The big three

Rohit,

Ok here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to explain my setup and how its connected as well as the settings. That way atleast we will be on the same page. Right now we're in different books.

I have a pair of polk momo 6.5" 2 way comps upfront, a  polk mm 12" sub in a sealed enclosure in the boot and a polk 4x90 watts amp and a polk 1x600watt mono amp. The Hu is a pioneer p-80rs. The hu has 4 preouts, I'm using 3. Front and rear preout from hu connected to front and rear on 4ch amp, sub preout connected mono amp. Hu and amps connected with stinger cables. The drivers are connected directly to the amps output points. The tweeters are running off the front channels and the mids of the amps rear channels. This is called bi-amping. All settings at the amp are bypass mode. I only set the gains at the amp.

I don't use the passive xovers that came with the components. I set the 3way network (the network is three way, the speakers are two way) from the hu. At the hu the sub to mid xover is at 50hz with the sub on a 36db/oct slope and the mid on a 24db/oct. I don't use the sub-sonic filter as I like the sub to roll of naturally. The bandpass for mids and high pass for the tweet is set at 5kz with the mids on a 24db/oct slope and the tweets on a 6db/oct.

I use time alignment to correct for the crappy seating position and speaker mounting. I use the 16band equaliser to balance sound at these 16 frequencies for left and right side.

Now hopefully were on the same page.

Well, I hope Arun that I haven't discouraged you or something - my apologies in case you found my posts negative or discouraging in anyway...that was not my intention.

That said, car & home are not that different...the difference is equivalent to that between two different rooms. My point (or rambling) all along is that if the audio system is to sound right it first has to accurately reproduce the recorded material - that is it has to have a flat frequency response with no colourations or additions or reductions from either the crossover or the speakers. Of course that is the ideal case and real world is a lot different. So as a first you need the crossover to electrically sum flat - if not then the acoustic response cannot be expected to be accurate. Also, passive crossovers are a lot worse in this respect as compared to active ones since the crossover point tends to shift due to its interaction with the reactive nature of the drivers' impedance (i.e., the driver's impedance changes with frequency). Next, the drivers must be able to handle the frequency bands adequately - if they don't then the acoustic output itself won't be accurate (this is hard to achieve as it is, and crossing over at frequencies beyond the capabilities of any driver will only compound the problem - as is the case with the 50Hz crossover point for the mid). Lastly, once we're sure (or close to the possibility) that the speakers are reproducing the sound as accurately as possible we consider the room-speaker or cabin-speaker interaction (i.e., the peaks/dips in acoustic o/p due to the interaction) and compensate (i.e. equalise) for that - and this is more trial-and-error than objective. The net effect is that the cabin-speaker interaction will now give the best acoustic output possible as we hear it. In many cases the last step (equalisation) is not done in the interest of time/effort involved.

Well, with that I shall stop my rambling with one closing note: If it sounds right to you and you are happy with it, it doesn't matter what others say!!

Edit: The thread is not silent after all...;-)

Arun, why are the filter slopes so different? And 6db/oct for the tweet - although the best slope as far as transient response is concerned - for a tweeter especially (or any driver somewhat less seriously) its bad as it lets far too many frequencies outside the range of the tweeter to get through. Also, I wonder what active filter is used for the 6db/oct slope - for all that is needed for this slope is a single capacitor and a resistor (at line-level) or one capacitor wired in series with the tweeter and neither of these is "active" in the true sense of the word.

Rohit,

Heres the deal.

1. Car audio is radically different from home audio. Read my posts in the 2way/3way thread. Thenn google to find more.

2. Sound is more than the sum of numbers. Sound is about how everything is linked. Pure numbers dont give you that linkage. The left side of the brain is the analytical part it processes data in a lineral manner. It processes from part to whole. The right brain processes from the whole to parts. Numbers, theory, etc are all processed from the left side. Sound and tonality is processed on the right. So youre essentially breaking down a right side phenomenon using the left side.

3. Go out and listen to good sound. For a start go to a place that sells high end home audio. Sit and listen with your eyes closed. The sound will give you a lot of visual inputs understand those first.

4. Forget about all the theory and numbers for a minute. They will never lead you to good sound.

Note: Post edited to remove not-so-friendly comments. We request you not to use such behaviour in forum again. If you do not like some post of somebody, you may choose to ignore it rather than being aggressive.

ok, honest answers, how many people waiting to read Krishna's comments once he has heard the setup?

Met Krishna and his two sons for coffee and music. Nice guy and great kids. Its only fair that I let Krishna take centre stage and give his observations first. This may take some time, as he has gone to a book fair with his sons after our meet.

That's really great. That's a mini Meet I suppose. Any photos clicked - if yes & no reservation in uploading, please do

Looking forward to hear from Krishna.

hi pankaj,

yes it was. Krishna took some pics I guess he will upload, when he posts. He shared what his first impressions were, but I'm curious to know what his retained impression is.

I am also looking forward to it.

Also, happy to know that a mini-meet happened.

Krishna,

Delays are not accepted :P

Arre, someone is getting very impatient...... maybe he will post later today once he gets back from work.....