Alpine PXA-H100 Experience
 

One of the members was asking me about the PXA-H100 that I'm using. I would like to hear about other people who have been using it too.

Mr. Dat, I bought this because I was an Alpine fan and was looking for an IPod solution with time alignment and their Media Expander. So the HU and processor looked like the best option though I did give some thought to a Pioneer HU. Once I had the this stuff I figured I might as well buy the tuning kit (Mic and software) since it was only an extra $30.

The price was OK. $300 on the HU and $150 for the processor so for $480 over all it's a good set up with lots of tuning ability.

I've had it for about a year now but had a hard time with the tuning program since I was using the PXA in 3 way mode (subs, Mids were 5.25's way down by my feet and high's were shitty infinity 3.5's and 1" tweets fed through an Infinity reference passive crossover).

I think the program will set the X-over for the sub and Mid but I think I still had to set the X-over for the mid and highs but I was never able to tel much. The Imprint also turned the bass way down to match the rest of the system for a flat frequency response. Now I like lots of bass most of the time so I first tried to turn down the sub control on the deck before I ran the Imprint. took a while to realize that I need to keep the HU at full sub signal and turn the amp gain down to run imprint. Then increase gain after to get my bass back. The other bass problem was that once Imprint matched my sub out put to the rest of the system it was able raise the X-over point to atleast 120hz or higher, now this sounded good after it was finished but if I turned the amp gains up with such a high X-over point it sounded bad.

So I would run Imprint again this time with the amp LPF set instead of letting the HU and Imprint set it.

Between all this trial and error the fact that I keep rebuilding my system I have been running the Imprint alot. It also needs to be done in a quite place so I run it with my car in the garage, after 10pm when there is no traffic going down my street and my kids are in bed. It takes at least 20min to run the Imprint so in one night I would a couple different ways and choose which was best, drive the car for a week ten decide it could be better, change X-overs and gains and run it again.

But I am very happy with the PXA-H100. The manual tuning is great compared to what I had before but the Imprint is even better. It got me very good results and I'm in the middle of a rebuild right now and can't wait to see what Imprint will do with the new front stage and amp and new sub mounting.

What's the difference between 100 and 701?

I heard the auto setting doesn't work so well, but u explained that depends on amp crossover settings.

Have u tried runnin imprint with crossovers on amps basically at full pass? That would let Imprint set everything. I like to be bass heavy when I want to so I'd have to do similar trickery with the sub amp gain settings.

Do u run in any SQ sound competitions? Had any input from competitors? Judges?

I could probably take a 8-hour course on understanding the program and options available. Its nuts (and I love it).

Does this have a 4th output for front stage subs. I will ultimately be running subs, front comps and front stage subs with some rear fill. I was thinking of possibly running upstage tweeters as well but theyd be run Off passives with the front comps that come with the kit from CDT.

I'll prob run front stage comps on two channels, front subs on 2 channels(i heard they work better in stereo), rear speakers on two channels, and subs mono. Would that be possible. Are outputs from PXA programmable or adjusted automatically? This would prob be the last addition to my system after all hard parts installed but any info is useful for my final decision between this or a good EQ with pre amp

Awww. That was my 100th post:appl:

And this is my101st.

The magics gone. Back to business

When I first got the PXA and tried the imprint I had front RCA's running a two channel driving components and that RCA signal passed through to another 2 channel running 3.5's up front as well. The rear RCA signals went to a 3rd 2 channel amp to drive 6x9's in the back deck of my car and finally the Sub RCA's fed a Mono amp for my 12's.

I did this because when I got my car I thought it would be best to fill all the factory speaker locations. I was thinking more would be better. Well that was not a good idea and since rebuilt as that kind of hybrid 3-way system I explained in my first post. Results got lot better but there's always room for improvement. A stereo in my car is two channels (obviously) to be listened to by the driver. I need to reproduce the left and right signals as best as possible, each from only one location. So I am now rebuilding with the 3-way passive system mounted in my doors and nothing in the back except the subs. With big amps, gains turned low, lots of head room.

The outputs are not programmable and I don't know much about the 701. The PXA allows you to run the 3 sets of RCA's as front, rear & sub (you can select LPF for the sub and HPF for front & rear), or switch to 3-way mode and then it's high, mid & low (you can select LPF for low, HPF & LPF for mid and HPF for high).


The Auto tunning is not idiot proof, It's not just X-overs and gains, I think speaker placement is going to change a lot as well. I have never competed but was hoping to enter into the "Sounds Good" show in Coquitlam this June 12 but I'll be away golfing in Whistler that week end. If there's any more shows in the lower mainland this summer I'll probably go, I'd like to get some feedback from some guys with experience and proven results.

Looks like DaVibe has been bitten by the same bug. Once you hear better results you just want to try more things to see if it gets better and better.

I have run imprint with amps on full pass and it sounded excellent...........but I want more bass (60-70ish hz and below). Again I haven't even finished this rebuild but I'm already thinking of the next rendition (one 15" with a real low X-over and a couple 8's in my now vacant kick panels).

I was doing some looking on Alpines website and would prob have to run no rear fill on 3-way out of the 100. I wonder if I was running amps and had power ic off in the deck if I could auto calibrate and turn internal amp back on for when I had rear passengers or my son in the car.(he always asks me to turn it up)

I see how having multiple speaker placements in the front wouldn't work out to well because it couldn't TA from multple locations. U must have confused the poor little thing. I'm also planning on running the m300 nav into my m740BT touchscreen. Im hoping I'll still get prompts, because the sound would be run into the alpine screen, out RCAs into AiNET adaptor plugged into the 100, through that into deck(or amps directly). I'm gonna have to talk to the rep next time he's in. Make sure it will all work.

So just to clarify- the mid out in the 3-way option can be band-passed for front "subs"?

Can you choose x-over points before it auto corrects or does if choose what it sees as the best blending points?

Do u use the parametric EQ built in to lower any peaks? Or does the unit do a pretty good job of getting a flat curve by itself? I know flat is not necessarily optimal and there's always room for personal preference tweaks.

Thanks for all your help and I'm now leaning more towards this then an EQ/line driver.

So you're thinking of running rear fill off of the decks internal amp? Just turn the rear fill on when you have rear passengers? That would probably work.

Yeah, in 3 way mode, you can set the LPF and slope & the HPF and slope for the mid RCA signal.

You can choose x-over points before you run the imprint but after that the imprint will auto set the sub (or low in 3-way mode) LPF. I think it also auto sets the HPF on the front & rear (or HPF on the Mid in 3-way mode but I'm not sure). And I don't know what happens to my manual adjustments for LPF on the mids and HPF on the high in 3-way mode after the imprint runs.

One draw back that you might have read about is that once you run the imprint and choose to use that downloaded eq setting the only control you have left on the deck is Sub woofer output, bass, treble and balance (probably fade too but I don't have any rear fill). So the imprint is kind of an "all or nothing" tuning solution however you can still influence it alot with the amp settings you choose.

When I was using the manual I found the 5 band parametric eq was far better than the 7 band graphic eq. And was getting good sound from it with the along with the manually set time alignment and still some balance adjustments.

The Imprint does a great job giving good response curves, once the software takes all it's measurements and you have initially told the software what to optimize for (i.e. driver only, both front seats or all four seats) you have the choice of a flat curve, a slightly augmented reference curve and a slightly more augmented "component curve". Now you can only download 2 of these curve into your head unit so once I found my favorite that was optimized for the driver seat I would run the software again optimized for both front seats and save my favorite as curve #2 in the HU (the few times when my wife is in the car too).

What really blew me away with the imprint was the staging. When changing from my manual tuning to the imprint curve for the driver seat you can hear the signer move right behind the steering wheel, and when switching to the imprint curve for the front 2 seats the singer will move right to the centre of the dash. This kind of staging I couldn't even get close to with the manual tuning.

Sorry to side track, but since we're on the topic of Imprint, how did you guys get such a good feeling for it? Trial and error in the quiet? Or reading the manual or some resource? I need to play some catch up here.

It was trial and error. When I first ran the imprint I wasn't happy with it and went with manual tuning for maybe 6 months. Then when I finally convinced myself to let go of my rear fill and switch to a 3-way system I decided to try the imprint again and started seeing some real benefits with it, like I said before, especially in the staging.