Tuning splits

[Winno]

+1 ryzaa (fellow MEA'er).

Sure, Morel Elates/Supremos, and a range of other brand's higher end offerings will certainly help things.

It doesn't change the fact that the Maximo's, as you have said, are a good quality value for money driver set. This is an attempt however, to get the best out of what the OP has in their car right now.

The points I have espoused in this ( amusing ) thread can and should be applied to any speaker system to get the best out of it regardless of how much is spent on the drivers.

On so many occasions I have heard 'basic' speakers that have been installed properly out perform by a large margin expensive sets that have literally been chucked into a car with little attention to details.

If the OP pays attention to these basics, they may well be surprised at how good a result they can achieve.

And as ryzaa says, listening before you buy is the best thing you can do instead of trying to compensate once you have bought - the man speaks the truth!

[NightKids]

In my car at the moment as we speak on the iPad. Opened up the cover of my amp and filters are off. Currently sitting on 140Hz on the amplifier setting for channels 1 and 2. Checked tweeters and mids we're good to go!

[NightKids]

Finished tuning my system. Sounds real good now. I realized that my head unit was on 'custom' with the two highest frequencies on +3 and +4. I lowered both of them to -1 and it fixed the problem.

Thanks to everyone here who has helped. Nice to see some experienced audio people here

[XB-16-AX]

Finished tuning my system. Sounds real good now. I realized that my head unit was on 'custom' with the two highest frequencies on +3 and +4. I lowered both of them to -1 and it fixed the problem.

Thanks to everyone here who has helped. Nice to see some experienced audio people here

Glad its fixed now champ.

Enjoy the sounds and pump it up!!

[NightKids]

Glad its fixed now champ.

Enjoy the sounds and pump it up!!

Oh yeah it sounds awesome now. Couldn't be happier with the sound. The Maximo's are really clear, I've had them for a while now and only now I can see how their full potential. I've followed your advice and set the amp to 150Hz. Thanks mate

[trism]

Good shit

[ericl33]

Ok, it's good that you're playing with things because it's the best way to learn by experience what works and what doesn't.

If your speakers are pretty new, you can expect the sound from them to change for the better subtly over the next few weeks as they run in. Things will free up - bass may become a little deeper and treble may settle down Ok, it's good that you're playing with things because it's the best way to learn by experience what works and what doesn't.

If your speakers are pretty new, you can expect the sound from them to change for the better subtly over the next few weeks as they run in. Things will free up - bass may become a little deeper and treble may settle down and become smoother.

Your set up is pretty typical and can work very well. There are a few things you can do that can tweek it to make it sound a bit nicer.

BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER, TURN OFF ALL EQ AND BASS/TREBLE SETTINGS, TURN OFF ALL HIGH PASS AND LOW PASS FILTERS - SET EVERYTHING BACK TO FACTORY DEFAULTS OR ZERO POINTS.

There's three areas you need to focus on to begin with. I've gone into quite a bit of detail but these are simply;
1. Ensure your mids are mounted properly
2. Work on your tweeter angling
3. Adjusting eq settings in the head unit.

So let's begin.

If you can, make sure that your mids are fitted snugly with no gaps between or around them, their door spacers (if you're using any at all) and the door. Any 'leaks' will allow the sound from behind the speaker to come through and cancel the sound from the front of the speaker. This can result in a thinner sound because the bass is being cancelled out slightly.
Fixing this issue enhances the bass and let's the speaker perform properly and give you to sound you're supposed to hear. It also helps balance the sound of the whole system relative to the sound of the tweeters.

Some people even go as far as sealing up the entire door with sound deadening sheets to get truely striking results from 6.5" drivers. I'm not saying you should be going this this extreme but consider if you can, maybe sealing up some of the smaller service holes in the doors as well as securing your drivers properly.

Now that we have that done, let's look at your tweeters.
Many systems with tweeters mounted away from the mids and up high 'can' sound a little harsh. Some people choose to put their tweeters down low in the kick panels or much lower in the doors to combat this. It works but tends to result in a sound that comes from down near your knees rather than straight ahead at or very near head height.

Let's stay with a high mount postion for now and take a look at what we can do with their angles.

Trust me on this one, if the tweeters are in surface and angle mount pods, try swiveling them to face more towards each other. I'd even try swiveling them so far that they start to fire forward and actually into the windscreen.

Try it and see what happens to the sound. Most drivers start to sound 'quieter' when you are sitting out of their direct path or their 'axis point'.
Many high end speaker systems (I'm talking about speakers costing as much as or more than $100k) use this principle to stunning effect. It may also give your sound stage more depth of field so that it's not all so 'in your face'.

When you get things sounding better and you feel that it's as good as it'll get, THEN, and only then should we be moving on to some of the things your head unit can do.

Set your amp to play normal. Switch off all high pass and low pass filters because they don't do what you've been told previously. They're for other stuff.
If you head unit has them, turn them off there too.

Go to your head unit equalizer and if you can, select a frequency around 8 or 10khz to adjust. Depending on how effect your swiveling was with the tweeters will determine how much you may want to turn down the volume on the selected frequency.
If you don't have frequency options up this high, try choosing the next highest one down. Hopefully it'll be something above 5khz. If not, you may just be better off using your standard treble adjustment instead.

If you do have a few frequency bands up high to play with, try knocking back the volume a little on two or three of them and see how you go.

This should help things quite a bit overall. And don't forget that things will settle down from new as your speakers are played more over the next few weeks.

Take your time, and have fun.

wow, so comprehensive.....

such a good thread.

[Winno]

Oh yeah it sounds awesome now. Couldn't be happier with the sound. The Maximo's are really clear, I've had them for a while now and only now I can see how their full potential. I've followed your advice and set the amp to 150Hz. Thanks mate

Glad to hear that it's sounding better.

But why run the high pass filter at 150Hz?
Your speakers are capable of playing much lower and by using the filter, you're stopping alot of the lower midbass and what subbass can be produced from being played.
So, you're not hearing anything from 150Hz down.
That's fine if you're running a sub woofer but otherwise, you may as well just have 5 1/4" or even 4" drivers in there.

Just try it with the filter off, or at least set much lower at about 70-80Hz and see how that goes.

[XB-16-AX]

Oh yeah it sounds awesome now. Couldn't be happier with the sound. The Maximo's are really clear, I've had them for a while now and only now I can see how their full potential. I've followed your advice and set the amp to 150Hz. Thanks mate

No problem bud. Anytime.

As you get more familiarize with your setup, you can play around with the frequencies on the amp and HU.

As others have said, you can unlock the full potential of your setup.

But in the meantime, enjoy it. If you really wanna see how good your speakers are (splits) play a track from Kenny G - the instrumentals used (sax) will provide Frequencies around the 80 - 160hz OR something from a composed orchestra music like Beethoven or similiar. (100-180hz)

[NightKids]

Glad to hear that it's sounding better.

But why run the high pass filter at 150Hz?
Your speakers are capable of playing much lower and by using the filter, you're stopping alot of the lower midbass and what subbass can be produced from being played.
So, you're not hearing anything from 150Hz down.
That's fine if you're running a sub woofer but otherwise, you may as well just have 5 1/4" or even 4" drivers in there.

Just try it with the filter off, or at least set much lower at about 70-80Hz and see how that goes.

Nah no filters are on. I've just got the setting on 150Hz at the moment. Should it be on something else?

[TbM]

Nah no filters are on. I've just got the setting on 150Hz at the moment. Should it be on something else?

If your filters are off then the Freq setting doesnt make a difference, it only matters when you have filters on.

With no sub i would be running it with filters off.

[Winno]

If your filters are off then the Freq setting doesnt make a difference, it only matters when you have filters on.

With no sub i would be running it with filters off.

Exactly