Thinking of moving to DSP Amp

[Brian_B]

Probably my last update here - but...

Swapped the hard top for the soft top this weekend. Thought I would need to re-tune it, but ended up chasing an oddity in the sound profile and come to find out - my cheap Mabett rear speaker pods had these little pieces of foam on the covers; presumably to keep them from rattling around. But the foam was hitting the woofer suspension on my Morels. I dunno that I would have ever figured it out without the microphone and looking at the actual sound profile.

Removing the foam helped, but one of the speakers is damaged - some tears in the foam suspension and it gets a rattle at certain frequencies, almost like it's blown.

So that's disappointing. I remember hearing the same thing with a set of Inifinties I had installed back there and thinking I had just blown the speaker, but last night confirmed it was the foam hitting the suspension before I ripped the foam out and suddenly it sounded crystal clear -- minus the occasional buzz in the damaged speaker.

So I have some SSV pods on order with some more Morel 6.5" speakers... dropping a tier on the speaker, but with it being rears, shouldn't significantly affect the sound.

The bass isn't overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination (soft top always mutes the bass significantly from the hard top), but it doesn't sound totally anemic or tinny.. to me, it sounds pretty balanced, and it has enough power to still be clear and distinct without being overly loud - even at highway speeds with the soft top.

All in all - it was spendy, but a worth-while upgrade. The tuning wasn't all that bad, but I admit I may have fell into a decent tune by luck rather than any amount of skill. Accordio helped a ton, but wasn't perfect and you can't just blindly hit that button and have it come out all roses. And it identified other issues I had with my install that weren't related to the amp, but I dunno that I would have found by any other means.

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[23OBX2.7]

Probably my last update here - but...

Swapped the hard top for the soft top this weekend. Thought I would need to re-tune it, but ended up chasing an oddity in the sound profile and come to find out - my cheap Mabett rear speaker pods had these little pieces of foam on the covers; presumably to keep them from rattling around. But the foam was hitting the woofer suspension on my Morels. I dunno that I would have ever figured it out without the microphone and looking at the actual sound profile.

Removing the foam helped, but one of the speakers is damaged - some tears in the foam suspension and it gets a rattle at certain frequencies, almost like it's blown.

So that's disappointing. I remember hearing the same thing with a set of Inifinties I had installed back there and thinking I had just blown the speaker, but last night confirmed it was the foam hitting the suspension before I ripped the foam out and suddenly it sounded crystal clear -- minus the occasional buzz in the damaged speaker.

So I have some SSV pods on order with some more Morel 6.5" speakers... dropping a tier on the speaker, but with it being rears, shouldn't significantly affect the sound.

The bass isn't overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination (soft top always mutes the bass significantly from the hard top), but it doesn't sound totally anemic or tinny.. to me, it sounds pretty balanced, and it has enough power to still be clear and distinct without being overly loud - even at highway speeds with the soft top.

All in all - it was spendy, but a worth-while upgrade. The tuning wasn't all that bad, but I admit I may have fell into a decent tune by luck rather than any amount of skill. Accordio helped a ton, but wasn't perfect and you can't just blindly hit that button and have it come out all roses. And it identified other issues I had with my install that weren't related to the amp, but I dunno that I would have found by any other means.

B&O signal feeding 1000W amp powering Hertz MPBX300s2 mounted on tailgate puts out amazing bass.

 

[Brian_B]

For anyone who happens to come back to this, just my notes.

I think I'm mostly done fidgeting with the tune. For the folks that said it's a rabbit hole - you were absolutely right. But it's been fun, I kinda enjoyed it. It was a trial and error process that was low stakes.

My suggestions to anyone else thinking about this path:

The DSP helped immensely. If I were to rate my progress here:

(1) Stock 7-Channel non-B&O Audio - 3/10. It works, but I've heard better out of portable bluetooth speakers

(2) 5-Channel Kenwood Amp and Infinity Speakers. 6.5" Kicker Sub upgrade - 5/10. Big improvement, low investment. Didn't knock my socks off, but for about $500 all in, it wasn't a bad upgrade. The Infinities sounded pretty good being driven by either the stock ACM or the Kenwood amp - but were a lot more clear with the amp than without. You could hear it with the top down on the highway, but it wasn't clean with that much external noise.

(3) 5-Channel Kenwood Amp with Morel Speakers, 8" Kicker Sub upgrade - 6/10. Spent a lot of money on the speaker upgrades, but couldn't really get anything else out of them because of my lack of ability to tune. I ran this for a long time, and it always disappointed me about how much I had invested for what I was listening too. I also wondered if the Kicker Key amp (and it's limited DSP) would have sounded better than my Kenwood. It was better than the Infinities, but only barely, and I think most of that improvement was because I split the dash and kick panel (drive the dash from the ACM direct, the kick panel from the Kenwood). At this point, I went from about a $500 total investment to around $1,200

(4) 8-Channel Audison with Morel Speakers, 10" Kicker Sub upgrade - +++/10. Wow. This. Finally got where I was after, and sounds like a real acoustic sound system, not just some speakers playing noise. Even though the Audison is technically lower wattage than the Kenwood, the ability to tune and optimize made a big difference. But it took some work - it wasn't a plug and play thing that just got there. The sound is lush, full, crisp and clean, but not "loud" - even with the top down on the highway. This step, I went from around $1,200 total to around $3,500 total spent (with about $600 of that just being gutted and replaced) - with me doing all the installation and tuning myself.

My notes:
I started out blind and just dove right in. I picked up some pointers here, and elsewhere that helped a good bit. The worst thing that happens is you roll back your settings file and try again, so don't be afraid to tinker (as long as you keep good backup files)

Consider a professional tuner. There is a lot to it, and it's a process. I didn't realize exactly what all it entailed, and I enjoyed learning along the way... but if you aren't patient or don't enjoy it, it would absolutely blow chunks. A lot of trial and error.

If you are trying to tune yourself - Get a calibrated microphone. I spent around $80 and got a miniDSP U-Mik 1. For the number of times I went back to re-tune, it more than paid off.

Speaker setup is very important. Start with the basics and don't just skip over or ignore this - you have the right polarity, the speakers are mechanically installed fine, the speakers are responding like they should - I found a lot of issues with my setup before I even got to really tuning stuff.

Speaker setup in the software is also important. I spent a lot of time chasing one very narrow spectrum of sound that sounded off, only to find out it was my crossover settings the entire time. Audison defaults to 24db/octave, and my coaxes should have been set to 12db/octave.

I was able to get the DSP tuned pretty well with just the stock target curves and my ear, but I did a bit more research and found this site:
https://resonixsoundsolutions.com/blogs/resources/car-audio-dsp-tuning-tracks-guide
Just running the Accordo wizard with that target curve, and following the basic steps he outlines there - it went from good to better to great as I chased flat spots and smoothed out the target curve over time --- to AMAZING once I found Resonix's target curve and my crossover setting error. I'm sure there would be room to improve even further if I really wanted to (and I'm not counting that out).

As I mentioned in a post before - Audison has an auto-tune wizard called Accordo. You still need to make sure the speakers are setup correctly (mechanically and software settings), and you should have a calibrated mic - but if you've got those two things, Accordo gets you about 85% of the way to a great tune in about 4 minutes time. Chosing the right target curve is the secret sauce (see above)

A lot of folks recommend a lot more power to the sub. The Audison only has 280W 4Ohm bridged output. For me, that's plenty, even with the top down. It won't rattle the neighbors doors, but it's enough for me to hear the bass clear with the top down on the highway. That said, I don't think more power is a bad answer - more is always better. But I didn't find ~just~ 280W insufficient once I got the settings all dialed in.

Engine and road noise masks audible bass. Going topless makes that worse. The soft top also lowers your bass response compared to the hard top. So things to keep in mind - if you tune your stereo with the hard top on, then go topless, it may sound like your sub died. The crowd that talks about noise attenuation and sound dampening - yeah, that makes a big difference, but it mostly (literally) goes out the window if you roll the windows down driving down the road, or want to take your top off.

All the Kicker Sub upgrades I did: The 6.5" was a waste of money, honestly. It was better than stock, but didn't really do much. The 8" sounded pretty good with the Kenwood (300W 4Ohm output), and it was a significant improvement in bass, even with just 300W to it. When I upgraded to the Audison I had an issue with one of the coils on the 8" starting to fail open, so the sub kept cutting in and out: I suspect I just had a bad speaker there. So I took the opportunity to upgrade to a Additive Audio 10" enclosure and the Kicker 10" (couldn't quite justify the extra expense for the JBL to myself). I didn't gain any volume with the 10" (I'm actually driving it with 20W less power), but it gained notable amount of lower end response with the bigger cone.

 

[23OBX2.7]

For anyone who happens to come back to this, just my notes.

I think I'm mostly done fidgeting with the tune. For the folks that said it's a rabbit hole - you were absolutely right. But it's been fun, I kinda enjoyed it. It was a trial and error process that was low stakes.

My suggestions to anyone else thinking about this path:

The DSP helped immensely. If I were to rate my progress here:

(1) Stock 7-Channel non-B&O Audio - 3/10. It works, but I've heard better out of portable bluetooth speakers

(2) 5-Channel Kenwood Amp and Infinity Speakers. 6.5" Kicker Sub upgrade - 5/10. Big improvement, low investment. Didn't knock my socks off, but for about $500 all in, it wasn't a bad upgrade. The Infinities sounded pretty good being driven by either the stock ACM or the Kenwood amp - but were a lot more clear with the amp than without. You could hear it with the top down on the highway, but it wasn't clean with that much external noise.

(3) 5-Channel Kenwood Amp with Morel Speakers, 8" Kicker Sub upgrade - 6/10. Spent a lot of money on the speaker upgrades, but couldn't really get anything else out of them because of my lack of ability to tune. I ran this for a long time, and it always disappointed me about how much I had invested for what I was listening too. I also wondered if the Kicker Key amp (and it's limited DSP) would have sounded better than my Kenwood. It was better than the Infinities, but only barely, and I think most of that improvement was because I split the dash and kick panel (drive the dash from the ACM direct, the kick panel from the Kenwood). At this point, I went from about a $500 total investment to around $1,200

(4) 8-Channel Audison with Morel Speakers, 10" Kicker Sub upgrade - +++/10. Wow. This. Finally got where I was after, and sounds like a real acoustic sound system, not just some speakers playing noise. Even though the Audison is technically lower wattage than the Kenwood, the ability to tune and optimize made a big difference. But it took some work - it wasn't a plug and play thing that just got there. The sound is lush, full, crisp and clean, but not "loud" - even with the top down on the highway. This step, I went from around $1,200 total to around $3,500 total spent (with about $600 of that just being gutted and replaced) - with me doing all the installation and tuning myself.

My notes:
I started out blind and just dove right in. I picked up some pointers here, and elsewhere that helped a good bit. The worst thing that happens is you roll back your settings file and try again, so don't be afraid to tinker (as long as you keep good backup files)

Consider a professional tuner. There is a lot to it, and it's a process. I didn't realize exactly what all it entailed, and I enjoyed learning along the way... but if you aren't patient or don't enjoy it, it would absolutely blow chunks. A lot of trial and error.

If you are trying to tune yourself - Get a calibrated microphone. I spent around $80 and got a miniDSP U-Mik 1. For the number of times I went back to re-tune, it more than paid off.

Speaker setup is very important. Start with the basics and don't just skip over or ignore this - you have the right polarity, the speakers are mechanically installed fine, the speakers are responding like they should - I found a lot of issues with my setup before I even got to really tuning stuff.

Speaker setup in the software is also important. I spent a lot of time chasing one very narrow spectrum of sound that sounded off, only to find out it was my crossover settings the entire time. Audison defaults to 24db/octave, and my coaxes should have been set to 12db/octave.

I was able to get the DSP tuned pretty well with just the stock target curves and my ear, but I did a bit more research and found this site:
https://resonixsoundsolutions.com/blogs/resources/car-audio-dsp-tuning-tracks-guide
Just running the Accordo wizard with that target curve, and following the basic steps he outlines there - it went from good to better to great as I chased flat spots and smoothed out the target curve over time --- to AMAZING once I found Resonix's target curve and my crossover setting error. I'm sure there would be room to improve even further if I really wanted to (and I'm not counting that out).

As I mentioned in a post before - Audison has an auto-tune wizard called Accordo. You still need to make sure the speakers are setup correctly (mechanically and software settings), and you should have a calibrated mic - but if you've got those two things, Accordo gets you about 85% of the way to a great tune in about 4 minutes time. Chosing the right target curve is the secret sauce (see above)

A lot of folks recommend a lot more power to the sub. The Audison only has 280W 4Ohm bridged output. For me, that's plenty, even with the top down. It won't rattle the neighbors doors, but it's enough for me to hear the bass clear with the top down on the highway. That said, I don't think more power is a bad answer - more is always better. But I didn't find ~just~ 280W insufficient once I got the settings all dialed in.

Engine and road noise masks audible bass. Going topless makes that worse. The soft top also lowers your bass response compared to the hard top. So things to keep in mind - if you tune your stereo with the hard top on, then go topless, it may sound like your sub died. The crowd that talks about noise attenuation and sound dampening - yeah, that makes a big difference, but it mostly (literally) goes out the window if you roll the windows down driving down the road, or want to take your top off.

All the Kicker Sub upgrades I did: The 6.5" was a waste of money, honestly. It was better than stock, but didn't really do much. The 8" sounded pretty good with the Kenwood (300W 4Ohm output), and it was a significant improvement in bass, even with just 300W to it. When I upgraded to the Audison I had an issue with one of the coils on the 8" starting to fail open, so the sub kept cutting in and out: I suspect I just had a bad speaker there. So I took the opportunity to upgrade to a Additive Audio 10" enclosure and the Kicker 10" (couldn't quite justify the extra expense for the JBL to myself). I didn't gain any volume with the 10" (I'm actually driving it with 20W less power), but it gained notable amount of lower end response with the bigger cone.

Using the general 50:50 hard:soft cost guide this is at least a $7K system and probably closer to $10K at audio shop that adds 30% + on hardware plus plus and pads the hours so paying $100 hr for 7-10 lunch breaks and whatever phone scroll time techs do....

You will notice that a dedicated 1000W+ (2ohn) or 2000W (4 ohm) will free up a lot of Audison amp resource so it will get a lot louder, plus the sub will perform as it should. At least I did when I switched from two bridged Audison channels to 1000W @ 2 ohm. 280W is way too low. After $3.5 K midas well search diymobileaudio for and decent NIB sub amp and slave it to Audison.

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