If you compete in car audio competitions, what tips would you pass on , the ones you found most beneficial!
Really. Improve. The "sound" of a system ?
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If you compete in car audio competitions, what tips would you pass on , the ones you found most beneficial!
Really. Improve. The "sound" of a system ?
Anything on achieving system "tonality ", or stage width/depth/heigth ?
. . . and there you have it from the people who compete in the IASCA/et cetera / / / '/
Try to adjust your system the way that they do [basically, put speakers in factpry locations /dash or door/rear deck/etc..,]
Power it up and win a ribbon or trophy !
I think it's really hard to answer this general of a question. A lot of improving a system is identifying what is wrong with it, so that would likely be different for every car.
I will throw out some tips that I find to be helpful recently:
- Kill peaks, don't fill narrow troughs.
- Time align by tape measure to get close, then by ear. Phase is everything.
- Sound deaden everything. Then deaden everything you missed the first time.
Get the system sounding as good as possible...good center (focused), good width, good depth. Once you’ve done this, go compete. The feedback from different judges has been a great help. My hearing isn’t great (retired Marine infantry). The feedback helped me correct issues that I wasn’t aware of. That being said, I can hear and feel the improvements. My current install and tune are dialed in about as good as possible given the natural limitations of speaker placement and interior space. Every single day my system amazes me with its ability to accurately reproduce music. I get goose bumps daily. Feedback from multiple trained judges has helped me more than anything. If you can’t compete, go to meet and greets...find a good shop. Do whatever you can to get more ears in your vehicle. Listen to other well tuned vehicles to identify shortcomings in your own. Tune..tune...tune, enjoy!
Having been without a system for several years, I can't wait to get mine installed. I'm having Steve Cook at Audio-X doing mine...well, I was set up for next week but had to back it up due to scheduling conflicts. I told him I would like to try my hand at competing, so hopefully he'll give it that something extra.
Next season I'm coming for ya :anger:
LOL...bring it! Your boy Tony Rodriguez has been a thorn in my side and he’s another Audio X guy (I love Tony actually...great guy!).
Truth be told, as much as it would pain me to spend money in alabama, I may take a trip east myself for some Audio X treatment. Steve builds great sounding systems.
Also...sound deaden like your life depended on it.
Tony's a cool cat. the last time I saw him was a couple of months ago at a comp in Muscle Shoals. You should come to my GTG next month
https://www.caraudiojunkies.com/show...4631#post44631
Posted in the thread. I will do my best to be there! It sounds like a great time will be had!
I hope the football game will be later in the day. My Tide is playing some unknown team from Louisiana
:nana:
Hell no...I want a repeat of the 2011 championship game :flip:
We’ll see... :)
Do you push the seats as far back as possible and tune to that position just for judging? I would think the further back the seat the larger the sound stage? Thoughts?
DaveG,
If you compete with a tour bus
It`s easier to corner load subwoofers!
I didn't. I like for it to sound great while I’m driving the vehicle, not just while being judged. That being said, I will be changing the tune soon (adding midranges) and will probably tune with the seat all the way back just to get that extra inch or two in stage width. Hopefully it still sounds great while driving, if not I’ll have to have a separate preset for driving.
I don't compete but I tune with the seat all the way back because it's the only way I can tune with the laptop...IN MY LAP and not laying on the console. I can adjust levels and time alignment for seating positions in the headunit with one channel pair of dash mids and tweets, pair for midbass in doors, and pair for sub. As far as l/r eq goes there's not enough of an audible difference to matter while driving and I have to have the seat up several clicks being so sawed off. Or maybe I'm just not as picky as some. I just know small level and time alignment adjustments are enough to compensate along with the eq in the Pioneer.
Also, one thing that took me forever to learn is that more times than not swapping out speakers will put you on an endless treadmill of wasted money. Fix the problem at hand in the install with what you have and then and only then decide if a speaker change is necessary. Some speaker locations in cars/trucks will fight you no matter what you put in there.
Speaking of speaker swaps I'm about to replace what I call the "perfect" 12" SQ sub with another great 12" SQ sub that only needs about 1/3 the box size. Hopefully I'm not making a mistake but will put the air pig back in if needed.
What I meant was do you have a special tune for judging with seats back as far as possible? I'll have a driver's seat tune and and a second tune if someone is with me and in the passenger seat. Is adding a third tune for SQ judging with seats all the way back a good idea? Won't the stage seem bigger that way?
Of course. I've been in cars where the owner put extended seat rails in to scoot them back as far as possible. Less pathlength difference the better.
Only! If speakers are mounted in the "kick panels" will closer to equal path lengths appear !
They should 2 seat judge and the seat should be in a reasonable driving position.
So yea this makes sense and I have demo'd a few cars at shows where the seat was very much all the way back, almost to where there is no way they are driving the car this way! I get it that the tune will have better chances of sounding better overall, and you have a diff tune for daily driving position. Would it be better if competing to always have a tune for seats extended all the way back?
I would think your one seat tune would be the one you would use for competition. What would you do differently if it isn’t? Of course, I’ve never competed yet, and my seat is all the way back in my ride, so I’m just guessing the 6”-12” difference in your head position might need a different time alignment?
As a long time competitor and a judge I can tell you this.
1. If it sounds like crap when you are tuning then it sounds like crap when its being judged. Good sound is good sound PERIOD!!!
2. PUT THE MIC DOWN AND TUNE WITH YOUR EARS AT SOME POINT!!!! This isnt an RTA contest so use your ears as well as your mic.
3. Make your seating position one that is comfortable to a judge who is 6'5 or 5'6 and so they can write notes and give you proper feedback. There is nothing worse then getting into a car where I am eating the steering wheel for 15 minutes.
4. Phase relates to so many things, you should wire your car properly and play with phase in your DSP whether thru crossover points or swapping polarity.
5. Talk to other competitors, listen to other cars, talk to the judges and get to know them. Learn judging styles, listen to what wins and ask questions.
Hope this helps.
In my Grand Cherokee I drove it with power seat all the way up in height and scooted forward quite a bit. I like to be able to see what's around me and was used to sitting up high in a real truck. Oh, I'm 5-7 and pretty sawed off with short legs. With that seat all the way down on the floor and all the way back someone 8' tall could have probably comfortable driven that thing. I always laughed when someone got in for a demo and asked if that was my driving position. I literally couldn't see over the dash. As far as tuning I mentioned it before but will mention this again. Levels and time alignment would get me close enough for a good driving tune. Also a little mono eq here and there. l/r eq didn't get touched. In my Ram there isn't much difference between seat all the way back and in driving position since the back will only recline so far before it hits the cab wall. All I do is adjust levels and time alignment in the headunit since I did rca's and processor routing to give me good control on the fly that way.
I have never competed but have been doing this long enough and been in enough high scoring cars to know what's what. I could probably be competitive if I put myself out there but just too casual in this hobby to put the effort into it. And the rta while very useful is just one small part of the overall finished tune. Howard nailed it in his post of different tips.
...
As an EMMA judge I would say be honest, dont worry about placement, have fun and meet new people
Take a lot of time to get know your system and tune it properly, USE YOUR EARS,....remember that install is the key to good sound and to non problematic tuning, DSP is not a band aid for poor install
Almost entirely wrong. wrong. wrong. Path length differences are pointless for anything but two seat tuning. For anyone touting "kick panels for pld" needs to get a tape measure and actually measure a modern vehicle. This was true 30 years ago when the kick panel location was actually further away then the dash, but is almost non-existent in a modern vehicle, where the dash corners are nearly identical (if not completely identical) to a kick panel install. Kick installs can have other benefits, but PLD is no longer one of them. Anybody that still spouts this nonsense is living in the past (there are a few well known individuals who fit this description) or have no clue what they are talking about and you can immediately ignore any future "advice" they give you.
going further back has a very fast point of diminishing returns. The PLD in my car, at driving position for me, is about 11". If I sat in the back seat, guess what, holy shit it is still 11". If anything, moving further back makes the perceived stage SMALLER, not bigger (as a previous reply posed the question). Think about it, if you go to a concert and sit in the very back does the stage seem bigger or smaller??
Competitors almost unilaterally move their seats back for a variety of reasons. Most are usually "just because". Some are for perception reasons, which only really fools an inexperienced judge or listener, or they don't understand how distance to stage is scored (for IASCA). Others do it some other valid acoustic reason besides PLD, such as reflections. Some do it simply because it is the easiest way to accommodate any judge of any height comfortably.
Back to the topic at hand, if I had to give any advice, it would be two things.
1) If you have no experience with what good sound really is, do NOT "trust your ears" as many like to say. At least not initially, as you have no clue what you are listening to. Note that chefhow said "... at some point". That is key, at some point yes you DO need to trust your ears, but first you need to train them, otherwise you'll be spending a lot of time believing you have something good and it'll only be OK and you'll get really frustrated.
2) Find a mentor, or two, or three. There is a TON of misinformation on forums and facebook groups and sadly the vast majority of those that really know what they are doing stop participating in them, or participate very little, because of all the noise and the mob mentality of hanging on to really bad and sometimes stupid information. See above for examples... That "other" forum is particularly bad, as are most of the facebook groups sadly. There are a few holdouts like Erin (hell damn near EVERYONE knows who Erin is :) and Howard (chefhow) to name a couple who still participate.
most competitors are quite open and willing to talk at length about car audio, just not online, so if you are serious about giving it a go, talk to them. talk to lots of them, listen to their cars and invariably you'll become friendly enough to keep the conversations going afterwards. That's how I got my biggest knowledge boost, was from individuals I barely knew who were willing to help out some poor schmuck like myself. Even if you choose to not compete regularly, I'd still suggest going to a few comps if you can. Meet the competitors and talk to them. There is a wealth of real knowledge out there and it is willing to be shared.
On the seat being slid all the way back I always assumed people did it for the sake of being comfortable. How would someone as tall as Howard feel if they had to sit in a car where the owner was 5' flat and had the seat at their driving position?
Should someone really NEVER be taken seriously for one piece of outdated information that could still be valid even in a modern vehicle? That's kinda harsh! For the record I think kicks are TERRIBLE places to mount anything more than a midbass.
Buy horns.
Install horns.
Get Dirac live.
Use Dirac live.
Win trophies all day long.
I've hit top 3 in every comp I've got too with that. Soo there's that.
But in the 8 or so comps ive competed in. I've heard maybe 3 cars that were better than mine. Every time someone beats me. I listen to their car and im always underwhelmed. Its never centered or the tonality is friggin amazing but the stage is non existent.
Basically, from my experience in comp. Its kind of a shit show. Its cool to go and geek out but SQ is so damn subjective and some people love super bright highs or their hearing is off and the stage is too far left or right(you see this a lot in older competitors.)
That all being said. I've never been to finals or heard any cars that were champions but i feel I've heard enough high end systems to make at least some judgement.
So my tip? Don't compete with the idea of over analyzing your own system. If You Love it but a judge gives it a poor score. Try what they say to change. If you don't like it. Go back. Competition isn't about absolutes imo. Its more to see if someone has a sound that you really like and chase that.
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Extended seat rails is supposed to make it feel like you're in the 3rd row instead of the first row of a concert...but it's always felt like it didn't really give me that effect. Felt unnatural to how i normally listen.
As for kicks. Kicks were super popular because for a long time. T/a and phase adjustment just wasn't possible with current dsps so manual PLD was the golden goose and the best PLD is almost always kicks.
I think there is nothing wrong with large format mids( 5 1/4 and larger) in kicks if crossed well before beaming.
Although i do believe there is something to be argued about having mids and tweets close and basically as the same wavefront. Something you really cant do with tweets because tweets are so directional.
ie: if using a smaller mid. Put it with a tweet on the dash or pillar. If using a large midrange, keep it in the kicks.
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I can read this thread and say a lot of posts are not really what I’d do, but then we all have preferences, personally I would never build kicks other than for midbass, and my dash mids will be exactly as far away (give or take an inch) as my kick mounted midbass so whoever made a sweeping generalisation about pathlengths and kicks needs to See a few other cars ;)
The biggest thing for an sq competition is don’t change things every 5 minutes, learn to tune what you have, work out where and what needs improvements through a few solid judging sessions at a few competitions and then consider what to change and consider if the change will be night and day or maybe a tiny insignificant change (if making new pillars keep the old ones incase the change doesn’t do what’s predicted, often stuff doesn’t quite go as planned)
The biggest thing in making a top flight sq car is the passenger side, it needs to sound like it’s the passenger side, if you play 500hz and it comes from 10” across the car but the rest of the frequencys come from the speaker location or thereabouts (above or below! Preferably above or level with!) you will never attain a truest focused centre as it will always seem that 500hz is dragged across the vehicle from the centre, you can’t time align a frequency independant of the others, so it really is critical for a top flight car to be aimed and sound correct on the passenger side, I can’t stress that enough, if you gat a bad car for this it can properly ruin your day/year... I’ve just sold a van which had issues that couldn’t be solved without perhaps major work. But I wasn’t willing to cut up a 5000 pound van on the off chance it would then sound like audio nirvana, I’ve just bought a cheaper car and now I’m going to go to town (build log will follow!)
Passenger side is THE single most important thing for me as get that right and tuning then becomes easy! Get it wrong and 99% of people will think it’s awesome still... until you play certain tracks which reveal it (not everyone hears it or listens carefully enough)
The 2018 EMMA CD is designed to show flaws up and does a wonderful (or horrible job depending on perspective!) job of showing issues
This makes zero sense.. tweeters have a polar response that correlates with their diaphragm size, just like any other speaker. But what also doesnt make sense is that you were advocating horns, which are much more directional than standard tweeters. Make up your mind lol.
Also, never worth separating mid and tweeter and especially bringing the mids down to the kicks just to get a bigger one. Silliness.
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Want some more examples of my previous statement? Here you go....
Everything there can be ignored. Competed in in 8 local shows, yet is an expert now. Sure.
Wrong.
Because that isn't why it is done.
Correct. It should be noted that comps back then were always 2 seat.
Fixed that for you.
Where in the world did you come up with this passenger side nonsense? More stuff to ignore.
This is correct
In general, I agree. However for some vehicles it is more beneficial to have kick mids than dash mids. The dash and windshield combo is a reflection nightmare where the kick is generally not. My car improved quite a bit with far less eq when I went with a kick mid over the previous few dash/sail panel mid set ups. It took me a few years to try to because I didn't think it would work at all, but sure enough it did. It isn't for every vehicle, just like dash/pillar isn't for every vehicle, but it can work. Having said that I wouldn't do it just to get a bigger mid, unless I just did not want to do a 3 way front for whatever reason.