rich20730

Since I've made several updates to my system, rather than add onto my old thread I figured it would be cleaner to start a new thread. This thread will chronicle where I've been, where I'm at, and where I'm going on my quest to find the elusive SQ's.

Summary of current equipment:

Front Stage

Midbass:
Zapco DC 1000.4 - 500 watts x 2 @4ohms bridged
Dual Exodus Anarchys (63hz to 300hz @24dB/octave)

Midrange:
Zapco DC 350.2 - 100 watts x 2 @4ohms
Scanspeak 10F/4424g (300hz to 3.5khz @24dB/octave)

Treble:
Zapco DC 200.2 - 50 watts x 2 @4ohms
Scanspeak D3004/602000 (3.5khz to 20khz @24dB/octave)

Center Channel:
Audiocontrol ESP-3
Zapco DC 350.2 - 100 watts x 2 @4ohms
Scanspeak 10F/4424g (300hz to 5khz @24dB/octave)
Dayton ND16FA (5khz to 20khz @24dB/octave)

Rears:
Audiocontrol ESP-3
Zapco DC 200.2 - 50 watts x 2 @4ohms
Image Dynamics CTX65CS (80hz to 20khz @24db/octave)

Subs:
Zapco DC 1000.1 - 800 watts x 1@4ohms
(2) Image Dynamics Idmax 12D4V3 Infinite Baffle (15hz to 63hz @24dB/octave)

Line Drivers:
Rockford Fosgate BLD
Audiocontrol Matrix Plus

Power Wire:
Knukonceptz 1/0 OFC

Pictures and details to come...

rich20730

Pictures of current status:

Front Stage

Dual Exodus Anarchys in the doors:








Scanspeak 10F's in the kicks panels:







Scanspeak D3004 60200's in the dash:



Center Channel

Scanspeak 10F and Dayton ND16FA




Rears

Image Dynamics CTX65CS




Subs

Image Dynamics Idmax 12V3's IB:




Amps

1 Zapco DC under the driver's seat:


5 Zapco DC's in the trunk:

pohljm

Looks great! the thought of attempting a tune is giving me a headache!

350

iTrader: (4)

Looks sick! I like how discrete the second speaker in the doors is. Just curious though why are you going with tweeters in the rear? Seems like everyone on here frowns on that.

rich20730

No kidding. It helps that I've been able to work on the tune incrementally as I make additional changes. I'm really happy with the current sound, but with so many variables, it's going to take a lot of work to really dial it in.

Thanks! Yes - ordinarily running rears, especially full range and in stereo, will screw up your sound stage and imaging, but there are other approaches to rear-fill that can enhance the sound, rather than detract from it.

The Audiocontrol ESP-3 unit that I'm using for the rears and the center channel is a spatial restoration processor which removes the mono information from the signal by subtracting the left-channel information from the right channel and vice versa. This "difference" signal, which provides spatial cues and ambience, is routed to the rear speakers and the common information is sent to the center channel.

The addition of the L-R signal widens the stereo image and also gives the impression that you are listening in a larger space, especially if you can delay the signal to the rear speakers by ~20ms or more, which you can do with a processor, like the one included in the Zapco DC's.

Here are a few really good threads from DIYMA regarding the different approaches to rearfill if you want to read more about it:

(Pay particular attention to posts from werewolf/Lycan)

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...about-l-r.html

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...o-you-use.html

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...revisited.html

musty hustla

Great work. I've love to hear how it sounds in person. You do your own work?

rich20730

Thanks! I'd be more than happy to give you a demo if you're close. I'd really like to get a chance to listen to some other systems too.

Yep. I've been working on it off and on for about a year and a half. I'll post some more details and pictures when I get some time.

abirvalg

awesome!
you have no location in your profile, so it's hard to tell where you live, in case someone wants a demo date with you

rich20730

Good point. Fixed

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Well I hope the MLV/CCF takes your Anarchy's to a new level! Build looks great Rich

rich20730

I'm guessing it'll probably just take me to the Internet so I can buy enough MLV to cover the floor/firewall and the rest of the car

I hate cars

Looks really good. How is the midbass from the dual Anarchys? Are both playing the same frequency range or do you have the rear ones cut off lower? There are some people that think having the midbass toward the rear of the doors (in a 3-way) is an advantage over the front portion of the door. I considered putting my 9s in the rear of the doors but a lot of times I have my midbasses playing higher, as high as 800hz, than most mibasses in a 3-way so I left them toward the front.

I'm really curious how it stages with the rears and dual midbasses. There's no need for me to comment on the tweeters in the rear, you're knowledgeable enough to know what you want and how to get it but I would like to know if you're using it for a little extra ambience with them attenuated or if they're playing as loud as the fronts.

Last, damn you I'm going to have to add more power to the front stage. I only have 2,200w lol. One thing I've learned is you have to have a TON of power if you want to accurately reproduce dynamics even at relatively low volumes, it looks like you have that covered. People don't seem to realize that while 200w will get very loud on a front stage, it takes 1,000+ to faithfully reproduce music at a reasonable level. Speaker efficiency dependent of course. I don't look at or care about speaker's rms ratings anymore. If it requires 2x their rating to reproduce the musical peaks, that's what they're getting. I took a video of my 3.5" midranges yesterday, excursion is getting a little scary with 150w to them at full tilt and a 300hz/6db highpass.

Anyway, looking forward to updates and how it sounds, especially once you get the tune perfected. Why is everyone with these great systems so far away from me. I've been lucky enough to hear Mark, Neel, and Chico's (can't remember his name) TLs but there are about 10 systems on here I would love to hear, this being one of them.

rich20730

Thanks! The midbass from the Anarchy's is more than the doors, and especially the door panels, can handle, so I really can't play them as low and as loud as they are capable of without the buzzing and rattling becoming a distraction. I might just start slapping big globs of Duraglass on the door panels until they are rock solid.

Right now, the midbasses are all playing the same frequency range. Each pair of Anarchys is wired in parallel and shares a channel on the 1000.4, which is bridged to two channels and feeds 500 watts to each side at 4ohms. Since the Anarchys are 8ohms and are relatively inefficient (84.7dB 1W/1m), I wired them this way in order to maximize the amount of power they would see from the 1000.4. The downside to this, of course, is that I can't apply time alignment, crossover points, or EQ to each individual driver.

If I feel I need more tuning flexibility, I might go ahead and run them each off of a separate channel from the 1000.4, but that means they'd only be getting 300 watts total between all 4 drivers (75x4 @8ohms) compared to the 1000 they are getting now. It would also mean that I would have to deal with snaking an extra set of wires into my doors, which I absolutely hated doing the first time.

As far as staging, I haven't noticed a big difference with the extra midbasses in the doors except that the additional tactile feedback from the armrest pulls things to the side a bit. The rears, on the other hand, are a big improvement. I think a lot can be said for listener envelopment. It just makes everything more enjoyable to listen to.

I'm definitely not running the rears as loud as the fronts, but I can play them fairly loud without it becoming too obvious. On some songs the effects sound exaggerated so I fade it further to the front, on others I fade it back to zero, but most of the time it's 2 or 3 clicks to the front. Keep in mind that I'm only running 50 watts per channel to the rears and I have the gains set low.

I put the tweeters back in the rear because the ESP-3 manual said it works best running them all the way up. I think I read that the Dolby algorithm cuts the rears off around 6-7khz, so I'll be playing around with it to see what sounds best.

I really need to make it to one of the meets. I've been doing all this work over the last year and a half and I have no idea how it compares to other cars. I used to live in Southern California and I'm out in LA once or twice a year to visit family, but of course I never have my car with me. I need to take a road trip.

rich20730

Finally got some time to work on my car after a busy few months, which included adopting a little girl and working on my home theater system, among other things.

Another reason I haven't done much with my car is that I've actually been very satisfied with the system for quite some time. My most recent projects have mostly been motivated by curiosity and wanting to experiment with concepts I've been reading about.

As such, I've been exploring options for implementing midbass arrays, rear-fill for ambience, and a home theater-like surround sound setup.

As of this latest addition, I'm up to 7 amplifiers, 15 fully-active channels, 18 speakers, and 2,700 watts.

This diagram shows pretty much the current speaker configuration, except that I replaced the Image Dynamics Tweeters in the rear deck with a pair of Scanspeak D2904 600001's that I had in storage.



Scans installed:


Built some tiny boxes out of milk jugs and Duraglass for the Polk coaxials and stuck them in the rear doors:








Added CLD and MLV that I got from Home Depot:



Installed the Alpine PXE-H660 so I could run the rears active and add some more delay. The longest delay I can do on the Zapcos is 22ms and according to Toole, the surrounds need to be delayed close to 40ms in order to really trigger a sense of envelopment.

I added a Rockford Fosgate Punch PBR 300x4 to power the rears and used the 200.2 to power the coaxials in the doors.

The rears/surrounds/center are all run through the ESP-3 and can be controlled by the ESP remote or attenuated by fading to the front.


I also cleaned up the wiring a bit and added a cover to the amp rack that holds the H660 and the ESP-3. Right now it's just painted grey, but I'll probably end up wrapping it in vinyl or something that will look a little nicer.

350

iTrader: (4)

Nice!

DiamondJoeQuimby

iTrader: (2)

What do the coaxs in the rear doors give you that you missed with the rear deck surrounds?

I hate cars

It's interesting for sure and I enjoy following the build.

This is going to sound weird but have you considered trying an MS8? It wAs not my favorite processor but I've heard a setup with the MS8 with center, sides, and rears and it really shines in that configuration. It's all meant to make the front stage vast and engulfing for the driver or both front seats. It's not rear, all speakers contribute to the front stage. I don't recommend the MS8 often since most people only run a traditional front stage with no center but I highly recommend it for this setup. It did things that I did not know were possible. Very realistic to say the least.

Of course, it would mean getting creative to get you down to 8 channels. I had thought about this once when I almost went this direction. I prefer kick panel midrange but if you move the midranges to the dash close enough to the tweeters, you could put them on the same channel with a passive between them. Both anarchys would have to share a channel obviously. The center mid and tweeter would be sharing a channel. Each midbass and tweeter in the rear of the car would share a channel. If only you could put the subs on their own amp without the MS8 it would almost work but you would need to be able to delay the subs a good bit since the MS8 delays everything.

I have a feeling you want to experiment with it manually and I'm all for that too. I only wish I lived closer so I could hear it. I wouldn't mind trying it in the other car.

rich20730

Theoretically, the coaxials in the rear doors should be beneficial in a couple ways.

First, it gives me two more source locations to help distribute room modes more evenly. It's a similar approach to using multiple subs in home audio to help reduce the response variation from seat to seat as well as help smooth the frequency response in general. The main difference in applying this concept in car audio as compared to home audio is that the smaller dimensions of a vehicle cabin shift the modal region well up into the midbass and lower midrange frequencies as opposed to the much lower transition frequency in a typical home listening room.

My hunch is that the main reason so many people have trouble getting good midbass in a car is not because of frequency response issues inherent in the speakers themselves, but because of the dominating room modes in the vehicle cabin. These response variations can be fixed to an extent with EQ, but EQ can't fix everything. You can't fix a giant null by boosting the hell out of it with an EQ and any equalization you apply will be highly sensitive to listening position, especially in the higher frequencies where the wavelengths get smaller.

The second benefit is that the rear door locations are positioned at a wider angle than the speakers in the rear shelf. The wider angles reduce inter aural cross-correlation (IACC) which helps to increase the apparent source width and correlates with an increase in perceived spaciousness and envelopment. The greater the proportion of sound arriving from the sides, the greater the difference in sound between the two ears and the lower the IACC.

Aside from the theory, that may or may not prove to work out when put into practice, I have kind of run out of other ways ways to improve my system so I figured I might as well try out something new and have some fun doing it.

rich20730

I'd love to try out the MS-8 and I have no doubt that it would sound great when properly configured as a surround sound processor in a vehicle. Afterall, the folks at Harmon/JBL have been on the cutting edge with research in this area and many others. I'm guessing it won't be long before we have car audio processors that offer all the bells and whistles that come with the better home audio receivers.

I'm sure it would be much more effective to be able to buy a product from the folks who created Logic 7 or Dolby PLIIx than try to recreate it myself with an ESP-3 and 17 different amps and processors.

Alas, I think I'm in too deep to turn back now, but I always keep my eyes on the classifieds and snag good deals as they come along so you never know. I got my PXE-H660 from DIYMA for $50 when I had no use for it at the time. When all else fails, my wife's car still needs a system.

DiamondJoeQuimby

iTrader: (2)

That's an interesting theory. I would be concerned that you would be able to localize them causing stage depth to collapse. I'll be interested to hear what you think after you've had a chance to listen for a while.

I hate cars

I think you're on to something with the nulls. I have a null around 7-800hz depending on which driver is covering that range and a peak around 1,600hz.

What's intersting about this is crossing my midbass over at 800hz there's very little null but if the midranges are covering that area I have to boost the crap out of them and it really doesn't make a difference, just wasted power and distortion. The midbasses require no EQ in that area. The 1.6khz peak is taken care of by roughly 6db cut. On the Klippel, my midranges (literally mine) had the flattest FR of any midrange tested so it's not the speaker, it's the car.

I've also noticed if I run the subs up to 80hz but highpass the midbass at 60hz, bass doesn't change nearly as much when I shift my head. I wonder if using shallower slopes with more than one source playing the same frequency would also help in that respect. I have a shallow slope tune but I never really put much time into making it sound right.

I ended up working on power response which meant some weird crossover settings and even the same set of speakers using different slope and frequencies side to side. It did make the biggest difference of everything I tried.

Have you read the power response threads over on DIYMA, specifically by Erin? I tried it and everything came together easil after that. Very little TA required and time alignment was much easier and quicker to get right. The FR doesn't change much when moving your head around.

I ended up with roughly 80hz for the sub lowpass, 60-70hz and 24-48db slopes (depending on the side) for the midbass, I think my midranges pick up at 48db but the frequencies are different side to side. Both cut off around 3khz, one side is around 2,900hz and the other is around 3,100 or 3,200hz and I can't even begin to remember the slopes.

This probably doesn't help much but I believe it's very important and often overlooked. I've always set the crossovers the same side to side and never even thought power response and setting each one differently to the flattest FR possible before EQ but it works well. It also means every driver is lowpassed long before it's beaming frequency.

rich20730

Ordinarily that would be the case, but the ESP does a good job keeping the image anchored up front by removing the mono information from the rear/surround channels. Also, the remaining signal, which consists mostly of ambience and far right/far left information, is then delayed and attenuated, which helps too.

As for how it sounds, I've been running the rears on the package shelf with the ESP for quite a while now and I haven't noticed any problems with the soundstage collapsing or pulling toward the rear. I can always fade to the front if it becomes distracting, but so far on most music it sounds much better to me with the rears on and fairly loud.

Since the addition of the H660 and the coaxials, I have noticed sort of an echo effect on some songs, mostly in the treble, but I haven't had time to investigate the cause. It could be the additional delay or it could just be that the level of the rears/surrounds is too high. I'm sure I'll figure it out once I set aside some time to properly tune everything.

I'm on board with everything you're saying.

Yea, tuning a three-way in this car (and probably most cars) is a bit like trying to solve a Rubix Cube in the dark with a flash light. You can fix one problem by changing something, but usually you end up creating an entirely different problem somewhere else. Having an RTA and taking measurements helps a lot, but a significant part of it still ends up being trial and error. There are so many variables that some things just don't seem to make sense logically.

With the midranges being deep under the dash in the kicks vs. the midbasses in the doors, the null at 700-800hz could be cancelation from a reflection off of the dash, seat, center console or a combination of each. It could be something completely different - who knows I agree, it's probably safe to say it's not a problem with the 430's.

I'm sure I've read most of those threads on DIYMA. Multiple times probably. There is a wealth of information on that site and I pretty much subscribe/bookmark any thread by Erin, Andy, Lycan/werewolf and a few others. I usually don't understand everything at first, but then eventually start to piece things together later on. The more I read and learn, the more I realize that there are rarely any cookie-cutter answers to these problems. Use whatever tools you have at your disposal and roll with whatever works, whether it be speaker placement, EQ, time alignment, phase adjustment, asymmetrical crossover points/slopes, acoustical treatments etc.

With that said, I think there are definitely some basic approaches you can take to get more consistent results. Paying attention to power response and dispersion characteristics among drivers being one of them. In a vehicle there are going to be so many reflections (all of them early) that the direct sound from each speaker is going to be swamped by the response of the reflections. All of those reflections contribute to the timber and loudness of the direct sound and must be accounted for.

Because of this, it's important that each speaker is playing in a passband where:In this respect, the bread and butter of car audio (2-way with a 6.5" midbass and 1" tweeter crossed between 3-4khz) is exactly the situation you would want to avoid

As to overlapping the sub and the midbass crossover points, I think that's basically the modal distribution concept in action. For home theater, Geddes recommends overlapping the mains and the subs to give you two additional sources to smooth out modes.

One thing to note is that since your combined frequency response is dependent on a combination of cancelation and summation at different frequencies between the subs and the midbasses, if you adjust your bass with a sub-level control, it may change your frequency response in different ways than you would expect. With this in mind, after I finish a tuning session, I try to mostly use the bass adjustment on the headunit rather than my sub remote so it doesn't throw everything else off.

rich20730

Took some time this weekend to make things look a little nicer. I wrapped the amp-rack cover with some pieces of scrap vinyl from the local fabric store. I ran into a few issues along the way, but I eventually worked it out

I initially wrapped the cover with grey vinyl, but I couldn't get it to stretch all the way into the corners of the openings. Rather than peeling it off and starting over, I decided to lay the black vinyl on top of the grey and try again since it seemed a little stretchier, but I couldn't get that to work either.

Finally, I just decided to stretch it the best I could and fill in the gaps with a black sharpie. I'm sure there's a better way of doing it, but I couldn't think of it at the time and it's not very noticeable even in direct sunlight.

I then made some trim pieces out of balsa wood and foam board, wrapped them in the blue vinyl, and used them to cover up the seam between the grey and black vinyl and to outline the amplifier openings.

I started out using spray glue to attach the vinyl, but eventually switched to contact cement, which was easier to work with and seems a lot stronger.

rich20730

Made a few small changes to the trunk.

Added a panel to fill in the empty space behind the amp rack and added vinyl to the underside of the hinged panel:

Before:



After:



I finally got around to removing the protruding bolts securing the baffle and replaced them with 1/2" lag bolts. I filled in the holes on the trunk side with some small grommets. Doubled up the washers on the other side for a little extra strength:

Before:


After:





The real project this weekend was tearing out the interior and laying down CCF and MLV. After I pulled everything out, it was fairly clear why this car is already pretty quiet. Most of the floor is already covered in vibration damping material, there is MLV starting in the front footwells and running up the firewall, and the factory carpet backing is almost as thick and dense as the MLV I was installing. Although it took a really long time and was a lot of work, I'm glad I got it done. Having the everything out of the car gave me an opportunity to redo all of my crappy wiring that I had done previously.

MLV and CCF underlayment from Home Depot:


Seats and console out. Wires everywhere.


What happens when you decide to yank on trim panels with bare hands instead of using panel poppers:


Rear carpet removed:



Factory deadening. Decided not to add any CLD.


MLV Starting in the front footwells and running up the firewall:


Started at the back seat and worked my way forward:






Rear floor pan:


With holes cut:


Laid down some fabric store vinyl on top for additional coverage:


Rear carpet reinstalled with wiring cleaned up:


(Carpet under the driver's seat was discolored when I bought the car)




Front driver's side floor pan with double layer of vinyl:




Front passenger floor pan:


Now that it's all done, I can't really say that the difference is immediately noticeable. The car was pretty quiet to begin with and I think it's hard to tell when something is quieter because your ears seem to adjust to the change. I should have taken some dB readings beforehand, but I'm impulsive and just decided to start tearing the car up around 8pm on Friday night. I'll probably have a better idea once I do some driving on some of the rougher roads or on the interstate.

Beat-Freak...

Thanks for documenting all that work, it probably sounds really nice too.


I bought the audiocontrol for my cars system but not sure where to start with the install.


Wanted to save some money but the electrical stuff is hard for me so a shop is going to do that for me at a decent price.

rich20730

Nice! Audiocontrol makes quality stuff. Looks like you've got some good gear for the rest of your setup too. Should sound really good.