#31
^ ThisOriginally Posted by chefhow
A good Home reference system helps too.
#32
...
Last edited by avidedtr; 10-17-2019 at 05:04 PM. Reason: double post
#33
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
#34
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 isand 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.
MASQ partner and judge
MobileAudioSQ.com
#35
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.
Last edited by Hillbilly SQ; 10-28-2019 at 11:35 AM.
They might say "don't try this at home" but nothing about not trying it at your friend's house.
#36
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.
Sent from my XT1710-02 using Tapatalk
#37
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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#38
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
#39
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.
Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
#40
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.
MASQ partner and judge
MobileAudioSQ.com
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