Stephen Matthew
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2001
- Messages
- 81
please forgive any misspellings, it is 4:30 am here..
myself, being an active competitor in the car audio spl scene, i have to say that kit is unfair to make judgements in general like some of you have... the goal for 99% of car audio fanatics is to be able to mantain high fidelity sounds at the highest possible level.. not to simply get loud... personally i have driven around with a subwoofer system with a 13db peak at 51hz... however, with some very simple eq'ing it can be tuned down to a fairly flat response after dabin gain is accounted for.. this is as tested with an alpine rta4780 real time analyzer.. i also run an arc audio 4050cxl amplifier, biamping a pair of orion hcca components (also known as A/d/s 346is http://www.adst.com/pages/346is.html )..Which are also very close to home audio drivers.. my tweeters are recieveing 60 watts and my woofers are recieveing 120, and i guarantee you, the sound is incredible, at the moment, it far exceeds the sound quality of my sennheisser hd575 headphones, which is a poor statement for the senns to be honest.. i am also capable of producing sound levels in excess of 150 decibels.. personally i dont like listening to pink floyd at 150db.., but on occasion i like to turn it up.. most home theater guys honestly will say that when that T-Rex stomps on the ground, they really want to feel it.. and feel it shake the entire room.. similar thing with car audio.. really want to feel that kick bass..
car audio fanatics are also at a bit of a disadvantage because we are dealing with unequal pathlengths, a relatively high noise floor, and very limited space.. an efficient home theater subwoofer system can be based around an efficient driver in a large enclosure tubned very low... in a car, the space is limited, requiring drivers which will tolerate more power due to the loss of efficiency...
as far as low end freq response.. that is also the major goal in car audio.. everyone wants to feel the low low bass.... i drove around for several months with a portd shiva in 4 cubic feet tuned to 21hz and loved it.. but i had the enclosure in my passenger seat.. kinda awkward (im a very dedicated music lover..).. however, once again, space becomes an issue.. using small boxes, it becomes difficult to get any decent level of output from an enclosure using ports small enough to allow for very low tuning...
also, the attraction of the spl crowd is simply that they can feel it, and they can associate a number wth how loud somethign sounds... they can see on paper that one car was louder.. given a single car, assuming the mics are calibrated, 160db will always be 160db, so if one person is doing 160 and another guy 161, the 161 will always be louder, but sound quality is much harder to judge, a paitr of given cars may be judged differently each time they are judged and swap places every time... actually, the people at Dlc Designs are working on a device to actuall assign a given rating fairly to any car, based upon freq response, imaging, etc.. basically a computerized microphone array... but either way..there are hard and fast results and definite numbers with spl..sq isnt so lucky.. would you rathr drive a fast car or a car with a smooth ride?? with spl it is win on sunday sell on monday same as with racing...
Larry Seno.. i suggest you look a little further into the sq side of car audio, im willing to bet that there are cars out there with stereo's much less expensive than yours that would blow you away..
and anyone who believes that all home audio drivers are superior should take a look at the Rainbow Reference components...im willing to bet they are the finest conventional drivers made.. absolutely stunning sound.. at incredible volume levels..
and there are many other crossovers from home and car... the adire brahma, is a car audio woofer, the shiva and tempest have become very popular in car audio, many many home theater subwoofers up to the extreme high end are based upon car audio drivers, and Bob Carver, of sunfire home audio is suing half of the car audio world because he thinks he invented putting a sub in a box, and created the ida of putting a sbu in less than .7 cubic feet, and thinks he invented the idea of a sbu that makes more than 11mm of xmax.. sorry.. got off on a rant.. many home audio reviewers are also car audio reviewers... etc etc etc...
oh and to answer chris carswell's question, i spoke with the fine people at Dlc Designs, maker and operators of the dumax machine, which driver would me better for home theater use, and they said that given a large enough box, the stroker would eat the tempest alive across the board.. i thought this to be true simply based on the stroker's original designed purpose as a theater sub.. the sound that so many of you are trying to recreate in yuor homes is actually that of the stroker.. given an infinite baffle or a very large ported enclosure, the stroker is an incredible subwoofer and it has excellent sq.. it also has what is likely the strongest motor structure of any woofer ever.. seen Bl tested as high as 41...
long story short, car audio has no hard feelings for home audio.. but if anyone wants to get snobbish about it, i will be happy to flip a few knobs, switch the Beatles off and let you have a nice 50hz tone at 150db with the window cracked..with it closed you would hear nothing.
myself, being an active competitor in the car audio spl scene, i have to say that kit is unfair to make judgements in general like some of you have... the goal for 99% of car audio fanatics is to be able to mantain high fidelity sounds at the highest possible level.. not to simply get loud... personally i have driven around with a subwoofer system with a 13db peak at 51hz... however, with some very simple eq'ing it can be tuned down to a fairly flat response after dabin gain is accounted for.. this is as tested with an alpine rta4780 real time analyzer.. i also run an arc audio 4050cxl amplifier, biamping a pair of orion hcca components (also known as A/d/s 346is http://www.adst.com/pages/346is.html )..Which are also very close to home audio drivers.. my tweeters are recieveing 60 watts and my woofers are recieveing 120, and i guarantee you, the sound is incredible, at the moment, it far exceeds the sound quality of my sennheisser hd575 headphones, which is a poor statement for the senns to be honest.. i am also capable of producing sound levels in excess of 150 decibels.. personally i dont like listening to pink floyd at 150db.., but on occasion i like to turn it up.. most home theater guys honestly will say that when that T-Rex stomps on the ground, they really want to feel it.. and feel it shake the entire room.. similar thing with car audio.. really want to feel that kick bass..
car audio fanatics are also at a bit of a disadvantage because we are dealing with unequal pathlengths, a relatively high noise floor, and very limited space.. an efficient home theater subwoofer system can be based around an efficient driver in a large enclosure tubned very low... in a car, the space is limited, requiring drivers which will tolerate more power due to the loss of efficiency...
as far as low end freq response.. that is also the major goal in car audio.. everyone wants to feel the low low bass.... i drove around for several months with a portd shiva in 4 cubic feet tuned to 21hz and loved it.. but i had the enclosure in my passenger seat.. kinda awkward (im a very dedicated music lover..).. however, once again, space becomes an issue.. using small boxes, it becomes difficult to get any decent level of output from an enclosure using ports small enough to allow for very low tuning...
also, the attraction of the spl crowd is simply that they can feel it, and they can associate a number wth how loud somethign sounds... they can see on paper that one car was louder.. given a single car, assuming the mics are calibrated, 160db will always be 160db, so if one person is doing 160 and another guy 161, the 161 will always be louder, but sound quality is much harder to judge, a paitr of given cars may be judged differently each time they are judged and swap places every time... actually, the people at Dlc Designs are working on a device to actuall assign a given rating fairly to any car, based upon freq response, imaging, etc.. basically a computerized microphone array... but either way..there are hard and fast results and definite numbers with spl..sq isnt so lucky.. would you rathr drive a fast car or a car with a smooth ride?? with spl it is win on sunday sell on monday same as with racing...
Larry Seno.. i suggest you look a little further into the sq side of car audio, im willing to bet that there are cars out there with stereo's much less expensive than yours that would blow you away..
and anyone who believes that all home audio drivers are superior should take a look at the Rainbow Reference components...im willing to bet they are the finest conventional drivers made.. absolutely stunning sound.. at incredible volume levels..
and there are many other crossovers from home and car... the adire brahma, is a car audio woofer, the shiva and tempest have become very popular in car audio, many many home theater subwoofers up to the extreme high end are based upon car audio drivers, and Bob Carver, of sunfire home audio is suing half of the car audio world because he thinks he invented putting a sub in a box, and created the ida of putting a sbu in less than .7 cubic feet, and thinks he invented the idea of a sbu that makes more than 11mm of xmax.. sorry.. got off on a rant.. many home audio reviewers are also car audio reviewers... etc etc etc...
oh and to answer chris carswell's question, i spoke with the fine people at Dlc Designs, maker and operators of the dumax machine, which driver would me better for home theater use, and they said that given a large enough box, the stroker would eat the tempest alive across the board.. i thought this to be true simply based on the stroker's original designed purpose as a theater sub.. the sound that so many of you are trying to recreate in yuor homes is actually that of the stroker.. given an infinite baffle or a very large ported enclosure, the stroker is an incredible subwoofer and it has excellent sq.. it also has what is likely the strongest motor structure of any woofer ever.. seen Bl tested as high as 41...
long story short, car audio has no hard feelings for home audio.. but if anyone wants to get snobbish about it, i will be happy to flip a few knobs, switch the Beatles off and let you have a nice 50hz tone at 150db with the window cracked..with it closed you would hear nothing.
