Beckerson's tuning journey

Over the weekend I was able to meet up with Jazzi and get a little one on one with him over my system. Even though it wasn't up to par, not the point, I was able to get some helpful pointers getting me onto the right path as far as the fundamentals go. I'm making this thread so I can post up my measurements and get pointers from others (I looking to learn be it fundamentals, strategies, guidance. Not looking for cut here and there to fix that freq response. It's not the point of this thread)




Here is my setup:


Pioneer 4100NEX > 360.3 > PDX V5 > TM6.5's ported and Audible Physics RAM 3a in sealed pods on dash




While talking with Jazzi and talking about the goals of my system and what I didn't like about the sound. Said that there is a piercing/annoying feeling from my setup and we went through were I thought the freq range was and figured out it was really within the 2k-4k range and then he mentioned to me about the distortion graph, which I never thought to pay attention to honestly. So I pulled up the most recent measurements from the night before:




BTW these have no smoothing




Here is the Passenger Side FR showing the distortion tab on REW


http://i.imgur.com/rBTGJAg.jpg


Bout gave Jazzi a heart attack so we pulled up the driver side next


Driver Side FR


http://i.imgur.com/UzQErlL.jpg






Needless to say its all jacked up. From what Jazzi told me when looking at the distortion graph you want the most amount of distance between the Black THD line and your fundamental line as possible. It should gradually follow your fundamental line and then should have a sharp increase. Neither of mine are doing that. Driver side was better than passenger side but still has a issue between the 1k and 2k range.


Now the sub was looking great:




http://i.imgur.com/lOEeUzh.jpg




It follows the fundamental and doesn't really so anything out of the ordinary




Ok fast forward to today.


1) I was told to look into seeing if the FR pods had any kind of dampening inside them. Well they did not so I added some poly fill to hopefully dampen some as that could cause the distortion issue.


2) Added the rest of the screws to the pods as the drivers themselves could not be fully sealing against the pods. In fact they were not.


3) Gains could be a issue here so I readjusted them to make sure nothing was out of wake.


4) Recalibrated the 360.3's inputs as it was way out of wake to begin with.




At this point I decided to give a test to see if any of these had improved anything.


Here are the results:


Passenger Side Crossover selection


MB


http://i.imgur.com/5Enzf4m.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/zLd0uuf.jpg


FR


http://i.imgur.com/9L1s1wm.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/7HZLoeV.jpg




Decided on 40hz for the HPF on the mid bass drivers as things seemed to be ok at that point. Probably will bump that up to 50hz though from now on though. Also choose 400hz HPF for the full range drivers as that seemed to be a really good spot based off the graphs vs distortion. Now if I should look into others let me know on this one please




Here are the results with crossovers in place




MB


Passenger


http://i.imgur.com/3GkikoW.jpg


Driver


http://i.imgur.com/SQedJg8.jpg




FR


Passenger


http://i.imgur.com/Jy6wwer.jpg

Driver


http://i.imgur.com/NfrnbQ7.jpg




As you can see there was a major improvement in the distortion graph for the passenger side especially. Driver side I still have a issue that has persisted. Next step I will be taking the pillars out of the car and making sure where the wires come in its sealed and not venting into the pillars. Which I believe its doing on both sides.




Now here is the Sub + MB drivers as I had a issue with the crossover at this event. I was getting cancelation at the crossover which Jazzi mentioned is a polarity issue (correct me if I'm wrong Jazzi) issue. Which in fact was as the driver side mid has been reverse polarity the entire time I had it installed.




http://i.imgur.com/pIEE38i.jpg


As seen in this image:


http://i.imgur.com/AQo8b6S.jpg




Here is the full system with corrections so far


http://i.imgur.com/5xyj7QB.jpg



Here is the .mdat file for those wanting to look further


Part 1:https://www.dropbox.com/s/a4bqa7oz30...tals.mdat?dl=0


Part 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1ovp9obcu...%202.mdat?dl=0

Finally was able to get the repaired midbass door pod repaired and back on the door. Now the differences with mounting was that I put some foam backed CLD between the door itself and enclosure as well as on each hard mounting point to the door itself to provide some decoupling.


Also have been talking with Jazzi about a possible issue with gains on the amp not matching the output of the 360.3. He provided some great insight on this topic. Needless to say I adjusted the gains on the amp as with the 360.3 the max output is 8V and the max input of the amp is 4V. Which improper adjustment could cause the input on the amp to be overdriven and "could" cause distortion downstream.


Anyway here are the results. Still have a lingering issue on the Passenger side MB (which I don't have any of the modifications to the mounting of the pod done yet) and with the driver side FR. By far the adjustments have helped a lot. Please note I know the margins are not to peoples liking. Wanted to fit certain things in one pic. That's why I include distortion on some drivers:


Passenger Side FR


http://i.imgur.com/ZgVwZ0j.jpg


Distortion


http://i.imgur.com/0Trrr5m.jpg


Passenger Side MB


http://i.imgur.com/QJZEShM.jpg


Distortion


http://i.imgur.com/FUbD4CA.jpg


Driver Side FR


http://i.imgur.com/JVZO7j0.jpg


Distortion


http://i.imgur.com/d8u0Dgs.jpg


Driver Side MB


http://i.imgur.com/fLvjtCC.jpg


Distortion


http://i.imgur.com/tem40Dv.jpg




Entire system


http://i.imgur.com/Dodw6uX.jpg




Sub


http://i.imgur.com/CjOf8vS.jpg

Big " OUCH " for entire system around 175 hz - 185 hz [ no smoothing distortion ]

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hic

Big " OUCH " for entire system around 175 hz - 185 hz [ no smoothing distortion ]

---

Ya. I feel a lot of that is the issue stemming from the passenger side MB. I get some on the driver side but nothing like passenger side.

Though by ear this range is quite overpowering (at least to me) and I have some cuts within this range. I hope that doing what I did to the driver side will straighten out that dip and hopefully improve this range. I do have to touch up a couple items for both the driver and passenger side (have to seal a mounting point on the driver side and fix the seal for the wire into the pod on the passenger side. Both simple items).

Hope to get these items done Saturday after work and get some measurements done up. Which at that point I feel the base is there for me to move onto balancing out the individual drivers L/R with pink noise and so on.

So the modifcation of the Driver's side pod seemed to help? That's good. If we end up having to do the other side, I have more of that material.

Jay