Frequencies

[johnprocter]

Hi all just seeing what i should set the following to on my headunit (Kenwood KDC-X891)? i have 6inch(stock) speakers in the front, 6x9's(stock) at the back and a sub(2500watts,900RMS) in the boot thanks so what should i set the following to?

Bass Center Frequency: 40/50/60/70/80/100/120/150hz
Bass Q factor 1.00/1.25/1.50/2.00
Bass Extend OFF/ON

Middle Centre Frequency 0.5/1.0/1.5/2.0kHz
Middle Q factor 1.00/2.00

Treble Centre Frequency 10.0/12.5/15.0/17.5kHz

Front High Pass Filter Through/40/60/80/100/120/150/180/220Hz
Rear High Pass Filter Through/40/60/80/100/120/150/180/220Hz
Low Pass Filter 50/60/80/100/120/Through Hz

I have no idea what any of these mean lol and i have a weird feeling that the place i got my stuff installed at havent adjusted them i could be wrong though.. any help would be great thanks

[arverson]

omg... i typed out a essay and it got messed up!! gimme a few mins to see if i can rememba what i typed

n here u go, thankfully this isnt as long as my 1st attempt :D



without seeing or even hearing the system in person its hard to say what exact settings you should set it to. all cars & components are different, BUT with the gear you have, then in general, id say set your:
front hpf to 80 or higher. depends how low your stocks can go, and im gonna guess not that low... so maybe 100hz at the lowest.
rear hpf to about 80. again, it depends how low they can go..
lpf, then it depends on where u set the front&rear hpf's at. if they're set at 80hz then set the lpf at 80. if they're set at 120 then set the lpf at that. having some overlap is ok. again, all that is VERY general & it depends on your systems components, car, installation & plenty more

ok, now onto centre frequency & q factor.. centre frequency is obviously the frequency you are adjusting. if helps if u know your sound frequencys, n what instruments/sounds waves are what frequencies so you can tune your system better.

q factor is how 'wide' the 'band' is at the particular frequency you are adjusting/selected and the frequencys directly next to it.
for example, if you chose the frequency 70hz to adjust and chose a 'narrow" band to adjust (so in this case a q factor of 1) and you boosted that frequency up 5db's, then pretty much only THAT frequency is boosted or affected.
if u chose a 'wide' band to adjust (in this case a q factor of 2) and you boost that 70hz up 5 db's, then frequencys 60 & 80 will be amplified by 3dbs, and frequencys 50 & 100 will we amplified by 1db.

bass extend.. im guessing thats like a 'loud' feature, so leave this OFF!! ;)

[johnprocter]

thanks for that man kinda makes a bit more sense lol

[tron07]

Crossovers... here is some things that can clear it up for you......




What to look for:

Passive crossovers are inexpensive and easy to install. Typically, they are designed to modify a particular frequency. If you just need a quick-fix to tweak your sound, passive crossovers are a good solution. But they offer less flexibility and don't allow the fine-tuning control of active crossovers.

Get Everything You NeedYou'll need patch cables to connect an active crossover .
Active crossovers require additional wiring for power and ground connections, but give you much more control over your music. Active crossovers help your amplifier by cutting unwanted frequencies before the amp has to boost them. That way your amp can focus only on the frequencies that you want to hear, without wasting power on frequencies you don't want.

If you plan on expanding your system in the future, it's wisest to go with a separate outboard crossover, instead of relying on one built into your amplifier. While these built-in crossovers work well, they don't offer the total system control of an outboard unit. Also, if you ever upgrade your amp, you don't have to give up your crossover.


What can a crossover do for you?

A crossover is any device that limits the range of frequencies sent to a speaker. Think of a crossover network as an audio traffic cop, directing highs to your tweeters, midrange to your midwoofers and low bass to your sub.

Without a crossover, a messy, sonic "traffic jam" results. Your midrange and sub duplicate too many of the same frequencies and your sub wastes time trying to put out high notes it wasn't meant to handle. A "fatal pile-up" could also occur, with your tweets being destroyed by some renegade tractor-trailer of a bass note thumping along in the wrong audio lane.

Because they're essential, you'll find crossovers in some form almost any time speakers are present. If your home stereo uses a pair of 2-way bookshelf speakers, it uses a 2-way crossover. Within this crossover, a high-pass filter blocks lows and passes highs to the tweeter while a low-pass filter blocks highs and passes lows to the woofer.


Why get active?

A passive crossover steps into the signal path after your amplification. It's a capacitor or coil usually installed right on your speaker lead. Since it is modifying a signal that has already been amplified, using a passive crossover wastes power. The crossover point varies with speaker impedance because it limits frequencies by reacting to the speaker load. So if you decide to switch from 4 to 8 ohm woofers, your crossover point will be cut in half.

On the other hand, an active electronic crossover processes your audio signal before it reaches your amplifier, so it's unaffected by speaker impedance and makes your system far more efficient. Installed at the preamp level, it lets your amp concentrate its full power solely on those frequencies it passes to your speakers.

Its only potential disadvantage is that since it requires +12V, ground, and turn-on connections, an electronic crossover could theoretically add noise to your system. But with a properly installed high-quality unit this shouldn't be a problem, and the advantages of electronic crossovers make it clear why you'll find one in virtually every competition-level car audio system.


Tuning your system

Varying your crossover points is one approach to "tuning" your speakers. You can expect this adjustability from just about any active crossover. Setting crossover points also helps define the overall flavor of your system.

Setting your low-pass filter above 100 Hz gives you the type of boom many rap fans are looking for, while pushing it down to 80 Hz tightens up your bass and improves front soundstaging. Because each output channel on an electronic crossover usually has its own level control, you can even use this component to compensate for varying efficiency ratings among your speakers.


Let there be music

Let's look at an example. Take a simple three-way crossover network:
lowpass filter with a crossover point at 80 Hz;
highpass filter with a crossover point at 3,000 Hz;
bandpass filter with a low crossover point at 80 Hz and a high crossover point at 3,000 Hz. (All three components use 6 dB/octave slopes.)

You hop into your ride, slip in a CD and suddenly a hefty dose of unadulterated Dave Matthews Band is headed straight for your speakers. The lowpass gobbles up Carter Beauford's kick drum and the low notes on Stefan Lessard's bass, and passes these tones below 80 Hz to your subwoofer system.

Meanwhile, your highpass sends cymbal crashes and acoustic guitar harmonics to your tweeter, while limiting frequencies below 3,000 Hz at the rate of 6db/octave. And Dave's vocals, Leroi Moore's sax solos, Boyd Tinsley's violin, and other sounds between 80 and 3,000 Hz find their way through the bandpass crossover to your midrange drivers.

The crossover assigns the proper frequencies and levels to the various speakers in your vehicle, the pieces of the sonic puzzle fit together perfectly, and DMB sounds righteous. It's all good.

Courtesy of http://www.crutchfieldadvisor.com/S-13TOLpvQlD6/learningcenter/car/crossovers.html

[mr ©harisma]

Perhaps you should pay someone a little bit of $$$ to get it tuned correctly if you are not sure...

[arverson]

yup. it sounds like parametric eq'ing is a little complicated for you but its pretty easy once u get the hang of it.

u could get someone else to tune it for ya, but yoy wouldnt know if they tune it the way YOU like it...

[tron07]

Do you want to employ my tuning services? :p

[mr ©harisma]

yup. it sounds like parametric eq'ing is a little complicated for you but its pretty easy once u get the hang of it.

u could get someone else to tune it for ya, but yoy wouldnt know if they tune it the way YOU like it...

Dude any decent shop will tune it and ask how you like it. Then for the minor tweeks you can sit with the tuner to get it just right.

You should take up Tron07's offer and see how you go. He may also shed some light on how to do it correctly for the future. Can't hurt... ;)

[johnprocter]

lol iam just gonna take it back to the place i got it installed at and ask them to tune it properly.. cause iam pretty sure they didnt because they couldnt find how to turn it off demo mode (its the american model so i dont blame them, the menus and stuff are diff to the aussie model and i was dumb enough to leave the manual at home grrr) but yeah i got it out of demo mode my self so they should be able to do the tuning now

but thanks for the replies =D

[arverson]

Dude any decent shop will tune it and ask how you like it. Then for the minor tweeks you can sit with the tuner to get it just right.


exactly my point... a shop tuning it without you being there and you being there making them tweak it to what they wouldnt normally tune it to, are different things. you might as well get them to JUST install it & tune it urself.

[tron07]

Are you ready for more confusion? :p

Anyway the filters you are using are probably the Linkwitz-Riley 2nd order Crossovers, a 12 dB/octave (40 dB/decade) slope. Which is pretty good for fronts and highs, but to me, its not good enought for the sub or low frequency. (1st order is 6db/oct, 2nd order is 12/db/oct... every order increase by 6db/oct)

For the sub I would prefer the 4th order with a steepness is 24 dB/octave (80 dB/decade). However at 24dB/Octave, it would throw the sound off phase, thus you might need to reverse the polarity of the sub.

However I believe that its is not a rule of the thumb, as eletrical phase does not equal to accoustsic phase. If you have access to a phase checker, do use it to ensure all speakers is in phase before you begin, else you would be spending a lot of time trying to listen to those phase testing tracks.

There are more type of filters available, but not that popular or common but you can read them up if you are interested, Butterworth Filters, Chebyshev filter, etc... i think there are a few more, but I cant remember thier name at the moment and kinda lazy to google for them.

Check with your installer at Ryda, I think there is a big possibility that they dont know what are these stuffs....their workmanship are ususally very good, but when come to techincal and tuning, they dont have the skills... :p

[arverson]

they might not have the skills, let alone the TIME (ie. months) to tune your system to sq/spl comp standard...

your probably not concerned about that tho if u have to ask about what parametric eq's are..

[ICACHA]

exactly my point... a shop tuning it without you being there and you being there making them tweak it to what they wouldnt normally tune it to, are different things. you might as well get them to JUST install it & tune it urself.

Thats odd, I thought the system gets tuned to the car not the listener? If its tuned to the car then the only variable is the recording... I could be wrong here, but I'd like you to prove me wrong.

[johnprocter]

lol i really shouldnt have played around with the tuning stuff lol my sub is now making a very strange noise at some bass levels :S..

[arverson]

Thats odd, I thought the system gets tuned to the car not the listener? If its tuned to the car then the only variable is the recording... I could be wrong here, but I'd like you to prove me wrong.

i never said it has to be tuned to the listener. i was gonna mention tuning to get optimum stage height, width, depth, etc, but i dont think johnproctor is even worried about that, no offense jp.

ill rephrase myself.. if his installer tunes it, whats the point if jp is gonna tweak and play around with his eq'ing anyway??

[ICACHA]

i never said it has to be tuned to the listener. i was gonna mention tuning to get optimum stage height, width, depth, etc, but i dont think johnproctor is even worried about that, no offense jp.

ill rephrase myself.. if his installer tunes it, whats the point if jp is gonna tweak and play around with his eq'ing anyway??

Maybe you mis-understand what tuning is used for in car applications. Regardless of the system thats installed and providing there are some tuning capabilities to the system it gets tuned to the car as would any other system that we do.

Systems get tuned to the indervidual car, no 2 cars (even of same heritage and vintage) have the same acoustic signature via the original system. They will be close but there will (in most cases) be no cigar.

There is a particular curve that we tune cars to, once the desired curve is established (dependant on tuning capabilities of the system of course) you can then sit down and listen or even fine tune the system to taste. Then the only variable should be the original recording. Thats why I absolutely loath iPod and mp3 players as once compressed, the music sounds like ass regardless who the artist is. With the majority of music these days not produced like in the old days (due to artist not forking out the right amount of funds) most systems will sound average at best playing even original top 40 tracks that arent compressed via iPod or mp3, they are compressed while being produced...

[arverson]

i didnt even have to finish reading your post because you mis-understood me, tuning to get optimum stage height, width, depth is tuning to the car is it not?? but if you say thats tuning to the listener then ill believe ya :)

[johnprocter]

lol wtf if someone tunes it obviously i wont play around with it.. but iam pretty dam sure they havent tuned shit, they hadnt even taken it out of demo mode when i got the car and nothing was set like bass, subwoofer, treble etc was all set to zero

[tron07]

I would prefer a system tune to the preference of the listener/owner..... not car. Some owner prefer bright sounding, some mellow, some with over boosted bass, some with flat frequency response....

I have been in a car with ear shattering, bright sounding tweeters... but the owner is a indian guy and when he pops in his indian songs, it became just right.... funny setup, but he is happy with it....

[tron07]

Thats why I absolutely loath iPod and mp3 players as once compressed, the music sounds like ass regardless who the artist is. With the majority of music these days not produced like in the old days (due to artist not forking out the right amount of funds) most systems will sound average at best playing even original top 40 tracks that arent compressed via iPod or mp3, they are compressed while being produced...

This I agree with you.... with the stock system, listening to MP3 or ipods is fine, but when you go high end stuffs, thety really sucks. Currently I cant bare to put in my audiophile CDs in my stock system... it really hurts my ears. But then Sydney dont really have much high end CD shops that sell audiophiles, XRCD or SACDs.

[mr ©harisma]

i never said it has to be tuned to the listener. i was gonna mention tuning to get optimum stage height, width, depth, etc, but i dont think johnproctor is even worried about that, no offense jp.

ill rephrase myself.. if his installer tunes it, whats the point if jp is gonna tweak and play around with his eq'ing anyway??

No offence dude but that was so far out of context that I think only you and Mr Bean knew exactly what you where talking about.

His fronts are stock so there is not much an installer can do with that? The only real thing that can vary in staging is the position of the listener. If you are a real hardcore dude and have the seat all the way so you can only just see over the window, obviously the stage would be different to someone who sits up straight. The height of the person should also be a factor.

[mr ©harisma]

lol wtf if someone tunes it obviously i wont play around with it.. but iam pretty dam sure they havent tuned shit, they hadnt even taken it out of demo mode when i got the car and nothing was set like bass, subwoofer, treble etc was all set to zero

Well most of what I see is a flat EQ and you only fix up anything that is lacking or overpowering. How well you can do this will depend on your EQ. But by the sounds of it they did an awesome strathfield job!!!

[tron07]

fiddling with the bass, treble, minor eq adjustment is like adding some salt and pepper to your food after the chef finish cooking it (the tuner finish tuning the system)...

[arverson]

but if its tuned for optimum stage h/w/d then it shouldnt be fiddled around with anyway.. unless you're entering sq/spl comps and have to tweak+adjust your settings+install based upon judging scores. thats one extreme tho

jp, i doubt your installer has tuned it optimumly. it takes ALOT of time to achieve that (weeks, most of the time months) and unless both you & your installer have the time i wouldnt worry too much if you're not entering comps. if u got it installed at jb or strathy.. forgeeeet it.

you should be pretty happy with the way it is now tho.

[tron07]

you can tune a car around 1-2 hours... then you fine tune it... that one usually take like 1 month or so or more.

You drive it around and find that it needs a minor boost or eq somewhere, few days later, you found out the you overboost or over eq somewhere, change your XO slope back and forth.... so and so forth.

Some fine tuning never ends, as the owner will upgrade to better equipment and it begins all over again.

[ICACHA]

i didnt even have to finish reading your post because you mis-understood me, tuning to get optimum stage height, width, depth is tuning to the car is it not?? but if you say thats tuning to the listener then ill believe ya :)

what you're really trying to say is, you have to get the speaker placement right to get what your talking about with stage height, width, depth...

no amount of tuning can give you all 3 when the car is a lemon to start with for audio purposes...

think very carefully what you want to say in regards to tuning and speaker placement, they are 2 different topics. that way it stops people telling others the wrong information to start with and get their hopes up :)

btw, what is your apparent experience in car audio? :o

[ICACHA]

I would prefer a system tune to the preference of the listener/owner..... not car. Some owner prefer bright sounding, some mellow, some with over boosted bass, some with flat frequency response....

I have been in a car with ear shattering, bright sounding tweeters... but the owner is a indian guy and when he pops in his indian songs, it became just right.... funny setup, but he is happy with it....

thats why you get a deck that can still utilise the bass/treble controls to give you that extra sparkle at 10khz or kick at 100hz :p

[ICACHA]

This I agree with you.... with the stock system, listening to MP3 or ipods is fine, but when you go high end stuffs, thety really sucks. Currently I cant bare to put in my audiophile CDs in my stock system... it really hurts my ears. But then Sydney dont really have much high end CD shops that sell audiophiles, XRCD or SACDs.

pm me if interested in where to buy quality cd's outside AU :)

[ICACHA]

Well most of what I see is a flat EQ and you only fix up anything that is lacking or overpowering. How well you can do this will depend on your EQ. But by the sounds of it they did an awesome strathfield job!!!

flat eq? who listens to flat music, must sound like ass... there are many secrets us older folk have be taught over the years and it aint from people on forums giving out incorrect information :)

[ICACHA]

you can tune a car around 1-2 hours... then you fine tune it... that one usually take like 1 month or so or more.

You drive it around and find that it needs a minor boost or eq somewhere, few days later, you found out the you overboost or over eq somewhere, change your XO slope back and forth.... so and so forth.

Some fine tuning never ends, as the owner will upgrade to better equipment and it begins all over again.

there is a gadget Alpine have that takes the amateur installer into the pro scene hahahaha its called IMPRINT, electronics do the tuning for you and man does it sound bloody good. should try IMPRINT one day and be amazed at how good a lemon car can sound even with cheap speakers :)

[mr ©harisma]

flat eq? who listens to flat music, must sound like ass... there are many secrets us older folk have be taught over the years and it aint from people on forums giving out incorrect information :)

Yeah you must be going on 60 soon? I prefer to START the EQ from flat and work from there. Just me though.

[ICACHA]

smiley face :p

[arverson]

icacha, i may have worded it wrong but as long as you now understand the point i was trying to make then its all good

i opened up a new can of worms that probably wasnt really needed in this thread

i dont own one of australias top workshops or have the decades of experience you have, but im not a complete idiot

[ICACHA]

hence why i said think before you post because you were giving the wrong information to the question.

not saying im an expert as many people out there think they are, just that im good at what i do :)

[johnprocter]

i dunno why but i feel like when iam driving the sub doesnt sound as loud but when i have come to a stop at a traffic light or something it sounds louder is there anything which could cause something like this or is it just my mind playing tricks on me :P

[ICACHA]

no its not your mind playing tricks on you, its the way its been set up...

[johnprocter]

lol so what have they done? can it be fixed?

[tron07]

Lazy to quote and reply...

I used to use a 7998... so can control everything from the HU. Imprint is good, heard some friend mentioning about it, but havent heard it myself. Know someone using 9887. But the software is expensive.

There are plenty of place I can get quality CD if its outside AU.

[Dray_Templar]

don't no much about this stuff, but thanks tron for all ya great posts on car audio, have learnt alot.
Apperntly my sub box is going to to be tuned for 50hz so i gotta read up and find out if thats good.. hope it is.

[ICACHA]

lol so what have they done? can it be fixed?

turn the sub up when driving