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ncc74656

balance/SQ, lossless line voltage?

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yea, audio-control is what we sell at work. we are a dealer for them and it was said that they make some of the best processors out there. now having said this the source of said information has been doing car audio longer than i have been alive (nearly double actually) so i suppose its not surprising that information may be a bit dated.

ROFL. I stopped competing well before you were born. If anyone is still working in that domain and still thinks that EVERYTHING that person tells you is most likely idiotic and wrong.

 

even with that however i am finding it EXTREMELY difficult to find true digital processors that do not use POT dials on them.

True digital AND pot, rofl.

 

my impression is that you either find a head unit with everything built in or you buy a MASSIVELY over kill processor such as the 360. there is very little middle ground or perhaps i should say there is little middle ground that is still in production. why is it that so many of the "recommended" products are all out of production? was car audio just a lot higher quality years ago and now its all watered down or did something else change?

What the hell is middle ground in a processor? By definition that should include 5-7 channels of DSP. Sure the 360 has 8, but calling a single channel overkill when you were thinking you could run a 3 way + sub is not overkill.

Either way, you don't need a processor yet as you don't know what you are using it for. You seriously need to just buy a comp set and install them. You've confused yourself long enough. Get them in, listen, then start describing what you want to improve and asking for help. You equipment whoring is just going to force you to blow money on all sorts of wrong things. Even if you buy a $500 comp set and throw them away later (ie not sell) it will still be a more cost effective route than the one you are pursuing. Cost effective as described by utils, ie what you will get for your money. May cost more, but the results will more than make up for it. May just flat out cost way less too.

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yea, audio-control is what we sell at work. we are a dealer for them and it was said that they make some of the best processors out there. now having said this the source of said information has been doing car audio longer than i have been alive (nearly double actually) so i suppose its not surprising that information may be a bit dated.

A little dated? He recommended you the equivalent of this...

Brick-Cell-Phone4.jpg

even with that however i am finding it EXTREMELY difficult to find true digital processors that do not use POT dials on them

I'm surprised you can find many processors that use a pot, much less that are also digital.

why is it that so many of the "recommended" products are all out of production? was car audio just a lot higher quality years ago and now its all watered down or did something else change?

We are the minority. 95% of the market are the people who want the deck & 4's installed for the lowest price possible, or want to add a sub and leave everything else basically stock.

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are some of the processors that have dials on them still digital? i am under the impression that digital processors are the ones you configure from a digital head display or computer and the processors with all the dials (like a KQ30) are the old analog POT style. when i search on amazon or newegg what i find are a massive amount of bass processors and 2 channel EQ's. there are a few processors like the PXA H800 that pop up but there is really no middle ground from the 100.00 market to the 800.00 market of processors. the reason i say it goes from low end to over kill is it seems to jump from a couple channel POT EQ/Xover to 8+ channels with 30+ EQ channels, USB inputs, AUX inputs, ect.

so im toying with various things i have lying around the house on my day off. i just took out the plastic dome 2" tweeter from one of my floor standing sony speakers and replaced it with a boss bullet tweeter. the sound is so much BRIGHTER and more vibrant. i really love the sound of this bullet.

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i just took out the plastic dome 2" tweeter from one of my floor standing sony speakers and replaced it with a boss bullet tweeter. the sound is so much BRIGHTER and more vibrant. i really love the sound of this bullet.

Oh dear god.

First, you can't do that. Passive crossovers are designed to work with a specific impedance, and many times they are designed to work with a specific driver. If you change the impedance of the load you change the crossover frequency of the passive crossover, and if it was designed to work with a specific driver then by changing the driver nothing in the crossover or overall design is going to "work" the way it was intended to function. The frequency response will be fucked up, baffle step compensation could be fucked up, zobel network won't function properly, trap filters and other things won't serve the proper function, etc. You can't just start mixing and matching drivers on a passive crossover. It doesn't work like that. STOP DOING IT IMMEDIATELY.

Second I have a very strong suspicion based on this statement you are simply confusing louder with sounds better. In which case everything you are doing is even more pointless.

Sean is more right than you can imagine. Start with a decent passive component set and focus on improving your installation before you do anything else. You aren't going to learn anything doing what you are doing. It's not going to happen. Anything you think you've learned will be wrong, flat wrong. You are going to take this bad advice you get from work, combine it with this poorly executed experience you think you are gaining and come away completely confused and misinformed but THINK you know something.

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how is replacing this tweeter any different from replacing just the tweeter or mid range in a car install? or replacing the factory sub in a car install with an after market sub and keeping it on the same factory amp? we do this all the time at work.

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how is replacing this tweeter any different from replacing just the tweeter or mid range in a car install? or replacing the factory sub in a car install with an after market sub and keeping it on the same factory amp? we do this all the time at work.

 

impious answered that already

 

 

 

First, you can't do that. Passive crossovers are designed to work with a specific impedance, and many times they are designed to work with a specific driver. If you change the impedance of the load you change the crossover frequency of the passive crossover, and if it was designed to work with a specific driver then by changing the driver nothing in the crossover or overall design is going to "work" the way it was intended to function. The frequency response will be fucked up, baffle step compensation could be fucked up, zobel network won't function properly, trap filters and other things won't serve the proper function, etc. You can't just start mixing and matching drivers on a passive crossover. It doesn't work like that. STOP DOING IT IMMEDIATELY.

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you're also confusing some other topics together. most cars do not have any crossover or processing so replacing the doors speakers with a coax or component set is not a problem. this is completely different than what you're doing when you replace just the tweeter in a home audio design. do you understand this difference? 

Edited by lithium

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how is replacing this tweeter any different from replacing just the tweeter or mid range in a car install? or replacing the factory sub in a car install with an after market sub and keeping it on the same factory amp? we do this all the time at work.

 

The only thing that really makes it different is the fact that Sony tower has passive crossovers where typical car installs do not.  However, just because it's what you guys are doing "all the time at work" does not make it right either.  Is there any thought put into exactly what's being replaced?  How it's being replaced? or Why it's being replaced?  This kind of stuff is the biggest reason why I do not and will not seek out installation work or advice from 99% of the shops I've been in.

 

Speakers aren't just speakers.  No one is exactly the same as another and just swapping one for another does not lead to good results the majority of the time.  Sure people get lucky on occasion and what they hear when they do it suits their listening preferences better (the most likely case with your tweeters) but that still doesn't make it the right way to do it.

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if replacing a driver that is with in a passive system is so bad then why do audio shops do it? reading on the bca1 site it explained much about how the cross overs are designed but are they not just a frequency limiter for either upper or lower? so you have a driver with a fairly flat response from say 500-1500HZ and the passive cross over thats in there now is built for said driver. you replace this driver with one that has a flat response from 50-800HZ and a steep drop off after 800hz. the cross over would be useless at that point as the driver itself is dropping off far before the cross over comes into play. so the sound would be missing in that range of frequencies and it would sound poor. is that right?

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the thought put into replacing a speaker in a car is more often than not cost. now if a car has a tweeter and mid range (component set) there would need to be a cross over some where in the setup right? so replacing a blown out mid range with another after market and then leaving the tweeter in place would have hte same effect as what my sony would experience no?

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if replacing a driver that is with in a passive system is so bad then why do audio shops do it? reading on the bca1 site it explained much about how the cross overs are designed but are they not just a frequency limiter for either upper or lower? so you have a driver with a fairly flat response from say 500-1500HZ and the passive cross over thats in there now is built for said driver. you replace this driver with one that has a flat response from 50-800HZ and a steep drop off after 800hz. the cross over would be useless at that point as the driver itself is dropping off far before the cross over comes into play. so the sound would be missing in that range of frequencies and it would sound poor. is that right?

 

In theory yes but there's more to it than that.  Passive crossovers are (or SHOULD be) designed around a particular driver and it's impedance curve which changes with frequency.  As I mentioned in the last post "NO ONE SPEAKER IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS ANOTHER" and what that means in the world of passive crossovers is that Driver B's impedance curve (among other things) cannot and will not the be same as Driver A and the passive crossover that is designed specifically for Driver A will not work and behave the same for Driver B which can and will lead to bad results in response.

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Plain and simple. Replacing a 8,12,16 or some such ohm tweeter in your home speaker with one of 4 ohms, just made the passive crossover nearly null and void. It wasn't designed for that resistance or that tweeter. The cross points are now a random number to you. Next time just run wires from the amp to the tweeter no filter.

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the thought put into replacing a speaker in a car is more often than not cost. now if a car has a tweeter and mid range (component set) there would need to be a cross over some where in the setup right? so replacing a blown out mid range with another after market and then leaving the tweeter in place would have hte same effect as what my sony would experience no?

 

In 99% of vehicles with a separate tweeter and mid there is NO passive crossover past one simple, cheap -6dB non-polarized electrolytic capacitor that is often times glued to the magnet of the tweeter and soldered to the leads/wires.  First of all an electrolytic capacitor does not a complete passive crossover make and second once you remove the factory tweeter that little piece of crap along with it's 20 cent craptastic tweeter is gone and no longer part of any equation.

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i guess i have never seen a passive cross over that is more than a cap or spool of wire. even my alpines had that cap on its tweeters.

my experience with my alpines is why i want to stay the fuck away from anything passive.

in regards to "what is put into an install" im not really sure. rockford amps > sony > boss /= kicker. so we sell based on price points and then for speakers focal > JL > herts > rockford > JBL. its pretty much all price point orientated.

Edited by ncc74656

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i guess i have never seen a passive cross over that is more than a cap or spool of wire. even my alpines had that cap on its tweeters.

my experience with my alpines is why i want to stay the fuck away from anything passive.

 

I get that, I really do.  However, without a better understanding of and at least some ability to determine the difference between response issues caused by the drivers themselves or installation problems going active, especially in the manner you're attempting, will not lead to satisfactory results.  You have to crawl before you can walk and you have to walk before you can run.  Believe me I KNOW you feel you already know stuff and have the experience to dive into this but the truth is you don't and every time you ask the questions you're asking and answer the information you're giving us it proves this more and more.

 

I joined this forum in May of 2009 THINKING I knew a lot about audio and I couldn't have been more wrong.  Granted I knew more than anyone else I was acquainted with and definitely enough that I could tell what the shops in my area were doing was wrong but SO many of the things I KNEW were "right" were in fact so incorrect it made my head spin at first.  I had been building enclosures for years, installed numerous systems (even a few fairly large ones) for myself and friends and even made some decent money on the side doing it, but looking back there were many things that really weren't right.  Even more of those things that I did I simply just got lucky that it worked out so well.

 

So sure, a couple of capacitors and a couple of coils and resistors in a plastic case are technically a passive crossover BUT if ANY R&D was done that set of electrical components was designed and specifically meant for the speakers it came with and WILL NOT work PROPERLY with any other speakers.  The sad fact is that the majority of the time component speakers and their passive crossovers are just a bunch of options some chinese build house gave the company to chose from for the line.

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I forgot to finish.  I've been on here learning, soaking up as much as I could, experimenting here and there to apply some of what I've learned and it's been up to and until just here recently that I felt I have gotten enough knowledge and trained myself and my ears good enough to be able to try an active setup.  Almost five years in the making after first reading about all the good it can do to attempting it and I'm going with about as simple a 2 way active setup that can be done using a pair of full range drivers and dedicated midbass drivers.  The setup simplifies everything by having one driver to literally do 98.4% of the standard audible spectrum.  1.2% of the remaining sound is being done by the midbasses and the remaining .4% the subwoofer.  Complications from improper aiming/installation, destructive interference, and the other problems that plague car audio installations are much much lower in comparison to a 2 way setup with a tweeter and mid and minuscule in comparison to a 3 way setup.  I'm not even close to diving into either of those and especially not the 3 way.  Not that it doesn't intrigue me to the point of imagining how I would go about it and what drivers I would use.  I do that all the time but how I would do it and what drivers I would chose to use have changed drastically in the last couple of years let alone anything I was thinking about when I joined.

 

There is so much more to an "install" than just slapping some appealing drivers into the easiest locations in which they fit.  Sure from a business standpoint at the shop it's not practical to pretty much engineer every setup that every customer comes in wanting, especially considering that most people want it done fast and done CHEAP.  However, for yourself why not put in the time, learn and excel at what makes the difference between something tossed in and something definitively designed, installed and setup correctly.

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one of hte things i wanted to do was test these 7.00 speakers off amazon against the 1300.00 focals and see if i can hear any real difference to them. ive always understood that to get great sound you need to spend thousands on sets of speakers made with neo magnets, polyglass cones, and what ever else they design them with. i want to see just how noticeable the difference is

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one of hte things i wanted to do was test these 7.00 speakers off amazon against the 1300.00 focals and see if i can hear any real difference to them. ive always understood that to get great sound you need to spend thousands on sets of speakers made with neo magnets, polyglass cones, and what ever else they design them with. i want to see just how noticeable the difference is

 

and the answer to your question would absolutely be dependant on the install. 

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one of hte things i wanted to do was test these 7.00 speakers off amazon against the 1300.00 focals and see if i can hear any real difference to them. ive always understood that to get great sound you need to spend thousands on sets of speakers made with neo magnets, polyglass cones, and what ever else they design them with. i want to see just how noticeable the difference is

Sweet Baby Lord Jesus. First, they are wrong. But second, you are no where close to being able to analyze speakers at that level. Especially on your own.

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it was not just the shop im at now but working at circuit city, best buy, and just dabbling in audio as a teenager back in the day and it was always said that the higher priced speakers were so much better and that you had to spend money on quality product to get great audio. MTX and eclipse was a favorite at circuit city, alpine and kicker was the shit back in high school and at best buy we were all about the polk and kicker. at NO POINT through out my life has anyone put so much emphasis on installation as i have gotten in this forum. reading into all these websites and books that are being recommended it makes sense why the install is such a huge part of it. i had never thought about the waves coming off the back of the speaker, never knew why my 3 way speakers (all types from boom boxes to my floor standing to my car audio) would always have 1 driver that distorted to piss before either of the other two had any audible distortion.

I would think that that if 2 speakers of similar build purpose (say 2 4" mid ranges) with similar power handling characteristics were put into the same type of install you could hear a difference between the two drivers and come to a conclusion as to which one sounds better. then if you "optimize" the install for each speaker independently the results could very well be the opposite of what you thought in the first sound test. thus the install is really what matters in any given speaker application and not so much the speakers them selves. up until a few months ago i was fully certain that you simply spent some decent cash on a great brand name set of speakers and that is how you got the best possible audio.

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1) Passive crossovers should not only be built for specific drivers, but in reality based on measurements made in the mounted locations

2) Your experience with Alpine wasn't the drivers, but the install. There is nothing wrong with passive installs and in many cases they can actually be preferred. My office probably has the best staging and FR you will hear in a non-dedicated listening room and I run everything non-sub passive.

3) You are seriously VERY, VERY far from being capable of running active. It will sound WAY FUCKING WORSE than your problematic Alpine.

4) ANY shop that just replaces one driver and ignores the rest of the components is full of fuckshows working there. Seriously idiotic.

I would think that that if 2 speakers of similar build purpose (say 2 4" mid ranges) with similar power handling characteristics were put into the same type of install you could hear a difference between the two drivers and come to a conclusion as to which one sounds better. then if you "optimize" the install for each speaker independently the results could very well be the opposite of what you thought in the first sound test. thus the install is really what matters in any given speaker application and not so much the speakers them selves. up until a few months ago i was fully certain that you simply spent some decent cash on a great brand name set of speakers and that is how you got the best possible audio.

So why did you buy drivers?

Either way, the only conclusions you are going to draw are going to be wrong just like ALL of the conclusions and statements you've made so far.

STOP thinking you should run active. It is a TERRIBLE idea for you.

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At this point I almost think you are a troll your posts are so off.

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I can't believe the patience that you guys have shown this guy. Glad you did because reading all this crap I've learned a lot and decided active may not be for me right now either. I'll keep playing with components until I find something I don't like about them.

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today i replaced my amps with a brand new out of box kicker ZX650.4 as the first step in my rebuild. i wired up proper fuse holders off my distro blocks to the amps (i had never done this before, i had only ever had fuses AT the battery), wrapped all my wire, and made new grounds for this new amp on the frame rail. i have a 0.1V drop at the amp down from .6V on the old amps. the sound difference is AMAZING! the distortion is gone, the off balance sound is gone, the audio is so much clearer and balanced. the amps i had in there were used off craigslist and ebay - they must be falling apart inside... to that end i just bought a new in box Viper 2500.1D from a co worker for a very good price and im going to swap out my craigslist bought sub amp to see what that sounds like. this is all off hte KX3 cross over and it sounds like a totally different system. the ONLY thing i changed was the amp and a small amount of cross over tuning.

Edited by ncc74656

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today i replaced my amps with a brand new out of box kicker ZX650.4 as the first step in my rebuild. i wired up proper fuse holders off my distro blocks to the amps (i had never done this before, i had only ever had fuses AT the battery), wrapped all my wire, and made new grounds for this new amp on the frame rail. i have a 0.1V drop at the amp down from .6V on the old amps. the sound difference is AMAZING! the distortion is gone, the off balance sound is gone, the audio is so much clearer and balanced. the amps i had in there were used off craigslist and ebay - they must be falling apart inside... to that end i just bought a new in box Viper 2500.1D from a co worker for a very good price and im going to swap out my craigslist bought sub amp to see what that sounds like. this is all off hte KX3 cross over and it sounds like a totally different system. the ONLY thing i changed was the amp and a small amount of cross over tuning.

Sugar pills can make you hallucinate too.

The fuses are supposed to be near the source (ie battery), time to re-fuse...

*I so wanted to just type refuse

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