Ok guys i would like to hear wht you guys would do to centralize and lift the sound stage.

currently im running kicker 6.2's off a jvc DOHC 2x150wrms amp, the woofer is in the door and the tweet is on the top of the dash in the factory location

the sound stage at the moment sounds very side to side not centralized.

any suggestions on correcting this.

It has been suggested adding another set of tweets may help this somewhat but what else can be done with out spending big $$$

many thanks in advance

*edit* it needs lifting aswell

Option 1.
Custom built MDF Baffles to aim the woofer in the door up a tad more

Option 2. ( Not Recommended)
Install a Centre Channel Speaker as far forward as possible. Some Guys I know Remove the central Ventilalation and make a Mount in the actual place where the Vents go.
Option 3. Move the Position of your Current Tweeters to a Better location angle them towards the Centre of the car..
This should help..

Wait for S_tim_ulate to post... He is the Front stage Guru..

sorry mate i i thought your sound stage was to low not side to side

i have no idea how to fix the problem

do u have the RCA left and right plug in correctly??

yeah sorry Al it is to low aswell, but after listening more to it after i spoke to you last nite and moving around the car abit i noticed it that it seems seperated somewhat aswell, from what i understand the sound should be central and it is but it isnt, i'll let you have a listen n see what you think, you maybe able to describe it better

I would re-locate them to your kick panels. It sounds poo with the high frequencies bouncing off your windscreen all over the place.
With them down in your kick panels, and pointed up at the opposite persons head, the distance between each of your ears and each tweeter is much more centralised.

Example of what Ive done in my car:

RH Tweeter (http://storage.msn.com/x1p5famgm6n5ZKHKzRLn0s3bO9lnVX4gQwQy1qFrQDHaELYC89 dcH3xNusVEb83L_2mx1WXjHCWE2jopdigp3EpFpp9L3HwU4PEp 7hM3n2ASt2vsKtpQNmKwtWUq3yi8bA9TmBd49sn_b9FMgyZVd9 GQg)
LH Tweeter (http://storage.msn.com/x1p5famgm6n5ZKHKzRLn0s3bO9lnVX4gQwQy1qFrQDHaEIIGyb pmamTeV9ZLEewg45_rQ9cg1eayUCIUegLlbO2t9wAZayPb6UIP Js6VrUXb6grpkm4PA4oJ1YGosc1RVWOYWUSCYsQcQjFcgE-iSfNVw)

I just made a bracket out of a bit of flat aluminium using an existing screw to mount it.
Cheers
Pete

I would re-locate them to your kick panels. It sounds poo with the high frequencies bouncing off your windscreen all over the place.
With them down in your kick panels, and pointed up at the opposite persons head, the distance between each of your ears and each tweeter is much more centralised.

Example of what Ive done in my car:

RH Tweeter (http://storage.msn.com/x1p5famgm6n5ZKHKzRLn0s3bO9lnVX4gQwQy1qFrQDHaELYC89 dcH3xNusVEb83L_2mx1WXjHCWE2jopdigp3EpFpp9L3HwU4PEp 7hM3n2ASt2vsKtpQNmKwtWUq3yi8bA9TmBd49sn_b9FMgyZVd9 GQg)
LH Tweeter (http://storage.msn.com/x1p5famgm6n5ZKHKzRLn0s3bO9lnVX4gQwQy1qFrQDHaEIIGyb pmamTeV9ZLEewg45_rQ9cg1eayUCIUegLlbO2t9wAZayPb6UIP Js6VrUXb6grpkm4PA4oJ1YGosc1RVWOYWUSCYsQcQjFcgE-iSfNVw)

I just made a bracket out of a bit of flat aluminium using an existing screw to mount it.
Cheers
Pete

i dont see how moving the tweets further down will lift the sound stage or centralize it. where is tim i need your advice o mighty guru :bowdown: :pray:

You know, it could just be that your headunit settings aren't setup the way you want it to sound, have a play with it, see if that helps. if not, come back on here and have a free shot at me ;-)

I've got a set of 3-way 6.5" Eclipse splits in the front, and am soon to add a centre channel (half a set of Eclipse 3-way 5" splits)...

I don't know what everyone has against the idea of a centre channel but the cars i've heard utilising a decent Pro Logic II capable DSP & centre channel sound f*@king amazing for both music and DVD video!!!

One particular DSP i've heard people talk a lot about is this unit.

Alpine PXA-H701 DSP (http://iweb.alpine-usa.com/pls/admn/item_info?p_item_name=PXA-H701&p_category=160&p_subcategory=&p_main=10&p_more=y)

It has some neat features such as Dolby Bi-Phantom mode that creates two centre images for both people in the front seat.

All that said, speaker choice (size, quality, position) all have a huge impact!

You know, it could just be that your headunit settings aren't setup the way you want it to sound, have a play with it, see if that helps. if not, come back on here and have a free shot at me ;-)


Nah wont have a shot at you but yeah have been playing round with the eq has helped somewhat, Probably the best way to describe it the sound to distant from each other. And b4 anyone asks yes the phasing is correct

You mean there is some midbass missing???
Or are the Highs too high and your Lows too low???

S_tim_ulate... He needs your SQ Holyness..

i dont see how moving the tweets further down will lift the sound stage or centralize it. where is tim i need your advice o mighty guru :bowdown: :pray:

If you read my post I explained how it centralised it! It makes the distance between each ear and each tweeter much more equal! :rant:

As far as lifting the sound stage, you point the tweeters at the opposite person head and the sound stage wil lift.

Talk to any decent installer and thats exactly what they will tell you.

And for the record, that is what the 'guru tim' told me! And it works. Its also how he has his tweets setup. Hes got some photos somewhere on here showing it.

Pete

I agree.
Having the tweeters in the stock locations would sound very non centralised.


Poita, If one of my Chunky Brothers rode in your ride, their Calves and thighs would block where your tweeter is mounted...

I mounted mine up high Nearly above the woofer in the doors.. the Result is an Elevated front stage that is not too bright but the Treble is not cut out when a Chunky Brother sits in the front seat..
My Front stage is a tad cutom, it uses a Magnat Xtract 6.5 inch woofer in the door with a Magnat Xtract Cross over and the Tweeters you see here are from a set of Clarion SRS1325 splits. They are a Smooth and clear sounding tweeter that seems to make the Front stage sound just right, no Gaps in between the treble and midbass...
Yes they are held in by Blu tac, I don't want to go cutting holes in the Trim just to fit the tweeter..

:stoopid: If there is a passenger then no treble. Even at the moment if mine were in that position then I would never get treble as my legs would be blocking them. This is in a verada with the chunky door skins.

hmmm, firstly, you'd need to mount the tweeter closer to the mid-bass woofer, that minimises seperation.

see, this is a very tricky thing. u basically have to manouver around all ur front speakers and tweeters until u find a position you like....but the passengers won't like. who cares really, you're in the car most of the time, its ur car, so everyone else can :gtfo: :P

your best bet i reckon, would be to make custom fibreglass door pods that would house the speaker and tweeter, and allow them to be angled up and towards you. fibreglass pods pretty much give u an infinate amount of mounting angles. Oh, yeh, sound deaden too.

Besides red666, i'm not sure which other magna has custom fibreglass door pods :cool:

My GF is in the front passanger seat most the time, and I havent had any problems with no treble! (might help that she isnt a Chunky Brother... thankgoodness!! :D )

What Poita said is correct. A major problem with car audio is the fact that the listener is not centralised to the speakers. Because of this we have one speaker closer to our ears than the other speaker. To simplify it we will ignore ur mid driver for now and focus on the tweet.

With ur tweets up on the dash, the right tweeter is much closer to your ear than the left tweeter. The problem is the path length difference -> = Distance b/w futhest tweeter and listeners ear minus the distance between the closest tweeter and the listeners ear. This results in the sound from this tweeter being louder. And hitting ur ears slightly before the left tweet. This will cause your image to shift to the right. Generally tweets up on the dash have such a bad path length difference that the soundstage will completely collapse, ur system won't stage at all.

Now how do we solve this? Before you look at time alignment and EQ'ing it's best to have a solid install. The install will be the biggest determinant of a good sound stage that has good depth, height and width. (Some playing well outside the car and onto the front bonnet.)
The best place for your tweeters is a place that has the smallest path length difference. To find this you need to place them as far as possible from the drivers ears, this spot is in the kickpanels.
I've mounted mine high in the kickpanels for convenience, but eventually hope to mount them deeper in the kickpanels (in the service hole behind the kickpanel cover with a special grille)

This will result in ur image being more central. To get better results, use the balance controller, try shifting it one or two increments to the left.

At the moment my image is in the middle of my windscreen at head height. With the stage being spread fairly evenly across the dash. My image is not as sharp as I would want it to be, on great systems, you can clearly pinpoint the vocalists mouth, but this will come with more tuning hopefully.
To get my image centred i use time alignment (on the alpine 7998r) Basically this involves delaying the sound from certain speakers by a few milliseconds dependant on their distance from the listener.
With kick panel mounting you get the rainbow effect. That is, any strong centred sounds (sounds that are playing identical through both speakers, will appear to come from fairly high up in the soundstage. At dash level, whilst sounds from the far edges of the soundstage will drop down much lower.

To combat this I use ambient tweeters. These are tweeters that are highpassed much higher than normal tweeters and that only play at 1/10th of the volume. Mine were previously installed in the delta panels (in the stock verada/vrx tweeter holders) I recently moved these on top of the dash on the far edges. The job of these is to fill out that rainbow effect by lifting the stage at the upper edges. It also adds great stage height.

If you are worried about people's legs etc blocking the treble, you can mount them down there so they dont get blocked or kicked. With ambient tweeters even if they are blocked the tweeters will fill in any gaps. In all honesty even if someones legs are blocking ur tweets the actual sound passes around them anyway so doesnt affect the sound too much. This is most noticeable with ambient tweets though, but before I had them in I never had a problem with it.

If you're worried about the soundstage dropping further, the brain is very good at distinguishing horizontal locations through sound, but not very good at vertical. Most people sit in my car and dont realise the main tweets in the kickpanels. Your brain will assume the sound is coming from in front of you IF the system is: in phase (correct polarity for all ur speakers) and has low path length difference or good time alignment.

U sure ur phase is correct? try swapping the negative and postive leads of one of ur mids at the amps. Just to check if ur system is in phase. If it's in phase your system should have a sharp focused centre image. if ur out of phase u will notice a reduction in midbass and the centre image will be blurred and scattered.

Oooh... more questions like this please... Happy to elaborate on anything here too.

Peace

Tim

The SQ Guru has spoken " Ching" Please deposit your Donation in the AMC funding...

the sound stage at the moment sounds very side to side not centralized.

Likely phase error; I'd check both tweeters are wired with correct & equal polarity first.

Yep... these are the exact problems that you get when the speakers are out of phase. Instead of being in the centre, the sound will separate to the sides and be coming from the speakers.

When u're in phase and playing a mono signal the speakers should disappear altogether. The sound should all be coming from a single sharp location in the centre of ur soundstage.

Yep... these are the exact problems that you get when the speakers are out of phase. Instead of being in the centre, the sound will separate to the sides and be coming from the speakers.

When u're in phase and playing a mono signal the speakers should disappear altogether. The sound should all be coming from a single sharp location in the centre of ur soundstage.

I have achieved that .. Very trippy to have sound coming from the centre of the of tbonnet where there is no speaker..

What is better is when you have music that pans and the sound appears to come at you

Ok i let Alan(megatron) have a listen on the weekend, he explained it to me that what im hearing is not side to side but a seperation of sounds caused by the tweets being so high.

Yes they are in phase. Ive angled the tweets towards the corner of the pillar/glass, seems to have helped somewhat. I am going to take youre advice tim and am going to put my focal tweets down low in the kick panel. One question though if i have 2 pair of tweets in the front 1 up on the dash and 1 lot in the kick panels or down low in the door how will this sound or am i better of ditching the tweets in the dash location altogether, I forgot to ask Al, He said it sounds good, but missing the lows up in the stage.


I am considering upgrading from the kickers to polk audio 3 way splits.

yes put the focal in the kick panel and leave the kickers where they are (this is how TIM has his setup)

and it will sound great

i would ONLY get polk if you can get them at the price you told me otherwise forget it

yes put the focal in the kick panel and leave the kickers where they are (this is how TIM has his setup)

and it will sound great

i would ONLY get polk if you can get them at the price you told me otherwise forget it


hopefully i can, but if not then i will get you to help me to put the focals in and tune it :D

Thanks everyone for there help i'm going to rope Al into helping me try the tweets down low,

if that doesnt work (hopefully it does) then i'll have to try angling the woofer, or starting again

if any one has any other suggestions im open to as many ideas as possible aslong as there plausible

Cool, u should be happy with the kick mounting, (good work al)
With the ambient tweets, u dont want these playing the exact same signal as the other tweets, so it ends up being expensive to power them.

You need to high pass them around 8-10khz. And you need to have control of how much power goes into them as you only want 1/10th of the power that ur main tweets are getting.

Best bet is to buy a cheap amp, like 2x30 watt. I would look for an old alpine v12 if possible. They are fairly cheap and good quality.
Then run from ur front rca out on ur amp into this amp.

The best way to position ur tweets, (although it will change with each car/speaker) is to have the main tweets as far away as possible and on axis. If you are also putting in the ambient tweets you have more options as you dont need to worry as much about the passengers legs/ feet blocking the sounds. Most of these will pass around the legs, only the higher frequencies will be blocked, but ur ears will still have direct line of sight with the ambient tweets on the dash. Ur brain will piece it all back together. I've sat in cars with all speakers mounted very low in the kicks (eg shinycar off caa) when u move ur legs around you dont notice any change in the sound or staging.

The best spot that i've found for the ambients is on the far corners of the dash following the curves of the windscreen aiming up towards the rear view mirror.

Experiment with it, find a spot that you like. make sure it wont get booted around too much by passengers.

i hope Al reads this and can understand what u mean, I'll be the first to admitt that im out of my league when it comes anything other then basic stereo stuff.

Cool, u should be happy with the kick mounting, (good work al)
With the ambient tweets, u dont want these playing the exact same signal as the other tweets, so it ends up being expensive to power them.

You need to high pass them around 8-10khz. And you need to have control of how much power goes into them as you only want 1/10th of the power that ur main tweets are getting.

Best bet is to buy a cheap amp, like 2x30 watt. I would look for an old alpine v12 if possible. They are fairly cheap and good quality.
Then run from ur front rca out on ur amp into this amp.

The best way to position ur tweets, (although it will change with each car/speaker) is to have the main tweets as far away as possible and on axis. If you are also putting in the ambient tweets you have more options as you dont need to worry as much about the passengers legs/ feet blocking the sounds. Most of these will pass around the legs, only the higher frequencies will be blocked, but ur ears will still have direct line of sight with the ambient tweets on the dash. Ur brain will piece it all back together. I've sat in cars with all speakers mounted very low in the kicks (eg shinycar off caa) when u move ur legs around you dont notice any change in the sound or staging.

The best spot that i've found for the ambients is on the far corners of the dash following the curves of the windscreen aiming up towards the rear view mirror.

Experiment with it, find a spot that you like. make sure it wont get booted around too much by passengers.


Probably a silly question but could i run then off the HU using active??(the inline ones) cross overs. say as the rear channel and fade them out abit.

Probably a silly question but could i run then off the HU using active??(the inline ones) cross overs. say as the rear channel and fade them out abit.
Is the best bet if you have active crossovers on ur headunit that can get up to 10 khz.... U'll need to buy a capacitor from Jaycar to get rid of these otherwise. Jaycar sells a 10khz highpass cap just for this for $10 or something.

If ur' willing to forgo ur rear speakers then go for it will enable you to dial up the volume accordingly. If you want, you can wire the rears up to a switch to switch from ambients to rears. So still keep the rears there for passengers, and flick over to ambients for when ur driving by urself.

make sure you insert the capacitor after the switch at the tweeter end so ul still get a full range to the rears

Hey tim whats the likely hood of fitting 8", and 5.25" in the doors successfully, have u seen it done or have you tried doing this. Im looking at some polk mobile moniter series 3 way splits, there an old model (94 i think), but they have never been used, can i hear some peeps opinions on these, I know yours Al, and hopefully i will get these cheap under $275 delivered. Are these worth gettn to replace my kicker k6.2's

oh yeah mounting depth of the 8" is 86 mm

Woofer in the doors' 5.25 inch in the kicks... Could be a possibility with a lot of custom work..

10" in the doors is possible. Anything is possible, just a matter of how much damage u wanna do.

I would love to see how you go about it, as I'm always looking to upgrade. I've wanted to do proper pods but didnt want to rip the car apart too much.

Another option is to install them in between the drivers legs firing up at the windscreen in a sealed fibreglass enclosure that sits under the seat. This way you get good stage height as it bounces straight off the windscreen, it also avoids all the rattles that you wont be able to get rid of with deadening.

These take a lot of time and effort though. But is a good spot for SQ, I know it sounds crazy, and when I first saw them there I said the same thing, but it does work and it works well.

If you want to go the doors, u can do this by creating a pod out of mdf and fibreglass.

Basically you build the pod with the appropriate angle by using two mdf baffles. one is bolted through the door and through the doorskin. The other sits ontop of this with spacers to provide the angle. Glue the spacers in (doesnt have to be too strong) then cover the lot with fabric. (helps to sand around the edges of the baffles too for nice curves)
Once its covered in plastic get the fibreglass out and give it a few layers inside and out to keep it solid. This is where the strength of the pod comes from)

Cover it in whatever you want. If you want to paint it then ul need to do a good job with glassing, otherwise you can coat it in vinyl or get it covered by an upholsterer.

Bolt it through from the inside of ur door so there are no visible screws and there u have it.

That way the magnet should still fit through the speaker hole.

Once again thanks, And I hope Al is reading this, If i go through with this option (highly likely), I'll post up some pics as we go

ok i've ditched the idea of the polks, and have focal v2 160mm 2 way splits on the way.

whats everyones opinion on these.

P.S dont hold back if you dont like them lol

was a huge fan of focal a few years back

since then i haev heard them a few times and not impressed

i dont think it will be much of an upgrade compared to your current spk

only replacing them because my left one is sounding a bit crappy. I'll let you have a listen Al and see what you think. I'll get you to give me a hand rewiring them and the amp aswell

cheers

Oh yeah only paying $220 delivered for them, so if they sound average no real loss.\
there Brand new.

I had focals about 5 year ago and they sounded nice i hope this new model sounds as good.

only replacing them because my left one is sounding a bit crappy. I'll let you have a listen Al and see what you think. I'll get you to give me a hand rewiring them and the amp aswell

cheers

are you ditching the kicker 6.2's?
if so can i have the tweeters as my missues kicked one of mine off and lost it so i only have one tweeter at the moment. You would be my new hero
cheers
jaz

Oh yeah only paying $220 delivered for them, so if they sound average no real loss.\
there Brand new.

I had focals about 5 year ago and they sounded nice i hope this new model sounds as good.
WHAT!

GET ME A SET!!

WHAT!

GET ME A SET!!


it was there last set soz.

I take it you like the focals eek

are you ditching the kicker 6.2's?
if so can i have the tweeters as my missues kicked one of mine off and lost it so i only have one tweeter at the moment. You would be my new hero
cheers
jaz


Nah sorry jaz, im keeping them for my project car.

it was there last set soz.

I take it you like the focals eek
does it mean you can get other sets of focals for cheap?

Nah sorry jaz, im keeping them for my project car.

damn, crosses tfv630 off hero list

oh well can u get any other speakers as cheap as your getting the focals as i need some new splits

cheers
jaz

im getting them this place on ebay

http://stores.ebay.com.au/Online-Depot

im getting them this place on ebay

http://stores.ebay.com.au/Online-Depot

are these the babies your getting?

or if they arnt are these ones decent for the price

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/New-FOCAL-Polyglass-165-V2-6-5-Component-System-Set_W0QQitemZ5805684144QQcategoryZ3292QQtcZphotoQQ cmdZViewItem

cheers
jaz

yeah there the ones. I hope there good

yeah there the ones. I hope there good


me too cause i think i might buy them as well
cheers
jaz

how many more sets are they showing they have

how many more sets are they showing they have

1 :)
so back off the rest of ya, lol

1 :)
so back off the rest of ya, lol


prolly trying to sell you the set they sold me. lol

I've bought the Focal 165V2 speakers from this same ebay seller (Online-Depot) 2 weeks back. Took only 2 days for delivery. Already installed the splits. Sounds sweet, especially for the price i paid. Doing mostly front loading. :D

thats good to hear, well mine should be here tomorow, I'll keep you guy's posted

bbump...
from memory this did end up being a phase problem. I took a flight over to Qld just to have a listen :)

If you're unsure of phase issues try flipping positives and negatives (polarity) of one of your midbass drivers.
If your image becomes centred and ur midbass improves then you were out of phase.

Peace

Tim