This is for Joe if possible. I posted on here some time back under ampifiers and you were very helpful. I am finally done with my system and now I need some advice on how to properly adjust my head unit, amps etc. I don't know where to start, so I will list all my equiptment first. Head unit is a Pioneer DEH 8400BH, I'm running an Arc Audio 5150 xxk 5 channel amp for my front speakers (Focal Access 6.5, 4" and tweeter component set with an additional set of RF Punch tweeters) all up front. The 6.5's and RF tweeters are in Q logic kick panels while the 4" mids along with the Focal tweeters are in the place of the original 6x8's in the front doors. They are all connected to the Focal crossover's. I have, in the rear doors, running off the rear channel, RF power series 6x8's. I'm running a T400-2 amp to my Focal 6x9's in the rear deck. The rear channel rca goes to my rear amp and then to the input of the real channel of the arc amp for the rear doors so I can fade the rear together. Finally, I'm running the fifth channel on the arc to a rf punch 10" sub in a slot ported box along with a T2D212 in a slot ported box seperate from the other box ran from a third amp, a RF T1500BD-CP. I dynamatted all my doors and trunk and have bass control knobs for the two amps running the subs. Now that you know what my system consists of maybe you can assist me in adjusting it for the cleanest sound quality I can get. I need help in adjusting the hpf, lpf, and eq and all other adjustments on the head unit. Also the gains and frequncies on all three amps. Please give me a detailed step by step explanation on how to properly adjust all these. I don't have a oscilloscope and I don't have access to one either. As always, thanks for all of your help and advice... Chris Oh yeah, my car is a 06 Ford Focus 4 door
Ok so I finally spotted this. Your post is hard to follow though, your system has become too complicated, mixing speaker brands can give bad results.
I would just use the Focal comps up front and the Focal 6x9s on the rear.. that's it.
I would connect the front channels of the arc to the comps and the rear channels to the 6x9s
So the fine amp with the fine speakers.
Next the RF T1500BD-CP should be connected to the T2D212.
The T2D212 should be used in a custom designed enclosure.
I would not use any other components, the fifth channel (sub) of the Arc unused with it's gain set to zero.
Th rest is tuning but really if you are mixing subs tweeters brands sub sizes is a bad starting point IMHO.
In fact Some SQ people will tell you to ditch the 6x9s leaving only comps on the front stage, sub on the back, but I think the 6x9s can be put to good use as mainly midbass drivers.
The other thing to look at is that you need electrical system upgrades running that amp/sub.
Ok Joe, I pulled the 10" sub and I'm leaving the 5th channel on the Arc unused like you suggested. I'm running the comps up front with the front channel and I'm gonna leave the RF 6x8's on the rear channel of the Arc in the rear doors only because I'm gonna turn them down to give a small rear fill. I'm leaving the 6x9's in the rear deck with the RF T-400bd amp just because I've already got it all hooked up. I'll probably take your advice and run the 6x9's on the rear channel of the Arc later because I think you're correct. What I really need, as far as advice goes, is how to set my head unit and the arc amp. I don't know what to do to get the best tuning. 1) How do I tune my amp and the crossovers, bass boost, eq and hpf and lpf on the HU. 2)Then I need to know how to set my gains and crossovers on the Arc. I know that I should find the clipping point on the hu first and then adjust the gains on the amp. I don't know whether I should set the hu to flat as far as the loudness, eq, and crossover filters go or not? I really need help on how to adjust these things and in what order and how. PLEASE HELP! I just want it to sound CLEAN with NO DISTORTION with the setup that I have. Please give me some step by step directions on how to do this without an oscilloscope. Thanks and I appreciate your help. Oh and by the way, I've performed the big 3, installed a 200 amp alt and I'm running 0 gauge all the way back with a second battery in the trunk. My T2D212 is in a custom built slot ported box built to specs along with dynamat in the trunk. I don't need any advice on that just the Arc and HU. Thanks again Joe
Ok Chris, tuning depends on the equipment installed, if I may I would disconnect the extra tweets from the crossover of the Focals. You are probably altering impedance balance on that crossover.
If you need more highs you just install the tweeters higher on the door aiming at you or sometimes aiming at the windshield.
Also the specs of the box, you can for example bottom out a sub playing low a high tuned box, if you don't have the specs of the box just get the external dims HxWxD and the port dims HxWxLength...
Sorry to put you through all this but the problem is that you can tune all day a system that is improperly setup and you wont get anything done.
I WILL give you some ideas:
Defeat all the crossovering on the head unit.
Get a test CD, like the: IASCA OFFICIAL SOUND QUALITY CD
Check the phasing of all your speakers (polarity of connections).
Set the low pass filter frequency of your sub amp to 60Hz AND the subsonic filter to 25Hz, the 6x9s amp should be highpassed to 60Hz also on the front stage, (just set you 6x8s gain to zero for a while) set the front channel highpass filter to 60Hz.
Alright Joe, I'm going in to this with utmost confidence that you are the expert and I am the novice here. I removed the RF Tweeters from the Focal crossover and and I'm running all Focal comps up front. I'm not sure how to set all the HU crossovers to defeat being that there isn't a dedicated defeat option. I believe the enclosure on the sub is perfect for my sub being that I got the specs from RF and had a guy here at a custom shop build it to their specs. And yes, I have the T-1500bd-cp running it. My sub amp is set at 60hz on low pass and the subsonic is at 25hz. Also, I set the 6x9 amp and the front stage on the Arc at 60hz and on high pass. I haven't downloaded the cd yet but will tonight. I doubled checked polarity and all are correct. I do have a multimeter. What next my friend?
So Ok, from what I gather you are experiencing some distortion and since you added tweets I guess lack of highs??
So It would be nice if you described what was wrong with what you were listening, not loud, only bass, no highs not clean, whatever. All the details, like when is worse/ best (say low volume, or with X kind of music, voices, drums ..etc).
Ok so I will start with the head unit, the HPF set to off, the SLA should be set to zero to all sources the subwoofer output to off, loudness off, ASR off, the equalizer with all bands to 0 dB (or the flat preset), balance/fader to 0 (the gain on the 6x8 on the amp to zero to start working on the front stage only)
All the amplifiers should also have all tone controls, bass boost to zero and bass knobs disconnected if possible.
That system is hell complicated...
And one other question the sub amp is getting it's signal from??
You got it Joe. First, when I turn the volume up almost half way the cleanness of the sq goes away and it begins to distort before I even get to a nice, crankin volume. The funny thing is I just put this HU in replacing my Alpine Ida-X305 which sounded alright. I only put the new HU in because it plays cd's and already has the Bluetooth integrated. All I needed with that HU was a little fine tuning on my amps and I believe my system was close to being dialed in. When I put the Pioneer in, I immediately started experiencing the distortion problem with too many highs up front. Now that I have removed the RF tweets from the fornt stage, it is better. Also, with the Pioneer HU I have way too much bass from my sub, where when I had the Alpine, it balanced out pretty good. Next, I turned the HPF to off on the HU, SLA to 0, sub output to off, loudness off, (I don't know what ASR is), eq is set to flat and the 6x8's (rear channel) set to zero. All amps are set to zero as far as gains, bass boost and eq knob control's go. Finally, my sub amp is getting its signal from the hu via the Sub preout rca. Thanks Bro...
Hey Joe, I'm thinking about getting an oscilloscope or some sort of distortion detector like the SMD Distortion Detector DD-1 so I can find the clipping point on the 40hz and 1000khz signals. What do you think of this detector and what is a good oscilloscope for about $150.00-$200.00? Thanks again Joe
Ok, that is useful information as the Alpine Ida-X305 is 2 Volt pre out and the Pioneer DEH 8400BH is 4 Volt pre out and because of that the amplifiers gain need to be adjusted. (I will address this below).
ASR is not present in your HU as I have checked, instead the subwoofer control on the head unit has a level control whch has to be defaulted at zero ALSO a bass boost control (like in the amps) which has to be set to zero, the phase control has to be set to zero,
Since you are driving the sub from the sub out of the HU, engage the sub output and set everything to zero as above, LPF disengaged.
The problem these days is that there are so many settings in all devices that if you have forgotten a single one, all your tuning work is going to be spoiled.
THE GAINS, not against any devices to detect clipping, I will say that these devices become of critical importance when trying to operate on it's edges, the Audioque HDC3 is for example usually driven at twice the power or more than rated so even soft clipping could make it blow.. Im not sure if it's necessary in your case, so I would try some simple procedures first.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- So lets try a simple gain setting procedure:
1) measure voltage at the amp power terminals, should be around 12.6V with the car off and 13.8V to 14.4V with the car on, should remain steady when the sub is playing.
2) recheck that all your setting are at zero in all devices as above.
3) turn off your sub from the HU or disconnect the RCAs.
4) lower the volume of the HU to zero. Prepare track 15 of the cd to be played.
5) lower the gain of the front channels (where) the Focals are to a low setting nearly zero.
6) OK SO HERE COMES THE IMPORTANT PART, start playing the track and slowly higher the volume on the HU until you hear distortion.
7) once distorion is clearly audible,slowly lower the volume unitl again it sounds completely clean.
8) take note of the volume number on the head unit. You don't ever want to go above that number with that setup.
9) leaving the volume at the level above increase the gain on the front channels that you lowered last time until is as loud as you will ever play OR you hear some bottoming out or distortion.
The main advantage of using the test disk for this test is that the recordings themselves are very clean, play a few track from your own collection to confirm that every thing souns nice and clean and let me know how it went.
Ok Joe, I'm back. So here's how it went. Starting with the HU, I turned off the sub output, turned off the hpf, turned of the loudness, set the eq to FLAT, set the SLA to 0, and faded to the front stage. I set the amp at 60hz on the front and rear channels and turned the front and rear channel gain's to zero. I put in the cd and played track 15 first and listened to 14 and 16 as well. Slowly turning the volume up I reached 62 (max volume on HU) and it was clear and clean with no audible distortion. However, the volume wasn't as high as I sometimes would like, so I went to the next step and turned the gain up (slowly) on the front channel of the Arc until it just started to distort and then backed it down a bit. If the gain had a 1-10, 1 being all the way down and 10 being all the way up, I'd say it is now set at 3.5 - 4 and that is where I left it. Funny thing is, I thought I would hear some distortion on the HU when I went through that step, but I was able to turn the volume all the way up. I guess if I were running the front comps active then that would've been the case. I don't know. Anyway, does this suffice and if yes, what's next my friend? I'm just gonna leave everything the way it is and wait for your further instruction. Thanks buddy!
Oh yeah, the voltage at the amp is 12.9 - 13 with the car off and an exact steady 14.4 when running. When sub is playing it stays steady but fluxuates between 14.0 - 14.4 durning hard bass hits.
Ok, it's the sub amp turn disconnect the RCAs from the Arc and follow the same procedure for the sub amp starting with minimum gain on the amp as well. If you get distortion as you higher the HUs volume, go a little back and take note of the number, that will be the maximum number you should go with the HU. then adjust the gain on the amp to the maximum level you want to go or if distortion shows up. Take note of the gain level and consider it as a limit.
If you couldn't go all the way up with the HU volume then you want to set the HU level at the max number and move up the gains of your front stage.
At this point you should have 3 numbers, the max number on the HUs volume, and the max gain level for the front stage and the sub.
The next stage is using sub and front stage together with the max gains, start with the HUs vol low and go upwards to the top number, at this point you should judge if the sub is too loud of the front stage is too loud for a good mix, you should then lower the one that is louder than desired.
With a truly high power system you should not use this procedure.
At this point just play all the music you had trouble with and let me know how it went, are you getting as loud as you want? How is the sound quality, are you getting as low as you want?.... etc.
Hey Joe, I've been pretty darn busy as of late, so I haven't had a chance to go through the sub procedure yet. I plan on doing it today or tomorrow. I'll post as soon as I do. Thanks
I'm back Joe. Ok so I went throught the same procedure with the sub amp. It is set perfectly to the front stage and it sounds great. Oh and by the way, I was wondering why the front stage wasn't sounding as crisp and clear as I was hoping for. I double checked all settings on the amp and found that I had it set to full instead of high pass. This Arc Audio amp has settings on the bottom that I forgot about. Anyway, the front stage sounds good along with the sub amp. I'm looking forward to your further instructions on the rear stage and the HU adjustments... Thanks Again for all your help!
I'll also add that the sound quility is really good up front and the sub sq is really good as well. I think they're mixed very well together now that I went through the procedure you mentioned above. I can turn it up where it gets real loud while still sounding clean.
Ok Chris, I am guessing that since you found that you were full range on the comps, you could repeat the procedure for the front stage and get even louder now that you are hi-passed.
Also you can try to tweak tweeter locations and even consider an active setup.
In regards to integrating your 6x9s to the system, I would use them as midbass drivers only, but that's only an idea, personal taste always is a factor and you have to decide the way you want things done.
Im going to go a little off topic to show you a 4 way fully active setup that will give impressive sound quality to a system compared to a single crossover point you have now, the crossover frequencies depend on the particular speakers:
So left to right this would be sub, 6x9s, mids(from the comps), tweeters, typical crossover points would be 50 - 120 - 2.5K.
If you believe this is overkill you can just go for an equalization procedure only (I believe that your deck do not support time alignment).
Hey Joe, I don't think this is overkill. I'm always up for improving my current sound system. So, going with a fully active system up front like you mentioned would require an external EQ right? I've got a Kicker KQ5 laying around. Would you recommend I use it for an active setup? Oh and by the way, I adjusted the rear stage the same way as you had me do the front and it sounds amazing. I only turned the 6x8's in the rear doors up a little and it sounds fine. When I turned the gain up too much on those it actually made it sound bad, so I know what you mean about putting them there or using them in the first place. And about the front stage being set to HP instead of full pass, YES it made a huge difference. I can turn the volume up now with clarity with no distortion. As far as the graph above goes, I love it! I totally unserstand the crossover points and frequency levels. Looking at it at first confused me, but it makes perfect sense. I'm probably gonna try the active route. However, I don't know how one can make my system sound better than it is now after your help. But, if you think it will improve, I'm all ears... As always, thanks my friend!!!
The Kicker KQ5 is a parametric equalizer not a crossover so I would leave it there for now.
A four way active setup could be implemented using the filters you already have around on the HU and the amps but the best way would be using a high quality 4 way active crossover.
In any case it is usually difficult to setup and if not done right can make a system sound worse.
I am thinking that if you are happy on how the system performs now just leave it there for a while and maybe if at some point you want to upgrade then do so.
