System tuning and RTA
01-29-2004, 06:42 AM
#11
500 Watt CAFz'r
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 756
Originally posted by Dave_MacKinnon:
Fire me an e-mail Lemon and I'll make sure your system gets tuned properly...
Fire me an e-mail Lemon and I'll make sure your system gets tuned properly...
It will likely be april by the time I get everything installed, so I'll let you know.
01-31-2004, 10:38 PM
#14
Guest
Posts: n/a
Honestly, Jamie Edmundson taught me the trick to tuning..
Listen to music, when something doesn't sound right, use the visualization of the sound on your RTA to pinpoint where to adjust. After a while, you get to know what frequencies related to what bad sounds, and you don't need the RTA.
It's been a while, so I'd likely break out mine to do speed up the process and eliminate the trial and error adjustments. Of course, it's even faster if the EQ is installed near the listening position..
There are other tricks to tuning that Jamie taught, but those are his, and not mine to share. He makes a few bucks off them, and has 'the ear' for it. I like the way the cars he tunes sounds, and so must a lot of other people, since the one he work on the most this past year took the highest sound score at the IASCA finals (as I recall)...
Listen to music, when something doesn't sound right, use the visualization of the sound on your RTA to pinpoint where to adjust. After a while, you get to know what frequencies related to what bad sounds, and you don't need the RTA.
It's been a while, so I'd likely break out mine to do speed up the process and eliminate the trial and error adjustments. Of course, it's even faster if the EQ is installed near the listening position..
There are other tricks to tuning that Jamie taught, but those are his, and not mine to share. He makes a few bucks off them, and has 'the ear' for it. I like the way the cars he tunes sounds, and so must a lot of other people, since the one he work on the most this past year took the highest sound score at the IASCA finals (as I recall)...
02-02-2004, 11:32 PM
#19
Guest
Posts: n/a
Well, here are some simple tricks that anyone can figure out given the time.
The last part of setting up a system is equalization. The first part is of course setting levels and crossover points. Take each of the drivers down as low as they go without crapping out at maximum listening levels. Once that's done, bring the RTA online and look at the natural unequalized curve. Make any phase and level adjustment required to get this as flat as possible.
If you can't get it fairly flat, you have a system design flaw and need to go back to the construction stage.
Once the response is smooth, you can proceed to the listening portion. Use the music you know and love and start tuning. Listen to things that are lacking or stand out, then compensate appropriately. Listen for positioning and compensate appropriately.
The last part of setting up a system is equalization. The first part is of course setting levels and crossover points. Take each of the drivers down as low as they go without crapping out at maximum listening levels. Once that's done, bring the RTA online and look at the natural unequalized curve. Make any phase and level adjustment required to get this as flat as possible.
If you can't get it fairly flat, you have a system design flaw and need to go back to the construction stage.
Once the response is smooth, you can proceed to the listening portion. Use the music you know and love and start tuning. Listen to things that are lacking or stand out, then compensate appropriately. Listen for positioning and compensate appropriately.
02-04-2004, 07:39 AM
#20
50 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 206
ok....here's a few things you really need to do to get in the ball park (getting on home plate is a long story)
#1 level setting. Using an osiliscope and do it rigth. Check every components output at full volume to make sure your not clipping somewhere. Marc Turner was going to use an Eclipse head unit that we found had 15-20% clipping above 80% of it volume....so that unit was not used. Also align every thing in the system to clip at the same time. This maximizes the head room in the complete system. No point having a head unit that puts out 10 volts when your EQ will clip at a .775 volt input.
2# balanced signal through out the signal chain. Make sure that the signal level is the same on both left and rigth, or you'll end up with a one side biased car. For amps/eq's/x-overs that only have a single gain control. Crack em open you'll find most of the time thier are a separate left and rigth gain, but they use a single shaft to adjust two gang pots.
3#: My personal preferance is to use as little eq as possible. EQ adds alot of phase change that may fix one problem, and cause another. Infact ADDING gain in a freq with an Eq WILL do this. Subtracting will not affect the signal as much. In the pro audio field you can buy eq's that only subtract. If you have to add....you've got other problems. Most likly a building issue, or a speaker issue (like out of phase driver, or a POS driver)
I use as much crossover points/slopes/ and speaker phase more than I use EQ. Understanding what the speakers can do is very usefull (size, location,mounting...)
4: I have about 10-15 songs that I listen to. Some for as little as a 5-8 sec passage. A specific thing I am listening to in each song. I have bass, mid, high, imaging, staging, and overall specific songs that I use to tune.
As Dave said you use the RTA to see what is going on. When some thing really stands out you'll see it on the RTA. One other trick if you can't see it on the RTA is to hum the note your tring to get rid of, turn off the music, hum again and look at the RTA .If your in a car when I'm tuning...I'm humming all the time to get the idea in my head of where the issues are. I don't use an RTA as much these days, but I do use it when I have a hard time figuring out what is causing issues
You just have to spend alot of time over years finding what music works for you.
5: I HATE passive. If you have them it makes tuning so much harder. Especially since they are made for the mass market and never take into account the car you have, mounting location, mounting enclosure, ect ect. Make your life easier, spend the extra money and go active...trust me. You really need to play with slopes, X-over freqs, ect ect.
X-over makes so much differance. In the cars I have done, most use only a few bands of EQ. Some have up to 8 bands used on average, and adjust a max of 6db an band. But these are cars we did from the start, and sounded pretty darn good with Zero eq.
One big missunderstanding is that tuning can make any car a big winner. Not so. The basics of acoustics if ignored will never work regardless of what you do...other than starting again.
Testing locations and components is the number one way to get you to the best sound you can. Find a shop that will do this for you, or work with you. I cringe when I hear people say "I want This , here" but they have no reason behind why they want it other than "it looks good". Remember function before fashion
So thats where I start, on every car that I have done. Once those are done you'll find your sounding SOOOOO much better.
So thiers your ball park ticket.......now start walking towards home plate and knock it out of the park
[img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]
#1 level setting. Using an osiliscope and do it rigth. Check every components output at full volume to make sure your not clipping somewhere. Marc Turner was going to use an Eclipse head unit that we found had 15-20% clipping above 80% of it volume....so that unit was not used. Also align every thing in the system to clip at the same time. This maximizes the head room in the complete system. No point having a head unit that puts out 10 volts when your EQ will clip at a .775 volt input.
2# balanced signal through out the signal chain. Make sure that the signal level is the same on both left and rigth, or you'll end up with a one side biased car. For amps/eq's/x-overs that only have a single gain control. Crack em open you'll find most of the time thier are a separate left and rigth gain, but they use a single shaft to adjust two gang pots.
3#: My personal preferance is to use as little eq as possible. EQ adds alot of phase change that may fix one problem, and cause another. Infact ADDING gain in a freq with an Eq WILL do this. Subtracting will not affect the signal as much. In the pro audio field you can buy eq's that only subtract. If you have to add....you've got other problems. Most likly a building issue, or a speaker issue (like out of phase driver, or a POS driver)
I use as much crossover points/slopes/ and speaker phase more than I use EQ. Understanding what the speakers can do is very usefull (size, location,mounting...)
4: I have about 10-15 songs that I listen to. Some for as little as a 5-8 sec passage. A specific thing I am listening to in each song. I have bass, mid, high, imaging, staging, and overall specific songs that I use to tune.
As Dave said you use the RTA to see what is going on. When some thing really stands out you'll see it on the RTA. One other trick if you can't see it on the RTA is to hum the note your tring to get rid of, turn off the music, hum again and look at the RTA .If your in a car when I'm tuning...I'm humming all the time to get the idea in my head of where the issues are. I don't use an RTA as much these days, but I do use it when I have a hard time figuring out what is causing issues
You just have to spend alot of time over years finding what music works for you.
5: I HATE passive. If you have them it makes tuning so much harder. Especially since they are made for the mass market and never take into account the car you have, mounting location, mounting enclosure, ect ect. Make your life easier, spend the extra money and go active...trust me. You really need to play with slopes, X-over freqs, ect ect.
X-over makes so much differance. In the cars I have done, most use only a few bands of EQ. Some have up to 8 bands used on average, and adjust a max of 6db an band. But these are cars we did from the start, and sounded pretty darn good with Zero eq.
One big missunderstanding is that tuning can make any car a big winner. Not so. The basics of acoustics if ignored will never work regardless of what you do...other than starting again.
Testing locations and components is the number one way to get you to the best sound you can. Find a shop that will do this for you, or work with you. I cringe when I hear people say "I want This , here" but they have no reason behind why they want it other than "it looks good". Remember function before fashion
So thats where I start, on every car that I have done. Once those are done you'll find your sounding SOOOOO much better.
So thiers your ball park ticket.......now start walking towards home plate and knock it out of the park
[img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]
