Bullet lines eq 4200 dealio

[mmandley]

mmandley,
Odd that you would single me out like this. If you have an issue with me then you should contact me directly and I will be happy to visit with you about it.
I am not partial to any particular brand or any price bracket. In fact we do a ton of business with the JL Audio J2 electronics and X woofers where you can put excellent systems together very, very inexpensively and still get excellent quality.
I don't generally criticize even the brands that I don't represent. Krypt is an exception because I so strongly disagree with their ethics. I have also been an honest voice when it comes to any misrepresentations made by the brands that I DO carry. At some point or another I have called several of them on the carpet when their claims got to be a bit of a stretch. Maybe this is where the conflict originates... if my opinion has differed from yours on occasion.
So give me a call. Perhaps there is more to some of these situations and the motives than you realize.
For the most part my posts are supportive, positive and helpful. I routinely introduce members to concepts for the first time and am frequently parroted by others. Its not at all fair to characterize the bulk of my posts as negative or critical. This forum is no different.

David
Earmark Marine

Your right Dave im being a little to critical and i applogize for that. I tend to hold things close to me and when someone crosses that path its a bit hard to let go and maybe i have held some of our past posts and differences to much. Thanks for calling it out to the carpet so to speak.

[New Guy]

KG I have very similar questions that you do, should we start a new thread?

[dusty2221]

Can any of you pro's out there lend some knowledge and answer KG questions?

[KG's Supra24]

Ha! No New Guy ... I am determined to get an answer to my questions right here. Should I ask again?

[mmandley]

1. How much time are we talking to fine tune? Is the cost really just going to be an hours worth of labor?

2. Is there a noticeable difference between me tuning to what i think is right and a professional tune?

3. Who is capable of doing a "professional tune"? Can a local shop do this or do one of the boat audio guys really need to do this?

Anyone can do this, the thing is you have to understand what your tunning and truly forget about the main thing of how YOU like the music. Tunning the system is more based on maximizing the equipment and then 2nd adjusting to your liking say extra bass and treable.

I know when Brian tuned my boat it was very hard to not go change treable and bass settings. I just had to trust it and let to play as it was. He also tuned my truck after i upgraded it, and i dindt like it so i changed it. Then a month later he rode in it and said dam Mike your sub sounds like popcorn. Did you change my settings? LOL Yea i did and then changed them back and it sounds so much nicer.

The thing when you tune a stereo < in my mind > Make it loud, clear, and dynamic.

You can read all the threads, call the experts and then never listen to them and never get your systems potential.

The main thing is it all starts with the Souce deck, this can or normaly is the Head unit but i like to think of it as what is suppling a signal to your Amps. Is it the deck or a WS420 or what.

Then you tune that device for output thats clean, then you adjust the amps serperatly for the same goal, clean and loud, then at the end you would adjust frequency to make the highs play and the bass bump.

Its a lot more involved but this is the basic concept of it. Id be happy to talk with you more about it but just dont want to re state an entire thread but i can chat with you in PM or Email. Or we can chat on the phone.

Ultimatly you can get a realy good tune and balace doing it yourself if you follow some realy basic guidlines.

Or take it to the pros like Dave, Brian, Phil, and lots of others and pay them for there ear but try to learn what there doing when they tune it because every change you make to the system will require a retune.

[mmandley]

As fare as the whole EQ debate, you will never find one of them items in my boat, truck or house. I learned a long time ago an EQ is a noise souce and a way for a uneducated listener to adjust sounds you have no idea about and make it worse.

Some have a lot of nice options and if you like them more poer to you but so fare 9 out of 10 times i see an EQ installed in something i cring at it.

[EarmarkMarine]

Tuning your system questions:
There is usually a vast difference between how a do-it-yourselfer might approach tuning versus the personnel from an experienced shop. That statement is by no means a slight on the do-it-yourselfer. But it would be incredibly short sided for a DIY to overlook the experiences of a pro. A DYI may have been exposed to half a dozen personal experiences and the poor execution of many others (and suddenly they are an expert?). A pro has the frequency of exposure to a system a day times 200 days a year times a number of years. The pro is a quick study and recognizes patterns from his vast experience so the problem analysis is far more complex and in-depth. The two are generally operating on very different levels. Of course this is only a generalization as there are bad shops and serious hobbiests at both extremes.
In our case, I'm a perfectionist and kind of obsessive about the details. We have won several car audio competition national titles. It was the brutal judging over the course of countless seasons that challenged us and made us better. Every time we thought that we had arrived at perfection we had a judge gunning for us. So you learn and adapt. And sometimes you have to make wholesale changes before the next competition.
But here are a few examples.
A pro will often immediately recognize inherent flaws, like sub enclosure problems, orientation problems, crossover problems, phasing problems, product mismatches, etc. that the novice will stuggle with and try to overcome in tuning. But tuning won't correst these issues as they must first be corrected at the core. A pro will know what is under your control and what is not.
An EQ can be similar in that an EQ cannot correct phasing, many of the system design flaws or existing tuning problems. An abused EQ will definitely make matters worse. An EQ can repair peaks but an EQ cannot repair dips caused by cancellations without running your system out of its dynamic range. A paragraghic EQ, such as the ones referenced in this thread cannot entirely mimic a problem so you have to know how to compromise.
These are just the surface issues that a pro considers. There are layers upon layers of knowledge that comes with experience, including the many trials of errors. And there are great lessons in failures.
In tuning a system you are often bridging mechanical, electrical and acoustic factors. Some are fundamental to all audio and some are specific to the boat or environment. An expert in home or car has the basics down but is often missing the applicational elements that are unique to a boat. Most of the consumers that I speak with are not aware of what is truely involved to get the most value out of their systems.
In tuning there are both visual cues relating to excursion and audible cues as to optimizing your system. There is a definite sequence following the signal path.
How long does this procees take? It will depend on how particular the person diong it is. I like to sample alot of familiar but disimilar program material. Having the right material is key. You don't want to use your favorites as much as material that will expose shortcomings and non-linearities. Its a realitively quick process if you don't uncover any major flaws but if there are inherent problems they must be resolved first before effective tuning can be finished.
In tuning, I want to establish first what is flat or linear (meaning that all frequencies are treated equally in amplitude). That doesn't mean that the system will stay that way as different boat owners have different styles. But until you find 'linear' you can't expose the inherent flaws. Then you customize the 'balance' or 'tilt' or 'emphasis' to fit the boat owner and his taste.
That is a rough overview without going into a step by step.

David
Earmark Marine

[you da man]

I think a challenge is getting the tower speakers tuned for listening while boarding. We as boat owners tune them when the boat is still and usually sitting in front of the tower speakers. However, the listening conditions are actually with the boat moving, wind noise, and the rider 60-90' back

[EarmarkMarine]

^^^^You Da Man,
That is a very, very good point.
Auditory memory is fleeting so its very difficult to judge what adjustment will make a specific difference in comparison to what you heard in another time and place. The best that you can do is to raise and lower each EQ band under test conditions in order to recognize the specific frequency range that each band affects. Then try and analize your need for adjustment when boarding and estimate which band and how much attenuation/accentuation is needed. Since there is no instant feedback its very difficult to do it this way. A little trial and error and you can refine it a bit. That's a tough one.

David
Earmark Marine

[KG's Supra24]

David, thanks! Sounds like it is as complex as i was thinking.

I'll will likely be getting with you over email or PM to discuss a little further. Especially relating to gear, tuning cost, etc.