[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by kenkamm

Well, I for one, would like to see that write-up. ��

What are you guys using for a pink noise source and/or sine wave source if needed?

ATF has pink noise files, I linked it up thread. For the sine wave it needs to be generated in REW. I can explain how to do it when I do the write up, but since it will need tons of screenshots it’ll take me a minute.

The sine waves, measurement tool in REW, and the REW built in alignment tool will be how to time align and phase align everything. It is very fast and easy when one knows how to use the software. Less guess work involved than in the Raw Cat video too.

[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by IanH

Similarly I will spend thousands improving the sounds system so that I can listen to fm radio and low bitrate podcasts....

But, I am a perfectionist and must fix something that I am able to fix.

How big of a perfectionist? What if I told you the stock system has 9 channels: FL, FR, C, RL, RR, SL, SR, SWL, SWR. The Match UP10DSP has 8 channel inputs and 10 output. Audiotec Fischer’s guide is to add the Aux IN module to the Match UP10DSP and their harness to increase the Match UP10DSP to 9 channels in. Their harness is made to work with this extra Aux module.

BimmerTech’s Alpha One, in a cost cutting measure, skipped the AUX IN, so their harness downgrades the stock 9 channels to 8 to work with the Match UP10DSP in its standard configuration.

They cut out the center channel. To address the missing center channel input from the factory HK system, they send 50% FL and 50% FR to the center output to try and recreate a center.

Does this work as good as the factory center? I don’t know I’d have to test side by side. One also wonders if the amplified system sound effects people are mentioning is related to this. Suppose that the left blinker is usually only fed through the front left channel, by creating a new center with 50% FL signal, you effectively send a duplicate copy of that left blinker signal to the center.

Could one restore the center channel with the Alpha One? Yes, you would need to buy and install the Aux IN Module and get a new harness with the right ATF product number, about 300$. Is it worth it, I don’t know. Once I get my car I can fully test where the system sounds are being played.

[kenkamm]

Originally Posted by AdonisP91

Does this work as good as the factory center? I don’t know I’d have to test side by side. One also wonders if the amplified system sound effects people are mentioning is related to this. Suppose that the left blinker is usually only fed through the front left channel, by creating a new center with 50% FL signal, you effectively send a duplicate copy of that left blinker signal to the center.

Audiotec-Fischer claim they have a fancy center channel generator.

https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/m...fiers/up-10dsp

[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by kenkamm

Audiotec-Fischer claim they have a fancy center channel generator.

https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/m...fiers/up-10dsp

Yes the Real Center FX is potentially very nice, but when I emailed ATF asking them about the Alpha One the person who responded said they had no affiliation with BimmerTech and don't know anything about the AlphaOne; they said the AUX IN module is necessary and their harness should be used.

One can still enable the Real Center FX option, in fact it is enabled by default in the Sound Profiles provided by ATF themselves. I sincerely doubt BimmerTech knows better than ATF themselves. Now, if you have an AlphaOne, all is not lost, it might still work well enough.

[///MoT]

Hi guys,

Finally got some time today to start creating a tune file from the ground up. I utilized the UMIK-1 to set my time alignment, using ATF's Automatic Time Measurement feature in the DSP PC-Tool. I also used the UMIK-1 with ATF's RTA. I was able to set channel gain levels, and use the TuneEQ feature to set the channel EQs.

I started suffering from ear fatigue because I was working on it for a good 2-3 hours, but I think my new tune sounds a lot clearer and "open". Going to give it another listen tomorrow with fresh ears to confirm. Now that I know how the whole procedure works, I also want to do another "from the ground up" tune file, to make sure I didn't miss anything the first time, and to compare it with my first results.

I also tried to measure and correct the input EQ. I was able to measure it just fine, and the curve looked very similar to the screen shots shared by Adonis earlier in this thread. But when I tried to correct it, I had a lot of problems and was not able to figure out why. Going to revisit this at some point to see if I can figure it out.

Once I feel like I have a solid tune file, I'll share it with anyone who wants to give it a try.

Learning how this all works and running through the process has been fun!


-Tom

[kenkamm]

Originally Posted by ///MoT

Hi guys,

Finally got some time today to start creating a tune file from the ground up. I utilized the UMIK-1 to set my time alignment, using ATF's Automatic Time Measurement feature in the DSP PC-Tool. I also used the UMIK-1 with ATF's RTA. I was able to set channel gain levels, and use the TuneEQ feature to set the channel EQs.

I started suffering from ear fatigue because I was working on it for a good 2-3 hours, but I think my new tune sounds a lot clearer and "open". Going to give it another listen tomorrow with fresh ears to confirm. Now that I know how the whole procedure works, I also want to do another "from the ground up" tune file, to make sure I didn't miss anything the first time, and to compare it with my first results.

I also tried to measure and correct the input EQ. I was able to measure it just fine, and the curve looked very similar to the screen shots shared by Adonis earlier in this thread. But when I tried to correct it, I had a lot of problems and was not able to figure out why. Going to revisit this at some point to see if I can figure it out.

Once I feel like I have a solid tune file, I'll share it with anyone who wants to give it a try.

Learning how this all works and running through the process has been fun!


-Tom

All I have to say Tom is, awesome progress!

But are all your EQs going to need to be re-done once you figure out the input EQ issues and get that set up? Certainly the input affects the output, right?

Maybe the input EQ settings don't matter that much - if the output EQ is where it needs to be... but I guess in an ideal world, the DSP would be starting with a "clean slate" (input EQs optimized as much as possible.)

[BroDoze]

Great work Tom ^^

Thanks for the update.

How many of you have a powered sub in your car? That brings a whole ‘nother level of work here. Lots of cones to deal with. It sucks we technically don’t have a mid-bass driver anywhere in the car.
We have: tweeter, midrange and woofer
With a dedicated subwoofer in the trunk, I’m wondering if I can have the under seat woofers repurposed (via Helix crossovers) to act as midbass drivers. I know the higher the frequency, the more directional the sound gets, so I wouldn’t want them playing too high, but I may be able to get some 80-220Hz action out of them.

[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by BroDoze

Great work Tom ^^

Thanks for the update.

How many of you have a powered sub in your car? That brings a whole ‘nother level of work here. Lots of cones to deal with. It sucks we technically don’t have a mid-bass driver anywhere in the car.
We have: tweeter, midrange and woofer
With a dedicated subwoofer in the trunk, I’m wondering if I can have the under seat woofers repurposed (via Helix crossovers) to act as midbass drivers. I know the higher the frequency, the more directional the sound gets, so I wouldn’t want them playing too high, but I may be able to get some 80-220Hz action out of them.

Can it be done? Yes, I would want to go this route too, but it would be extremely hard. Setting up a subwoofer in the trunk to extend the low bass <40hz where the underseat subs starts start to roll off is fairly easy. However, repurposing the front subs to act as mid bass drivers is where the problem will reside.

As I mentioned up thread with the input analysis screenshots and which Tom confirmed now, the problem is the input signal for the subwoofer channels has a built in crossover at something like 80hz. That means we can’t get a clean full input signal from 80-220 hz to those underseat subs to turn them into mid bass’s and cross them over later like at 220hz.

The only way around this would be to try to combine the sub channel input signal with the front channel inputs to create an entirely new full range signal. Perfectly matching those 2 signals will be challenging. But it is theoretically possible in the Input Analyzer in the ATF DSP PC Tool.

Is there a better solution? Maybe, but I haven’t found reliable information on it yet. Resonix sells what he calls a EZ B-RAM module which claims to intercept the input signal before it gets processed by the stock HK amps. If the claims are true then we get “a full range digital signal that features none of the OEM processing”. I’ve only found 3 people selling this device and I haven’t managed to find out more about it and how it works. It is also expensive. Here is Resonix’s link:

https://resonixsoundsolutions.com/pr...dio-interface/

RDVFL sell the same device and call it the AR1-BMW-E Digital Pre-Amp.
https://rdvfl.com/products/ar1-bmw-e

Resonix wants 999$ USD. RDVFL wants 1200$. I don’t know if this includes the wiring harness. But here is the interesting bit:

We can buy the exact same device directly from the manufacturer. It costs 320$ USD but requires a minimum order of 3, so 960$.

https://www.globalsources.com/AV-dec...206670136p.htm

If I could find more information about how this thing works I might be tempted to go in with others. I am still not sure how it intercepts the signal if it all. Under the hood it might be just a fancy line out converter that converts the high output signals, does the high level input integration I mentioned above, and then outputs 2 channels of digital input.

The problem I am having right now is if it only outputs 2 channels, what happens to the system sounds? If the system sounds from factory only play on specific channels, say the front left and center, for example, so only the vehicle driver really hears them, then the issue is with this digital 2 channel output we have to send it to all the speakers in the car so now our system sounds might be playing on the subwoofer, rear speakers, surround speakers, and so on.

My email to RDVFL went unanswered. When I previous contacted Resonix, his first question to me was: did you buy an DSP or Amp from me? He seems to only give detailed answers to his previous customers or if you pay him for a 250$ consult fee (that can then count towards purchases made on his site). I am not ready to commit to such a device without more detailed knowledge and certainly not before first testing and localizing where the system sounds are being played.

[BroDoze]

Originally Posted by AdonisP91

Can it be done? Yes, I would want to go this route too, but it would be extremely hard. Setting up a subwoofer in the trunk to extend the low bass <40hz where the underseat subs starts start to roll off is fairly easy. However, repurposing the front subs to act as mid bass drivers is where the problem will reside.

As I mentioned up thread with the input analysis screenshots and which Tom confirmed now, the problem is the input signal for the subwoofer channels has a built in crossover at something like 80hz. That means we can’t get a clean full input signal from 80-220 hz to those underseat subs to turn them into mid bass’s and cross them over later like at 220hz.

The only way around this would be to try to combine the sub channel input signal with the front channel inputs to create an entirely new full range signal. Perfectly matching those 2 signals will be challenging. But it is theoretically possible in the Input Analyzer in the ATF DSP PC Tool.

Is there a better solution? Maybe, but I haven’t found reliable information on it yet. Resonix sells what he calls a EZ B-RAM module which claims to intercept the input signal before it gets processed by the stock HK amps. If the claims are true then we get “a full range digital signal that features none of the OEM processing”. I’ve only found 3 people selling this device and I haven’t managed to find out more about it and how it works. It is also expensive. Here is Resonix’s link:

https://resonixsoundsolutions.com/pr...dio-interface/

RDVFL sell the same device and call it the AR1-BMW-E Digital Pre-Amp.
https://rdvfl.com/products/ar1-bmw-e

Resonix wants 999$ USD. RDVFL wants 1200$. I don’t know if this includes the wiring harness. But here is the interesting bit:

We can buy the exact same device directly from the manufacturer. It costs 320$ USD but requires a minimum order of 3, so 960$.

https://www.globalsources.com/AV-dec...206670136p.htm

If I could find more information about how this thing works I might be tempted to go in with others. I am still not sure how it intercepts the signal if it all. Under the hood it might be just a fancy line out converter that converts the high output signals, does the high level input integration I mentioned above, and then outputs 2 channels of digital input.

The problem I am having right now is if it only outputs 2 channels, what happens to the system sounds? If the system sounds from factory only play on specific channels, say the front left and center, for example, so only the vehicle driver really hears them, then the issue is with this digital 2 channel output we have to send it to all the speakers in the car so now our system sounds might be playing on the subwoofer, rear speakers, surround speakers, and so on.

My email to RDVFL went unanswered. When I previous contacted Resonix, his first question to me was: did you buy an DSP or Amp from me? He seems to only give detailed answers to his previous customers or if you pay him for a 250$ consult fee (that can then count towards purchases made on his site). I am not ready to commit to such a device without more detailed knowledge and certainly not before first testing and localizing where the system sounds are being played.

Very interesting. Great post - thanks!

I’ve spent many thousands with Nick at ResoNix. It’s helps to catch him in a good mood.
I’d definitely be down for a multi-channel intercept device for $350 or whatever. I always think of when I’m backing out of my garage or something and my right and left rears independently proximity-bong when I’m inches from something (same with the fronts) - I don’t want to lose that.
But “claims to intercept the input signal before it gets processed by the stock HK amps. If the claims are true then we get “a full range digital signal that features none of the OEM processing” sure sounds amazing, doesn’t it? The holy grail.
I figured the underset “subs” were x’d over somewhere up the chain, as I think I actually tried running them full range and heard zero change. They’re quite worthless, actually - especially with a powered trunk sub. Sure wish we had a 6.5” driver in the door or kick - holy crap balls that’d be a game changer for the front stage. Even with my aftermarket BT midranges there’s a HUGE midbass gap there. Midbass is the hardest frequency range to reproduce and BMW didn’t even pretend to give us a a starting place there.

On another topic, I physically disconnect my rear side speakers as I’m a firm believer in, the fewer cones (ESPECIALLY in the rear) the cleaner the sound. I don’t want “surround sound” in my vehicles - never have. I want an insanely tight, clean, powerful front stage with perfect imaging and all frequencies represented with ease. Rear sides do nothing to help that, and I’d honestly physically disconnect my rear deck speakers, except I’d lose my proximity-bongs. So I fade 100% to the front. By fading 100% to the front I’m still unsure if that negatively impacts my line-out for my trunk sub.

[kenkamm]

Originally Posted by BroDoze

Sure wish we had a 6.5” driver in the door or kick - holy crap balls that’d be a game changer for the front stage.

What do we have?

Back in my IASCA sound quality competition days, we really only needed 5 speakers - a pair of tweeters, a pair of 5" or 6" mids, and a subwoofer. Now I admit we preferred 6" mids but often we couldn't fit them in the kick panels so we used 5" drivers and I can't say we had any real issue with holes in the frequency response or anything. I think we ran the mid/sub crossovers between 80 and 100 Hz depending on what seemed to work best according to the RTA.

[BroDoze]

^^ It’s basically a 4.0” mid-range. Tiny little thing.

Even a true 5” driver would’ve been a massive difference.

[BMW DIY Guy]

[Picture Keanu Reeves]

Woah..


Love the audio geekfest, but man I am lost. Lol

Well done yall, I cannot wait to see (and hear) the net results.

[IanH]

Originally Posted by BroDoze

Very interesting. Great post - thanks!

I’ve spent many thousands with Nick at ResoNix. It’s helps to catch him in a good mood.
I’d definitely be down for a multi-channel intercept device for $350 or whatever. I always think of when I’m backing out of my garage or something and my right and left rears independently proximity-bong when I’m inches from something (same with the fronts) - I don’t want to lose that.
But “claims to intercept the input signal before it gets processed by the stock HK amps. If the claims are true then we get “a full range digital signal that features none of the OEM processing” sure sounds amazing, doesn’t it? The holy grail.
I figured the underset “subs” were x’d over somewhere up the chain, as I think I actually tried running them full range and heard zero change. They’re quite worthless, actually - especially with a powered trunk sub. Sure wish we had a 6.5” driver in the door or kick - holy crap balls that’d be a game changer for the front stage. Even with my aftermarket BT midranges there’s a HUGE midbass gap there. Midbass is the hardest frequency range to reproduce and BMW didn’t even pretend to give us a a starting place there.

On another topic, I physically disconnect my rear side speakers as I’m a firm believer in, the fewer cones (ESPECIALLY in the rear) the cleaner the sound. I don’t want “surround sound” in my vehicles - never have. I want an insanely tight, clean, powerful front stage with perfect imaging and all frequencies represented with ease. Rear sides do nothing to help that, and I’d honestly physically disconnect my rear deck speakers, except I’d lose my proximity-bongs. So I fade 100% to the front. By fading 100% to the front I’m still unsure if that negatively impacts my line-out for my trunk sub.

Do you have any tips for the sound deadening process?

I always start with the environment. I would've gone with resonix but decided to go with a newer entry in the 120mil silless.

Here's what I have so far. 120mil dead mat for the sheet metal. Foam to treat over and potentially use as vapor barrier. Speaker rings to isolate the drivers and stop panel buzz. I also have quite a bit of thinsulate 3in batting to fill voids.

Gonna start with the doors and trunk, eventually I'll have to tear out the rear sides because that speaker is buzzing on the driver side. I could ask bmw to fix it but frankly I hate trying to convince dealers to do warranty work on all the small noises I hear.

Longer term will add sub first then look at amp and speakers when you all have paved the way for me

[kenkamm]

Originally Posted by BroDoze

^^ It’s basically a 4.0” mid-range. Tiny little thing.

Even a true 5” driver would’ve been a massive difference.

That is unfortunate.

However they did put some pretty decent "mid bass drivers" under the seats, and it looks like (from previous post by AdonisP91 in this thread) the midrange/subwoofer crossover point is about 125 Hz which isn't too bad. It's not like they made it 400 Hz or something. So for those of us that are truly interested in achieving a true front stage and are going to fade out or eliminate the rear speakers either partially or entirely, I think the stock setup can be made to work with the stock speakers and speaker locations. The stock tweeter location is pretty unfortunate, because the driver's side one is SO close to the driver, but that's why we have time alignment these days.

The icing on the cake for me would be perhaps a JL sub in one of these.

[BroDoze]

Originally Posted by IanH

Do you have any tips for the sound deadening process?

I always start with the environment. I would've gone with resonix but decided to go with a newer entry in the 120mil silless.

Here's what I have so far. 120mil dead mat for the sheet metal. Foam to treat over and potentially use as vapor barrier. Speaker rings to isolate the drivers and stop panel buzz. I also have quite a bit of thinsulate 3in batting to fill voids.

Gonna start with the doors and trunk, eventually I'll have to tear out the rear sides because that speaker is buzzing on the driver side. I could ask bmw to fix it but frankly I hate trying to convince dealers to do warranty work on all the small noises I hear.

Longer term will add sub first then look at amp and speakers when you all have paved the way for me

Let me know when you go to remove the rear side panels - there’s an easy trick, but if you don’t know the trick, you will tear your hair out, and/or break something. I pretty much covered everywhere humanly possible short of removing dash, center console and headliner. I really got a ton of coverage, including F+R wheel wells, wheel well liners, parts of the firewall and all parts in-between.
Really want to drop the headliner but that’s a TON of work. Everything would have to come apart again, with fish of breaking a lot of stuff. Both seats would really need to come out at the same time etc. Also, the fabric on a lot of the piller pieces show hand/finger marks, even when using vinyl gloves.
I gave it the usual ResoNix treatment as I always do to me vehicles.

[BroDoze]

AdonisP91 , reading Nick’s description:
“The ResoNix EZ Interfaces retain all OEM features, including backup sensors, door chimes, navigation prompts, Bluetooth calls, and more, unless specific otherwise.”

It would seem this would cover all channels - I say that because Nick generally doesn’t mess around if something is half-ass. Obviously we’d need confirmation.
However, I would assume if you commit to this device, you’re looking at ditching the AlphaOne amp/DSP we all bought and going with a true aftermarket Toslink-in DSP + multi-channel amp(s). The AlphaOne doesn’t have Toslink input, right?
This would mean a full gut/rip/replace. Am I right?

That’s a big deal if you have to step in to a full line of aftermarket DSP, amps and amp boards, cabling out the ass etc. - not what I really wanted to get into with this car. Obviously if a customer wants a full sound system for $30k+ this would be the obvious choice, but that’s not my goal for my car.
Was hoping to get an 80% “good enough” with what I’ve bought so far. I still may be able to get there with the tuning.

[snekjumpr]

[QUOTE=AdonisP91;31795654] ...the problem is the input signal for the subwoofer channels has a built in crossover at something like 80hz. That means we can’t get a clean full input signal from 80-220 hz to those underseat subs to turn them into mid bass’s and cross them over later like at 220hz.

The only way around this would be to try to combine the sub channel input signal with the front channel inputs to create an entirely new full range signal. Perfectly matching those 2 signals will be challenging. But it is theoretically possible in the Input Analyzer in the ATF DSP PC Tool./QUOTE]

I haven't tried this yet, since won't be installing the Helix Ci5s (25-500hz frequency response) until later this week, but the Alpha One DSP tool seems to make it easy enough to set the routing (IO tab) for the under seat woofers to 50% subwoofer, 50% Front L Full. Wouldn't that automatically take care of matching the signals? Hoping to set a HPF at 20hz and LPF somewhere between 250 and 500hz.

[BroDoze]

Originally Posted by snekjumpr

I haven't tried this yet, since won't be installing the Helix Ci5s (25-500hz frequency response) until later this week, but the Alpha One DSP tool seems to make it easy enough to set the routing (IO tab) for the under seat woofers to 50% subwoofer, 50% Front L Full. Wouldn't that automatically take care of matching the signals? Hoping to set a HPF at 20hz and LPF somewhere between 250 and 500hz.

Definitely keep us informed on what you find. How do those Ci5s compare to the AlphaOne replacements?

[snekjumpr]

Originally Posted by BroDoze

Definitely keep us informed on what you find. How do those Ci5s compare to the AlphaOne replacements?

Will do. Hard to say as I don't see the specs for the Alpha One woofers anywhere, but the Ci5s are advertised as mid woofer/subwoofer hybrids and have 7.5mm of excursion.

[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by snekjumpr

I haven't tried this yet, since won't be installing the Helix Ci5s (25-500hz frequency response) until later this week, but the Alpha One DSP tool seems to make it easy enough to set the routing (IO tab) for the under seat woofers to 50% subwoofer, 50% Front L Full. Wouldn't that automatically take care of matching the signals? Hoping to set a HPF at 20hz and LPF somewhere between 250 and 500hz.

Yeah it might work. My car is still in production so I can’t test that yet in the demo mode of the DSP PC tool. The only way to know for sure is to run the Input Analyzer on the 50/50 signal and see what comes out, how flat is it across the entire frequency range? It might require playing around with it quite a bit to find the perfect ratio and then make some final adjustments with the Input EQ filters. We also have to hope there are no delays in the input signal from each channel so that they perfectly match.

If you can get it working let us all know!!

[AdonisP91]

Originally Posted by BroDoze

AdonisP91 , reading Nick’s description:
“The ResoNix EZ Interfaces retain all OEM features, including backup sensors, door chimes, navigation prompts, Bluetooth calls, and more, unless specific otherwise.”

It would seem this would cover all channels - I say that because Nick generally doesn’t mess around if something is half-ass. Obviously we’d need confirmation.
However, I would assume if you commit to this device, you’re looking at ditching the AlphaOne amp/DSP we all bought and going with a true aftermarket Toslink-in DSP + multi-channel amp(s). The AlphaOne doesn’t have Toslink input, right?
This would mean a full gut/rip/replace. Am I right?

That’s a big deal if you have to step in to a full line of aftermarket DSP, amps and amp boards, cabling out the ass etc. - not what I really wanted to get into with this car. Obviously if a customer wants a full sound system for $30k+ this would be the obvious choice, but that’s not my goal for my car.
Was hoping to get an 80% “good enough” with what I’ve bought so far. I still may be able to get there with the tuning.

As I haven’t bought anything yet I am considering a lot of options. I have been thinking of going with the Helix line of ATF DSP’s since it is their top of the line range, but 1) they are larger in size than the Match UP10 (the AlphaOne in our HK cars is just a rebrand of this). I’m not sure the Helix DSP’s will fit nicely in the same spot as the Match UP that is nicely tucked away under the left cargo liner. 2) When you look at the spec sheet of the Match UP10, it is very good. I’m not convinced one would gain much getting a Helix, assuming one does the same tune on it.

3) The Match UP10 DSP does have optical in (Toslink) and the EZ-B Ram interface ResoNix sells has optical and coaxial outputs, so it will integrate just as well with the Helix or Match UP DSPs.

Note, the optical in is stereo only, which is fine. I don’t think there are any Car Audio DSP’s that accept more than 2 channel inputs over optical. So we can’t play Pink Floyd in 7.1 channels as an example. But there isn’t much mastered music in 7.1. Although with Dolby Atmos that is starting to change.

Finally, perhaps as Snekjumpr mentioned we can fix the input problem through the software and not need the extra interface that Resonix sells. With all our brain power combined this should be doable. We can consider the extra EZ-B Ram interface as a fallback option.

[AdonisP91]

Alright, if I didn't misread the posts above, people did seem interested to see how to time and phase align. I'm going to make a series of posts now with the method I use. Hopefully I explain things well. This is a work in progress. Please feel free to criticize and tell me how to improve.

The Tuning Process:

Step #1:

We begin by EQ’ing the Input signal to make sure we have a nice even flat signal across all the frequency bands. I will not cover this for now, but I might come back to it since one might want to undo the Loudness Compensation that is applied by the factory system. For now I posted a link upthread how to EQ the Input. Remember: garbage in = garbage out. So it is important to fix the input signals first. If this seems too complicated for a first tune, it is fine to leave it as is and work with what we got. I just note this step for the perfectionists out there.

Step #2:

The second step in the process is to time and phase align the speakers, this will be my focus in the very next post. I will explain how to do this with precision and convenience. It is a tedious task but there is nothing complicated with the right tools. If you just want a quick and less precise approach, one can use the built in Automatic Time Measurement tool in the ATF DSP PC Tool. If there isn’t a link upthread, ResoNix on youtube has a video showing how to do it. I can look for it and edit it in later.

But for those that want a more fine tuned approach, since the built in tool can be hit or miss though it generally does a decent job, the guide in my next post will be for you.

Step #3:

EQ’ing the speaker responses and setting the crossovers. I can cover this in a later post, but for now use the links upthread or have a look at ResoNix or RAW Cat on youtube for videos.

Step #4:

Double checking the time alignments in case the EQ filters applied in the previous stages changed the balance. Fine tuning by ear and touch ups to EQ.




Outline of what will be covered in the next posts: Time/Phase Alignment:

In a perfect anechoic chamber in a laboratory having the speakers perfectly time aligned will typically result in their being perfectly phased aligned as well. But a car is not an anechoic chamber, it is a very imperfect chamber. What that means for us is getting a perfect time alignment might not result in a perfect phase alignment and if we focus on a perfect phase alignment, the timing might be skewed. We need to find the best balance we can.

To achieve this we will begin by time aligning all the speakers. We will then phase match pairs. The front left with the front right. The rear left with the rear right, the rear surrounds, and the 2 subwoofers. Though our tweeters are physically separate from our midrange speakers, we can’t treat them separately like we would in an ideal system because our crossovers between the midrange and tweeters are passive and we have no control over them. There is a single channel shared by both. If we had a 16 channel system we could individual control this all, but our system is 9 channels. FL, FR, C, RL, RR, SL, SR, SWL, SWR. We’re stuck with what we have unless we rewire all the speakers and get a DSP with 16 output channels. The Match UP10 DSP only has 10 output channels.

After we have phase aligned pairs, we will then align the front pair with the center, forming a new group A. The A group then subsequently gets phased matched with the rear pair, forming a new group B. This B group then gets phase matched with the surrounds, forming a C group. The final step is to phase align the C group with the subwoofer pair.

Before we can get down to it though we have to make some decisions. Do we want the perfect alignment for the driver, the passenger, or a neutral setup so that everyone in the car hears a similar sound? If we optimize for the driver, the passenger will not have ideal sound. Similarly if we optimize for everyone, no one will have the perfect sound but everyone will hear roughly the same thing. The only way around this problem is if one were to buy the Audiotec Fischer Conductor,

https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/b...ries/conductor

then one could make multiple presets and quickly change between them depending on who is in the car. You could have a preset for the passenger to show off the system or when on long drives the passenger can get the full experience while the driver focuses on not crashing. Without the conductor, you will need to decide your main listening position. The same process applies regardless. From here I’m just going to assume we tune for the driver.