I get the impression from looking at some of the posts over at elitecaraudio.com that having the tweets facing up on the dash, as the TSX does, is not a good location for sound and imaging.

Would you agree, and if so, is it a big detriment? Or, is it a minor flaw that only a very picky audiophile would really notice?

sorry if this has been covered already.. if so, scold me accordingly.

 

well, I'm not a pure audiophile, I don't like to have the tweeters make my ears bleed.... but I think they are in a bad location for the passenger. The driver has a clean line of sight to each tweeter, but the passenger has the gauge cluster in the way, and you can tell when listening.

The best idea i have is to move the tweeters to the sailpods behind the mirrors. With the airbags, there is no acceptable way of mounting them in the a pillars.

But this is all to much trouble for me until I replace the front speakers, and I have enough going on now with video and led conversions...

 

very picky....you wouldnt notice much of a differance if you moved them.

 

you might not from the drivers side, but you would from the passengers side....

 

F*%$ the passengers, they're not paying for the audio upgrades!

 

FYI, an audiophile would not even care about car audio. Wherever the tweeters are located, you're still looking at less than perfect setup (not even close). A car is just not a good place to do some critical listening (bad acoustics, weak soundstage...). Even the Aston Martin Vanquish which uses a Linn sound system ($15K system) lacks in many departments (but it’s still pretty damn impressive, I was able to get a 10 minute audition).

On the other hand, an audio enthusiast (different crowd than audiophiles) would probably like to get the tweeters pointed towards the passengers (with some angle). I personally like the fact that the tweeters are placed far away from the passengers (this helps moving the soundstage further away). Placing the tweeters in the side mirror area is still a tradeoff. Also, without having all the drivers aligned, a system will always lack time coherence (having the woofers in the back of the car does not help even if the lower range is not as directional as upper range frequencies).

Personally, I think that the system delivers ok sound (for a factory car system). I believe the major flaw in the TSX system is not the tweeter placement but the boominess in the lower range (it's muddy and lacks control). There is also the fact that the door panels act as a booster (for a lack of a better word) for certain frequency (around 80-120Hz). This peak in this frequency range tends to overpower the mid range (see most male and female vocals).

By the way, I consider myself as an audiophile and for me, there are just too many factors that would need to be corrected to get a great sound.

Just my

Luc

 

ok, I guess I used the term "audiophile" a little too loosely there.. Didn't realize there was a distinction.

So, why do you like having the soundstage move further away? Is that based on some generally accepted audiophile concept, or just your preference as you stated? Regardless, can you be more specific about this preference.. just curious to know where you're coming from.

 

Soooooo, for those of us who are going to bypass the factory amp (read send rca from head unit to MY amp prior to crossovers) would it be a waste of time/money to put some decent 3 way 6X9's in the back? Would it distort or otherwise screw up my sound staging to have full range signal in the rear as well? Thanks, gonna do this soon and don't want to shoot myself in the foot.

 

I am pretty sure that x/o's are in the amp, so you can put new 6x9's in there and get the full sound range from them...

... but yes, it would really drag your sound stage backwards. Most aftermarket competitors have no rear speakers, or they have them highly attenuated.

 

Yeah, the crossovers are in the stock amp from what y'all have previously said. Im still planning on grabbing the signal before the stock amp gets it....

Would adjusting the fade compensate for the rearward sound stage or would it just be better to leave out the 6X9 all together (Im gonna have a 10 inch sub in the trunk anyway)?

Tahnks electro and others - when I do this ill take pics and post suggestions for others.

Any suggestions on a good name brand RCA cable? I'm considering DEI, Monster (expensive), and Audiobahn. Thanks---

 

If you are going to have a sub, then I would not worry about the 6x9's... if you're not happy with it later, you can always add them back.

As far as cables go, it's a tough call. I've had crap cables sound great, and great cables sound like crap.

 

Cardas crosslink are pretty good speaker cables for car setup...

As for soundstaging, in theory, you should only have powered speakers in front of you, not behind nor on the side. But that's in a perfect world. It's not great for people on the backseat.


As for having the soundstage very close to you, you rarely listen a band in between the musicians (or 3 inches away from the singer's face)... You usually listen to a music group at least a few meters away. By moving the drivers (speakers) further away from the passengers, you are trying to get the soundstage further away from the passenger. On the other hand, the closer you move the drivers from the windshield, the more sound waves reflection you get (bad). You will get high frequencies boucing on the windshield. Like I said earlier, a car is not a great environment for listening to music. You have to choose the coloration (or flaw) of sound which bothers you less...

One more thing, it is extremely hard to integrate a sub in a system seamlessly. But most people are not looking for seamless integration. They are looking for a boost of SPL in the low octave.


REgards

 

Luc, thanks for the great post - I agree with you wholeheartedly. The muddiness/boominess in the TSX stereo bothers me, as well as a slight harshness up top, too - no doubt caused by the tweeter location. (They should have taken a lesson from the Mitsubishi Eclipse and angled it away from the windshield and other hard, reflective surfaces.)

After reading the posts here over the past few months, I've come to the conclusion that when I buy a TSX, I'm going to dynamat the doors, take an AudioControl EQS to the factory amp outputs, and run the results through a modestly powered amp to the factory speakers. This setup should piggyback on the strengths of the factory setup and not mess with the way the manufacturer intended to distribute sound about the cabin, yet allow some of the sonic "sludge" to be cleared out. I'd rather not stuff the trunk with amps, but at least with this approach the sound will be properly smoothed out and there will be an opportunity to deepen the bass a bit because there will be more RMS power available (which makes different 6x9s in the rear deck possible).

Of course, Acura could've had a much better sounding stereo at virtually no cost per unit if they'd angled the dash tweeters better and used something like Pioneer's AutoEQ circuit when designing the vehicle, but I guess now we've gotta work with that we've got. Arrgh.