OK...I posted something kinda similar before...Lots of people looked and nobody had a reply, so I am going to kinda revamp... How many people here are running a 1/3 octave EQ in their system? Has anyone had an RTA check of the freq response of their vehicle/system? I guess what I am looking for is opinions on this, experience on this and the various ways that components are running in people's systems utilizing a 1/3 octave EQ? Willy
hopefully others can shed some light on this. when i had my old system i didn't have 1/3 octave EQ and i never had it checked with an RTA. having problems getting the Polk to sound good?
i wanna say i know an SQ guy that runs one. he can spend hours upon hours tuning his system. he is a true SQ nut. if your after true SQ then get one. if you just want to tweak here and there get a 7 or 9 band reg eq.
I have had an RTA in my truck and I was suprised by how flat the response was. I have no EQ in my truck and my bass, mid and treble on the radio is set to 0. I think the flat response is due to the solid speaker mounting and dynomat everywhere in the truck. Yes dynomat (any good sound deadener will work) everywhere, even in the roof. I was considering adding the Alpine Imprint sound processor, but why. I can not see any more improvement.
In my early years I always had powered EQ's...crappy head units and mostly crappy speakers...I used to think that no stereo system was complete without and EQ...The last time I had an EQ in a vehicle it was that tiny little 5 band Kenwood...I was driving along one day trying to get the sound to sound good and I got frustrated...I reached down and defeated the EQ and to my amazement it sounded better...That was the last EQ I ever had in a car..The last real system I had in a car I defeated the tone controls and ran everything completely flat...It sounded great (was in a bonneville)... Now I have this 2001 Tahoe....Originally it had a Clarion in dash DVD and I added amps, front and rear speakers and subs...I pulled my hair out trying to get a good sub sound and the upper mids sound harsh from the front stage. The first set of speakers in front were the Infinitys that cccullen is buying from me...I thought they sounded harsh. I had this Alpine head unit and I put that in. Still had the same problem...Pulled the Infinity separates out and put in the Polks...problem still there...I did a "poor man RTA" I put in a test tone disc and used an SPL meter...My freq response was all over the map...The low lows (20-60hz) was pretty strong. From 80-250 there were several holes (dips) in the output. That explains the weak punch from the kick drums and the lack of strong crunch from low guitar chords and detuned guitars...In the upper mids I have a lot of peaks...A lot of lead guitar solos sound harsh. High male vocal and most female vocals sound harsh....The upper treble sounds pretty good (upper synth and cymbals, etc) The Alpine head unit I have won't reach the mid freqs that are harsh (they are lower than the lowest treble freq I can select)...I end up setting the treble freq for the lowest one and going way below zero to tame them, but that dulls the overall sound... My thought was if I could flatten the response with this EQ I bought then I would be happy...I want to set it and forget it...I am not a constant tweaker I just want to flatten the response...I whole heartedly agree that dynamat may help my problems too...maybe down the road when time permits...I would love to do the whole vehicle... Anyway....that is where I am at... Willy
willy, can say much for the mids but to tame your highs have you tried reversing the pos and neg on the tweets? I had harsh highs with my focal and when i reversed everything i got a lot better better results with that. Its worth a shot
OK....Last night I did a poor man's RTA...I took a test disc and put it in the HU and turned my volume to 20 and wrote down my db's of the freq's...here is what I got... 20 hz...90 db 25 hz...102 db 32 hz...112 db 40 hz...116 db 50 hz...113 db 63 hz...106 db 80 hz...90 db 100 hz...92 db 125 hz...101 db 160 hz...93 db 200 hz...93 db 250 hz...102 db 315 hz...83 db 400 hz...83 db 500 hz...87 db 630 hz...91 db 800 hz...97 db 1000 hz...93 db 1250 hz...88 db 1600 hz...95 db 2000 hz...95 db 2500 hz...100 db 3150 hz...96 db 4000 hz...92 db 5000 hz...105 db 6300 hz...96 db 8000 hz...93 db 10k hz...94 db 12.5k hz...82 db 16k hz...70 db 20k hz...55db
Here is a very basic hand drawn graph that I did to get a visual...The numbers on the left are the db readings I got....Not very flat at all... Willy
