By George, I think I've got it!
You know those moments of clarity ya get? Everything I’ve read came together….twice!
Last night I realized that I was RTA’ing incorrectly. Earlier in this thread you’ll note that I mentioned that REW could match to a target. The last 2 weeks were a crash course on tuning for me and let’s just say I may have forgotten a step or two along the way.
What I mean is that I was actually using pink noise to adjust and flatten my signals, live! I am sure the neighbors had a chuckle watching me wear shooting headphones while playing on a computer in the truck. I've seen others measure with pink noise, average the results and then adjust their EQ accordingly. Since I was new to this, I did this live so I could see how one frequency adjustment would change another frequency. While that did teach me something, it did not give me the best sound.
Last night I realized that I should be using the Measurement tool in REW which is a sine wave rather than live RTA or even capturing pink noise generator measurements like I’ve seen others do in videos. This is not a shot at those people, that method does work. Today from the driver’s seat I measured every speaker left, center and right and then averaged those signals and then used REW’s EQ match to target function. Entered in the PEQ values for the MiniDSP and my speakers said thank you!
On a side note, I did not point the mic straight ahead like I’ve seen others do in videos pointing it straight ahead from left, straight from center and straight from right. I used the back end like a pivot point, always leaving that in the same position and rotating the front portion from center to left and center to right, creating 3 measurements to create an average. You may think this is a no-brainer but I’m a newbie.
That method alone made it so when I turn my head, the sound does not change like it did previously.
Back to it, I then time aligned, EQ’d both left and right and was very pleased but that rear fill was still causing chaos! After a break and a drive to the local sporting goods store to pick up some hunting supplies for this Monday that second moment of clarity hit me. I remembered that I had previously read a post somewhere on DIYMA where someone commented to BigRed that they did not realize he was running rear fill. I also remembered some odd crossover points he wrote back in reply.
I got back to the house and searched for that thread to find that he was crossing over those rear speakers at 300 and 3500 and the second moment of clarity was confirmed. Rear fill should not be mimicking the frequencies from the front, they should be complimenting the front, much like a tweeter takes care of high, a sub lows, etc., they compliment each other.
I jumped back in the truck, adjusted the crossovers what seemed like a hundred times, both low and high to where those rear speakers complimented the whole system. For me, it was 200 and 5000. This also forced me to look at my other crossover settings which I then adjusted the front stage low from 80 to 90 LR 24db and the sub high from 80 to 90 LR 12db. I tried MANY other combinations but these settings sounded perfect.
So I am back to music bliss! Rear fill is doing it’s job of giving me the SPL I want and not corrupting the front stage any more. I think I’m done! I hope………
