Upgrade sound system in Kelisa

g88

3,000 RPM
Senior Member
Jan 28, 2004
3,081
54
5,148
SQ or RockHead setup ? what kinda of song u place the most ? source from disk or usb ?

overall what is ur BUDGET ?
 

eohl79

Known Member
Thread starter
Jun 12, 2011
293
164
543
Kuala Lumpur
SQ or RockHead setup ? what kinda of song u place the most ? source from disk or usb ?

overall what is ur BUDGET ?
What kinda song... current pop, rock, alternative. Not too much bass. No dubstep, not rap. Source is USB (MP3 320k). Budget? RM2k ish.

SQ as in audiophile high end kind of SQ? Probably not $$$ exotic kind of setup with time alignment, sound processing and everything. Not SPL as I don't listen too loud. SQL - confused... I just like well defined mids to highs. Punchy lowers but not too hard, thumping loud bass. Rockhead as in heavy metal mids to highs to hear percussion?

Anyway, will stick with the Pioneer R series speakers first, add in amp then see if it makes a difference. Slowly upgrade along the way-la.

Here is what I have now:
HU: Pioneer DEH-X6750BT
Speakers: Front - Pioneer TS-A1605C components, Rear - Pioneer TS-1685S, 8"active underseat sub
* speakers driven by HU now, front/rear 63Hz HPF 12dB roll off, active subs 100Hz LPF 12dB roll off
 

g88

3,000 RPM
Senior Member
Jan 28, 2004
3,081
54
5,148
What kinda song... current pop, rock, alternative. Not too much bass. No dubstep, not rap. Source is USB (MP3 320k). Budget? RM2k ish.

SQ as in audiophile high end kind of SQ? Probably not $$$ exotic kind of setup with time alignment, sound processing and everything. Not SPL as I don't listen too loud. SQL - confused... I just like well defined mids to highs. Punchy lowers but not too hard, thumping loud bass. Rockhead as in heavy metal mids to highs to hear percussion?

Anyway, will stick with the Pioneer R series speakers first, add in amp then see if it makes a difference. Slowly upgrade along the way-la.

Here is what I have now:
HU: Pioneer DEH-X6750BT
Speakers: Front - Pioneer TS-A1605C components, Rear - Pioneer TS-1685S, 8"active underseat sub
* speakers driven by HU now, front/rear 63Hz HPF 12dB roll off, active subs 100Hz LPF 12dB roll off

Basically you have got everything (or too many thing).

if you play Front and rear, they SHOULD'T sharing SAME settings. If you want a good sound use crossover.(but then you need amp).

My take it set everything to zero, off all the loudness enhancement etc...OFF the sub first...get front and rear WELL calibrated then only look at the sub.

Somehow something tell me your front and rear has 'crash' or duplicated...6-3/4" 2 way front + 6-1/2" 4 ways rear make sound so messy...just basic to basic how many hi low mid you have inside the car....adui...

Sub 100hz is damn hard and uncomfortable...
 

eohl79

Known Member
Thread starter
Jun 12, 2011
293
164
543
Kuala Lumpur
Basically you have got everything (or too many thing).

if you play Front and rear, they SHOULD'T sharing SAME settings. If you want a good sound use crossover.(but then you need amp).

My take it set everything to zero, off all the loudness enhancement etc...OFF the sub first...get front and rear WELL calibrated then only look at the sub.

Somehow something tell me your front and rear has 'crash' or duplicated...6-3/4" 2 way front + 6-1/2" 4 ways rear make sound so messy...just basic to basic how many hi low mid you have inside the car....adui...

Sub 100hz is damn hard and uncomfortable...
:embarassed:

Thanks for the feedback bro. What should I be having at the rear then eh, or nothing? Also how to correctly tune the front vs rear? Highs in front, low at the back?
 

Izso

NA NA NA NA NA
Helmet Clan
Moderator
Mar 28, 2004
15,389
6,411
5,213
KL
Wahlau.. dude, you sounded super confident earlier.

Personally I'd do away with the rear or just front bias it. Rear will be there just for rear fill.
 

g88

3,000 RPM
Senior Member
Jan 28, 2004
3,081
54
5,148
:embarassed:

Thanks for the feedback bro. What should I be having at the rear then eh, or nothing? Also how to correctly tune the front vs rear? Highs in front, low at the back?
As i mentioned , your 2 ways and 4 ways will create alot distortion and very hard to get fine tune..even with adding crossover or add more amp (keep getting more and more complicate)...Izso suggest is possible - remove the rear for each troubleshooting..

got to see what's your HU capable doing
 

eohl79

Known Member
Thread starter
Jun 12, 2011
293
164
543
Kuala Lumpur
Wahlau.. dude, you sounded super confident earlier.

Personally I'd do away with the rear or just front bias it. Rear will be there just for rear fill.
Haha, rear is to play kids songs whenever my son is around in my car leh...


As i mentioned , your 2 ways and 4 ways will create alot distortion and very hard to get fine tune..even with adding crossover or add more amp (keep getting more and more complicate)...Izso suggest is possible - remove the rear for each troubleshooting..

got to see what's your HU capable doing
Haha, that time still haven't changed my car old front coax to my new components yet. So can't tell much on the tuning and setup. Only that my front coax seems very weak vs the rear new coax set. So sound stage appears to be more from the rear.

Had the idea to go test run my amp to check the difference in the sound output to my component speakers when driven by HU vs amp before I get it installed in my car. To do this test I set up a test jig.
1. 12V 6.4A switch mode PSU block connected to mains
2. Old Pioneer DEH-P5750MP head unit with preamp outputs
3. RE Audio SA50.4 Class D 4-channel amp
4. One side of my Pioneer TS-A1605C components - woofer+tweeter+crossover. Not boxed and open air driven.
5. Power and ground cabling to amp with 8 gauge wire, HU power cables with existing wire harness
6. 4 segments of terminal block - 2 segments for left front speaker output from head unit, 2 segments for left front speaker output from amplifier
7. Played a repeat MP3 test track: Allure - All Cried Out

Kept switching the coax speaker cables between HU output and amp output. Kept volume low and about the same level between HU vs amp. The quality of the sound was very noticeable and distinct between the HU and amp. Somehow on the amps, the tweeter sounds more crisp and the highs are clearer and more pronounced. The woofer also seems clearer with cleaner lows. Kept switching between each other till I'm convinced that amp driven was indeed better for the components :biggrin:

One thing that I did notice was the noticeable sound like phase difference between the subs and tweeters. The crossovers had wires and connectors already in place which can be hooked on directly to the tweeters and woofers. Connectors are fool proof and I made sure all the polarity was right. Strange but depending how I place the woofers and tweeters, i could tell a a phase difference between them. Certain tweeter-woofer position sounded weird as if it behave like a 180 degree out of phase set of speakers. Am i missing something here? Could the crossover inductor/capacitor shifter the phase response of the woofer and tweeter? Weird but will leave this alone for now and follow the wiring recommendation by Pioneer. Need to do more reading on this.

So this is what i did over the weekends:
1. Replaced my car old front coax to the Pioneer TS-A1605C components.
2. Replace entire car speaker cabling with proper oxygen free copper speaker cables. Kept the stock wiring interconnects to the rear board so I can disconnect it. Pull out the crimps from the connector housing and soldered the new speaker wires there. This is so that I can disconnect the rear speaker board when I need to.
3. Soldered all speaker wires directly to the speakers and sleeved them. This is to ensure and guarantee a good connectivity.
4. Front components, removed the default crimp connectors for the woofer/tweeters and soldered speaker wires directly in place to the crossover.
5. Customed my own RCA cabling from HU to the amp. Got decent shielded stereo cables and soldered them to some gold plated RCA connectors. Prepared two pairs for 4-channel.
6. Removed my under seat active subwoofer and put in place my RE Audio SA50.4 amp. Used back my existing 8-gauge power, grounding and remote cabling from head unit.

So after finish rigging everything up, the test begins...
1. Amp front and rear channel filters turned off. HU preamp max volt out is 2V and amp max input voltage is 4V. Haven't do the RMS voltage measurement between HU and amp to check the rails voltage and clipping point yet. For now, set the gains a tad below mid way for front and slightly lower for rear. Not going to drive the HU volume up at this point. Will also double check with RE Audio tech support on the speaker output rail voltage too to find the clipping point later.
2. Zero volume and even disconnecting the RCA inputs to the amp, I could hear a soft hiss. More like white/pink noise. Checked with RE Audio tech support and their engineer got back to me saying this was normal and was present at least in this amp model that I was using. Hiss was not affected by gain inputs - min/max gain. Hiss not audible when volume gets cranked up. No speaker pop/thud when amp gets turned on. Slight pop when amp goes into idle when remote signal switches to low.
3. Confirmed that rear speakers much louder than the front components. Had to turn down the gain on the amp to the rear vs the front. Fine tune front sound stage with the HU fader. Sound dynamics of rear speakers vs front components are different... :embarassed:
4. Had to set my HU 5 band EQ to flat. Previously was running on Pioneer default "Powerful" EQ setting. With amp now everything sounds a little too overpowering. Running it now for the second day and had settled on almost flat with EQ dialed in 80Hz +1, 2.5kHz -1 and 8kHz -1. Slight boost to low and tone down the highs as the front component tweeters sound a little too bright. Loudness at mid now... may have to go fiddle around the settings again to find my sweet spot.
5. Turned off HPF filter to get better bass. Now seems almost as good as with active under seat subs... yay! Bass seems good and punchy enough for my liking. Problem now, door plastics start to rattle more. Need more sound deadening! Some of the lows sound boomy, maybe need to put some acoustic foam dampers in the trunk and doors too.
6. With the EQ now toned down, the rear coax set now does not seem too overpowering. Able to get my front stage setup to my liking for now.
7. RE Audio SA50.4 amp seems to run cool with no heat even when cranking up the volume. Also measured the current consumption with a clamp amp meter at my regular listening level and it is drawing sub 2A @ 12V - less than 25W! Previously measured my active subs and it was drawing up to 6-7 amp peak current. Glad I do not need a big amp to fit my needs and the small foot print of the amp hides neatly under the seat, not noticeable.

Happy for now... :biggrin:

Somethings on my mind for another day...
1. Gut out my under seat active subs, replace the front plate with a blank steel plate, put on two speaker terminals wired to the speakers directly. Revert my rear speaker setup to HU driven, bridge the amp rear output to drive the under seat subs...
2. Check the phase difference of my front components between tweeter, woofer and maybe also vs the rear speakers. Need to figure out a test jig/setup to do this :hmmmm:
3. Maybe try a 4-channel class-AB amp to get a feel on the sound metrics.
4. Custom a passive crossover or maybe active crossover?
5. More poison? :thefinger: hahaha, maybe for my MPV-la next.
 

g88

3,000 RPM
Senior Member
Jan 28, 2004
3,081
54
5,148
Haha, rear is to play kids songs whenever my son is around in my car leh...



Haha, that time still haven't changed my car old front coax to my new components yet. So can't tell much on the tuning and setup. Only that my front coax seems very weak vs the rear new coax set. So sound stage appears to be more from the rear.

Had the idea to go test run my amp to check the difference in the sound output to my component speakers when driven by HU vs amp before I get it installed in my car. To do this test I set up a test jig.
1. 12V 6.4A switch mode PSU block connected to mains
2. Old Pioneer DEH-P5750MP head unit with preamp outputs
3. RE Audio SA50.4 Class D 4-channel amp
4. One side of my Pioneer TS-A1605C components - woofer+tweeter+crossover. Not boxed and open air driven.
5. Power and ground cabling to amp with 8 gauge wire, HU power cables with existing wire harness
6. 4 segments of terminal block - 2 segments for left front speaker output from head unit, 2 segments for left front speaker output from amplifier
7. Played a repeat MP3 test track: Allure - All Cried Out

Kept switching the coax speaker cables between HU output and amp output. Kept volume low and about the same level between HU vs amp. The quality of the sound was very noticeable and distinct between the HU and amp. Somehow on the amps, the tweeter sounds more crisp and the highs are clearer and more pronounced. The woofer also seems clearer with cleaner lows. Kept switching between each other till I'm convinced that amp driven was indeed better for the components :biggrin:

One thing that I did notice was the noticeable sound like phase difference between the subs and tweeters. The crossovers had wires and connectors already in place which can be hooked on directly to the tweeters and woofers. Connectors are fool proof and I made sure all the polarity was right. Strange but depending how I place the woofers and tweeters, i could tell a a phase difference between them. Certain tweeter-woofer position sounded weird as if it behave like a 180 degree out of phase set of speakers. Am i missing something here? Could the crossover inductor/capacitor shifter the phase response of the woofer and tweeter? Weird but will leave this alone for now and follow the wiring recommendation by Pioneer. Need to do more reading on this.

So this is what i did over the weekends:
1. Replaced my car old front coax to the Pioneer TS-A1605C components.
2. Replace entire car speaker cabling with proper oxygen free copper speaker cables. Kept the stock wiring interconnects to the rear board so I can disconnect it. Pull out the crimps from the connector housing and soldered the new speaker wires there. This is so that I can disconnect the rear speaker board when I need to.
3. Soldered all speaker wires directly to the speakers and sleeved them. This is to ensure and guarantee a good connectivity.
4. Front components, removed the default crimp connectors for the woofer/tweeters and soldered speaker wires directly in place to the crossover.
5. Customed my own RCA cabling from HU to the amp. Got decent shielded stereo cables and soldered them to some gold plated RCA connectors. Prepared two pairs for 4-channel.
6. Removed my under seat active subwoofer and put in place my RE Audio SA50.4 amp. Used back my existing 8-gauge power, grounding and remote cabling from head unit.

So after finish rigging everything up, the test begins...
1. Amp front and rear channel filters turned off. HU preamp max volt out is 2V and amp max input voltage is 4V. Haven't do the RMS voltage measurement between HU and amp to check the rails voltage and clipping point yet. For now, set the gains a tad below mid way for front and slightly lower for rear. Not going to drive the HU volume up at this point. Will also double check with RE Audio tech support on the speaker output rail voltage too to find the clipping point later.
2. Zero volume and even disconnecting the RCA inputs to the amp, I could hear a soft hiss. More like white/pink noise. Checked with RE Audio tech support and their engineer got back to me saying this was normal and was present at least in this amp model that I was using. Hiss was not affected by gain inputs - min/max gain. Hiss not audible when volume gets cranked up. No speaker pop/thud when amp gets turned on. Slight pop when amp goes into idle when remote signal switches to low.
3. Confirmed that rear speakers much louder than the front components. Had to turn down the gain on the amp to the rear vs the front. Fine tune front sound stage with the HU fader. Sound dynamics of rear speakers vs front components are different... :embarassed:
4. Had to set my HU 5 band EQ to flat. Previously was running on Pioneer default "Powerful" EQ setting. With amp now everything sounds a little too overpowering. Running it now for the second day and had settled on almost flat with EQ dialed in 80Hz +1, 2.5kHz -1 and 8kHz -1. Slight boost to low and tone down the highs as the front component tweeters sound a little too bright. Loudness at mid now... may have to go fiddle around the settings again to find my sweet spot.
5. Turned off HPF filter to get better bass. Now seems almost as good as with active under seat subs... yay! Bass seems good and punchy enough for my liking. Problem now, door plastics start to rattle more. Need more sound deadening! Some of the lows sound boomy, maybe need to put some acoustic foam dampers in the trunk and doors too.
6. With the EQ now toned down, the rear coax set now does not seem too overpowering. Able to get my front stage setup to my liking for now.
7. RE Audio SA50.4 amp seems to run cool with no heat even when cranking up the volume. Also measured the current consumption with a clamp amp meter at my regular listening level and it is drawing sub 2A @ 12V - less than 25W! Previously measured my active subs and it was drawing up to 6-7 amp peak current. Glad I do not need a big amp to fit my needs and the small foot print of the amp hides neatly under the seat, not noticeable.

Happy for now... :biggrin:

Somethings on my mind for another day...
1. Gut out my under seat active subs, replace the front plate with a blank steel plate, put on two speaker terminals wired to the speakers directly. Revert my rear speaker setup to HU driven, bridge the amp rear output to drive the under seat subs...
2. Check the phase difference of my front components between tweeter, woofer and maybe also vs the rear speakers. Need to figure out a test jig/setup to do this :hmmmm:
3. Maybe try a 4-channel class-AB amp to get a feel on the sound metrics.
4. Custom a passive crossover or maybe active crossover?
5. More poison? :thefinger: hahaha, maybe for my MPV-la next.
Bottom line . A PROPER equipment selection and matching definitely SAVE alot alot alot of thing trial and error time.

Btw, you aren't teksi drive where won't spend hours in the car daily...changing cable, bigger gauge etc is kind of waste of resource...end up eye catching.

Nowdays, ICE come in as simple as possible....and sound as clean as possible. No longer need that many equaliser, amp, crossover, gain this and that,..
 

Random Post Every 5 Minutes

Hi all sifu's,,
Pls let me know where to get this thing and place that offer good dyno...Bcoz there so many place in sunway sell this thing.actually i from penang, so i not familiar in that sunway area.. i also noticed that in this forum got few shops that all of u mentioned like n1 racing, ksp etc but there -ve and also +ve comment made by u all referring to that particular shop.. so which shop that i must go??? pls help.... :(
Ask a question, start a discussion or post something for sale!
Post thread

Online now

Enjoying Zerotohundred?

Log-in for an ad-less experience