Out of my mind?

[smgreen20]

The more and more I talk about it and look at my wifes install, I can't help but think.

I currently run w/a Audio Control DQS and a Audison LRx5.1k amp.

My goal is SQ w/a kick when needed.

I've had thoughts about selling both the AMP and the EQ to purchase, here's where I want to know if I'm out of my mind, 2 OS LANZAR amps, mainly another Opti160 and an Opti500, and a bit.1/MS-8. I use the Audison amps built in xover to run active on the fronts so a different processor would be needed to achieve an active front end still. Or keep the EQ and find a 406?

I think the cost would be close for what I could get between what I have now and what I would get.
So, Am I out of my mind?

[kg1961]

Mike
yes your carzy...lol sold back my lrx6.9 and miss it every day to bad i can't get it back
shit i would trade you my pg roadster 66 and my audio system twister f4 380(minty made in italy) for the audison amp will pay shipping for all and wipe the amount you still owe me? let me know
i can also include a lpl44 once i remove it form my wifes car
im sure i can come up with the jbl ms-8 if needed my local shop i got your mids from carries jbl products
mike
let me know

[stipud]

Dude, no! Keep your current setup! Borrow an RTA and EQ it properly. Does the amp have a bass control knob? If so, tune it flat with the level turned down, and then you can always turn it up if you want more kick. That's exactly how I use the LPL in my car.

[denim]

That is quite a nice amp, I agree with the guys, keep it.

[ttocs]

RTA? Are we competing now? Tune it to what sounds good to you and be happy with it.

[stipud]

RTA? Are we competing now? Tune it to what sounds good to you and be happy with it.

Tuning a 32 band EQ without an RTA is a joke.

[ttocs]

I don't see why. Unless he is in the competition lanes what the RTA tells him is not as important as his ears.

[smgreen20]

I posted this else where and got the same responses. I wasn't or didn't think I would but you know how it is, once you start thinking about it, your mind wonders.

I'll just save up for an Opti 500.

My eq is a challenge to tune. At 30 bands graphic and 2 parametric per channel and I use 4 channels, that's a lot to tune. I use an rta app on my phone to somewhat set it. I need to go back and readjust it a bit, but I'm going to wait until xmas shut down. I have a new set of clarion tweeters I'm going to put in first.

[kg1961]

I posted this else where and got the same responses. I wasn't or didn't think I would but you know how it is, once you start thinking about it, your mind wonders.

I'll just save up for an Opti 500.

My eq is a challenge to tune. At 30 bands graphic and 2 parametric per channel and I use 4 channels, that's a lot to tune. I use an rta app on my phone to somewhat set it. I need to go back and readjust it a bit, but I'm going to wait until xmas shut down. I have a new set of clarion tweeters I'm going to put in first.

i hope they sound great!!!!

[ttocs]

I would grab an RTA if we needed attenuate some horns or if there were some other part that would make it hard. Knowing how precise everything in an RTA is from the mic to the software I would definitly trust my ears over the phone and a $5 app...

[dedlyjedly]

RTA? Are we competing now? Tune it to what sounds good to you and be happy with it.

Tuning a 32 band EQ without an RTA is a joke.

Agreed. Just because you have the sensibility to accurately measure many important variables in quality audio reproduction doesn't mean that you forfeit any degree of personal preference! I find that assumption very amusing! Scott, why can't someone effectively use that accuracy and repeatability to accomplish their performance goals, and not necessarily to define them?

[Eric D]

A RTA can quickly get you "in the ballpark".

Then you need to use your ears to get things to your preference.

Without a RTA you just chase your tail.

[ttocs]

with out your ears you will chase your tail two times.

I have never understood why everyone on here is so untrusting of your ears but take the numbers shown by your meters/scopes as scripture when tuning systems. Your ears are always the finaly judge of if it sounds good or bad no matter what the meter/scope says and if they are wrong then why are you even trying? A system that has been tuned for competition and is perfectly flat is often one that when out of competitions is tweeked by the driver to what he thinks sounds best inbetween having the judges or electronics in the car. A perfectly flat responce is not something that many people really enjoy listening too, and of course will vary from different recordings or media sources. Saying you tuned it with an rta and showing the graph is really good for little more then bragging rights, doesn't mean it sounds good and like-wise a system tuned by an untrained ear will probably have issues as well... Saying that you did it with a $5 app that was read through a microphone that was made to pick up voices, not music or even white noise isn't even worth braggin about unless your iphone friends are impressed. People tuned systems for a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time before these toys came out, it is still possible to do it today. I guess golden ears returns.....

[stipud]

Maybe, just maybe, if you're an acoustical engineer with 40 years of experience and golden ears, you can tune a 1/3 octave EQ with no help from an RTA. But most people will just make a fucking mess of things. I agree with Doc... get a baseline with the RTA, then use your ears from there. Your ears are fine for minor adjustments within a small range, but not for adjusting very fine, highly staggered RTA measurements. Most people who tune EQs by ear will just make the ol "smiley face" loudness curve anyways.

[Eric D]

I would love to meet someone who can listen to a system (with music mind you), then sit down and claim, "it sounds like you need to bump 120Hz up by 4db, and you need to lower 1.2kHz by 2db".

Since when has anyone made any claim that "ruler flat" sounds good? I personally like the sound of ruler flat, but I understand that 99.99643% of the people on Earth don't like the sound of a ruler flat stereo.

You don't use a RTA to make your system ruler flat. You can, but you probably won't like it. What you do with an RTA is get a visual representation of what the system is doing, so you can then make it "smooth", not "flat". If you have a big spike in the response, you can see it, and you can cut it down in real time. If you have a hole in the response, you can fill it in to match the surrounding bands.

Most anyone without a trained ear can hear a spike in a response curve. Very few (if any) would be able to tell you how much of a spike it is, and therefor how much you need to cut it. Pretty much no one can find a hole in a response curve (it is hard to hear what is not there and judge on it). Now, if you listen to the same song for MANY times in a row, then play it on a different system, you might get lucky and figure out that something is missing if it is. This is a big might. It would depend a lot on the song, and how big the difference is between the two systems being listened too.

So, the RTA will tell you what you are getting too much of, and what you are not getting enough of, and allow you to make adjustments in real time. Then you can sit back and play some music, and make any final tweaks to your preference.

One more little tidbit: I could be way off base on this, but I think there are two kinds of ruler flat systems. Those done with an EQ, and those without. I have had a few different systems myself, and I have dealt with a few friend's systems where I spent MANY hours tuning them to be flat with an RTA. When done they sounded like crap. TOTAL CRAP. On the flip side, I have home speakers which are very close to ruler flat (within 2db). These speakers sound great. Everyone who has listened to them has agreed. I also have some recording studio speakers which are ruler flat (within around 1.5db). These too sound great, and everyone has loved them. The difference is these speakers don't use an EQ to accomplish this, they naturally are flat (by design of their crossovers, and the drivers themselves). When you take any system and use an EQ to get it flat, you are messing with a lot more than frequency response. If you start boosting anything you start loosing headroom. Also, depending on the design of the EQ, you start altering phase as well.

[ttocs]

I would not make a claim to be an acustical eng, but would dare to say that my stereo sounds good to me. With sound being subj, that is the most important part of a stereo. When you set the color/tint/what ever on your tv, do you download a special app on yer ipad so that you know it looks right? You are correct I have never listened to a track and said,"oh hell there is at LEAST a 3db bump at exactly 1khz", but I have heard tones I thought were harsh and then worked my way down the sliders to isolate the one/two that knock it down to where it sounds better. I honestly have never looked at the Freqs on the eq(I use teh 215ix just for the cross over or I would have a 1/3 octave) as I do it all by the way it sounds. If I got done and was happy with how it sounded, and you put your phone/meter in it and said that it was not right, why the fuck would I care what that thing says? Making small tweeks on different tracks/media to keep your ears happy rather then pulling a meter out once a month/year/what ever makes 10x more sense to me then the RTA. A smooth or flat graph doesn't mean anything to anyone except a judge.........

Saying that you do not have the ears to do this is fine, but how would you ever be able to get them if you do not try? Using an rta to tune your system(non-competition) is like having a computer do your calc homework for you. You should get a good enough/close enough answer but you will never understand how/why like the person that took two pages of work to get the answer.

[stipud]

Actually there are ways to adjust televisions to make their colors more accurate as well. It works exactly like an RTA, by using Fourier transforms on spectral data. The same corollary applies here... mom and dad love the over-saturated look of their new cheap plasma TV, where everyone's faces are beet red, and football turf is greener than the greenest green. On the other hand, someone who appreciates color tone accuracy will want to properly calibrate their screens, so that everything looks natural. You can estimate what looks good, and with talent you can get it much closer to how it should look than mom and dad can, but it will never approach the reproducibility of a measured, calibrated setup.

Since I work in computer graphics, having accurate colors is ridiculously important for ensuring that what I create on the screen looks like what comes out of the printer. As such, rather than buying a cheap innacurate TN panel, I bought a much more expensive, yet more color accurate IPS monitor. Does that mean everyone needs a calibrated IPS? No... most people are just happy with their cheap TN panels. But the calibrated monitors are OBJECTIVELY, MEASURABLY better, just like a properly calibrated stereo system. And "objectively better" is objectively better than "subjectively better", in my opinion

[Eric D]

The bottom line for me is this...

When I worked in retail, EVERY customer who bought a chassis style EQ and took it home to install themselves, eventually came back to have it adjusted by our RTA since it sounded like ass when they tried to set it by ear.

For every dash mount EQ we sold, the customer came back to have their tweeters replaced, or their passive crossovers (on cheaper component sets). Turning up all the knobs on a dash EQ is apparently the way you set it...

[Stryker]

Excellent points in both directions. I myself like to tune with my ear, that being said tom did RTA my car with and old setup and it sounded off to me so I took a pic of the settings and put it back to how i like it for me. Everyone likes different sound that is why this is an endless discussion and will go on for pages and pages. Musical sound is so personal and especially so in a car. I want SQL someone else wants SQ only with an 8" sub to each there own.
just my .02

[ttocs]

Excellent points in both directions. I myself like to tune with my ear, that being said tom did RTA my car with and old setup and it sounded off to me so I took a pic of the settings and put it back to how i like it for me. Everyone likes different sound that is why this is an endless discussion and will go on for pages and pages. Musical sound is so personal and especially so in a car. I want SQL someone else wants SQ only with an 8" sub to each there own.
just my .02

lol, but its objectivly better. Like we said above, most systems that are tuned by rta to be flat, are not really enjoyable listening experiences. With that being said, that is why I feel it only really finds its use in judging lanes or if you want to show off the graph. I use the imprint piece on my alpine to help with the time alignment and it does do EQ as well. When it was finished I didn't like how it sounded and thankfully I have the 215 to make final adjustments so it would sound good. If I could turn off the auto-eq function on it, I would. I simply responded earlier that its not that big of a deal to tune it by ear. People make it out to be a big deal that they don't have the experience and can't do it. If you do not know what sounds good to you and what you want out of the system then a 1/3 octave eq is simply not for you.

[smgreen20]

A RTA can quickly get you "in the ballpark".

Then you need to use your ears to get things to your preference.

Without a RTA you just chase your tail.

The ball park is what I was after.

My app was free so it's better then nothing. I know what I want in as far as the desired frequency response.

I will also be teaching myself how to "listen" this holiday during my plant shut down. I will provide a link later on.

[ttocs]

I am not sure I could consider any free app to tune a system as anything more then a neat toy. Think about how accurate an rta is or needs to be... Everything is designed around that microphone. Now compair that to the smart-phone mic and I am not sure I can call it calibration that is being done. Do me a favor. Tune the system to what you like, THEN run that app on it and see what it says.

[smgreen20]

While I find that the app isn't 100% accurate, it is better then nothing and it's not to far off. I have 128 bands of EQ (that I use), so as Eric pointed out, it gets me in the ball park. The freq resp I'm after is one that is down a 1/2 a decibel every oct starting from 20Hz to 20kHz. 20Hz being 0dB and 20kHz being down 4.5dB.

This slope is considered very natural sounding and non fatiguing, which is what I'm after. I got this from a home audio install professional of over 30 yrs and was one of the authors in Sound and Vision Magazine.

I have set my EQ by the app and it has corrected a lot of the sound issues, imperfections I was hearing. I set it at a reference level a bit higher then I should've. 90dB is recommended , I did it at 105dB as I tend to listen to it a bit loud. I'll be doing it at the 90dB level this next time around.

Later in the summer (2012) I'll go to the only store here in town and have it RTA'ed, unless I buy the items needed myself which should only cost ~$100.

[Eric D]

I have an iPhone app which is an RTA. It is not as bad as you might think it would be. The mic in the iPhone is mass produced, but consistent. The app takes into account the frequency response error for the mic to get you accurate results.

The bigger issue with the iPhone app is placing the iPhone to use it. The nice thing about my lab microphones is I can place them on a controlled stand and then move the stand around in the space which your head resides. Then I can average these curves to get more useful results.

I am a big fan of TrueRTA, which is software based, and it includes a compensation curve for the popular Behringer microphone. This is a big step up from an iPhone app, but it is not like the iPhone app is so bad it will send you in the wrong direction with your adjustments.

[stipud]

Excellent points in both directions. I myself like to tune with my ear, that being said tom did RTA my car with and old setup and it sounded off to me so I took a pic of the settings and put it back to how i like it for me. Everyone likes different sound that is why this is an endless discussion and will go on for pages and pages. Musical sound is so personal and especially so in a car. I want SQL someone else wants SQ only with an 8" sub to each there own.
just my .02

lol, but its objectivly better. Like we said above, most systems that are tuned by rta to be flat, are not really enjoyable listening experiences. With that being said, that is why I feel it only really finds its use in judging lanes or if you want to show off the graph. I use the imprint piece on my alpine to help with the time alignment and it does do EQ as well. When it was finished I didn't like how it sounded and thankfully I have the 215 to make final adjustments so it would sound good. If I could turn off the auto-eq function on it, I would. I simply responded earlier that its not that big of a deal to tune it by ear. People make it out to be a big deal that they don't have the experience and can't do it. If you do not know what sounds good to you and what you want out of the system then a 1/3 octave eq is simply not for you.

I EQed his car graph flat, but some cars were just not meant to sound that way. His curve was nowhere near flat naturally, so we over-EQed it. That and we spent, what, 15-30 minutes, tops? I definitely wouldn't have rolled that EQ curve too long either... plus flat sound is totally not his taste anyways .

And yes, RTAs are objectively better than the human ear at measuring decibel differences. I didn't say anything about flat-graph over-EQing being better.

I personally wouldn't trust an iPhone app, because it lacks a good omnidirectional microphone.