You're my hero. And may also be my downfall. The wet duvet sound appears to be just the quality of the standard-fit speakers, possibly combined with an excess of low/midrange with the standard 6x9s - possibly why a 3-way 6x9 has been said to have such a stark improvement, in a low-hanging fruit sort of way. There's nothing covering the speakers aside from the perforated grille, and the speakers themselves are well sealed with the both the panel and door card. I'll get these 6x9s swapped in, in the next couple of weeks probably, and see how it goes. But replacing the lot in a more considered fashion is quite appealing. Don't want to spend a fortune, but it seems like around £500 could make a pretty good job of it so long as components are chosen wisely. I'm assuming the £600 DSP boxes are generally for taking things to the next level, and by no means mandatory or necessary for a basic upgrade? For sound/vibration dampening, I've got the leftovers of a large roll of Tecsound SY50 from my home AV room sound proofing I was hoping to use - all over the insides of both the door panels and the door cards. Are there any compelling reasons not to, and instead get some Dynamat or a comparable alternatives vs the Tecsound for "free"? The Tecsound is marketed for home/studio use generally, but it has the temp tolerance for use in a car, so see no reason why it wouldn't do a good job of things.
I would say that swapping in the 6x9;s is going to improve things no end. - Hertz is considered one of the big players in the speaker market these days! Give that a whirl first and if it doesn't help - I can advise further. Get some of this - Link - Speaker Sealing Tape - Just a rubberized gasket to be used between the speaker mounting ring and the speaker itself. Pop me your address - I'll send you some sound deadening if you need some - I used to get sponsored so still have some leftover Vibe sound deadening sheets Using the Tecsound is going to be more useful for airborne road noise/exhaust drone than anything IMO rather than panel isolation and mass, so might be better adding to the inner panel over the top of a proper sound deadening sheet, of if you get the opportunity under the carpets. Adding mass is essentially what changes the resonance frequency of the associated plastic - stops the rattles. You want to make sure that you use this over the top of any obvious smaller holes in the metal panel and try to cover any more substantial holes with other means - MDF, ply, whatever (i tend to do this with silkaflex and thin MDF - it saves drilling holes, often looks more professional and isolates the MDF panel using the rubberized silkaflex) This keeps a separate barrier as I mentioned before, you want to separate the rear speaker waves from the front. It's why we put speakers into boxes. See this video here - You also want to get some of the deadening around the edging of the speaker rings too. You can make most stereos sound great for the sub 500 marks. Carefully chosen components - even looking at the second-hand market is going to benefit you if this is not a full-on project. But again, how far do you want to go with it? There is likely no need to use a processor at this point if it's just to make it sound better. Personally, my thoughts would be to try the 6x9's. If they don't pan out or if you feel it's missing something; Standard size 6" speakers as a 2-way front end and cross over. Using a reasonably decent make amp - Focal, Genesis, Even the Vibe four-channel i mentioned before. A small 8 or 10" subwoofer, even an under seat subwoofer would be beneficial A big misconception is that a subwoofer is needed to compete with the local chavs. It's used to add lower end frequency responses which otherwise you'd want the door speakers to do. Isolating these frequencies - i.e tweeters, mids, and low-end bass is much better separated out and shared with the best equipment to deal with them - i.e components, as opposed to a full range speaker which is trying to do all of those at the same time. Cheers to whoever sorted my other message out
I mentioned you're my hero, right? With regards to mass - the Tecsound has plenty of it, the fresh rolls were a 2-man lift. It's 5KG/m2, so ~2.5x Dynamat XTreme from what I can tell? Or is there more to it than just that? It's not foamy/padded, more like a dense-but-flexible rubber. It's around half-way between the feel of a sheet of lead, and a sheet of rubber. Would be delighted if you were up for sending some for-purpose stuff across at any rate. 100% with you. A well integrated sub is one you can't tell was there until you switch it off. I do like bass, but for presence rather than rattling panels. In an ideal world I would like meaningful extension to 20hz and below because that's what I'm used to at home, but neither am I going to spend the requisite money, nor give up the requisite space in the cabin to do that... so something that fits tidily under the passenger seat or rear bench will do. Really appreciate the assist so far - I'm going to get my nose down and do some homework whilst I figure out how far I want to take it.
So it's not like a sticky pad as such? Thats what i have.. its like a tar sheet with a sheet of aluminum foil. Sticky icky yukky stuff but does the trick. Where as what i think you have is more like a heavy sheet of rubber, non sticky and would go on the floor under carpets? behind wooden frames etc. Exactly that, you should not be able to tell the direction of it either if it's integrated properly as well. Should be non-directional so under the passenger seat or rear bench will do. All ears and happy to advice anyone who wants it Maybe a car SQ anonymous group could happen
I have the sticky stuff, sticky to the point of requiring choice language just to peel the backing off. No foil though, just the sheet and a film layer that keeps it from tearing.
Pathos Converto arrived today. First impressions, full of detail, excellent clarity and very dynamic. Really brings the music and my Focal Elegias to life in a way the Audiolab M-DAC didn't come close to. Good though the M-DAC is, it's a bit dull in comparison and clinical. That makes the M-DAC sound a bit rubbish, it isn't but, the Pathos is a big step up.
Though disappointed to see Pathos labelling buttons on the remote these days. That's far too practical.
Does it also do the Chord thing of having a series of random colours to tell you various things, if only you knew where the reference card was?
Further observations from using the new DAC/amp. For the first time in 6 years of listening to music on the PC using Foobar 2000, I have disabled the EQ as I no longer need a small lift on bass and treble and, whilst listening to The Wall, for the first time in nearly 6 years (I think), it was very noticeable that the sound stage is wider and more focused. Sounds wide to the right or left really do seem far away and the stereo imaging is much better. Who knew headphones could sound this good? EDIT: Forgot to add, this was listed on Audio Affair's website as the non-RR version but, I have been sent the RR version. This means I got the remote included, without paying the ₤200 premium I have seen on other sites.
Fellow Hi-Fi‘ers, I just bought a bunch of 20yr old speakers, 5.0 set, very chuffed. Took them home, set them up, and noticed that some of them had muffled sound. Took off the grills and found a bunch of coating peeling off the tweeters. Woofers seem spotless though. Photos: https://imgur.com/a/6g01UVM Questions What is happening? Will this affect the sound? Is it reparable? Thanks
This does happen, sometimes you don't notice any change in sound and sometimes it makes a massive difference (depending on the tweeter type). You can get replacement coating (https://www.speakerrepairshop.nl/en...-soft-dome-tweeters-9-cc-incl-brush/a-6131-18) or replace the whole tweeter. What sort of "muffled" sound it it? Is there a lack of top end or something else?
Ah good to know. So the issue is the right floorstander, and I think it’s basically just quieter. The left floorstander overpowers it quite easily. The other speakers seem okay. Have ruled out the amp by swapping left and right cables and still seeing the same issue. I can’t tell too well trying to put my ear to each speaker in turn, but I’d say it’s like the sound is coming from behind a curtain. Not sure if it’s a lack of top end or just everything overall is quieter. I don’t really know my top end from my mids tbh, still new to this.
I suspect the coating peeling off has reduced the stiffness of the dome and thereby compromised it's ability to reproduce the high frequency sounds. Might be worth talking to Tannoy to see about a spare tweeter, if recoating doesn't fix it.
Thanks for the advice, I've contacted Tannoy who redirected me to Lockwoodaudio who don't have any parts and suggested some other place etc. Will see how things go, I think I'll try the recoating option. There's a more pressing issue at hand for now though, namely I've been trying to use my 5.1 setup in games (Half Life 2), but am ending up frustrated. A bit of background: Most of my gaming life I've been a big believer in positional audio, i.e. being able to tell where an enemy is, which direction, how far, whether above or below etc. just from the sound of their guns/footsteps/voice. It's something I've had good success with using headphones (Sennheiser HD598), but I've always heard that surround sound speakers are where it's really at. That a surround sound setup simply can't be beaten and is the holy grail of positional audio. Hence, one of the reasons for investing in 5.1 (besides the fact that a crazy cheap £75 setup came up in the marketplace lol) was to take positional audio to the next level. So when I wired them up I was incredibly excited to fire up my FPS of choice (currently Half Life 2) the first chance I got. And I have to say, it feels unreal to finally be able to select the 5.1 option in the audio settings (finally living that childhood dream ).But when I got to the game, the sound was a downright mess! Ruined my day I tell you. Couldn't tell where anything was coming from. Nowhere near the level of my headphones and a far cry from a simple 2.1 setup. I'm pretty sure the problem is my setup - I'm trying to use a home theatre 5.1 kit for near-field computer gaming in a cramped room. The centre is about two feet from my face. The front floorstanders are laterally wide, four feet away, and pointed inwards at a pretty steep angle but the edges of my desk are getting in between them and my seating position. The rears are waaaaay back in the back corners of the room (eight feet or so?) to keep them out of the way of the crawling little ones when they crash into my cave. I've calibrated as much as I can, but I can't for the life of me get a consistent natural sound as an object pans around me in 3D space. When behind, the sound is muffled and fuzzy compared to being much clearer when right in front. When front-left or front-right, the sound is somewhat clear but it still doesn't sound natural panning from from front-centre to front-right/front-left. When in front, I can now get basic directional audio in the left-to-right plane but I can't tell how far away something is. Vertical positioning is non-existent no matter what direction. After the frustration I switched back to 2.1 with my bookshelf monitors sitting on my desk. That was much better. But directional audio from behind me is lacking. Is there any hope?
I had an absolute nightmare doing exactly that. I don't think my room was quite as big, but the fronts were two or three feet away on the wall, the rears were about the same distance behind me - But not even remotely in line with the fronts. The best successes I had were when I could take Windows out of the 5.1 equation and let the AV receiver do all the work of deciding where sounds should be. So HDMI audio out, Toslink, etc. Trying to use 5.1 a-la old school 5.1 Creative setups with ten leads in various colours only ever resulted in frustration IME.
After deciding I didn't need any more kit (& sending back some headphones I really didn't get on with) iFi released the Zen Can amp. OMFG, it's loud. I mean stupidly loud. No really, it's that loud that moving the volume dial from 7 o'clock (no volume) to just under 9 o'clock at 0db gain is more than enough to satisfy most situations. 10 o'clock is getting too loud and lets not even try 12 0'clock The gain goes up to +18db on it as well. & it sounds good,I usually use a littly hybrid valve amp but this sounds really good on it's own. It even acts as a pre-amp via balanced out to the valve amp if I want to avoid re-plugging things.
