Well I have screwed up the original system tuning that I did when I first installed my amp and subwoofer. It sounded friggin great! Since most of the distortion in stock system at high volume levels is caused by overdriving amp built into the head unit, I decided to add a 5 way amp with built in high and low pass crossovers, and a JL Audio stealth sub. I rewired all the stock speakers, added Alpine line level converters, and tuned it by ear.

All was going well until I realized that the rear speakers were only 4", the front were 5"1/4, and I had sent more bass to the rears. I thought I could get better sound by re-tuning it to send more bass to the fronts, and less to the rears, and !@#$ed it all up.

Now it;s time to do it right and get an education on who this isreally supposed to be done. Any ideas, web sites, etc you can provide would be most helpful.

 

RTA (Real Time Analyzer and Pink noise) if you want science, Your Ears (use a Tuning CD) if you want art.

 

This site has just about anything you could want to know about car audio:

Basic Car Audio Electronics

You can find a good tutorial on setting amplifier gains at the JL Audio site:

JL Audio Tutorials

 

RTA to start a good "flat line" base... then SOMEONE ELSE'S ear (who hopefully knows what they are doing).

 

Someone elses ear ? Why ?

I have to respectfully disagree. ""Someone else"" isnt going to have to listen to that particular stereo everyday.

Someone elses skills, yes.... ears for final tuning.... not really. Beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

 

it's nice to get a second opinion.

once i thought i dialed in my subs correctly.

i visited SPEAKER WAREHOUSE (boy i think that was their name), in anaheim in the early 90's. eric holdaway (again IIRC) and i had a long time to chat. this was during the midweek so the store was empty.

gave me the whole tour of the shop, gave me tons of inside info... then i asked him to listen to my then recently installed system.

he told me a couple things that really improved the system...

i'm not saying that this is the case for everyone.

 

Yep the name and place you give is overwhelmingly familiar, Id say your memory is correct. Tbirds and Acura Legends were TSW big winners IIRC. About the same time frame I was actively competing in the IASCA and WAC shows in the midwest.

My point was going to be that ever stereo out there has at least a bass and a treble knob. Including factory stereos. Everyone has a different idea of what sounds good to them.

Getting into setting gains and making sure your speakers are all in phase is a bit of a different level and I would agree, get expert advice. Of course "expert" is usually a relative term.

 

oops... going a tangent here...

BIRDMAN,

do you have an EQ in your setup?

or are you going by adjusting the gains.

otherwise, next time we meet at HH, i'll bring my my tuning tools with me... lol...