Trunk Monkey

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1. Buy an Audison SR1dk and it's in protect
2. Buy an IDmax on DIYMA & it shows up with massive VC rub.
3. PPI p900.4 channel 3 completely strips the 2nd time I screw the speaker wire in (unusuable unless you re-thread)
4. Get ready to make an amp rack in spare tire area and there's standing water after rain


5. Get my ID Q450.4 today and the Rear-Right Channel doesn't work




ARE YOU ******* KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!

I hate cars

That really sucks. Sounds similar to my luck. Hang in there, it will be worth it in the end. Is this a new amp?

pohljm

Damn that does suck! It can only get better!

niebur3

WOW. I am just shocked!

Trunk Monkey

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Yeah brand new amp

justnspace

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you should play the lottery!

sddale

That really sucks. I hope you can work that out.

Trunk Monkey

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Lol maybe I should. If I win... I'll PayPal you some

Shipping it back tomorrow and they're shipping another. One of these days I'll have audio...

Gizmo 04

Sorry to hear that dude

Trunk Monkey

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On another note, I made some pods for my tweeters today though...doesn't look too bad, but can't tell if I'll keep em like this. I made them so I could see what it'd be like to have tweeters completely on-axis. Pods don't take up much space and cost a whole like $5 for both lol. A cheap mans a-pillar install lol. Thought about doing some of the larger one's in the kicks somehow. Easy 3-way install, though most mids need airspace that's spot on or they can sound a little funky it seems.

I'll snap some pics tomorrow and post them up in the morning.

I hate cars

Wow, new amp, that's surprising. If it makes you feel any better, I have a fair amount of money into a system that rarely sounds better than stock.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

At this point, stock sounds good to me

SharksBreath

iTrader: (33)

i like post-amp.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Lol you still haven't taken the pre-amp?!



So here's the little pods I made. They're not much deep than the actual tweeter. If I knew what I was doing with fiberglass I'm sure I could glass these into the a-pillars and it'd look much nicer. Maybe on the next car. Haven't had any listening time yet, but hopefully early next week.

Yay or Nay? Likely a lot less reflections..

don't mind the resetting Nav...add it to the list




Alternate Location (these are moveable..obviously, until I figure out location)

jda123

See if you can tilt them up just a touch. Then ride around with them for a while and move them left and right and see if you like them better like that.

If you like them, then you can go crazy with some bondo and whack your pillars apart... or just leave them.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Yeah I was going to try...

1. On-axis pointed at my head
2. Pointed at rear-view mirror
3. Pointed at sunroof

Once I figure out which one sounds best I'll figure out a way to secure them. Not sure I want to keep this car so don't want to go messing up a-pillars quite yet lol. I wonder how much new ones are? Hm...

jda123

3G TLs are showing up at junk yards now. See if you can find some A pillars there.

Keep the sound off of the windshield glass as much as you can. The dash can be an issue too, but not like the glass is.

I like my TN53K and TBe kinda like you have them, but not pointed directly at me... but off maybe 10 degrees. However, those are inverted domes and you have domes.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Yeah, domes will likely have reflections no matter where I put them. Any pics of yours JDA?

I hate cars

Andy W is really pushy about putting tweeters in the sail panels if you have processing. So much so that I'm thinking about velcroing them to the upper door panel for a day.

jda123

What is a sail panel? You talking like by where the side mirrors would attach? That is a good place for domes. One of the few spots where I think that you need TA. Does he angle them towards the cabin, or straight across? I had my old TN52 focal tweets this way and they were nice, but I had to go -2 on the left balance to compensate (before processor). The windshield is a long way from there... I wonder if you can build a shield to keep the dash and windshield out? It was a nice stage, especially for the effort that I gave it.

I like domes on the dash like you have them. I like inverted domes there even better - less stuff at the extreme off-axis. In any case, you have a straight sight line between the sweet tunes and your ears, which I have always found to be better than off of windshields and other stuff... but your mileage may vary.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Less reflections = Better/Stronger center image..right there with ya! Not sure how width varies though.

You might get more width with them firing into the windshield, but that could just be the reflections, etc giving off a wider feel. You can see that pod I'm using is maybe 1.5" deep. Maybe. You could cut it damn near in half and still fit the tweeter so you could get it pretty flush and have them poking out even less.

niebur3

This is just not true. All inverted dome tweeters I have ever read about rave about their off-axis dispersion being better than non-inverted. Ring Radiator tweeters are the only ones I know that has poor response off-axis.

I hate cars

The dash is reflective...

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Right, but you have a wave front coming AT you initially. Not up to the windshield, back down to the dash, bouncing off who knows what before it reaches your ears. Then you have to worry about later reflections. Your never going to get rid of reflections in a car environment. I'm sure it'll be better than firing into the windshield, but won't know until next week.

jda123

Every time we have to go through this... they (the TN53K and TBe, anyway) do really well to about 55 to 60 degrees and then they nearly quit. There is virtually nothing after 60 degrees. 89 degrees and 1 degree off axis is not the same - not even close. Do they even quantify what they are talking about with certain degrees?

I don't even know where they get that shit since the good dome tweeters are very good off axis as well. How do "they" claim that it is better?

I had some Esotar (older model), Supremo (I wish these were not borrowed) and L1 and, sound aside, the inverted domes had significantly less off-axis reflections after 50 and nearly nothing after 55-60 degrees and are easier to image because of it.

Don't read about this. Get a set and try it. I might have a set of TN53K laying around - well one, anyway, since one quit on me - if you want to try them out.

I hated the Hybrids. I could not get them to have any kind of pop (I probably gave up on them too early), but I am curious about their Ring SE tweeter. Don't you deal Hybrid? Is it any good?

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Everyone seems to LOVE Hybrid on diyma. I wouldn't mind trying to fit their L8 in the door, but I'd need to run a 3-way for sure.

niebur3

Lets just say you are onto something there....then the best spot should be in the factory locations.

The whole problem with tweeters (or soft dome midranges) in the a-pillar is there usually very good off-axis response. When you have them in the a-pillar, you are getting lots of late reflections from the off-axis response. You are also getting lots of reflections off the dash, as depending on where they are located, off the side window. Makes for a VERY smeared image.

However, in our factory locations, you have ALL the information reflected (most of it at the same time) off the front windshield and back at you. You actually get a less smeared image and they act more like on-axis without the off axis problems. And with out instrument cluster hump (with on-axis) you are almost firing them right into plastic.

I had my 430 midranges and 130 large format tweeters just off the a-pillar in my firebird and it did sound really good, but the factory tweeter location (with lesser 102 tweeters) and kick for the 430's in the TL sound WAY better. So much cleaner....tons of detail and separation! Way less smearing!

I'm not saying you can't experiment, but a multiple world finals champion has a TL with a 2-way in the factory locations.... And the current rendition of the car is burying a midrange and tweeter in the corners of the dash (he cut the dash to make them fit) and they are firing parallel to the windshield).

Reflections are bad....using them to our advantage is good!

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

I guess I don't understand that lol. Wouldn't it be better to have them on-axis? Sure, you're always going to have reflections, but wouldn't the image be more inconsistent with early/more reflections??

What did that guy have for a 2-way?? I feel like the tweeters in the factory location did very well and still had very good response up to 20kHz, but the image would try to walk on me sometimes. I could get it to sound like vocals, etc were in the middle of the dash and about halfway up the windshield, but sometimes it would sound more dominant on the left side and sometimes more on the right. I figured that was all reflections.

niebur3

Again, would you rather have all the information reflected at the same time? Or would you rather have some hit you immediately and then some later (reflections) and then some after that (reflactions), etc.etc. At least with our factory locations, it all reflects at the same time (for the most part).

I don't have any problems with images walking with my setup. It sounds either like some time alignment or eq issues.

pohljm

I call that Stereo!

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Lol yeah..we're talking about a centered image to be exact

I agree Jerry, likely EQ related. TA seems pretty solid. Both my mids sound like they're coming from the center channel. Same with tweeters. Haven't had but a few EQ sessions though. Mainly just level matching with pink noise

jda123

We are looking for 2 totally different things and appear to have different goals. I desire to avoid the evil, not have it work for me. I pull them forward so that the sound hits the headliner at 50 degrees and misses most of the dash (it will get into some of it where it starts to angle down). The passenger window is no issues since the waves skip past into the rear before the head over to me in the drivers seat. The driver window can have a bit, but if you tilt the driver to the middle a little bit, most of it can skip past - this is no worse than the stock locations. This leaves me with the same issues as everybody else where waves bounce off of seat belt holder, steering wheels and the such. The image is loud, clear and wide. It is not muddied or smeared with my tweeters, but I have had it sound smeared with soft domes that project wider. Try it, it works.

I first got this idea from a guy who had a show Ford Excursion, which caught my interest since I have the same car (but we work it a lot). In that car, the dash is very short and the front glass is very straight up - he had a lot less to deal with than we do... but the principal is the same... test out the drivers to get their useful "range" and then get them forward forward a bit to where the meat of the sound is into the headliner and down into the seats.

You all know that I don't care what a computer thought of another guy's car... That has little to do with me. If we all wanted to please a computer, then we probably could.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

How do you have them pulled forward that much? A-pillars or what?

If I could pull them forward and avoid dash reflections I would, but it'd likely look stupid as hell if they weren't glassed into the pillars. My image is definitely loud, clear and wide, but I still get a little rainbow down to the mids, which is likely phase issues in lower octaves. In those pics I hadn't even worked with positioning, so I'd definitely aim them upwards a bit more. Maybe even try aiming up at the sunroof on both

Both my amps should be here this week so I'll have everything ready to go!! About time! Sold my girls little netbook so I only have a Palm to tune with, which is VERY annoying. Need to find a cheapo laptop now

I hate cars

I tried mine in the sails yesterday and the image was actually worse. After a lot of experimenting I found that my mids were out of phase (I'm assuming) because when I swapped them the center image was there like never before and very defined. Music was instantly more detailed. I settled back on the stock location again.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Which mid was out of phase??

So you you tried the sails and it was nasty, dialed in phase on a mid and it sounded better than ever, but you settled on stock again? ...or did you go back to the stock location (firing up) and then dial in the phase on the mid?

I still haven't played with phase on my mids. Really need to when the amp gets here. I feel like I have plenty of midbass, but It can't hurt to swap the polarity on the Left or Right mid and see what happens. My Audison has a phase dial for the sub so that'll be super easy to dial in.

I hate cars

Both mids were out of phase or so it seems. Dynaudio is a little confusing. There's no plus or minus sign. Just a red and white label but on the 430 in particular, red is on the small terminal and white is on the large terminal. Every speaker I've installed before has positive going to the larger terminal if it has two different sizes. These are just the mids though. The midbasses in the doors seem to be ok.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

I've been reading up on this stuff for months now and from what I've gathered...

- If you swapped BOTH of your midranges then you're back to square one. Swapping both midranges puts both of the waves doing the same thing, but 180 degrees opposite of how you had it originally. I'll see if I can pull a nice diagram for this..

- Phase for a rainbowing stage is important in the lower octaves, roughly 300-400hz and below. Basically if you have a strong center image but your left and right pull down towards the doors then you likely have phase issues in this region

- 20 to 2,000kHz-ish = Phase Dependent
..2,000kHz + = Amplitude Dependent


A basic way to correct the phase is by reversing phase. You could get into time alignment to get it perfect. With out time alignment it will (almost) always be out of phase. Norm or rev phase just gets it more or less in phase.

I hate cars

The mids being out of phase in a 3-way will effect midbass depending on the crossover points and tweeters. My mid to tweeter crossover point is 8khz/12db. Midbass to mid is 1,600hz/24db. Everything is clearer, more detailed, and the stage is so much more focused now.

eggyhustles

Still mad at you for getting rid of the sundown amp lol

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Haha me too! It was a nice amp. Much nicer than the PPI I had, but I'm sure the ID q450.4 is a bit nicer even. Should make me happy! Sundown makes quality stuff though for sure

Also ready to get my Audison and hook the IDmax up too! Gonna be a fun week.