gotovato

I'm running my first active setup ever. I'm using a JL HD 600/4 for tweeters and mids and a HD 750/1 for my 12w7. all my crossovers and time alignment is being handled by my pioneer 80prs. I'm looking for some advice on how to best tune everything. By this I mean, how to properly measure all my drivers for time alignment, and how to best detect phase to make sure everything is in proper phase. My front stage is a set of audio voce av k6 components. Being my first active setup I've never had to deal with phasing each driver or setting time alignment. I'm looking for some tips and tricks on how to check for phase and how to setup the time alignment properly. So far I have just measured from each driver to the listening position and it seems pretty close to center but not exact. Also what is considered center ? Directly in front of the driver position? Or in the center of the dash? any help would be great. just for reference, I have crossed my tweeters at 3.15khz with an 18db slope, my mids are HPF'd at 80hz with a 12db slope and LPF'd at 2Khz with a 12db slope. Sub is LPF'd at 80hz with a 12db slope. tweeters are mounted in factory dash locations, and mids in factory door locations(2005 dodge neon) If you need any more info to help out just ask and I will provide everything I can. Thanks.

Stearnzy

so first you have to make sure your speakers are in phase you should use a phase tester but ideally if you hooked all your wires up correctly so that the + of the amp goes to the + of the speakers everything will be in phase. Time correction directly affects the phase of the speakers so after time correction is done you might want to try putting a tweeter or two out of phase and see what it sounds like usually you will gain depth in and loose width when you put a tweeter out of phase. on Avk6 speakers I usually set them up at around 3k at 24db and i overlap the mid up to 3k at 12db and 50hz at 18db on the HPF. The sub would normally be crossed over at 50hz on the LPF at 12db and 15-20hz on the subsonic (HPF) depending on the box it is in. after you ave done this. You need to level set everything and match input levels between the mid and tweeter so they are as linear as possible. Then you can do a basic time correction by measuring from you headrest or where your ear level would be on the seat to each speaker, I don't use much pioneer but I think you can just input the measurements in for each speaker. after this you can either level adjust he speakers individual again to gain the staging that you would like or you can adjust the time correction. there are many debates about which is proper, personally i like to adjust time correction. After that sit back and make fine adjustment son eqs and levels between everything and always get a second opinion from another person that has a good ear, also take breaks in between tuning sessions your ears will fatigue after about an hour of listening so makes some adjustments and then come back a few hours later and see how it sounds. it may sound amazing or you may have just messed everything up, but that's the fun of tuning.. Hope this helps

gotovato

As of now I have it sounding the best I've heard so far. My tweeters are crossed at 3.15khz with a 18db slope. My mids are hpf at 100hz with a 12db slope. They are lpf at 2.5k with a 24db slope. My sub is crossed at 80hz with a 12db slope and sub sonic is at 30hz. The head unit does not have a sub sonic setting but my amp does and it's set at 30 not adjustable. I'm sending 70rms to my tweeters, and 110rms to my mids. Ill play with it more and try the advice you gave. The biggest issue I'm having is getting the imaging and center stage correct. I find it's slightly to the right no matter what I try. I let the pioneer do an auto EQ and I really like how it set the eq in terms of the sound but it did mess up the time alignment pretty badly so I manually adjusted that

gotovato

Also what kind of tricks are there for detecting phase ? My deck did flip the phase on my sub and mids and it sounds alot better then what I had it at

Stearnzy

Detecting phase is pretty hard to do without an rta unless you have a pretty trained ear and as for your x-over settings you have almost no output around 2.9 k because of the way you have it x-overed unless your mid or tweeter has a way higher output than the other and then the other ant that might be where your weirdness is coming from. and those mids should be able to play down to 50hz as long as you have sound deadend your door and built proper rings for the mounting of the speaker i use the same speakers in my wife vehicle and i have them playing to 40hz and the sub and es300 is x-overed at at 55hz. you should always get your speakers to play as much bass as they can and then fill in the missing part with the sub. when your sub is x-overed high it will draw the sound stage back because your going to hear the direction of where the sub is more

gotovato

So I should try crossing my mids at 80 with a 12db slope? Even with 110watts going to them ? That's safe for them ?

Stearnzy

yes just because your amp is capable of 110watts does not mean you are using 110watts if you level match everything so there is no distortion you should be able to run them to 50hz

gotovato

The amp does 150 rms I tuned it using a multimeter to limit it to 110rms. So to fix that 2.9k dip I should cross my mids up to 3.15k? That's not too high?

gotovato

Also how do you properly level match everything ?

Stearnzy

no thats not to high at all, you want to play with that overlap, depending on where everyting is placed in the vehicle and for the level, i do it by ear and when i want to get realy technical i do it with an rta you could try using a basic rta app on your phone for basic setup