Leroy's 2004 Tacoma stereo build log

Speakers mounted and grills attached with staples. This sucker is ready to install.

 

Nice you can send it to me for testing now.
Did you leave room for the carpet when you were designing it??
How much do you think that it weighs?

 

I did leave room for the carpet. I got a sample from the upholstery shop so I knew how much to build in. 1/8"

As for weight... I'm going to just guess... 48lbs?

 

And box is fully installed. LEDs installed, though I still need to tie into door light.

It went in super easy and bolted right in. There are literally no rattles and from outside, just sounds like bass.

I do have them crossed over wrong so I need to redo all my audio analysis this weekend. It looks really nice back there though.

 

Man that looks awesome!!!

 

And this is why when installing a system, you have to think about maintenance and disassembly. So my bass knob never worked right. It worked for master output, but if I switched it to sub output control, nothing.

Turns out I put those RCA cables on output 1 and 2 on the DSP. They need to be on output 7/8. Well, everything is all wrapped and zip tied, so I dont have enough slack to just move it. So now to move or remove box and get 2" of slack.

Yeah, a bunch of work, but damnit I'm gonna do this right.

 

Freaking sweet. Piece of cake I'm already done and back together. Took all of 5 minutes

 

Okay, so that's all fixed. Rechecked my gain structure and everything is perfect.

Here is the initial measurement of the subs in the box with a 0-90Hz sweep. Low pass and high pass filters the only thing enabled.

That is going to be really easy to get perfect.

 

Now I'm re-reviewing Room EQ Wizard and how to do audio analysis.

This is why you get a DSP and Universal Microphone. You can really get your stuff dialed in.

This guy has bad video making, but his intro to RTA in REW is good.
https://youtu.be/bds759UuWiU

This is your standard "total beginner" thing that is insanely complicated.
https://youtu.be/_87-hK1org8

 

Did you lose any seat adjustment?
Are you still going to get a new head unit?

 

Hubba Hubba. Now that's a handsome sub stage. Interested to hear how it handles transients with a low end like that.

Edit: just noticed your mic placement. Having the mic semi-coupled to the enclosure might color the indicated FR a bit - and then there's location. Not that I'm right, but I like to put the mic right in front of my nose, lean back a bit, and tune from there. Because that's where it matters, and who really cares what the vehicle sounds like with nobody in it? I'm also of the opinion that pinpoint precision regarding mic placement is sort of a waste. Our heads are constantly moving while we're driving.

 

The mic I normally have coming out of the headrest. That isnt where I'm actually taking my measurements. Great catch though. I took that measurement from the center console while sitting in the car. I agree with you on sitting in the car while taking the measurements. It's such a confined space that your body massively affects the sound. I've actually thought about creating 3 separate configs. 1 for just a driver, one for a driver and passenger, and one for the windows being down.

You're really good at this. Your questions also send me down rabbit holes, like reading this thread
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/113-...bwoofer-transent-response.html#/topics/529189

Last night I cleared out all my biquads in my DSP and am starting completely over. I know that previously, I had totally messed up and had the 100-300hz way too high and it was actually exhausting for my ears. Now all that is gone. Just listening to some tracks sounded really great, beastie boys brass monkey and intergalactic, pink floyd - money and the wall pt2, Beck.. it all sounded pretty great. It hits the low low stuff really well and the whole system blends very nicely now.
Fyi, the problem I had before was I tuned the front stage and subs at separate times and then just turned it on and the crossover points weren't set correctly.

So what would you be listening for? What music would you check? For the posted thread above, it seems that you would play some fast hard attacks and see if you get weak initial attacks or ringing after. I'm still pretty new at this but have an analyst's mindset.

 

The seats lay back and move back all the way, so I lost nothing there. As for the head unit, yes eventually, maybe, I dont know. The radio on the thing sucks, but the rest is great.

I was actually really hating it cuz it was acting all wonky, but in looking at it last night, the freaking SRC button was slightly stuck which was causing it navigation issues. Fixed that and everything is hunky dory now. Just hate the bad radio

 

Just found this link which has some tests that I'll try
https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_frequencychecklow.php

 

Our ears are all different, so a base tune is just that...a starting point. I do like to tweak by listening to music. Joss Stones The Soul Sessions tends to work nicely. If I tweak to that album everything else seems to sound pretty good. Especially the first track. It's pretty demanding. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon comes to mind. Spyro Gyra - several albums. Lots more - but that stuff comes to mind right off. Stuff with a wide dynamic range; strong, revealing vocals and plenty of drums ideally.



another good one



good recordings of course - not using utube for this

 

Err, I think you were asking more about transient response. I haven't entirely figured out the phenomenon myself, but know poor response when I hear it. The best way I can describe it is a lingering effect - most pronounced in music with a good bit of variation in the low end - such as the ability to transition from lower bass guitar notes to drum kicks without the kick drum 'lingering' a bit...like there's a delay but only in some instances. Frequency response is not linear in the time domain. Of course transfer function will play a role, but enclosure type seems to be the best predictor of good transient response - with sealed exhibiting the best response in my experience.

 

I think I'm there with you on the understanding. I wonder if some of the waterfall plots in REW would show that..

 

That plots the time domain (decay) vs frequency response so yeah.

 

I've mostly heard "meh" about the flax stuff. Not that they are bad, just seems like you are better moving up a grade in Focal for the money. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

I run all Utopia/K2 Power in my Audi except for the sub. I blew up my Utopia sub and now just run an Alpine Type R.

 

What I wouldn't do to have Utopia. That is some serious $ there.

However, in my experience, it's the totality of the system that matters. How it's all engineered. How good is the install.

So far for me, the Flax have a natural sound, they dont add their own color to the track. I've heard other systems that are perfectly tuned and they just kind of sound clinical.
I'm sure the utopia are even better. But you have to get into a discussion of dimishing returns.

I did some sound treatment, foam blocks, and sound analysis on a system, didnt even change out the stock HU or speakers and it sounded amazing. I think that system design and install counts for roughly 70% of how your system will sound. Then audio analysis is probably another 10%. So the last 20% would be actual speaker quality. The design of course takes that into account, but what I'm trying to get at is that spending another $8k on higher end speakers may only get you a .05% increase in quality. Who is even going to notice that? But a lower end high quality speaker does make a difference over higher end low quality kit.
But if you've got the dough, go for it. That should sound like butter to your ears. The utopia tweeters are insanely good.

Is that system in an R8 by chance?