Why can't I decide... Direction for audio build

[TOOSTUBBORN2FAIL]

Something to keep in mind about processing power and sound in a car.

The car itself has more of an effect on the sound that the soeakers, amp, or head unit. This means the best speakers in the world are still going to need processing in the form if eq. Especially when the speakers are in the doors, off axis.

We sit off center in a car. This means we need time alignment to fix the offset. The human ear can tell a time delay difference of 0.2 milliseconds. I didn't believe it either, until I got the chance to install a head unit that had real time adjustment capabilities of time alignment.

Without both of these capabilities, a car can never have more than mediocre sound. This is why the oem+ system sounds good. They use those tools to correct the sound for the environment.

[islandguy69]

Now...im interested in the pursuit of happiness at that pricepoint on the full meal deal they have.....ive researched the product and only negative is more wattage.....on that price,about $2100 canadian...for amp,sub box and front dash,door and rear speakers.....i can live with and I dont want to spend more these days...kinda itchin a gibson les paul.....for $5k...I can get the oem product,new head unit and.....the gibson!!!.....fml...I just sold myself on it.....and the $300 set up,really??...kraco??

[Mr.ac]

Well here's my beef(if any, I still think OEM audio+ is a great product) the size of their system vs. every aftermarket amps and DSP out there. It's pretty small.
Not that it's a bad thing but I'm used to the industry standard so to speak. Don't get me wrong, it's still a 110% better than stock. In my case could do it for less with the same result.

Then again, is their DSP user adjustable? Or has it been preset? I would love to spend a full day with an OEM Audio + on the road.

As much as I want to beat a dead horse about sound adjustments and time delays, here's the bottom line: it's an audio system in a "cheap" sports car. The moment you turn it on and drive it on the street, all that adjustment to sound go out the window literally.

Now if where where talking about an audio system on a 7 series BMW yeah I'll be all in for fine audio control. But we are not. We have to worry about body panels rattling with the OEM stereo.

[TOOSTUBBORN2FAIL]

But it doesn't go out the window. Time alignment is useful whether parked or driving. So is eq.

My last build was in a cheap economy car. 98 dodge neon. I had 0.8ms of delay between the left and right midrange, and I had relocated my seats further back and used kick panels to minimize path length differences. That 0.8ms of delay was dead obvious whether driving or parked. I had 5ms of delay between the driver side midrange and the subwoofer. It took 5ms to get the subwoofer to sound like it was in the front, and not coming from behind me. Again, that didn't change whether parked or driving. I had different eq settings for the left and right side, to compensate again for sitting off center. Also noticeable whether parked or driving.


The bottom line is, dsp is NESSESARY when building a sound quality system, no matter what car, no matter what amps, no matter what speakers, no matter what install.

[sly]

I have to agree that time alignment is absolutely necessary in a car. In a home theater, moving 3 feet makes a relatively small angular change. But in a car, moving three feet has a huge impact on speaker dispersion and time alignment.

In my WRX I built a custom DSP that provides time alignment, minimum phase EQ and FIR filtering. Think of time alignment as focusing a lens on a camera. Can you hear 0.8ms? No. But try being 0.8ms off compared to being dead on. Accurate time alignment makes the speaker locations disappear. Your ear detects slight alterations in time to give the perception of location and depth. If your speakers are not aligned properly, you will always know where the sound is coming from. Considering a car never puts the speakers in the ideal location, some of the sound will be coming from in front of you and some from behind. If you time align them, you put them all in the same plane. It no longer matters where the speakers are located. As long as the highs and tweeters are properly positioned, the rest will fall in line.

I have a 5 way system with all the speakers located in the factory positions except for 2 stereo underseat mid-bass modules and a trunk mounted sub. Even with the low mids mounted in the rear doors of the WRX behind me, they sound as if coming from the front. Even the trunk mounted sub hits from in front and not behind.

In a home theater you can place your speakers ideally. If you get comb filtering of the highs, you can place curtains around the room to improve the imaging. The speakers are spread far apart and moving slightly makes little difference in the angle of approach. But in a car, none of this is possible. You can't position all of the speakers in the perfect spot. If you could they would all be outside the car at a 60 degrees apart. You can't hang curtains on your windshield to block reflections and moving slightly changes the imaging drastically. That's why you need digital signal processing and preferably with different user profiles. Since you can't fix many problems mechanically, you have to fix them digitally. No $10,000 speaker in a car is ever going to sound as good as a home theater without using DSP. The problem is not the speakers, it's the car.

I'm sure the OEM audio is a fine system. But it's plug and play. You can't tweak the DSP as far as I know. The listening position is preset, the EQ is preset with a house curve for the person who tuned it and I'm sure there are no linear phase crossovers. To me, it's a vast improvement over what the FR-S/BRZ came with but would in no way be a competition system. You can definitely build more with less money. However unless you want to become a sound engineer and spend hours tuning, OEM is probably the way to go.

[TOOSTUBBORN2FAIL]

^Absolutely agreed with everything above.

I judge sound quality for MECA, and one of our jobs is to ask the competitors to position us exactly where they want us to judge from, because even a couple of inches can make the difference between a good score and a bad one.

[sgh]

Just an update to a very old thread.

I ended up going with the OEM+ system after shelving the entire project for a long period of time.

I went with the Reference 450Q with the optional rears. Overall I'm a bit "meh" about it and not sure I would do it again. I'll post my longer review on the OEM+ review thread.

[Owl]

I'm going to take my own direction here:

Sony XAV-AX100 CarPlay/AA - $350
Peerless 6.5" Woofers - $55 off a friend
Dayton Audio 4" Mids - $60
Peerless 1" Silk Dome Tweeters - $60
MiniDSP C-DSP 6x8 - $300
Rockford Fosgate 4080DSM - $175
Rockford Fosgate 40ix DSM - $95
AudioQuest RCAs and Speaker Wire - $100
Second Skin Dampener - $TBA

This system is ~$1200 before I factor in sound dampener. It will have fully active six channel DSP and time alignment- I'll weigh in once it's done. I'm hoping to blow the OEM+ systems out of the water, but we'll see.