Maybe this is why one of my favorite car's had dash mounted off axis 6.5" drivers and on axis tweeters. The midbass both provided direct off axis sound, and indirect (reflected) on axis sound. Soundstage was high, and everything sounded real. Voices had depth, and an impressive staging presence.
This same car BTW had no rear fill.
That's an idea I had wanted to try and implement. I think it would work very well without any need for "fill". Nice to see somebody's already been there
This whole issue with stock locations might force me to end up 3-way + sub.
So coaxials is not needed in the rear? I was thinking of buying some one way with no tweets in the rear since they don't really need to be bright in the back with the use of the tweeters. I know most here don't use rear-fill, but I am going to run it since I haul people around here and there.
I stopped using rear fill when I decided to run an active front stage, around two months ago. From the results that I have achieved running active, I will never use rear fill again. It did take a while to get used to, but there is a huge difference in quality running active....a positive difference of course. When I have backseat passengers, I'm usually talking to them with the radio off anyway...no rear fill!!
That's an idea I had wanted to try and implement. I think it would work very well without any need for "fill". Nice to see somebody's already been there
This whole issue with stock locations might force me to end up 3-way + sub.
In the grand prix, their rear speakers are high and large. I can't fathom how rear fill wouldn't be disruptive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigRed
so I guess your answer wrx is "no, I don't use it"
Correct. Never have. Since 15 years ago when I first started building systems. Never competed, never felt the need. Winning competitions doesn't seem to prove that your car sounds the best, or even good, just that it scores well on a judges card, or you are popular at the events.
Quote:
Originally Posted by legend921
So coaxials is not needed in the rear? I was thinking of buying some one way with no tweets in the rear since they don't really need to be bright in the back with the use of the tweeters. I know most here don't use rear-fill, but I am going to run it since I haul people around here and there.
The idea is just to buy a midrange/midbass driver at that point. I think you might be looking at dual cones or something. They still make some higher frequency stuff, albeit with tons of distortion. Stay away...
Quote:
Originally Posted by titansfan
I stopped using rear fill when I decided to run an active front stage, around two months ago. From the results that I have achieved running active, I will never use rear fill again. It did take a while to get used to, but there is a huge difference in quality running active....a positive difference of course. When I have backseat passengers, I'm usually talking to them with the radio off anyway...no rear fill!!
Thats a good point too. What headunits/processors have the ability to do 3 way active (or even 2 way) and still run rear fill with bandwidth limiting and time alignment capabilitys?
Are we suggesting we should go back to passives to be able to run rear fill?
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In the grand prix, their rear speakers are high and large. I can't fathom how rear fill wouldn't be disruptive.
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Thats a good point too. What headunits/processors have the ability to do 3 way active (or even 2 way) and still run rear fill with bandwidth limiting and time alignment capabilitys?
Are we suggesting we should go back to passives to be able to run rear fill?
Fill wouldn't utilize any mid bass in my application. Looking at the theory reflecting off the back glass seems to be what you want. In order to do 3-way I'd have to be passive up front too. Everytime I turn around there's another caveat for a particular idea.
Correct. Never have. Since 15 years ago when I first started building systems. Never competed, never felt the need. Winning competitions doesn't seem to prove that your car sounds the best, or even good, just that it scores well on a judges card, or you are popular at the events.
ok, so for somebody that has never competed, you are basing your opinion on what? what somebody else said? "sounds the best" is subjective
The topic here was rear fill and if you use it. I don't know how we got on competitions and what sounds best. A debated issue nonetheless
So lets look at this from another angle. Do you think a full orchestra would sound good in a 15x15 room? I mean, you would be getting rear reflections from the orchestra bouncing off the wall, which was one of the arguments to not use rear fill....or do you think it would sound better in a room 100 feet wide and 50 feet tall, and 300 feet deep? The idea of rear fill is to fool the ear into thinking the listening area is larger than it really is. Does it work for every song? no. 95%? yes. I don't think its fair to say it doesn't work if you have never tried it either. I'm not talking rear speakers attenuated. I'm talking time aligned with a serious delay, attenuated, and L-R. I'm not arguing my point because I read it on the internet. I'm giving my real world experience with it.
Suggestion: do the above and report your experience, not what you heard or read about
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Big Red made a good point. When I ran rear fill, i used time alignment and the "works", to minimize what they did to my front stage. Rear fill did make my system sound larger and more spacious. But, with a lot of time and work, an active front stage will achieve the same results...it did for me when I got rid of my rear fill.
No; to me rear-fill just interferes with the front stage to much. However, when done properly they can be a great addition, the key is properly. I lack the knowledge, and I am perfectly happy with my front stage.
rear fill is for movies and some, but very limited c.d. recored in 5.1 all music is recorded in two channels otherwise...
Well, not really.
You'd have to have a deck with more than just L/R outputs for that to be true. Adding rear speakers simply adds another set of left and right speakers to the setup. You could add 200 more speakers if you wanted, but as long as they're being fed by left and right channels, it's still just stereo, not 200.1.
You'd have to have a deck with more than just L/R outputs for that to be true. Adding rear speakers simply adds another set of left and right speakers to the setup. You could add 200 more speakers if you wanted, but as long as they're being fed by left and right channels, it's still just stereo, not 200.1.
What I was saying was that a deck that has 5 outputs will offer 5 channels, and popping in a SACD that's been mixed in 5.1 will yield true 5.1 audio. But a deck that has only L/R outputs will still produce L/R signals regardless of how many speakers you add to each output. Processes like Pro Logic II do not offer true surround from stereo, but rather simulated surround.
There are a lot of tricks you can do to a stereo audio signal. You can use sum and difference matrixing to isolate the center information and fake a "center" channel, you can use all kinds of phase and delay techniques to widen the image and make things appear to come from behind. Using eq and phase, you can mostly isolate certain elements and feed them to new channels you've created. You can even make it sound like things are coming from inside your head. It's amazing what can be done.
But these are all tricks used to simulate surround sound. They rely on deconstructing the soundstage that is created by a stereo signal. That's not the same as having five discreet channels. None of those processes is perfect, and all of them degrade and/or affect the sound and the mix in one way or another.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the use of the term "rear fill". If you're referring to surround speakers carrying discrete channels of audio that were intended to be only in those speakers, then yes, rear fill is for 5.1 and other types of surround. However, if you're talking about the speakers in the backseat that are for the passengers -- the ones that are fed by the "L Rear" and "R Rear" channels -- that signal isn't going to be true surround no matter what kind of audio trickery you play on it.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the use of the term "rear fill". If you're referring to surround speakers carrying discrete channels of audio that were intended to be only in those speakers, then yes, rear fill is for 5.1 and other types of surround. However, if you're talking about the speakers in the backseat that are for the passengers -- the ones that are fed by the "L Rear" and "R Rear" channels -- that signal isn't going to be true surround no matter what kind of audio trickery you play on it.
I'm not trying to be a jerk but majority of the people answering in this thread haven't even researched proper methods for fill. Using full range stereo is not fill. It is not supposed to be surround sound either. The purpose of fill is to use your existing rear speakers to support the sound stage you're creating through the addition of ambience. If you read the last 5 pages or so you'll see that a number of members have chimed in to reveal the proper method for achieving this idea.
I hope others will begin to understand this too. Degenerate semantics make us all stupid :/
I'm not trying to be a jerk but majority of the people answering in this thread haven't even researched proper methods for fill. Using full range stereo is not fill. It is not supposed to be surround sound either. The purpose of fill is to use your existing rear speakers to support the sound stage you're creating through the addition of ambience. If you read the last 5 pages or so you'll see that a number of members have chimed in to reveal the proper method for achieving this idea.
I hope others will begin to understand this too. Degenerate semantics make us all stupid :/
Okay so I went back 5 pages as suggested and found this: [QUOTE=I800COLLECT]
I would suspect that majority of the people who use rear fill do not use any processing at all. If that was the definition of rear fill I'd certainly run like hell. Those types of installs deserve heavy critique. But a few individuals have piqued my interest based on their theories on how to properly tune the setup and with my nieces staying with me through the summer, it makes sense to try out some of these ideas (werewolf's old threads I think?).
I can't say I'm educated on car audio but I do understand the idea behind hifi. With that...rear fill seems to only makes sense if you're attempting to fix whatever is lacking with your installation in the front. But, ironically, since rear speakers add so much complexity to the setup, simply adding those man hours to reconcile the installation up front would make more sense. Manipulating multipe sound sources doesn't sound like fun or easy. I can appreciate the attitude that's so far against it...
...but is it possible to tune rear fill to support the fronts correctly? Worst case I'll just use different settings for when the kids are in the back seat.
Was this a hot topic prior to DIYMA becoming a sponge for new guys like me? QUOTE]
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So as a recent proponent/advocate of 'properly' executed rear fill, how does it sound in your car? I'm kinda stuck on the original question..."do you use it"?
Is that an indirect critique of my comments? Because you're not the OP and never did ask. Trying to create a catch 22? I did try it and it sounded great imo. I'm still discerning how I'll make it part of my permanent install. At this point I'm stuck with the idea of using passives on channel 1&2 while using 3&4 bandpassed from the 9887. All other attempts have proven to be wasteful and time consuming.
Have you ever tried what has been defined as proper technique? You've been part of this thread for quite a bit too Monkey but I'll redirect anyways.
I'm not talking rear speakers attenuated. I'm talking time aligned with a serious delay
Just asking here, but aren't rear speakers usually located further from the front, so in order to time align correctly, it's the fronts that would have to be delayed from the rears..no?
Is that an indirect critique of my comments? Because you're not the OP and never did ask. Trying to create a catch 22? I did try it and it sounded great imo. I'm still discerning how I'll make it part of my permanent install. At this point I'm stuck with the idea of using passives on channel 1&2 while using 3&4 bandpassed from the 9887. All other attempts have proven to be wasteful and time consuming.
Have you ever tried what has been defined as proper technique? You've been part of this thread for quite a bit too Monkey but I'll redirect anyways.
Even though not the OP, I did ask or you couldn't have quoted me eh? And no 'Catch 22' intended as by definition that would have been an impossible/ or no win situation. You either did or didn't use it in your car.
As to that I'm glad you like the effect and I can see your quandary as if you go passive you lose T/A on individual drivers of your front stage drivers.
I have tried attenuated and limited bandwidth way back before T/A was commonly available and it wasn't worth the effort. I wouldn't say it destroyed my front stage, but unless the volume was kept quite low, it reduced clarity. For all the effort, it added nothing to the experiance.
I have heard attenuated, limited bandwidth, and delayed rearfill and the ambience effect did not make the experiance more real or enjoyable. Never heard L-R so I don't know about that.
I remember early Dolby surround sound for HT back in the early/mid nineties that did not have discrete channel information. It had some sort of derived center speakersignal and attenuated, bandwidth limited, and delayed rear channels. Kinda cool echo effect at times, but the dialogue was muddy and the staging vague/weird at best. This is consistant w/ my experiance when applied to a car. I ended up using regular stereo for movies. Compared to this, discrete 5.1 and 6.1 surround sound are a godsend.
I think I already voted, but that was for my old car. It gets tempting to have a switch for rear fill when there are passengers around, but as of now they remain disconnected
I am switching up my front stage right now, and am seriously considering using my old 6.5" midbass/range for this application.
I know I would need another channel of amplification, and I could split my midbass rcas and do some trickery to get the l-r going, but the problem i would have is I wont be able to use the 300-3k freqs. Id be limited to my midbass settings, which will probably be 65-800 or so.
Im still wanting to try is, as there is a ton of info in those ranges, so it may still work.
My problem is I dont have 8 channels of ta, Im limited to 6. is there a way to simulate the Haas effect in an analog manner? if I know its 20 ms than I could try it with a static setting.
Thanks in advance
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Re: Rear Fill: do you use it?
The idea is just to buy a midrange/midbass driver at that point. I think you might be looking at dual cones or something. They still make some higher frequency stuff, albeit with tons of distortion. Stay away...
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