

[F150]

Dear Gurus,

This is the current setup in my SWIFT

Pioneer 6050 UB
JBL 4 channel amp ( dont remember the model)
Illusion Electra 6.1 on the front doors
Grounz Zero Sub

Everytime the battery is disconnected, the custom equalizer settings get erased.

Could you please help me understand how to tune the equalizer settings for the best balance of bass and treble with good clarity ?

G .EQ SETTING
50hz = ?
125hz = ?
315hz = ?
800hz = ?
2Khz = ?
5Khz = ?
12.5Khz = ?

Loudness = Low/mid/high
Bass Boost = 0
SLA = 2
High Pass Filter = ? Hz
Sub Frequency - 50Hz/63Hz ?

[nareshov]

Originally Posted by F150

...
Could you please help me understand how to tune the equalizer settings for the best balance of bass and treble with good clarity ?
...

Try this web-based configurator: http://soundsetting.alpine.com/ap/top
The HU options are Alpine-specific, but if you choose a HU which has the same EQ prefs as yours, and if you choose your required music genre you're tuning for, it'll give you some output data that you can use.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by F150

... Could you please help me understand how to tune the equalizer settings for the best balance of bass and treble with good clarity ? ...

1. There are no absolutes, nor one-setting-satisfies-all concept. Listening preferences differ. Your ears are the best judge

2. You have good equipment (Illusion Electra is a balanced speaker). Don't do anything with the Equalizer, Loudness etc. - just set everything to Off or 0. That way you will be giving a chance to the equipment to reproduce what the music passage contains

3. If, in comparison with another well-tuned system operating with all controls Off/0, you feel that there is something lacking in your system, you can tweak the settings a bit.
- If the bass was not loud enough (and you like it loud), jack it up by 3dB. This usually will not interfere with other parts of the spectrum
- If the voice is not coming out clear, either there is a lot of low freq noise in the car (damping needed), or the bass is disproportionally loud
- If you are missing high frequency harmonics (airiness of bells/triangle, female voice etc.), boost high frequencies above 8Khz a bit. Don't overdo it - you will hate the result

Originally Posted by nareshov

... Alpine-specific, but if you choose a HU which has the same EQ prefs as yours, and if you choose your required music genre you're tuning for, it'll give you some output data that you can use.

Not so easy. One shouldn't extrapolate Alpine settings to another make / model, as the system characteristics are different and it will need different settings. If you assume it will work 'generally' - it will be a bad assumption.

Also, presumed recommendations based on genre are the wrong way to do it. The recording engineer would have *already* mixed the music for that genre - you only need to make sure it is reproduced without any artificial increase or decrease. Equalizer is set considering speaker deficiencies, not to doubly bias genre response preferences.

Genre-based observations (like hip hop and rap have loud electronic booming droning bass) are post-facto observations about content - not a recommendation for synthetic manipulation. Individual listening preferences, like bass-heavy, neutral or treble heavy, is unrelated with genre.

[sukiwa]

Originally Posted by F150

Every time the battery is disconnected, the custom equalizer settings get erased.

Most settings are better handled/managed at amplifier rather than at HU. This also helps to ensure that sound setup can be restored without fiddling all/most HU settings.

If one still want to have settings at HU level, here are some pointers.

Could you please help me understand how to tune the equalizer settings for the best balance of bass and treble with good clarity ?

G .EQ SETTING
50hz = ?
125hz = ?
315hz = ?
800hz = ?
2Khz = ?
5Khz = ?
12.5Khz = ?

Depending upon music that you listen & associated instruments, you can choose boosting frequencies as shown in chart in this URL. Hover mouse over desired instrument, it would show up frequency range.

Alternately, please have a look at attached pdf file (source).
equaliser-chart.pdf

Loudness = Low/mid/high
Bass Boost = 0

One needn't modify these settings if equaliser has been setup as desired.

SLA = 2

This is 'Sound Level Adjuster' setting meant for adjusting volume ratios among HU sources(CD, Tuner, USB) so that start-up volumes between sources will be same.

High Pass Filter = ? Hz
Sub Frequency - 50Hz/63Hz ?

This is dependent on cross-over unit of component speakers & sub-woofer.