Where to put eqauliser

[pitslayer]

Stuck on what to do here. Gained myself a lovely kicker system, never been out of the box...cost me £0.00 /lol
5 channel amp
10" sub(will use my 12" i think)
2 sets of components fronts are already in, need to put rears in
and a 9 band graphic equaliser
Now with my carpc install im trying to keep everything oem looking the only visible change in the cabin is the screen, and most think its oem fitment....
So plan is
under the rear load bed in the black tray, shift the carputer to the left hand side, drill a hole for the sound output to free up some room, and a few more holes to run wires through, giving enough space to fit the amp in(rather big) I should be able to then wire up all the power cables, so they are next to the carputer. all the speaker cables and RCA cables like the laptop will have some holes drilled in load space side, and come out through the side and hidden away..
the Sub will probably be fixed to the back of the seat to stop it moving around.
speakers easy to fit....
just the equaliser, where to put it?
cant go in glovebox, cant go in dash, no room for it in the boot and then becomes to far away. cant put it in arm rest thing as i use that...needs to be out of site with an easy route to run cables through

any ideas?

[Davezj]

sun glasses tray

behind it, and cut the back off it.

i have turbo timer in there, and can still use the sun glasses holder bit as well.

[scott.mohekey]

His sun glasses tray is probably already used by the lcd screen?

[pitslayer]

not enough room behind it to go in sunglasses tray and just a tiny bit to narrow, might end up being bolted to the bottom of my seat

[Turbo_Steve]

Not sure how deep it is, but could be mounted in front of the gearstick point upwards? Hide the gubbins underneath and rotate the front panel by 90degrees.


Realistically...why do you want a 9-band EQ when you have a PC in the car that will do full 36-band EQ as well as parametric adjustment?

[pitslayer]

the pc equliser is a bit crap, only running winamp to play the music, untill i can find something that will run happier as a better media player. Also has a few more things on there the eqauliser i want to use turning stuff off and on

The car has to look stock and oem so dont want to be cutting holes in the trim to fit it. think i found a nice place under the seat, mount it to the base of the seat, which wont be moving much.

[Turbo_Steve]

Fair enough, but I'd chuck the 9-band and run a decent soundcard with onboard DSP: can be had off e-bay for less than £20 (e.g. Older Soundblasters).

Definitely one of the benefits of aftermarket PC audio...less CPU hit.

Just strikes me that the whole point of the CarPC platform is that everything is integrated.....adding extra boxes seems contrary to the point.

[pitslayer]

only a temporary fix untill i can afford a nice creative soundcard, all ready seen the one i want but i cant afford to blow 60 quid at the moment on it, more important things...where as the 9band is free ;)

[apeman69]

If the EQ is under the seat then it could be awkward to use. I agree with Steve on the EQ vs PC set up. Maybe installing the 5 channel amp, sub, speakers and setting these up right could result in a nice sound.
I've never really been one for replacing factory speakers or adding more speakers (other than a sub) as I think that the factory sound system has been designed for the accoustics of this specific vehicle and, as long as it is loud enough, will generally be more than adequate in terms of sound quality.
Every car I have been in that's had aftermarket speakers hasn't seemed to sound quite so rich and full: something seems not quite right.
I've simply added a sub and 2 channel amp to my last 4 cars and ended up with a lovely sound in all of them from the factory speakers. One of my mates is obsessed with uprating his speakers, adding 6x9s and all that crap (in his last 3 cars) and it has spoiled the original sound quality in my view. This may be a set up issue on his part but I personally wouldn't risk replacing my factory speakers or adding crossovers, tweeters or any of that nonesense. In reality most factory stereos in a decent car are powerful enough with the addition of a sub & sub amp which, when set up correctly, will result in a loud and great sounding system.

You going for a USB sound card for the laptop? Dunno if you're after a Creative X-Fi but if you are then make sure it will connect to your laptop (ExpressCard slot I think) and you may want to google the earlier desktop version of this card too, for some interesting info on problems users have had with that - could be apparent with the laptop variant. Maybe something to consider.

[pitslayer]

I will be sticking with the laptop for the moment, its functional and does its job. the sound car is going to be an internal one for the moment, ideally i would like the external soundcard, but that can wait for the moment

I have always said the stock mitsi speakers are amazing, probably the best stock speakers i have ever listened to, and work really well, i would get another set in there, but i want something that will last, because the build qaulity of a mitsi speaker is complete sh*te. Besides that i could pretty much gaurentee that £140 components will be better than stock speakers, which i am going to have to say they are now they are fitted properly. spent all evening making plates to fit the new speakers onto the stock buckets....
This is why i am replacing the mitsi speaker...notice something missing /lol they just dont last, they start to blow when you put a new H/U in, then just disintergrate all 3 galants i have owned, have done it
24370

So now it has a full set of decent components in there, just the H/U running them, sounds good much better than a good set of stock speakers....next job is to amp it all up.....and clean all the black plastic out the car /lol

Fitting a cheap set of components is pointless, you have to be spending at least £100 on a set for any decent qaulity, and avoid the cheaper brands.

eqauliser will be set up and left, shouldnt have to touch it again after that
:afro: :afro:

[Turbo_Steve]

Pits, it's a 9-band EQ: their nick name in professional circles is "piss in it to change the flavour box". If you're after something you setup & leave, it needs to be in the PC or a standalone 36-band unit tailored to the accoustics of the car. Look at it this way:

How many dB of boost / cut does your 9-band EQ offer you? is it more than 6dB? How wide is the Q of each of the bands?
It's a very blunt tool for altering the sound in any meaningful way....equivalent to putting socks over the tweeters to make them less bright or some such other rubbish.

ANY EQ is a sequence of filters: it can only EVER reduce sound quality in the analogue domain (this is different in the digital world, where all the source data is preserved, just modified prior to conversion): if you have a massively expensive EQ with a very small footprint at 0dB then use it to remove peaks from the frequency response of the vehicle...NEVER use the boost.

A 9-band EQ is the same as a "loudness" button: great if you want to muck about and make it sound good at the expense of quality, but you're making big sacrifices to achieve it.


I agree with both of you on the factory speakers: they do rock. And they're too fragile. However, I disgaree with not fitting crossovers to them: I would always fit a "High Pass" crossover (even if it's just an inline cap) to roll off the bass below 120Hz: they're not really designed to reproduce the sort of music available today (drum & bass, anyone?) or indeed the sort of CD processing (relentless compression & bass heavy EQ - all dynamics sacrificed) at anything over the sort of power the factory headunit will produce, which is how you're destroying them, Kyle.

I am hoping to replace our factory units with some more factory units (or something with very similar Thiele Small parameters) and roll the bass off with an inline cap....should cost about £5 per door to protect the speakers.
This has worked extremely well in previous vehicles: let the subwoofer (which in a car is technically still a woofer if it goes above 80Hz, especially as you struggle to reproduce anything below 50Hz in a space as small as a car: you can't fit a whole wavelength in there!!!) do all the work.

I'm not trying to have a go at you, Pits, I admire what you've achieved so far, but I think it's important to remember that the route to really good sound quality is to have the best source you can, with the most direct route to the speakers possible, and each bit of kit on the way should generally be less good than the source, or it isn't working to the fullness of it's ability.

[pitslayer]

your welcome to direct me to a 36 channel eqauliser that is free and works with winamp :) :) :) :)

[stuey]

ANY EQ is a sequence of filters: it can only EVER reduce sound quality in the analogue domain (this is different in the digital world, where all the source data is preserved, just modified prior to conversion): if you have a massively expensive EQ with a very small footprint at 0dB then use it to remove peaks from the frequency response of the vehicle...NEVER use the boost.

Just to reinforce what Turbo-Steve said, Eq (particularly graphics) should only ever be used to cut offending frequencies. The idea is to produce a flat a response as possible. In what I do we use 30 band graphics, and parametric EQ to reduce feedback and 'correct' the sound from one set of speakers or venue to another.
I always chuckle when I see the classic 'smiley face' EQ setting.

Good work though, and be nice to see it it when it's done..

[Turbo_Steve]

http://www.audio-software.com/download.html

?

Though in software you don't NEED a 36band one, you just need several decent parametrics. The important bit is a good variable Q factor that can be narrowed, and plenty of cut.