nifu

Hi, I'm not sure this is right place to post this... but it's car audio.

I'm new to car audio and I just got an Alpine CDM-7874 Head Unit.

There are settings where I can change the Bass frequency from 60Hz, 80Hz, 100Hz, 200Hz. Can anyone tell me the difference between each of these please?

(I listen to mostly rap and r&b so I like my heavy bass)

Also, there is a Bass Band Width (Q-Factor) Where I can change it from WIDE 1-4 Which is Wide ------> Narrow.
I have no idea what this means.

Help would be mucho appreciated!
Thank you in advance!

brandon11983

The Bass Frequency you speak of is the frequency that will be boosted when you turn the bass up. Listening to rap, I'd probably set it at 80 Hz.

The Q Factor is how wide of a frequency range will be boosted. I.E. how much above and below 80 Hz will also be affected by the boosting of the bass. As far as which is which, I couldn't tell ya.... which sucks cuz I sell Alpine and use Alpine.... I just say fuck it and defeat all that shit. I'm a purist.

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tinfoil

That is a parametric EQ. The first is the center frequency (I had initially thought this may be a crossover freq, brandon knows more about Alpine than I do), the second is the slope.

The wider the slope, the more frequencies will be affected, as brandon said.

Which works best for your music depends on many, many things. I listen to metal and have found for my situation centering around 80 with a fairly narrow slope works well for solid kick drum.

Some things it depends on: size of sub, type of enclosure, crossover freqency. Also depends on the size of the vehicle.

And ya, EQs are of the devil.

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Tophat665

Dude, your stereo will definitely work better if you don't try hooking it to a fish. Unless you use treble hooks.

If that's not the least helpful comment on this thread, then I should be slapped with a bass.

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tinfoil

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nifu

Yea that was probably the least helpful to me tophat665
Unless it has some hidden meaning but I'm puzzled.
Anyways thanks brandon, tinfoil, and a big thank you to tophat for your help!
I will try 80Hz with a bit narrower bandwidth and adjust to my liking. By the way, I have NO subs. Does this make a diff?

brandon11983

It could. It depends on how responsible you are with the 'ol master gain control. If you go cranking the volume and try to be bumpin' straight outta Compton style on your speakers, then it could be a problem very soon. I have seen all to many speakers blown to smithereens by those that don't realize that factory or other non-sub- speakers aren't designed to handle that low bass shit from rap and r&b. Upon the revelation that you do not have subs, I would look no longer at the bass boosting abilities of your deck, and look at the possible crossover capabilities (your models' specs escape me at the moment, so I can't tell you if there is a crossover in it) of it. Rather than boost the bass and pump more potentially dangerous low frequencies into your poor speakers, I'd set a lazy sloped (6 dB per octave or so) high pass crossover in the neighborhood of 60 Hz. Again, me the purist thinks in the best interest of my speakers.

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jujueye

Go Brandon! Nice job, buddy!

This just goes to show that manuals - for just about anything - always suck. ALWAYS bring questions to your friends at TFP first.

nifu

hey, just recently i looked at the car and underneath the glove box there are 2 small black boxes that say "Passive Crossover Network" on them. There are buttons on it that say 'Low Pass' 'High pass' I'm not sure exactly what these are. I also have a 'Proton' amp underneath the passenger seat. These are aftermarket speakers, I believe the company is ADS for both the speakers and 'passive crossover network'.
This info might have been useful before i assume

please enlighten me brandon, thank you very much in advance.

tinfoil

Passive crossovers, really any crossover, is a circuit that will split a full-band audio signal into a number of smaller ones.

For example, your tweets can't handle low frequencies so feeding them low freqs is quite useless as the speak will actually still try to reproduce them. Same with the woofers, though it feeds them everything below a certain freq, more or less. There's slopes and such involved here as well, but you get the general idea.

Near perfect sound can be acheived with good speaks and a good crossover network. EQ's need not apply.

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LStanley

lol you people have alot to learn... I did IASCA (International Auto Sound Challenge Association) copetition back in the day... I'm not REAL famaliar with an alpine head unit... but I can guarantee you that a REAL bass freq. is anywhere from 20-80 hertz... anything MORE than that is MID-range.. PERIOD.... if you "centered" your DBFB (Dynamic Bass Frequency Boost) around 100 or 200 hertz... you will only make the stereo noizy... not bass boosted..

I can almost guarantee you that the hertz listed is the crossover frequency for the UPPER limit of the Bass Frequency Boost...

and the wider the boost the greater the boost...

and on your comment on "do I need subs?" well.. unless you have some SERIOUS and I do mean SERIOUS component speakers you won't even hear a bass frequency worth a flip....

yes the lil factory speakers will play a 40 hertz waveform... but its gonna sound terrible and not have any kick...

most factory speakers have a sound to noise ratio of about 80dB's at max volume within the 80-12,000 Hertz range... and under 80 it drops DRASTICALLY to around 40-30dB's..

Just for some kick and idea.. a good rule of thumb: every 7dB's is TWICE a loud as the number b4 it.. say 87dB's is TWICE as loud as 80, and 94 is TWICE that of 87 and 4 TIMES that of 80... etc... its exponential..

anyways... my advice.... find a friend that can do install, most car stereo shops will FUCK you on install, then find some subwoofer on the net that has some credibility to it... buy one from that company that has a GIGANTIC magnet on it >80oz (ideaolgically 100oz for a 10, 120 for a 12 etc.)... (easiest way to explain what a good sub is to ppl who are clueless)
then get an amplifier that has the BEST wattage output for your $, watts, are watts, are watts... no REAL need to find an Alpine amp or Boston Acoustics or whatever unless you are hooking a computer to test the waveform... a Pyramid amp or whatever cheap one you find will work wonders.. get like a 500 watt amp or better.. (check the wattage handling of the subwoofer)

wire that up, put some cheap lil highpass in-line sound filters on the speaker wire for your high's (the factory speakers) and then blow your eardrums out....

you'll thank me later

oh and all your connecting cable... radio shack works fine.. don't bother with the 120$ RCA cables.. get the 10$ one from radio shack, just don't place the signal cable (RCA) next to your power cable...

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tinfoil

Wattage isn't the only thing to consider. If you're paying for some serious speaks, you don't want to throw a cheap pyramid at it, especially if you're going to be anywhere close to maxing out the amp. Cheap amps have got terrible noise at high volumes and that terrible noise can do some nasty things to speaks.

As for cables, no you don't need snobbishly high-end crap, but getting cheap cables to go from the head unit to the trunk isn't helping your cause at all. The highest preamp voltage I've seen (though I can't say I have looked all that much lately) is 4V, and that 4V is going to degrade over a 10-20' cheapie cable.

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brandon11983

Incorrect. There is no set in stone frequency chart that one can refer to to see what frequency is what. As a generalization, frequencies above 80 Hz or so would be mid BASS... mid RANGE is typically in the 100-400 Hz range.

Incorrect. This is the center frequency.

So my Alpine Type R 5.25" components that are HPF'd at 63 Hz can't do that? They can't reproduce sounds that are "BASS" and run from 63-80 Hz? (that's BASS right??) I'll tell you they do a good job, and all for only $249. My previous JL Audio XR653CS's would make your nose bleed at 60 Hz. Those can be had for $599.



Again, incorrect. A doubling of power (i.e. cone area or amp power) should theoretically give a 3 dB gain. However, a 3 dB of gain is not necessarily a doubling of output.

I can't speak for the shops where you are, but the ones around here (like mine) take extremely good care of our customers. We have a saying in the industry... "friends don't let friends install car audio" I've seen many a dash plate or door panel broken or cracked from a friend that said his install skills were up to the task. All to save a few bucks. Basic car audio installs are not very expensive at all. $35 for a deck... $30 for speakers... c'mon here.... The fact that you say "buy a sub on the net" from a place that has "credibility to it." That's kind of an oxymoron in the car audio biz. Very few companies will warranty items purchased from (unauthorized) retailers on the 'net. A GIGANTIC magnet does not necessarily make a sub sound good either. Not to say that large magnet subs like JL W7's or Eclipse Aluminum's do not sound excellent. But having a large magnet is not a prerequisite for good SQ. I remember a Coustic sub from a few years back... nothing special.. probably like a $200 or so sub, no huge magnet, no giant roll surround, didn't need a zillion watts... and it pumped out an extremely clean and controlled note.

Watts are not watts. Play a 50wpc Jensen piece of shit, then play a 50wpc Alpine V-12 and tell me you don't hear a fucking difference.

How bout we call that plan B? Use the crossover in the deck if it has it.

Wow... coming from an IASCA (sound quality...) competitor.... Nothing says that you have to spend an excessive amount on cables... but a fucking $10 Radio Shack cable is certainly not the answer. Good cables can be had for $20-35.


Now that we have that shit settled....

If you aren't running subs and want to use those crossovers, you'd want them in high pass mode. This will allow frequencies above the crossover point to pass (HIGHer than the point PASSes thru). And a/d/s are an awesome speaker.

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nifu

nice, very nice info!

yes! i just looked at the passive xover network and it had a high pass thingy that wasn't up all the way! i'll adjust THAT!

nice, ADS are good speakers, that's good to know, i currently like the bass output they're giving me so i don't think i need subs for now.
it's just that at low volumes i might want to hear a little 'bump bump' ya na mean?

thanks brandon, tinfoil, lsstanley.

LStanley

Brandon11983,

You boast alot for someone who meerley works in a shop.
There is TWO types of ISACA Competition, SQ(sound quality) and SPL (sound pressure level), and you are categorized and ranked by the amount of MONEY you spend on your system.. if you spend 20k then you are ranked with the high doller people, if you spend <1k then you are ranked with the rookies...

What Nifu asked to do was make his stereo push more bass. Not replace the entire system.

what I was trying to do, becasue I obviously read into his post too far and sought that he was attempting to save money, told him how to save about 70% of the cash spent and STILL pound out as much bass as the guy next to him that had it all professsionally done.

Now, What I am gonna ask you Brandon11983, is since you have a shop to yourself.. and probably the resources to test my claims..
spend 375$ on your expensive set of full-range components, and 400$+ on your name brand amp, 30$ on your signal cable, and all your fancy shit, put a dB meter in the car.... tell me what dB level it hits up to 80hertz, because unless they changed things from back in 1997 that was the limit the meters would measure.
Total cost 700$ +

THEN, take ONLY the 375$ that you spend on the fancy components, buy a sub off the net, say the Logic EX 1200 (just a 12") http://www.logicsoundlab.com/ex1200.html place to purhase: http://caraudiocenter.tripod.com/audiousabiz/id60.html first place to buy them I found... I've seen them for sale for around 165$ not 229$ before... and go guy a Pyramid amp (I'll stick to my example earlier.. though I like crossfire better) http://www.pyramidcaraudio.com/itemp...?model=PB1845X the suggested price of 300$ is never what you'll pay in a store... you'll get one for around 124$ example: http://www.millionbuy.com/pyrpb1845x.html ... This might push you over the 375$ mark to build the install but who cares, Build a box enclosure, sealed, out of 3/4inch MDF 40$ (I build them myself, don't tell me I can't do one for 40$ I do it ALL the time) some rca and powerwire, 20$, and some highpass filters 10$, total project cost ~359$ - 425$

and then tell me who's stereo hits harder, sounds better, and was cheaper..... oh, and don't froget the dB meter

oh... AND on another plus side.. you'll be in a lower competition category at ISACA and you'll win more, bring home MORE trophies, and eventually get sponsored cause you aren't one of the ignorant drones that goes to a Car Audio shop and spends 1500$+ on the same kinda setup...

700$+ for only door speakers??

or 359$ for a door rattling, eardrum busting, bass-a-holic

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Lathan Stanley

LStanley

oh and just for the hell of it...

if you are into EROTIC car stereo bass...

http://www.ddaudio.com/caraudio/woof...p?series=9900b

QUAD!! Stacked 3in voice coils, 300oz magnet, 5layer kevlar cone, 1500/3000 watt power handling 17" woofers...
only one problem, MSRP, 1299.00$


but THOSE are the SPL leaders of the pack.. you haven't heard ANYTHING until you hear one of those... holy shit...

one guy from south africa, 3 DD 15" woofers:

1st Martin Byrne (After-Byrne Audio)
('56 Mini Wagon) 3 x DD 9915Q2
12 x U.S.Amps 2000X 172.9db (New World Record)

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Lathan Stanley

nifu

I'm not trying to bust my eardrums mannnn!

I don't understand how some people can take the volume their systems put out... i mean, seriously now, what is the loudest you can listen to without doing permanent damage??

oh and, i have a proton amp but... i'm not sure of any of the details of it. i was wondering if i would need another amp in order to power a small sub. i'll try looking on the amp to see the power n' stuff.

also, do u need a box for ur subs? do u actually make one with like pieces of wood and glue it all together and cut it yourself? what exactly is the box for?
thanks

LStanley

depends if a- you are allready using the amp
b- how much power the amp produces
c- how much power the sub needs

and YES you need a box, you ALWAYS do...
(there are very very very very small amount of select subs that CLAIM to work outside a box... lol) but yeah

subs require air compression to generate the BOOM they make.. and without a box of some sort, no boom, no bass...
sealed boxes = good bass on all frequencies (good for SQ)
ported boxes = extreme bass on only a few select frequencies and poor on the rest (good for SPL)

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Lathan Stanley

brandon11983

I don't feel that I was boasting at all. And I certainly would not attribute my knowledge as someone that "merely" works in a shop. If you would like to banter on further, we can do that. The issue seems moot now that nifu is banned....

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LStanley

actually quite frankly... I don't care... I get the job done fine, know what I'm doing, and know how to get the best sound for the dollar...

I did the balls out 6,000$ stereo when I was in highschool... got screwed a million times over on what I had....

so yeah, now cheap shit slapped together with a lil finesse and the right tweaking works fine for me..

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Lathan Stanley

brandon11983

whatever blows your hair back, then.

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