Audio Tuning for Dummies - Post your knowledge here, please!

DavidRam · Oct 31, 2014

I really want to (need to) learn this and the more I read online the more confused I am getting... because apparently the pros talk about audio tuning in another language. :crazy:

Here is a picture that has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it might direct your thoughts toward car audio... no? Why? Ok, nevermind.

DavidRam · Oct 31, 2014

So I read this and...

I thought I was gettin it, but 3/4 through I realized I TOTALLY AM NOT GETTING IT!!! Plus, I do not want to have to disconnect all the wires because I might not be able to get them hooked back up correctly.

"There are several different methods used to tune eqs. This is the one I use. An RTA is not needed if the steps are done correctly. This method uses crossovers and gain settings as the most important factor in tuning. I think the eq should be last in line when tuning. Remember after each step to write down your settings. If the sound gets worse, then you can go back to the previous step’s settings and start over.

1. Set all bands flat, as well as the head unit bass and treble.

2. Turn off the subs. Using music with a good bass line, run the highpass crossover up and down until the midbasses can play as low as possible without any distortion or excessive door panel vibrations.

3. Unhook the mids and tweeters, allowing only the midbasses to play. Listen to mono pink noise or a well-recorded song with a centered vocalist. Test CDs such as the IASCA test CD or Autosound 2000 Test CD 102 or 103 will work great. Listen to where the centered sounds are coming from. Then reverse the polarity of one midbass (Reverse the speaker wires coming from the passive crossover and going to the speaker, just flip the positive and negative wires. I usually flip the driver’s side speaker.) and re-listen to the test CD. If the sounds are more centered then keep it as is. If the centered sounds are more diffuse and un-locatable, then flip the polarity back to where it was originally.

4. Then unhook the midbasses and play the mids only and follow the same polarity and listening tests as before. Mark your best settings.

5. Do the same procedure for the tweeters.

6. When you have tested for the proper polarity from all three ranges of speakers, hook all of them back up with respect to each set of speaker’s best polarity. You can have any combination of polarity, such as all the midbass and tweeters straight and one midrange reversed.

7. Now you should have the correct “acoustic” polarity set within each set of speakers. Next is to set the acoustic polarity between the sets of speakers.

8. Listen to some very familiar music with a good range of sounds. Then flip both midbass’ polarity and listen again. Before you only flipped one midbass, now you are doing both at the same time. For example if the left midbass was reversed and the right was not before, now the left will be not reversed and the right will be. Listen to the music again. If the midbass is more powerful and full then leave the wiring as is. If the midbass sounds weaker and wrong then restore the wiring as before.

9. Perform the same listening tests while flipping the mids and tweeters, and use the wiring configuration that sounds the best.

10. If you have went though all these steps adjusting the polarity of the speakers then the system should sound really good without any eq adjustments. You might want to play with the gain adjustments on the crossover and/or amp to better blend all the speakers together.

11. Now onto the eq! The first eq step is to adjust the tonality. While listening to familiar music, adjust each individual band up and down slowly. When the music sounds better then move to the next band. Adjust the left and right bands equally. (We’ll get to the separate left and right adjustments soon.) It really does not matter if the bands are boosted or cut, just that it makes the sound better. Not every band needs to be adjusted. In fact if you did steps 1 thru 10 correctly you should not have to adjust over half the bands. Having a 1/3 octave eq does not mean you have to adjust every band. It means you have the ability to adjust each band if needed. Watch out for big jumps from band to band, like one band set to +4 and the next band set to –6.

12. Continue through all the bands, take a break, and do the same procedure over again. But this time the adjustments will be smaller as you get the tonality dialed in. This step might take several days, weeks, or longer.

13. In tuning you will find some eq bands will raise, lower, move the sound closer, or farther away if adjusted in certain manners. For example, lowering 5 KHz will generally move the soundstage farther away and raising 2 KHz will make the soundstage rise. Each vehicle and system will have different settings that will be the best. The best way to achieve awesome sound is to constantly adjust.

14. When you are satisfied with the tonality of the system, it is time to start adjusting the left and right channels separately. These adjustments should not affect the tonality, but improve on the imaging and soundstaging. Using the Autosound 2000 Test CD 102 or 103 “My Disk” listen to the individual frequency pink noise tracks. (Test CD103 has the tracks arranged in an easier configuration.) Each frequency band should sound like it is coming from the center of the soundstage. If one band is off to one side, then use each band’s left and right eq controls as a balance control. This is very similar to the head unit’s balance control, only now you are balancing each frequency band by itself. For example if 200 Hz seems to be shifted to the left of center, lower the left 200 Hz band and raise the right 200 Hz band one dB at a time until the band is centered. If a frequency is shifted to the right, lower the band’s right channel and raise the left channel in small amounts.

15. When you have when through all the bands take a break. Then later go back through each band one by one and make any further needed adjustments until all the frequencies are lined up in the center of the soundstage."

DavidRam · Oct 31, 2014

Here are my amps and lcq1.

I listened to a hard rock cd today and it didn't sound very good at all, next I listened to a Daft Punk cd and it was incredible... Is there a way to get a better balance between genres??

What should I adjust?? Does anything look high or low or wrong??

BradKnob · Nov 1, 2014

Download an RTA app on ur phone. Only way to know what needs to be fixed.

Play pink noise (app plays it for you) and run RTA app.

Show us results

DavidRam · Nov 1, 2014

They don't make that JL one for droid... Found another one.

BradKnob · Nov 1, 2014

Anyone should work enough to get started

autokraftgt · Nov 1, 2014

Take your time
Tune for about an hour tops...then take a break from it...listener fatigue happens very quick.
Like stated, tune with VERY familiar music
I like to tune at 65%-75% volume...
After you get a nice base line tune, enjoy it for a week or two...try to listen to your entire catalog of music...listen for parts of songs that just don't sound right...take notes, and adjust.
TAKE YOUR TIME!
I've spent 3 years tuning my 2-way front stage...off and on....I have yet to nail it
There will be a light bulb moment where you say to yourself..."this thing rocks!!!"
THEN, keep tweaking a little here, a little there.
Most importantly.......have fun doing it!!!

DavidRam · Nov 1, 2014

^^^ Cool advise thanks!

I got an RTA installed on my phone, I'll try and get some info today or tomorrow.

Dumb question, is pink noise similar to the radio between stations? I am just trying to figure out how to play some...

Etroze86 · Nov 1, 2014

Nice writeup David this is the pain of having an incredible stereo but you sir have a way better head start than I did.
Pink noise is full range noise that is designed to make speakers work across all frequencies without the dynamics that music has.

DavidRam · Nov 1, 2014

Thanks bro. I guess I need to figure out how to get pink noise on my truck. Pink isn't really my color, do they make it in other colors?

Etroze86 · Nov 1, 2014

Haha check out DIYMA I believe they have some downloads over there

DavidRam · Nov 1, 2014

Great I'll check that out. Tx

BradKnob · Nov 1, 2014

Can you play it on YouTube from your phone to your radio? And still have the app work? That's how I did mine

DavidRam · Nov 1, 2014

That's a good question, I'll have to try and see... If not maybe I can play it off my laptop or wife's phone.

On youtube there are lots of "pink noise" videos, they are 10 hours long and said to be for sleeping. Is that all the same stuff??? Or is there something specific for tuning audio?

O.R.T. · Nov 1, 2014

David, that's pretty much what I use whenever I tune at my buddy's shop, then drive it around for a week or so playing different songs and fine tuning at first through the HU and then minor tweaks via the AMP(s).

Throw on the following:

Shake Your ****-Beastie Boys

Radioactive-Imagine Dragons *WARNING* Watch it with the total low frequency!* I've easily blown speakers w this song because there's more than most people think is there.

TNT-AC/DC

Then add in 4-7 other completely random songs, in my case I use...

Skyfall-Adele

Rolling in the Deep-Adele

and 3-4 of whatever random Nine Inch Nails I have plus...

Bethoven's 5th in C-Minor.

What I do is put the first three songs on repeat at my buddy's shop, listen to them in there, then like I said, pay the three on repeat for a short drive, then use all the songs in order and tune to that. Throw in some Satellite Radio and Local Radio, as well as a couple AM and FM BallGame Broadcasts and then you should be in better tune.

**YMMV**

Side note: Anyone ever used dynamat to stop your kids baby/childseat from buzzing once you drop the kids off and turn things back up?

BradKnob · Nov 1, 2014

DavidRam said:
That's a good question, I'll have to try and see... If not maybe I can play it off my laptop or wife's phone.

On youtube there are lots of "pink noise" videos, they are 10 hours long and said to be for sleeping. Is that all the same stuff??? Or is there something specific for tuning audio?

Yea, you just need the one that goes sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhshshshshshshshshshshshshsshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshhshshshshshshshhshsh.

And like they said above, take breaks. The noise will fatigue your ears and u think you have a good tune then the next morning u get in the truck and are like wtf happened? It'll sound different than it did yesterday.

We'll take baby steps tho... Try and get a rta reading and then we'll know where to start

DavidRam · Nov 2, 2014

O.R.T. said:
David, that's pretty much what I use whenever I tune at my buddy's shop, then drive it around for a week or so playing different songs and fine tuning at first through the HU and then minor tweaks via the AMP(s).

Throw on the following:

Shake Your ****-Beastie Boys

Radioactive-Imagine Dragons *WARNING* Watch it with the total low frequency!* I've easily blown speakers w this song because there's more than most people think is there.

TNT-AC/DC

Then add in 4-7 other completely random songs, in my case I use...

Skyfall-Adele

Rolling in the Deep-Adele

and 3-4 of whatever random Nine Inch Nails I have plus...

Bethoven's 5th in C-Minor.

What I do is put the first three songs on repeat at my buddy's shop, listen to them in there, then like I said, pay the three on repeat for a short drive, then use all the songs in order and tune to that. Throw in some Satellite Radio and Local Radio, as well as a couple AM and FM BallGame Broadcasts and then you should be in better tune.

**YMMV**

Side note: Anyone ever used dynamat to stop your kids baby/childseat from buzzing once you drop the kids off and turn things back up?

Thanks bro! Great tips and great songs! Lmao at Dynamat on the child seat :roflsquared:

BradKnob said:
Yea, you just need the one that goes sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhshshshshshshshshshshshshsshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshhshshshshshshshhshsh.

And like they said above, take breaks. The noise will fatigue your ears and u think you have a good tune then the next morning u get in the truck and are like wtf happened? It'll sound different than it did yesterday.

We'll take baby steps tho... Try and get a rta reading and then we'll know where to start

Will do... and a special thanks for "We'll take baby steps tho..." :baby:

You have to know that my next step could be swapping out the LCQ1 for a Helix DSP, once I feel more confident with this stuff. And maybe I'll have a couple SIs waiting for that day as well...

(Btw, if you happen to hear from Nick or someone about the inventory getting low on those things please let me know. You don't think they will go on a clearance price do you?)

BradKnob · Nov 2, 2014

The process can be a bit intimidating, which is why I started with the ms-8. It tunes for you. Didn't take long for me to figure it out and realize I wanted more control....enter helix DSP. I think you will catch on pretty quick

I'll keep an eye out. On September 30th nick told me he had 200 SI MKIVs left sand sales were pretty steady. Hard to say but they may sell out.

Here's a good read explaining the sub. That's nick form SI....

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/2074618-post10.html

BradKnob · Nov 2, 2014

Ooh... Hurry

http://diymobileaudio.com/forum/2189647-post.html

Etroze86 · Nov 2, 2014

Couple for cheap in the classifieds on diyma

Audio Tuning for Dummies - Post your knowledge here, please!

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