Lets talk tuning...

Man, I wish you were closer 6spd. I'd really like to hear that truck.

Care to share thoughts on the Minotaur? They look like some super sweet amps!

Thanks for the heads up on the PRS. I gotta figure out how to get the brightness down though - it's a bit much at night & dimmer doesn't do anything in my truck. The thing the manual says to do doens't work. Maybe I need a firmware upgrade?

 

I would say, my system sounds accurate to the recordings being played(in actuality, it is probably far from accurate, but I wanted to use a word that didn't resemble "bass heavy").

I usually have my display turned off while playing on the prs. As with night driving, I have my dimmer set to the lowest setting so my focus is outside versus being blinded by the interior lights.

the minotaur performs as it should. since I have 2ohm dvc drivers, they are supposed to extract about 1300 watts when pushed, but I will say, I am in the midrange so they are probably seeing half of that. I will also state, with my setup, or anyone with this sub setup, 2 10's in a sealed box for the double cab, really need a lot of coercing, in terms of eq'ing. I have some eq bands on the minotaur amp to help the subs sound more flat, and the eq on the prs to give it a little bit more oomph. 80hz is peaky in my truck, so I had to raise up the other frequencies, and definitely cut from around 80hz on the prs.

 

You forgot its good side



That thing's a work of art

 

i used to love the Zed audio amps!
In all my setups i found the truck to have a natural resonant peak at around 55hz
I dont remember all my specs, but ran int all active off my cda9833 back when i had the CDT 07.4 set. My next setup will have some beautiful german designed and built speakers again ran active. If you guys are talking tuning(besides signal processing via EQ ) its like the guys that Chip their truck vs open source tuning. Chip being that you run your speakers in a passive configuration vs active being open source tuning.

My experience with audio in the SQ world or even the SPL world is that, you can get a pro use entry lvl alpines in his install and still beat 9/10 competitors. Sure the equipment eventually plays a roll but in general its all about the install and understanding how that vehicle resonates and the sound acts simply put. The first time i heard a full blown SQ setup i thought it sounded like total crap as their tuned in general for the flattest response curve possible. Most people actually don't like the sound of a total flat tuned setup and thus why SQ is so subjective.

Anyhow, glad to see theres more movement in this section. Im gonna be playing around with my new LOC tomorrow

 

My understanding of peak resonant frequency is that it's directly related to the vehicle's transfer function.



So, find the longest distance inside your vehicle, and read the approximate resonant frequency peak right off the chart.

Using the above, I should have a peak around 150 Hz.

And there it is



I was able to massage it out (red line) with deadening treatments (didn't have the EQ at the time to do anything about it). To be clearer, that was the truck adding that extra peak - not the drivers. For the most part, that was all resonance in the doors that was making it back out into the cabin. Adding MLV shut 'em up.

 

I'll bite. Because I can't get my time alignment and staging right. Gonna re-do my Tweeter mounting soon and possibly do a dash pod for a tweet and a 3 or 4" mid.

Stock HU
Audison Bit10
Focal 165as 6.5's and tweets wired active
JL Audio 360/4(decent amp, just what I had laying around at the time)
B2 Audio HN10 in a very musical box a buddy and I designed, responds from around 18hz up to at least 50hz beautifully
B2 Audio Zero.3 Sub amp
No rear speakers in the doors
All doors are deadened on inner panel and outer panel
Roof deadened

All in all I've been super happy with the setup, just time to improve it.

 

Where'd everyone learn tuning?

 

I learned by reading and doing. I've been a bass head an audio fan since the late 80s

 

your setup is pretty damn solid with that gear.
You can improve it as we discussed initially with a processor going full active

 

I learn from trial & error, reading, talking to people, trial & error...

 

1 thing i can and will recommend to everyone!
Do everything at super low volume lol,
the wrong cross over points and settings can destroy your speakers faster than you can say pop. Seen it

 

This is my upgrade, it's been installed for a couple months now, sounds very good but haven't gotten around to tuning it yet. The rear speakers do sound a little muted compared to the fronts, would like to get more out of them. What do you guys use for tuning without an oscope? It's not exactly a common tool that everyone has in their garage.

Front Speakers- Hybrid Audio U69-2V2 (6X9 midbass and tweeter)
Rear Speakers- Hybrid Audio I61-2V2 (6.5 coax)
Amp- Arc Audio xdi450.4 (85watts/ch)

 

You can use a digital multimeter to set gains if you had no other use for an o-scope. The scope may be a tad more accurate, but DMM will work just fine.

 

I've noticed at low HU volumes (0-12ish) I get some funky distortion in my door speakers. I'm assuming the HU isn't putting out a strong/clean enough signal to the LC2i (which has the Main knob at 50%) which then isn't putting out a strong/clean enough signal to the amp. Anyway to get around this? Sometimes I don't always want to be bumping and would enjoy some nice quieter background music.

 

Talk to people. Read a lot online. And the best way to learn, just keep playing around with your equipment.

 

Not bad advice there. Along those lines, if you're inclined to use the auto-tune feature on some equipment, and have the gains too high, POOF! You don't even have to be in the vehicle to kill stuff.

I see quite a few skipping any tweeter protection with active setups as well. One good DC spike or send it the wrong signal accidentally and POOF!

I run sweeps at higher volumes because driver/cabin characteristics change with amplitude, but I'm in there with my finger on the button then.

 

I just plugged my laptop in and began playing with settings. I attempted to make it sound similar to a SQ Demo car I heard shortly before doing the build.

 

Anyone running 3-way in a 2nd gen? Need some ideas on redoing my tweets and where to run a 3" or 4" mid..

 

I run higher volume sweeps to fine tune in the end. That is your basic EQ'n, not so much the other stuff unless you wanna maybe change the slope or minor adjustment to your cross over point.

In general, i hate the word tuning when people run passive cross overs or inline filters. There is so much more to tuning that 95% of people think they are doing but really only has a micro effect

 

Move tweet to a-piller and locate mid in the tweeter section of the door. I don't have this done yet but I have installed it on other Taco's, 2nd gen, and it worked well.