Sound Stage tuning.

[cool mr grinch]

Now that i have my system put together and i'm satisfied [for the moment] with the basic sound of it, i need to fine tune it, i read about Jeremy's car how his sound stage sounds wider and further away than it actually is, i know its in the time delay and frequency adjustments, do ya'll have any beginning point settings or frequency setting to start with? i think i'm pretty well dialed in with gain settings. i drive an alero like Ryans anybody have any suggestions?

[JeremyC]

The first aspect of staging, and the one that will limit your tuning ability is speaker positioning / and aiming.

So keep that in mind if you can't really get your car to sound like you want.

OK I had to backspace a ton of typing cause I want to lead you down the right path.

How is your stereo set up? Do you have separate time delay between the mids and tweets? Are they mounted close to each other?

[falkenbd]

what kind of head unit or processor do you have?

this is really going to limit what you can do.

[JeremyC]

Not really, just limits how much he can fine tune.

Phasing alone can make or break a car. There is a huge difference in my sound stage when I reverse the phase on my drivers side mid and tweet.

I just need to know his set up so I can send him down the right set of steps. No point telling him how to set time delays for an active setup if he is running 2 way passive.

[cool mr grinch]

My headunit is an Eclipse CD7200 MKii, i'm running focal 165 vr components, if i need to run the tweets on a separate small amp i will. rear fill dayton, amps are Hifonics, subs are RE SE 10s. here is a pic of my passenger door so you can see the seperates spacing.

[JeremyC]

Lets tune with what you have and you can upgrade later if you want.

First thing go into your time delay page and turn off the sub and rear outputs.

Now disconnect your tweets.

So the only thing playing should be your mids.

Play some mono pink noise and adjust your time delay till the sound is centered.

Now swap the phase on the drivers side mid, and see if the sound is more focused to center, or did the center point fall apart.

If its better but shifted to one side dial back the time delay to recenter it in the car.

Up to about 500 hertz your primary method for determining staging are timing. Above 500 volume becomes more important, but time delay still plays a roll. Above 3 to 5K your primary method is volume and delay becomes less important. Thats why I had you set the time delay using your mid. Its the area that will be the most effected by it.

Now disconnect your mids and hook the tweets back up. Using the same mono pink noise track swap the polarity on the drivers side tweet. If it sounds more focused leave it, if it falls apart swap it back.

Now hook up both the mids and the tweets. Playing the same mono pink noise swap the phase on BOTH tweets. So if you were +/- R and - /+ L than you would be - /+ R and +/- L.

Basically what your doing is setting the phase between the two sets. Before you were setting phase between 2 speakers.

Once you get that done, toss in some of your favorite music and give it a listen. Now slowly bring the subs back in. Once you have them at a volume that is close to matching the output on your mids and tweets (not to overpowering) swap the phase on the subs. Did they relocate to the front of your car, or are they easer to notice behind you.

If they are easy to notice behind you both ways cut the output by a couple dbs and try it again. Same thing with swapping to mono from stereo. Try both and see what does better to make the subs blend with the front stage.

Once you figure out the best way to run the subs you can turn them back up. My daily driver tuning has my subs about 3 DBs hot. So they are more noticeable than they are with my true SQ tune.

[cool mr grinch]

this may be a silly question but i need to ask, when you say centered, do you mean centered as the driver or the actual center of the car?

[Ryan from Ohio]

Driver

I had an 880PRS Pioneer with auto alignment. Man did that sound good...

Trouble is is sounds horrible for the passenger...

[GlassWolf]

The first aspect of staging, and the one that will limit your tuning ability is speaker positioning / and aiming.
So keep that in mind if you can't really get your car to sound like you want.
OK I had to backspace a ton of typing cause I want to lead you down the right path.
How is your stereo set up? Do you have separate time delay between the mids and tweets? Are they mounted close to each other?

This.
speaker location, aiming, and cabin prep will have a much larger effect on your soundstage and imaging than playing with the DSP will.
time correction and attenuation are just there for fine tuning.

[GlassWolf]

This should go in the FAQ section.

Lets tune with what you have and you can upgrade later if you want.

First thing go into your time delay page and turn off the sub and rear outputs.

Now disconnect your tweets.

So the only thing playing should be your mids.

Play some mono pink noise and adjust your time delay till the sound is centered.

Now swap the phase on the drivers side mid, and see if the sound is more focused to center, or did the center point fall apart.

If its better but shifted to one side dial back the time delay to recenter it in the car.

Up to about 500 hertz your primary method for determining staging are timing. Above 500 volume becomes more important, but time delay still plays a roll. Above 3 to 5K your primary method is volume and delay becomes less important. Thats why I had you set the time delay using your mid. Its the area that will be the most effected by it.

Now disconnect your mids and hook the tweets back up. Using the same mono pink noise track swap the polarity on the drivers side tweet. If it sounds more focused leave it, if it falls apart swap it back.

Now hook up both the mids and the tweets. Playing the same mono pink noise swap the phase on BOTH tweets. So if you were +/- R and - /+ L than you would be - /+ R and +/- L.

Basically what your doing is setting the phase between the two sets. Before you were setting phase between 2 speakers.

Once you get that done, toss in some of your favorite music and give it a listen. Now slowly bring the subs back in. Once you have them at a volume that is close to matching the output on your mids and tweets (not to overpowering) swap the phase on the subs. Did they relocate to the front of your car, or are they easer to notice behind you.

If they are easy to notice behind you both ways cut the output by a couple dbs and try it again. Same thing with swapping to mono from stereo. Try both and see what does better to make the subs blend with the front stage.

Once you figure out the best way to run the subs you can turn them back up. My daily driver tuning has my subs about 3 DBs hot. So they are more noticeable than they are with my true SQ tune.