Car Stereo Enthusiasts here on SBAF?

Discussion in 'Cars, Motorcycles, Boats, Airplanes Talk' started by crazychile, Mar 7, 2017.

  1. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    I've actually been very happy with the factory Dirac sound system in my 8 year old 335i. Think I'm gonna fire up REW and take some measurements just for fun. Never even thought about it but now I'm curious...
     
  2. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    @spwath, looking great! Have you messed with time alignment at all, or this all just EQ? The former is especially important in a car for imaging’s sake given the seating vs. speaker locations.
     
  3. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    Yeah, I do have time alignment all set up on my dsp. I have 2 presets, 1 with time alignment for me, and 1 without for enjoyment of everyone in the car.
    I can tell the time alignment really helps. Moves the soundstage from my left tweeter, to actually in front/to the sides.
    Makes sense though from what I have learned in my acoustics classes, you localize sound based on the first signal to reach you, so if the closest driver isn't delayed, it seems like most sound is coming from it.
     
  4. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    All that sound deadening helped a ton too. Before if I turn it up and turn up bass I hear everything rattle. Now I just hear the bass. Still can't see out my rearview mirror when it's really bumping, but no rattle sounds
     
  5. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    New speakers. Much beefier looking than the focals, which were already much beefier than stock. The tweeters not pictured are also like 5x heavier than the focal tweeters. In the middle of install, got new mounting brackets, but one for right door was at my house, so my mom is shipping it to me. For now ill be driving around with no door panels...
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Also have a helix director on the way to better control my dsp and volume, and allow for up to 20 different presets.
     
  6. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    Got director temporarily mounted in cardboard. This thing is pretty nice, controlling volume, subwoofer, tone controls, and can have 20 different sound setups.
    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
  7. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I really needed all of you car audio experts when I was trying to get good sound in my 99 Subaru Legacy wagon. It had some kind of resonant frequency in the space or caused by the doors I don’t know but man there was one spot that was lit up and so harsh. I must have gone through 5 different speaker sets trying to fix it. I just didn’t want pain is that too much to ask? Had a nice Alpine deck which I actually replaced one time during a cross country road trip when the resonant peak drove me nuts to rule it out but it wasn’t the problem. I needed a good equalizer I think and probably dynamat around the speakers as well as damping materials in the door space around the speakers. But I don’t know just guessing based on what I know now.

    my solution at the time was a pair of bookshelf speakers strapped above the backseats to the seatbelt anchors. And then I velcroed a sheet of foam to the ceiling of the whole car starting behind me by gluing the Velcro strips to the foam which stuck to the ceiling cloth well. Looked awesome but wasn’t pleasant for anyone sitting in the backseat. It improved the resonant peak but didn’t fix it. Good enough that most recordings were tolerable. But I basically couldn’t listen to Dylan in my car because the harmonica was death.
     
  8. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    One of the best things to improve the sound is to seal the door. Here is the front door of my 2012 impreza, unsealed (though some damping material is in there)
    [​IMG]
    You can see how this is ineffective at being an infinite baffle speaker, as there are many large holes in which the sound can get through
    So i sealed it like so:
    [​IMG]

    Another big thing is a DSP. That probably made the biggest difference to my system. I used a helix DSP, as they are some of the best. Made it real easy too, I make my target curve, plug in DSP and my measurement mic to my laptop, hit start, and it adjusts eq to fit my curve (and it has a shit ton of EQ bands).

    Now my car sounds amazing, but i have spend almost $2000 and countless hours on speakers, DSP, head unit, damping material, and sooooo much time of installation.
     
  9. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I don’t think they had affordable DSP back then but if they did I think you just hit my 2 answers.
     
  10. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    Yeah, now they have some pretty affordable DSPs. There is one made by Dayton thats only about $150, and from what I heard, isnt bad. Less eq bands though, and less processing power, so thats why I sprung for a used Helix.

    EDIT: Another big thing is at least my stock subaru speakers sucked. Here they are pcitured on the left. Plastic basket, tiny magnet. Not good.
    [​IMG]
     
  11. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Mine were made of cardboard that I’m pretty sure was just reused from boxes found in dumpsters
     
  12. sphinxvc

    sphinxvc Gear Master (retired)

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