Eq Graph Comparison-Stock Speakers vs MTX Speakers

Hey everyone,

Thought I'd post this here for others maybe in a similar boat of wondering how exactly do new speakers perform with the stock head unit versus the stock speakers.

I myself am an audio engineer by trade, and after looking around at others threads and seeing how cheap these stock speakers are, I decided to upgrade just the speakers at this point in time. Yes in the future I plan on a new head unit at the very least, but funds aren't available at the moment.

So I hooked up a white noise generator with the stock speakers and measured the response of the speakers. I always thought they sounded like they were lacking the lower midrange, and the response graph confirms this. So after some scouring through crutch fields site, I settled on the MTX Thunderdome 692 axial speakers.

Fast forward to today and the new speakers finally came in. Upon pulling the stock speakers out and holding it side by side with the new ones….yikes these are cheap, No metal frame, lousy magnet. I am surprised by the amount of bass that these were even able to produce considering their build and magnet size. The new speakers are what you think of when you visualize a speaker, big magnet and metal frame.

After I connected each speaker, I powered them up to ensure they functioned before putting the doors back together. Once I ensured that both were working I buttoned everything up and then proceeded to test them in the same position and settings as I did with original speakers. Despite keeping with the stock head unit, the response has greatly improved! Its almost a flat curve!

Hope this helps somebody in the future, cheers!

 

Interesting

 

Thanks for sharing. I actual have a few questions regarding this. As a fellow engineer I use sound testing equipment daily (Artims 10 I believe) but for more of a certification of products vs engineering standards. If I use this to map out my stereo system what am I actually looking for? Is it a lack of dB level spikes or is the curve through the frequency range more important. I mainly due Product and Design Verifcation testing for new vehicle but half the time I don't know what I'm looking at. Just comparing data to previous data. Also what would change in the FFT if the speakers were amplified? Increase in lower frequency? Not really sure how that works. Thanks

 

Ideally what your looking for is an even and flat response over the entire spectrum with minimal spikes and small gaps between the lowest spl and highest spl, this will give you an even image of the soundstage. With these new speakers you can see from the graph that low end is ranging from 45-54spl, where as the high end is sitting around 55-60spl. So yes its important to have no big spikes over the entire range that is being produced and try and keep the spl of the whole range within a small percentage of each other. If these speakers were amplified, and concerning the stock bass roll off that is already programmed into the stock entune head unit, than you would see another slight rise in the low end, thus being able to achieve a flatter response and a higher spl. The low end of the spectrum takes a vast amount of energy to produce low end sound waves vs the power needed for high end frequencies. The ideal scenario is replacing the stock head unit with a unit with multi band eq. I've been looking at a ken wood unit which has a 13 band equalizer, along with a dsp, time alignment and other goodies needed to improve the curve

With the case of these particular speakers, they are designed to produce frequencies down into 42hz, and as you can see by the graph. The stock head unit is only able to drive them to appox 60hz

The venue at which I work at, across the whole spectrum that can be produced is typically within 5-10 spl between the lowest and highest point. Mined you this is a million dollar system, while we won't get this close in a consumer/vehicle environment, we can get pretty darn close.

 

FWIW, from most articles I've read on system tuning a vast majority of the "experts" believe the best sound is achieved with a slight decrease in level from low to high frequency. A completely flat response sounded a little dull, and life-less. I don't have an RTA so I have not proved this theory myself...just what the so-called "experts" say. I just use filtered pink-noise tracks and my ear to set overall EQ level.

 

Sound is a weird subject, just as every colour looks different to each person, everyone will hear a sound wave differently and thus have a different prefference. One of the reasons in trying to get the system close as you can to a flat curve, is to try to have the system running at its maxium potenial and utilizing as much of the Potential energy it can across all the components. Now when you tailor the sound of the system to your liking, you have a greater range of amplitude to adjust with, with less issues from the S/N ratio, dropouts, e.t.c...

Humans do by nature and the structure of our ears prefer frequencies within the low-mid frequencies band, especially the 3rd harmonic (i.e record players-3rd harmonic= 1.3khz). This is typically the range of frequencies that people refer to as warm, power, brown, umph or however you want to decribe it hahaha.

In the end every is a matter of perseption and our brain will always cloud our judgement (like when your adjusting a frequency and you think your hearing it, untill you look down and realize nothing has changed )

 

Thanks for the share! Your numbers match what I was thinking as I was changing out my speakers and did an old/new comparison when I'd completed half.