Lets talk tuning...

Don't go 3 way until you are already at a 2 way active point.
IF you run 3 way, from my testing back in the day your Apillar is the best for tweeter and 3 inch imaging. 4 inch is a little to big to fit nice.

A well setup active 2 way will stomp on any passive 3 way

 

Tweeter is already in the a-pillar, Im thinking about running the 3" in the door as well.

I'm already active 2 way, just with my 6.5 in the bottom I'm trying to get some more mid range up a little higher, to my ears the mids and highs are too far apart.

 

Hows your time alignment. Generally, if setup right there shouldn't be that large of a discrepancy. Try the door as well as already suggested

 

Time-alignment is decent, I'm no expert at tuning my Audison though. I may just pick up a set of 3" and test them out on the doors and see at some point. I know my tweeter locations arent the greatest which I plan on redoing in the very near future. 3d printed up some basic tweeter pods to mold in.

 

This is by the far the best method I've come across for setting time alignment. http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...gnment-using-only-noise-tracks-your-ears.html

I also use stereo pink noise tracks to set L/R level and 1/3 octave mono pink noise tracks to set L/R EQ. Once I have L/R levels, time alignment and EQ set, I'll then run a full sweep of 1/3 octave mono pink noise tracks to adjust overall EQ. I've never run an RTA to see what the result looks like on paper, but to my ears it sounds really good. Very good center image, stage width, and depth. Overall tonality is very good, too.

The one area where I think more sophisticated tools could help is setting EQ and time alignment on my subwoofer. Low frequencies are hard to pinpoint and the long wavelength makes detecting the doppler effect a little more difficult. I know an RTA can help in this regard because I could then see and measure the audio response.

 

Pics of those setups? I would be interested in doing something like that. I feel that our imaging is the suck to begin with based upon our speaker placement.

 

Seems to me this whole time alignment thing gets a little complex unnecessarily. There are 2 things that matter, right? The speed at which sound travels and the distance. We know or can calculate the speed at a given barometric pressure. So if we know how far away something is, we know how long it will take for a sound wave to reach that object. Pull out the tape measure & stick it to your nose with your head back. Repeat for each driver location. Processor corrects the times based on distance. Fine tune from there. Most DSPs give you this option, yes?

Or have I completely lost my mind? I don't have too much experience with TA in a vehicle, but I've used it in my home gear for a good decade & set it up in a variety of locations...always pretty straight forward.

 

Generally yes, but most people still don't get it right.... and also i found lots of people have phase issues and it causes a disconnect between their mids and highs with an odd response and messed up image.

 

Tape measure can give you a good baseline but in my experience it's not the best method. There are so many reflections in a car causing phase issues that sometimes you need to band aid it with time alignment.

Proper time alignment at higher frequencies doesn't make a huge improvement. I'm talking like 4khz and above. You will do just fine setting the tweets to the same amount of delay as its associated mid.

 

I'll ask the owners if they do. I don't take pic's when I'm installing.

 

adjusting eq goes hand in hand with time alignment. once the drivers are level matched, and time aligned, eqing is last part of tuning a system.

before I get ahead of myself, let's start with the basics. going active(or time aligning your drivers) will benefit if it is planned out properly. driver selection is important, since you want your drivers to to bleed over the crossover range so you have options when selecting your crossover point(i.e. my fountek 89ex drivers start to roll off at 100hz, while my b&c 8ndl51 freq range is 65 - 3khz, so I effectively can select a crossover point safely from let's say 80hz to 2500hz).

you can obviously choose a head unit with t/a abilities(a la pioneer 80prs), or get a stand alone dsp unit that plugs inline with your existing head unit, to your amps. variable crossover points vary with your components selection. I am using the crossovers on the amps for the 500 high/low pass for the transition of midbass to full range, and the sub low pass from the deck.

so back to eqing your drivers. I'll use my set up as an example. I opted to use the stock locations, so my time aligning is set up via the pioneer 80prs to that. once I got those parameters set up, I started eqing. since the stock driver location of the "tweeter" is facing the driver at a steep angle, I had to boost some frequencies. with the passenger side "tweeter" facing the driver, I had to cut some frequency levels. most drivers frequency response tend to fall off as soon as you start going off axis of the driver(going away from facing the driver/speaker directly). with this method, I was able to "center" the image above the dash. I imagine that with other locations for the tweeter, there would be more flexibility, and not so much extreme eqing, as needed for the stock locations.

with all of this said, the optimal position of all of the speakers should face the listener dead on. being in a vehicle environment, it isn't always viable. in my case, I opted to bring the range down to 500hz high pass on my fountek 3.5" drivers so as to keep most of the directional frequencies within a line of sight of the listener's ears. anything below that, or lower, will be more omnipresent, and not necessarily need to be within line of sight.

hope I broke it down enough to understand.

 

Who can blame you. I don't take pics of shit when I am installing things in general. That's why I rarely do how-to's because I am usually dirty and I don't like getting my phone all trashed up while I'm working. Or I am in a race against the clock. Usually, it's both.

 

i hear yah on that

 

I want to - I heard 2 15's a few weeks ago and I'm kicking myself in the head for not having them

 

lol, i think if you learnt from the last box you built you know where you can increase the size and get a bigger flared port in there you will gain allot more output.

Sidenote, need the 15s still: let me know i got a few available ready to go

 

I found this thread to be pretty helpful

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum...888-help-my-soundstage-ate-my-windshield.html

I did that after getting my TA a little better as well as re mounting my drivers tweeter.

I must say it sounds pretty darn good! And just like the OP on that thread my EQ looks jacked and both side are super different, but it sounds fantastic!

 

Ok so more tuning has been done. The gains for the highs have been dropped alot, the crossovers & slopes are set where they need to be, but still needs some more love. I will get a new video up with the same some to compare the difference to.

Here is a pic of what my settings are at now...
Tweeter settings...


Mids settings


Sub settings

 

I apologize in advance if this is off base because I have not seen a post of your full set up, but I see several things a bit alarming about your tuning. It probably sounds good to your ears for take it for what it's worth.

1. 2kHz @ 6dB/oct seems pretty rough on tweeters. Again, I don't know which tweeters you're running. That shallow of a crossover on such a lower crossover point will be rough on many tweeters. You will not get much life at loud volumes.

2. I see boosts all over the place on your EQ graph. You should cut instead of boost. Less is more when it comes to EQ.

3. I recommend starting with symmetrical filters. e.g. same slope between mids and tweeters. I have 24 dB/oct on all of my filters and haven't had any issues. You could get by with shallower filters (18dB/oct, 12 dB/oct, 6dB/oct) at lower volumes but you run the risk of damaging speakers at higher volumes. I'm all about dynamics so steeper (24 dB/oct) filters work best for me. Whatever you settle on, keep the same slope between adjacent speakers to avoid weird phase shifts.

 

I have currently installed:
Stock 2013 head unit
6x9 hybrid-audio unity u69 component set up front
6.5 hybrid audio imagine i61 2v2 convertible set in the rear
powered by arc audio XDi600.4
(x2) sundown audio SD3 10s
powered by kicker cxa1200.1
(All above going through a Precision Power 88r DSP)

I think you are looking at the low pass section for the tweeters because they are on a 18db slope in the high pass area at 5200hz. That is what hybrid-audio directly told me on the phone to set them at.

However the bit about taking away rather than adding to the EQ maybe something I try to implement. I am very new to the whole DSP world so im still playing. I also need to reset the gains, i think i may have set the gain for the sub amp at a different volume than my highs amp. I have a new amp coming in tomorrow so when i install it and set the gains i will reset the highs amp.

Then i plan to reset the EQ bar back to flat and restart the tuning. I need to play with the gains/delay on the DSP after that, then i can get to the EQ bar and play.

 

Well, I installed a pair of CDT Audio 3" mid's in the stock tweeter location, re-arranged my tweets on the pillar some. Super happy with it now. The Focals were just lacking some of the higher end of the mid's, and the CDT's did a perfect job bringing my sound up and filling in where the 6.5's lacked. Awesome investment.