I hate cars

If it makes you feel any better, mine is back to sounding like a clock radio. I mentioned earlier about flipping the phase on the mids and the stage improving along with clarity and detail. I had not tuned it since flipping the polarity so I did a calibration tonight and son of a bitch! I absolutely hate this so called processor. It went right back to how it used to sound, like a clock radio. I flipped polarity on the mids again and got most of it back. Did a calibration and it sounded like shit again so I flipped the polarity back once again and it sounds ok but not as good as it did that first time. This system sounds so good and has so much emotion when tuned but I've come to realize it barely beats the stock system with the ms8. I borrowed a Bit One for a while and in 30 minutes I had it sounding better than the MS8 has ever sounded by a long shot. I can't wait to get this piece of shit out of the car.

I can't believe people pay money to make their system sound worse than it does on passives. Talk about a waste of money. I'm not even going to sell it. I'm going to make a video of the TL running it over as soon as I get another processor.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Yeah I've never understood why people go crazy for the MS-8 with all the troubles and quirks it seems to have. With the 3sixty.2 at $200 basically, I'll take it over the MS-8 any day. I obviously can't tune it close to perfect as I don't have an RTA, haven't heard enough to know what I'm shooting for, etc...but it's still pretty damn good. I REALLY want a Bit.1 though. Graduating next week and should get a nice size signing bonus with my company this week. Things are looking up! Jerry might get a call soon about placing a Dyn order.

When are you going to pick up a Bit.1 and sell that MS-8? Seems like the MS-8's go in a day or 2 on DIYMA. As nice as the AutoEQ is, I just couldn't imagine having to constantly run new tunes all the time if you make one little adjustment. Freedom is nice within a processor. I'm assuming the Bit.1 does everything the MS-8 does, but with more freedom and MUCH better AutoEQ/Tune. Sorry to hear that though. Lately, I've been reading a lot due to my system being down and I think I'm just going to tune with my ears and make it sound good to me. Not sure why everyone gets so caught up in the RTA, etc game when it sounds like some competition cars sound like complete garbage.

eggyhustles

i knew the ms8 was shit from day 1

I don't need a processor telling me what my music should sound like.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Slowly learning that lol. EQ, TA, etc is nice....but sucks when it tells you what sounds good and not the other way around.

I hate cars

I'm literally going to run it over like I did my JL6450 amp when it died. It's not worth the $200 I might get for it. This one is not getting sold.

I had forgotten just how amazing these speakers can sound and how horrible it has sounded for so long. It's literally an emotional experience, as gay as that sounds.

PS- Get the Dyns!

You should have warned me lol. I knew going into it that it might have some problems but being in way over my head and barely knowing what a crossover slope was it did it's job. I think it's a great addition to a stock system but it almost seems like the better the speakers, the worse the MS8 makes it sound. Besides that, when I bought it, it was still somewhat new but there were a million lightly used ones for sale on DIYMA. I believe Jerry only had his for a month or two before tearing it out of there.

I notice when reading MS8 threads on DIYMA most people running it are noobs. It seems like anyone who is halfway serious about this hobby either knew to stay away or tried it for a month and sold it for a loss.

Right now I have 3 female vocals across the dash but with only one actual singer. Midbass is easily recognizable as coming from the doors, not the dash. It sounds as if there's no TA or even worse than no TA. I can hear each sound coming from each tweeter. For that 24 hours it sounded like it should before I did a retune I had an actual sound stage where everything worked together but I needed this as a wake up call to get rid of this thing. I had gotten used to that alarm clock sound.

jda123

I don't like anything doing stuff for me. Autotune would be fine if it were fully changeable afterward. I also did not care for the center channel or any of the surround stuff that it did, so I stayed away... mostly because I was never a huge JBL fan (probably a truly unfair assessment based on too little personal exposure). Honestly, I was waiting for the 3sixty.3 that was supposed to be here any day, but ordered a bitone.1 later after Nick had no complaints about his and I LOVED my Audison amps and nearly nobody complains about any Audison product.

Clark - when you tune, start with the stock crossover settings and then go from there. Most good sets have pretty good crossovers. Then, slowly, over weeks or months, while writing everything down, move a little bit at a time. Also, don't move a driver and change your tune on the same day. One thing at a time to isolate the real impact. Competition guys likely have totally different goals than you, so you are right to just not pay attention to them.

I will either be using the stock crossovers from now on, or just using something like Zapco DC Amps and/or filters on the amps again. A good 12/24 and high/low/bandpass to compliment the crossovers is good enough for me.

Before you buy a processor, drop the dyns back on the crossovers and see if you like it.

Isn't it funny how contentment is free, yet it takes all of us so much money to find it.

niebur3

My phone is pretty much always available for your call !


Correction, I had it in the car for 3-4 days. I play with it for 4-5 hours each day and then bypassed it using the P01 (Jap P99) and that it all it took. It was out of there and sold!

The MS8 is not all bad as long as you use it for what it was primarily intended for, stock and cheaper aftermarket (IMO). It will make these systems much better because it kinda does what factory processors do and that is protect the speakers and make all of them play within a certain range. When you have a nice system (good speakers and amp), I think it handcuffs the system a lot. Kinda like a restrictor plate in NASCAR. It wants everyone to be the same, even though you may have another 200 horses under the hood .

niebur3

Oh, and the PS8 from ARC has been delayed for "months".

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

What's the deal with the 3sixty.3? I thought it was supposed to already be out, but I haven't heard a single thing. Pretty sure it can run a 3-way front stage now and it's got 1/3 EQ, TA, etc so it's definitely a good buy for someone that doesn't want 5.1/7.1, AutoTune, etc. Had my eye on it and looked at the discussion on DIYMA about it, but haven't seen much lately. Between this and PS8 getting delayed a bunch...Bit.1 is looking like the best choice for most people.

...not sure about Alpine's processors though

jda123

I don't have any idea. I will let you all Guinea Pig with it.

Even though I don't usually care for the drivers, tune or install that competition guys generally use, I would totally be interested in their opinions of processors. If these guys cannot customize them and get them to work for them to please a computer, then I probably won't want them either.

xxx_busa

Zapco dsp !!!

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

How long does it usually take for an amp to go in for repair?? Audison has had my amp for 4 weeks now (this is week 4)

I've got 2 finals next week so looks like I'll be tune-less for another 2 weeks. This blows

jda123

Took JL about 6 weeks to fix my 450/4. If they actually fix your amp, instead of sending you a refurb, then it can be a while.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Actually just got a call from Audison about an hour ago and they fixed it. Shipping out tomorrow and should be back mid-next week.

Gizmo 04

Did they do it under warranty, if not how much they charged you?

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Got my Audison in today and it works perfectly!! Best part...


Audison didn't charge me a thing!


My other ID q450.4 should be here Thursday and I'll get some quality tuning in on Friday. FINALLY!!

rich20730

Nice! Man, you've got some patience. I go nuts if I have to go even a couple days without tunes in my car.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

On the days I go to work instead of school it's about a 40 minute drive one-way. It's awful. I go crazy with every little squeak and rattle in this damn car. The cracked dash makes the dash rattle when I'm at idle for some reason, which drives me insane. I hate rattles so when I hear them I have to roll down a window or something b/c they literally piss me off lol

rich20730

Sounds like my nightmare!

IKURAS

Coming together nicely

jda123

<lecture>

...now, browse around your craigslist for a while and pick up a high-octane 2 channel amp for pretty cheap in the next six months. Something like a MTX 2300 or Fosgate 800a2, 600a2, or the like from the old school. It does not have to be great. Put it in your closet.

Keep those crossovers around, too.

In case of an emergency, that larger 2 channel can drive a sub, or power your comps, so that you do not go tune-less again.

</lecture>

Sorry, I could not help myself... I apologize for that right there.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Alright guys, I've got a few problems right now but this is one I'd like to figure out and might need your help and definitely your opinions. I'm trying to figure out why my trunk has standing water under the spare after it rains. For a day or two after rain, it smells musty and well....like there's been water in there. There are pictures below, but first I'd like to throw out something I was thinking. It seems like the little black plugs (I think there are 3 or 4 of them on the trunk floor under spare) are somehow letting water in. I don't see any rust stains coming "down" into the lower area of the spare so I don't think it's coming from the tail lights area, etc. I dunno...I just figured you'd see some sort of rust lines like you see under the spare if it was running down there from one spot. So......my thought was to use some sort of aerosol sealant and plus I saw a commercial for that "Flex Seal" stuff. It's basically rubber in spray form and will seal in/out water, etc.

I don't know what those plugs are for and I don't know what's underneath the middle metal thing that the spare tire screws in to. I don't want to try to seal it up down there and then cause a serious problem or something, though I think standing water is already pretty serious. Anywho, here are some pics. It's bad.....

what do you guys think??



Facing toward the back of the car just to show there are no rust stains running down that are possibly seeping in from the trunk lid/rear bumper area, etc.

tegman2

iTrader: (1)

yuck. Might be the drains for the sunroof that should be running down the C pillars. Might have been pulled out of place. Have someone run lots of water over your sunroof while you watch the trunk area.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Yeah that's a good idea. I wonder if I'll have to get in the trunk lol and just use a flash light. Might not show itself if the trunk lid is open. Maybe that's what you meant

Hopefully I can get this figured out today and hopefully tune some more. Found a few pesky rattles that I need to use my last 3-4 CLD tiles on. Our door cards are noisy at the very top. Thinking about adhering some left over CCF to them also so they don't make noise.

tegman2

iTrader: (1)

Should be able to do it with the trunk open. Just have whoever is running the hose be careful not to get the water directly into the trunk. Also might help if you park on a slight incline to get the water to go to the drains a little faster. #5 in the pic.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Alright...on to my next question. Where is the factory ground point for the head unit/factory amp?? I'm starting to think I need to relocate that ground or make my amp and 3sixty.2 grounds go to that location. Maybe I'm getting a ground loop.

To hunt down the culprit I've tried:

1. Swapping mids/tweets channels on the Q450. Still have noise.
2. Swapping RCA's for mids/tweets. Still have noise
3. Relocating 3sixty.2 ground from distribution block to it's own ground where my distro block (amps) are grounded. Still have noise
4. New Setup in 3sixty.2 software. Still have noise
5. Lowering gains on 3sixty.2, amps and processor "dB level" ALL the way down. Still have noise
6. Re wired tweeters, etc to make sure something wasn't shorting, etc. Still have noise.


...I'm at a loss. I think today when I get home I'm going to try to take the RCA inputs that go INTO the 3sixty.2 and run them straight into either the 1/2 or 3/4 input on the Q450.4. Just bypass the 3sixty.2 and see if I still have noise. I'm not sure if my issue is ground loop or if I need a line-driver before I reach the 3sixty.2??

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've also got some weird problems that I'm hoping Matt and Jerry (or anyone else for that matter) can chime in on. Running my mids from 70-2.5kHz on 24db slope. Running sine waves at 1/3 octaves, I've got massive dips and peaks. Using the SPL meter app from JL on the Iphone 4, though I'm not sure how accurate it is, shows that an 80hz tone is at like 59db's, while 125hz+ is MUCH louder at around 79dbs. I was level matching by ear and having to cut 125 to 400-ish by 9-10db's.

I need to write some of this stuff down so I can post it or just take a picture of my findings. I also feel like my center image isn't anywhere near what it was when I had my tweeters on-axis. Anyways, with this noise I can't go very loud at all. For a quick reference, when my volume is on 30 it's where my volume 12-15 roughly is. Not very loud at all b/c if I up the gains I just introduce tons of noise. I can already hear the tweeters with no volume.

jda123

The 3sixty does not accept a balanced differential signal. That is what the BLD is made for. Do you have one, or a matrix or something?

Get the noise out before you tune it. If the issue is the balanced diff signal, then anything that you do before you fix that will be for waste. When you do get it done, 70 to 3000 at 12 is a good place to start with the CXS. You know that I would keep the tweets angle mounted - I had them like that in my TL when I used them for a while.

jda123

Now that I think about it, the 3sixty might take balanced diff through the low level input. You using the RCAs? If so, switch to the low level. I dunno if any of this is right though...

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

See I could have sworn that the 3sixty.2 accepted balanced. I know ours isn't "true" balanced, but I'm also wondering if I'm picking up noise on my speaker wire run from the factory amp to 3sixty.2 in the trunk. I guess the BLD or some sort of 2 channel line-driver will take care of both of these issues if I went that route.

I'm wondering why I was able to use the PPI p900.4 at levels much higher than what I'm at now without this noise. I didn't change a thing I don't think. How did you have the tweeters mounted in your car? I really wish I knew how to fiberglass

You have any idea why I'm not getting any sort of low end from the CXS mids? So as I typed that I thought...maybe the reason is that since my gains are so low that I'm not even getting enough power to really drive the low end. The IDmax wangs though! That's for sure. At this time I've gotta give props to the quietness of the w6 while running it hard. When getting close to the IDmax I can hear a little suspension noise, but the w6 always seemed dead quiet. Although, I had 2 and didn't need to run them as hard. Could be that also. Anyways..

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Wait a second...

If our signal isn't true balanced and the 3sixty.2 is essentially a line driver of sorts, what would happen if I moved it to the passenger kick or up front somewhere and ran LONG, shielded RCA's to my amps?

That should help if it's noise being picked up along the route to the 3sixty.2 right? Only bad thing is that I'd need like 2 20' RCA's and a single RCA for the sub amp.

jda123

It is A balanced signal... a balanced DIFFERENTIAL signal. Balanced differential is like positive and negative and low voltage. True balanced is positive, negative and ground and higher voltage. Both keep transient noise out. The amps and line drivers can get the ground from the chassis to convert to true balanced. Traditional signals are analog in nature and can introduce some noise, but they don't have to, or anything. The balanced differential signal should be clean to your trunk, so I would not sweat that.

Try the low levels.

I had those tweets in the stock hole in a PVC 90 painted flat dark grey to kind of match the dash. ...then I pointed them both at me, but off center ten degrees, or so, towards the windows. I just wedged the elbow into the hole and it fit pretty snug. I never bothered to mod up anything since I knew that I would never keep them more than a month or two. You will need less power this way and I think that I had them at like -6 dbs, but I cannot remember for sure.

Seriously, try them on the crossovers and then use that as a baseline. Those crossovers are pretty good. If you cannot get better than that with the 360, then forget about active... but you should be able to with some work. That midbass should be able to move your pant's leg with output and still sound pretty good - the phase plug allowed it to do well at 3000 and slightly above, but if needed to move the low end up to 100hz to play above 2700.

You also might try a flatter slope with the midbass and tweeter so far apart... your ears might like some overlap.

rich20730

I think a line driver would definitely help. That's a pretty long run for such a weak signal from the stock amp back to the trunk. I also had some noise coming from my tweeters while running my processor and the BLD fixed the problem. That's weird that you didn't have any noise with the PPI though.

I'm glad you're finally getting to enjoy the IDmax It's a great sub. I couldn't ever figure out what was causing the peak at 60hz in my car, but I was able to fix the problem by low passing the sub at 40hz and high passing the XS-65's at 70hz.

I really think I have the perfect tune right now. I can't find anything wrong with it. It sounds great on every type of music I throw at it.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

Interesting. You had noise also until you ran a line-driver? Did you put the BLD up near the factory amp and just run lots of RCA's cables to the trunk? I'll have a look back at your thread and see if you have any pics of this.

I would definitely try to figure out that peak at 60 b/c that sucks that you have to LP the IDMax at 40hz. It does well up at 100hz, but I wouldn't run it that high as frequencies are directional up there. Never thought about putting TA on it while running that high though...hm. Might have to try that soon. I'm sure cabin gain is a part of that rise, but maybe you're getting resonance also. 60hz might be in acoustic phase while some of the nearby frequencies might be out of phase also, causing it to sound much louder. I dunno...just brain storming.

So you're HP'ing the XS's at 70hz.. What slope? I'm glad you like them! Big fan of ID and what they do for more budget minded setups.

jda123

If you are happy not having any speaker play the 40 to 70 range, then just keep it as-is. Of course, they are playing the range at whatever slope you are using, just at a lesser volume.

You want me to send you a JL amp to mess around with? I have 300/4 and 450/4 doing nothing... You can just plug the RCAs right into them...

No pics of the mounts, sorry. Just image a 90 PVC elbow in that spot like a periscope on a submarine. These are Focal's answer. They are 30 degrees, or so, but our dash slopes 10 or 15, so they end up netting 15 or 20. I have used them closer to the end of the dash than the stock holes (to avoid the windshield), but this should give you an idea of what I am kinda talking about:
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/pictu...ture_id=239122

rich20730

Yea, I had some noise that mostly went away by turning the input gain down on the processor, but then I didn't have near the volume level that I wanted, especially with 275 watts per side going to the components.

The BLD is right up near the stock amp sitting on top of that black panel under the glove box. I have a 6 foot RCA run from the BLD to the processor under the passenger seat then a longer run to the amp in the trunk.

Yea, I suppose in a perfect world I would rather have the option of crossing the sub higher and using symmetrical crossover points with the mids, but as long as the frequency response is flat at those octaves and it sounds good I'm not too worried about it.

Maybe it's a phase issue. I don't really understand acoustic phase all that well, but the processor alert me to switch the phase on the sub when I ran the last auto tune. I thought I had the car pretty well deadened so I hope it's not a resonance issue.

I'm not sure what the slope is on the XS-65's. With the PXE the crossover slopes are set at 12db/octave except for the sub which you can choose 12/24 so I'm not sure if the midbass high pass is always set at 12db or if it mirrors the sub crossover slope. I have the sub set at 24. Either way, they don't seem to be struggling down low.

rich20730

Yea, it's kind of like a make-shift EQ using the roll-off between the cut-off frequencies of the crossover points to flatten out the peak at 60hz. I tried the maximum cut at 60hz with the parametric EQ and there was still a big peak so this was the solution I came up with. Too much in the 60-80hz sounds pretty obnoxious to me so I am happy with the results.

Before:


After:

I hate cars

A line driver as close to the source as possible will take care of any noise picked up along the way to the trunk. If you still can't find the noise, unplug one thing at a time starting with the processor or whatever is first in the chain. Eventually the noise will stop.

The W6 is dead quiet all the way till it bottoms out.

Don't be afraid to flip polarity even if you know its right.

Trunk Monkey

iTrader: (1)

[quote=jda123;13796865]If you are happy not having any speaker play the 40 to 70 range, then just keep it as-is. Of course, they are playing the range at whatever slope you are using, just at a lesser volume.

You want me to send you a JL amp to mess around with? I have 300/4 and 450/4 doing nothing... You can just plug the RCAs right into them...

No pics of the mounts, sorry. Just image a 90 PVC elbow in that spot like a periscope on a submarine. These are Focal's answer. They are 30 degrees, or so, but our dash slopes 10 or 15, so they end up netting 15 or 20. I have used them closer to the end of the dash than the stock holes (to avoid the windshield), but this should give you an idea of what I am kinda talking about:

Opel

Have you tried using the aux input on the 360 and see if you still have noise? just to rule out anything wrong with the signal from the HU itself.