2014 Spring NC Meet - 26 April 2014 - near Greensboro, NC

[Afghan Vet]

Making sure this event is posted here........and you all can dump your pics on this thread after the meet. Except for Al.......no more geezer references

I want to mention that we will be offering a short but informative tuning seminar during the meet.

We will also have some reference headphones set up for folks to get a listen to. If you have a set of headphones that you want to bring - feel free.

Where:
At my house near Greensboro - PM for the address - I am not going to post it here.

When:
Saturday, 26 April 2014 - 9:00am - 9:00pm

Food:
Probably snack items for lunch - BBQ for late lunch / early dinner like we did last Fall


Stuff to bring:

Yourself
A friend / spouse / kids (unless they are rowdy - thinking the kids from Raising Arizona......'FART')
Your vehicle with or without anything setup/tuned
Favorite Music on discs
Camera
Lawn chair if you want it
Openness to learn, ask questions, take constructive critisim and humbly give advice/criticism

[erinh]

Love it when you hear new things! I've had that experience in the Civic a couple of times actually, so I'm stoked to hear it again now.

Well, it sounded great until I got in the car this morning. Some lower frequency pull on the left midrange. Feel like a Q of 1 and a dB drop centered around 600hz would fix that for me. But I'm going to see what I can do with just T/A and levels first. That's the problem with listening to a car at night and then driving it early the next morning. Ya hear things!!!!

Now that my stuff is, err, "functioning" as I like to call it, it's giving me a great opportunity to practice tuning. But... it's also in dire need of a rebuild - partly aesthetic, partly acoustical improvements/experiments. So I am caught in the dilemma of what to do before the meet. Keep the ugly build, but pretty darn decent sound and get better at tuning? Or start over and make it look better in time for the meet, but maybe not sound as good... cause there won't be enough time to do both, unfortunately.

Maybe I am reading too much in to this, but it seems you are welcoming some feedback, so my thoughts are...

If you're not satisfied with the aesthetic of it, it'll never sound 'right' to you. I place a lot of emphasis on the psychoacoustic factor, from the angle of "I'm having a crappy day and no system will sound good". If you're never happy with your system in some regard, I'm not sure you'll ever really appreciate the sound. Know what I mean?

That said, if it's something you can live with or you can live with the understanding that you'll fix it, I say rock on and start getting the tune going. That way, IF you show up to NC and want some feedback, it can go toward improving the car rather than just getting lost in the fray as you tear everything down out of sheer anger over some ugly pods or whatever it is you don't like the looks of.

[decibelle]

Well, it sounded great until I got in the car this morning. Some lower frequency pull on the left midrange. Feel like a Q of 1 and a dB drop centered around 600hz would fix that for me. But I'm going to see what I can do with just T/A and levels first. That's the problem with listening to a car at night and then driving it early the next morning. Ya hear things!!!!



Maybe I am reading too much in to this, but it seems you are welcoming some feedback, so my thoughts are...

If you're not satisfied with the aesthetic of it, it'll never sound 'right' to you. I place a lot of emphasis on the psychoacoustic factor, from the angle of "I'm having a crappy day and no system will sound good". If you're never happy with your system in some regard, I'm not sure you'll ever really appreciate the sound. Know what I mean?

That said, if it's something you can live with or you can live with the understanding that you'll fix it, I say rock on and start getting the tune going. That way, IF you show up to NC and want some feedback, it can go toward improving the car rather than just getting lost in the fray as you tear everything down out of sheer anger over some ugly pods or whatever it is you don't like the looks of.

I also had (have?) lower mid pulling at 630hz. So did a few other cars I listened to. IME it seems to be a factor of the car environment itself. 2db cut at 630 on one side and 2db boost on the other with a Q of 4 fixed that right up for me. Didn't work at ALL on the actual levels of the drivers. Looked wild as hell on the RTA, but was clearly an audible improvement, so... I went with it. It will take some time to listen and see if that method has marred up some other part. Dunno if that will work for you tho.

Re: angry at aesthetics. At least in this build, I don't share a connection with how it looks and how it sounds. I built it so that it would function as it should, and knowing that I got at least that part right, I'm ok with tolerating the looks of it temporarily as long as it still gets its basic job done. It's very tunable, and I can work with it, and I'm liking where it's going. Function over form, as they say.

Right now I am leaning toward improving my tuning ability - cause that's what matters most - while rebuilding as much of it as I can on the side, then doing the enclosure swap after the meet. Oh, and I owe you a roll of duct tape, BTW. :o

[erinh]

I also had (have?) lower mid pulling at 630hz. So did a few other cars I listened to. IME it seems to be a factor of the car environment itself. 2db cut at 630 on one side and 2db boost on the other with a Q of 4 fixed that right up for me. Didn't work at ALL on the actual levels of the drivers. Looked wild as hell on the RTA, but was clearly an audible improvement, so... I went with it. It will take some time to listen and see if that method has marred up some other part. Dunno if that will work for you tho.

Most cars seem to have a bump around 400-600hz. Or maybe it's just that there's typically a dip in the 200-300hz area caused by cancellation, which makes the 400-600 area look more pronounced.

Re: angry at aesthetics. At least in this build, I don't share a connection with how it looks and how it sounds. I built it so that it would function as it should, and knowing that I got at least that part right, I'm ok with tolerating the looks of it temporarily as long as it still gets its basic job done. It's very tunable, and I can work with it, and I'm liking where it's going. Function over form, as they say.

Right now I am leaning toward improving my tuning ability - cause that's what matters most - while rebuilding as much of it as I can on the side, then doing the enclosure swap after the meet. Oh, and I owe you a roll of duct tape, BTW. :o

I understand. And to be clear, I wasn't saying that aesthetics itself drives my subjective impression. It's the aggravation of something not being right. In your case, that would be the aesthetic. IOW, if there's something wrong somewhere, it seems to impede my enjoyment overall. A different example of this is if there's a buzz in someone's door panel. I might as well stop listening to the car then because I can't focus on anything other than that. Same thing with split stages; when a car has vocals coming from the dash and somewhere in between the dash and the floor, it drives me nuts. Those kind of things, aesthetic, sound, etc... if it bothers me once, it bothers me forever until it's resolved. I don't know if that's just being OCD, ADHD, or what. But that's how it is for me. :/

If you're doing 'rebuilds' in the aesthetic vein, then yea, tune away. If your rebuild is geared toward a mechanical response then depending on how severe the rebuild it, it may be a waste of time to tune. If you show up and you're ready to tune it, I'd be happy to help in any way I can. But, yes, you will need to return my duct tape. Well, don't return it; buy me a new roll. lol.

[highly]

Hmm. 17 hour drive.

Maybe not....

[Afghan Vet]

http://www.caraudiojunkies.com/showt...l-amplifier%29

I'll likely still have this amp at the meet - special 'meet price' if purchased at the meet

[Notloudenuf]

Hmm. 17 hour drive.

Maybe not....

Maybe someday I hope.

[claydo]

Maybe someday I hope.

No shit.....would love to hear that volkswagon...

[decibelle]

No shit.....would love to hear that volkswagon...

Ehh.... it's okay.

[Slammer]

Got word today that Saturday the 26th will be a mandatory "all hands on deck" for management. Uggh............ Going to have to cancel, which pisses me off! Learned so much over the last three meets and really, really wanted to hear some cars at this one. I'm out. Sorry gang.

[silkyslim]

Add me to the list. Also made some party favors....thank Andy for the design and Kendal for motivating the concept.

Hell yeah that's bad ass.

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