Raising the sound stage...

[SAV912]

I've been reading through the SQ/Derek thread for a few days now and they do some excellent work. I have a few problems with duplicating that though:

1. I have a liftback, not a sedan,
2. Their shit looks like it sounds amazing, and it probably costs an amazing price to boot,
3. I don't want to sacrifice floor space where the kick speakers are, and I drive around too many careless passengers to have them putting a foot through a speaker,
4. and I don't have time or materials to build stuff from scratch in a workshop. I have the limited space in a one car garage.

I have Kenwood components in the front doors, a Scion T1814 headunit, and a Scion/Pioneer bazooka tube in the hatch area on the right side. Rear speakers are still stock for now. The tube barely fits lengthwise, and I'm thinking of turning it to sit along the back of the seat. The tube just vents pretty much directly into the hatch door. I've done some sound deadening in the spare tire well and outside in the rear wheel wells and noticed the road noise difference right away.

I initially wanted to place the tweeters for the components up top near the window controls on the doors but it didn't look like it was that easy a job. So instead, I punched out a hole in the door card where the window cranks are on base model Yarii, and made a home for the speakers there. My crossovers were initally set at -4dB but I since leveled them with the 6.5s in the door and aimed them up. What I really need some pointers on is raising the sound stage. It sounds like all my music is playing on the floor of the car near my pedals, even with the tweeters aimed up towards the driver and passenger and the crossovers levelling them with the speakers. There is also a noticable gap between the lows of the woofer and the music level of the speakers. I know I really need to ditch those back speakers, but having better sound quality will not help raise the level of the music.

I don't have endless funds nor do I have skills to build stuff, but I really do like the idea of maybe some A pillar midrange speakers. The problem is that I have no idea where to begin looking, or if I can even do them for my car since I have an '09 and it has curtain airbags. I'm really losing a lot of sound in the middle. I'm happy with my headunit and I don't want to upgrade to anything single DIN or aftermarket if I don't have to. I have a small 250W amp that I was thinking of placing under the passenger seat and using it to add a little boost to the speakers, after I replace the rears with something that could handle a little juice. I don't want to spend $300 sound deadening the whole car with Dynomat. It is afterall a Yaris, and the main point of it is to get me to work.

Sorry for ranting, I may have had a little to drink and just got to typing and went nuts. Again, some pointers would be great, most specifically with getting the sound off the floor and up higher to create a little better of a stage. Below are a few pics of what I have so far.













Thanks and beer.

-C

[sqcomp]

Damn! If I would have caught you before you punched the holes for the tweeters...

The tweeters need to be FAR away from you. Two locations that come to mind right now are the kicks and the A-pillars. There are benefits and drawbacks to both.

This is where I'm going to try to be helpful and have you look up some research. Look up the two terms Head Related Transfer Function and Path-length Difference.

Keeping this short...since I have to go to guard drill in a few minutes...if you ever have a chance, take a trip just north of Atlanta to Cumming, GA. Go visit a sound shop by the name of American Radio. Ask to talk to a guy names John Marsh. This man is a world champion for sound quality.

Gotta go...

We'll talk some more.

[Lil Abner]

Another thing that is probably killing your sound stage is your rear speakers. Turn them off! The rear speakers will "pull" your sound stage backwards, and make it less localized. When guy compete, it's RARE that they play their rear speakers. Yes, there are a few will "rear fill", but I don't want to get into all the details of that. Let's just say those rear speakers a highly tweaked!

As sqcomp said, you'd like your tweeters to be as far away from you as possible. You could try placing them in the A-pillars with double-sided tape. First try aiming them directly at each other. Then try aiming them more forward to follow the contour of the windshield, also with a slight UP angle. So pointing about 4-5-feet above the opposite headlight. Basically, you could play with the angles.

However, since you don't have time alignment, don't point them directly at you! I've done more than half a dozen competition cars, and even the "street" cars with no time alignment, the speakers were never pointed at the listener. My personal car (sold), I competed in IASCA Ultimate/Ultra with time alignment, and I barely even touched those controls.

Start with the tweeters and killing the rear speakers. If you get the results you want, awesome! Otherwise, you might have to look into alternatives, like a 3-way set with a SMALL mid-range in each kick. Trust me, our kicks are big enough to hide a 3-4" midrange!

[SAV912]

Hm. I didn't know that about the tweeters being far away from where I sit. The directions that came w the speakers said to keep them localized to the speakers IE no further than 12 inches away. Now that I think about the last time I visited my parents, my mother's van (Kia Sedona) has tweeters on the dashboard all the way up at the base of the windshield. Strange. I'm kinda bummed out about my tweeters now. If I move them, I'd need to replace the entire door panel to get rid of the ugly hole.

The Kenwoods came with a complimentary sample of Dynomat which only did the immediate area around each speaker in the front door. I've read that the sound dynamics of the Yaris doors are not great, esp LB 2 doors. It still sounds hollow and tinny when I close it.

If I can manage to find some spare A pillar covers, is it as hard as it looks like it is to mold in some 4" speaker holes? I'd have a place to put tweeters again as well, but like I said in my first post. I'm concerned about the airbags behind them. I don't want to turn it up too loud and have a bag blow up in my face.

I'm gonna do a little reading before work on the stuff you suggested SQ. Oh, and ATL isn't THAT far away...right? lol

-C

[bzinn 1]

Hope I can help on this,I put my tweets on a wire and put them in the door handle.....and when I am driving I can place them in differant spots to try the stage changes,crude way to do it,but it has worked....lol

So far I tried 3 sets of tweets,a set from Elemental Designs that I knew were very harsh in my last car,they were in this one too.

So then I tried my DLS tweets and they of course sound very nice....best spot I found for them was down by the dash beleive it or not,and directly aimed to the person pretty much,kinda comeing up at the person.The other place I found was very top of Apillar aimed across towards the middle of car face high cross point at about the back of the seat depth.

I also got pretty much same results from the JL tweets that came with my comps and since they are smaller than the DLS tweets I am gonna use them at the top of the pillars aimed to the center of car.

I was able to really hear differant levels of the sound and how it reacted to the interior.

Now to build my pods for them and install,should take me a week at worst....only got 3 weeks till toyota fest where I live so I gotta get them done now...lol

Good luck man,I seen on of the other guys,thought it was SQs system in early stages at a local cruise and he has a vast understanding of how it all works together.....they been great help to me with their threads as well.

[SAV912]

Yeah, I have mad respect for their work and their systems. I just couldn't sound deaden my car that much to the point of near silence inside, though I agree the Yaris needs some deadening in the doors and on HBs, the spare tire well and the hatch itself are major echo and rattle points. I am a motorhead first and an audiophile a very very distant second. If there is nothing good on the radio or coming up on shuffle from the iPod, all the music I need is under my right foot.

I will try your tip on the wire and tweeter position. That seems easiest to find out where the tweeters will work best for the sound stage without gluing and sticking and regluing. I like the top of the A pillar idea. I was thinking of that myself, actually. Maybe if I can find a shop that can make up some custom A pillars, some tweets in the top and a midrange at the bottom near the windshield. And then maybe more of a woofer type speaker in the door to complement the tweeters already there. Then just moving the Kenwoods to the back sail panels for filler.

Since the woofer I have is a powered tube, would it be best to run the small spare amp I have thru the speakers? The problem really is that even with the tube turned all the way down, it hits fairly hard. Turning the bass down on the headunit really amplifies the gap between mids and lows where there is a lot of music lost, and keeping the bass up on the headunit muddles the lows with some distortion. The T1814 has jacks in the back to add an amplifier and since the woofer is powered, they are unused right now.

-C

[bzinn 1]

honestly I dont think I could listen to speakers that were not on an amp anymore.I like the presence of the sound filling the cabin,but not distorted and loud sounding,did that make sense....lol.

I have a set of 3" smaller mids I was gonna try on the apillers at the bottoms but the year is gettign away from me and tweets are still on a wire...

yeah lots of trial and error,and the worst part is then you throw in a persons taste for differant sounds,music,volumes,and tolerances for problems and it is hard to say what works best,but works well is always a good thing.....then tune tune tune...

I am hoping my tweets sound ok in that location when mounted in the pods as they did when I had them on the wire,I then stickytaped them to the pillars to double check,now to finish mount by the end of the month for toyota fest

good luck with your install and tell us how it is going

[sqcomp]

Originally Posted by bzinn 1

yeah lots of trial and error,and the worst part is then you throw in a persons taste for differant sounds,music,volumes,and tolerances for problems and it is hard to say what works best,but works well is always a good thing.....then tune tune tune...

^preach it man! I'm on the home stretch on my install. I'll have six months of tuning before this system is comfortable. I have an IASCA and USACi event on August 21st. Do the math there.

[Lil Abner]

Originally Posted by sqcomp

^preach it man! I'm on the home stretch on my install. I'll have six months of tuning before this system is comfortable. I have an IASCA and USACi event on August 21st. Do the math there.

lol, you're a bit behind When I tuned, I actually tuned the car with the x-overs and gains with my RTA, then flat-lined it. Then yes, it literally was months of final tuning. Then you get to the show and find out who the judges are, then re-tune for their preference. I once had a list of judges and their musical preferences!

[sqcomp]

Oh man...there is NO way I'm tuning to anyone's preference aside from my own. I speak as an IASCA judge myself. I do know all the judges who will be at the show, me most likely being a rookie SQc judge.

The nice thing is that IASCA has attempted to level the playing field. With the 90 dB reference level and the tonality reference with the German Maestro cans.

It's nice though, the owner of Soundsgood, Keith McCumber, has offered an entire day of tuning in his shop the day before the show. I'll have a couple (maybe three) weeks before with the Bit One...

Personally for my tune, I'll set a baseline. Play with phasing, polarity, the TA until the center is perfect with no wander left or right. Then it'll be amplitude. I'll mess with that a couple dozen times. Then I'll re adjust the crossovers for tonality and spectral balance. Then it's the RTA mic at head level. Then it's EQing for the left then the right. Then I'll go back to the phasing, polarity, and TA a couple more times. I'll then adjust by ear in little incerements. I'll adjust every month and just before each show if needed.

I think we just thread jacked the OP.

[SAV912]

^ Yeah, most of that is flying over my head.

I did a cheap deadening on the rear hatch yesterday. Took the inside cover off, ditched the mouse fur inside and sprayed the whole thing down with rubbing alcohol and cleaned it off real good. Taped off the slots where the white tabs go and sprayed it down with three coatings of truck bedliner. Then once those dried, used some Nashua 324A aluminum tape and taped the whole thing off, replaced the tabs, and put the hatch back together. Left the sub firing rearward, and there is no more annoying rattle coming from the hatch and the music is siginificantly less 'thumpy' around that area. You can still feel it if you put your hand on the outside of the hatch door but it's not as vibrant as it was before. I still want to try to turn the sub to see if a side fire is better overall because it fires pretty much right at the door. There is less than 2" of clearance as it sits now. I ran out of daylight though.

Hopefully with some days off of work coming up, I can try to see if I can get better placement out of the tweeters, but there is still a fairly noticable dead zone between the lows and highs. Even if I leave the stage on the floor, the Kenwoods just sound muddled and I feel like I'm missing a whole section of music. Hopefully throwing the 200W amp at the speakers will bring more of it to life.

-C

[bzinn 1]

Yeah keep up the work,I like to do a pie3ce at a time,like I first put the comps in the doors,then built pods and tried them like that,tuned and tuned....got it where I wanted then now I am building the Apilars for the tweets,I changed to my plan B on location they are in the lower part of the panel,but aimed out to the oposite shoulder towards center of car but aimed on a downward axis,it lifted my stage a bit,but did not shoot the highs right at me....so far so good,perfect spot,not sure yet,but I like the sound so far

SQ.....6 months....dude your doomed....lol

Nah you should be pretty close now on the build right,tuning is a daily,song by song till it feels and sounds right......I cant wait to hear it in person.