sound stage

[tsunami]

just put together a small nice system for my GF all kenwood gear and with instant rebates and crutchfield freebies it came out to 401.

deck
http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?g=300&i=113KDCX492&tp=5684
front
http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?g=410&i=113KFCP508&tp=106
rear
http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?g=52300&i=113KFCX692&tp=91


before with her stock system (04 toyota corolla) i ended up biasing the sound to the front speakers as the stock setup just pulled your ears to the rear of the car... i blamed the deck/speaker set up and just left it at that. She ended up getting bad sound intermittenly out of the 2 rear speakers and has been wanting to upgrade for a while so i piked out the above stuff for her and i installed it saturday. took longer then expected but it always does. the sound stage however is still slightly biases towards the back of the car i have the cross over set to 0db hoping the highs would pull it forward... its deffinaly better then what it was but i want to get away from putting in a front bias from the deck to compensate for this any suggestions on how to move the sound stage forward?

thanks guys

 

[ecniemann]

Just some questions.

1. Where did you mount the front tweeters?
2. By bias, do you mean fade?
3. What 0 db crossover? Is it on the external component crossover? Is that one of those crossovers where you can set it slightly hotter or cooler (ie. +/- 1-2 db) depending on taste?

Based on these questions, I guess I would start with tweeter placement. If the new deck has any sort of artificial sound processing, that could work as well, but sometimes can make it worse. I assume there are no subs or amps, correct? A small 2-channel amp might help with that front sound stage, as even aftermarket HU's are still not the most robust regarding amplification.

p.s. Links do not work; found them browsing through Crutchfield anyway.

 

[tsunami]

s*** sorry about the links... yeah the cross over is optioned for the tweeter at 0, -2 and -4db... the tweeters are mounted about 4" above the woofer in the door panel. yeah i meant fade i had a brain fart this morning and couldn't think of the correct term and ended up with bias... the kenwood deck works and sounds fantastic has much to be desired as far as manual goes as its in engrish and is very very vague.

links fixed

 

[ecniemann]

I would fade it fully forward to tune it using the parametric EQ to your tastes, and then slightly fade it backward until you get good fill. This deck also has pre-set EQ curves, but in my experience are not very useful, so probably set those to OFF. With the parametric EQ, you will be able to select a center frequency (hopefully over at least 2-3 different bands) that you can either boost or cut and also select the width of it (the Q). Higher Q means more narrow band if I remember correctly, but correct me if this is wrong, but regardless, the Q can usually be set to cover a larger spectrum of freqencies or smaller depending on taste. Hopefully that helps. As last resort, adjust the global bass/treble controls. If it has loudness switch, that also may or may not help as it usually boosts mainly lower frequencies.

 

[tsunami]

thanks i will see if i can get into the menu tree and see where to change those settings i found the global settings easy enough but i couldn't find any others... will dig back into this manual and see what i can find.

i do have an amp i plan on hooking up but thats down the road. would like it to have a better stage in the mean time... she said she likes it just fine and to leave it the way it is but its buggin me...

 

[ecniemann]

she said she likes it just fine and to leave it the way it is but its buggin me...

Yeah, I know what you mean! Chicks just don't dig good audio typically. My wife is fine with the stock Bose in her 6.

 

[tsunami]

alright i was able to find the Q settings and was able to move the stage forward for sure... its almost there but now i am missing some low end... figures. i am going to play with it some more its hard to adjust just listening to the tuner i forgot to grab my ipod cable and all the discs are in the house for transfering to the ipod.

she gave me some dirty looks for tweaking with it the whole trip to work (1 hour) but by the time i was done she did say it sounded better...

 

[ecniemann]

alright i was able to find the Q settings and was able to move the stage forward for sure... its almost there but now i am missing some low end... figures. i am going to play with it some more its hard to adjust just listening to the tuner i forgot to grab my ipod cable and all the discs are in the house for transfering to the ipod.

she gave me some dirty looks for tweaking with it the whole trip to work (1 hour) but by the time i was done she did say it sounded better...

LOL!

Good deal! I looked further on Crutchfield and this unit has 3 parametric EQ bands (low, mid, and high) to select the center frequency (which there are 8-10 to select from for each band) and adjust the Q (again about 4 settings for each band), so it does have quite a bit of adjustability. It does also have a loudness switch, which you will probably want on. Make sure the pre-set EQ curves are off (ie. rock, pop, etc.). There is also some sort of processer for MP3's to enhance it. See how it sounds with it on or off and see what sounds best. The lacking lows may just be the speaker sizes you are dealing with, but make sure no high pass filters are ON, because those will block the low frequencies. This unit has separate high pass filters for both the front and rear channels. One more thing too...there is a setting for speaker sizes that will apparently adjust your settings automatically (ie. if you have 6x9 vs 5 1/4, etc. you can select that). I probably would deactivate that as well. Hope this all helps.

 

[chuyler1]

For best sound, I would suggest placing a low pass crossover on the rear speakers. You need them for bass, but not for treble. Perhaps a 6db slope at about 400-600Hz will do (can be done with a single inductor coil). You can also probably get by with bridging them in series across the rear channels of the head unit for a mono signal. I'm not sure if the deck will support it but its worth a try.

With that acomplished the rear speakers will now act as mid/sub woofers and will only play the upper register very faintly. As you turn up the music louder they will contribute more to the overall volume without drawing the sound stage to the back of the car.