[oabeieo]

Go buy the cross spectrum umik2

if anyone doesn’t have a $600 microphone, but wants absolute superb performance

GET THE CROSS SPECTRUM UMIK2 for DIRAC!!

you will not be disappointed

finally finally finally I have a microphone that I can say performs really really good!!

 

[Uberverbosity]

…. And always put a fixed 13.5V supply on the main batt when tuning (not a charger, although better then nothing)

Can you recommend one? All I see is chargers.

 

[hella356]

Go buy the cross spectrum umik2

if anyone doesn’t have a $600 microphone, but wants absolute superb performance

GET THE CROSS SPECTRUM UMIK2 for DIRAC!!

you will not be disappointed

finally finally finally I have a microphone that I can say performs really really good!!

The Cross Spectrum site doesn't have a lot of info. It seems they take mics & do individual calibrations, as opposed to the generic cals that come with the mics?

 

[oabeieo]

The Cross Spectrum site doesn't have a lot of info. It seems they take mics & do individual calibrations, as opposed to the generic cals that come with the mics?

yes they can calibrate your mic if you send it to them or buy one calibrated through them…

the umik2 is 200$ from minidsp and 200$ from CSL. So just get one from CSL.

there calibration seems to be far more articulate and precise then what minidsp or Dayton is giving us…..and the umik2 seems to be a much more robust mic in every regard.

so if you can’t spend 600$ on a earthworks and another 500 on a good interface to make that 600$ mic work right…. The CSL umik2 seems the best fit…

I’ve been really picky about mics lately. This one is a winner. I’m quite pleased with its performance.

after hearing the cal file also vs the minidsp cal file it’s really clear that CSL puts a lot of time and careful methods to there calibration.
these guys have got to be just amazing at this. They produced a cal file that really hits it.
and the umik2 seems to be a winner. And I can measure at 96k or at 192k this pushing any aliasing way way out of band…..

 

[hella356]

I had noticed that the price for both UMIK 1 & 2 was basically the same as miniDSP's pricing. I assume miniDSP sells to CS for cheap enough to allow them to charge very little for the service. That's amazing, good find, man.

 

[Picassotheimpaler]

I actually just got a CSL umik-1 that was supposed to be here today (hopefully tomorrow).
I've been having a really fking hard time getting good tunes from Dirac. Out of a dozen I've tried, only one has been good enough to consistently listen to. That one tune is great, but the others were all consistently garbage.
The audiofrog mic I have is great for mma and REW, but tends to have random spikes in output across the frequency range when looking at the output in RTA. Like someone tapped on the front of the mic. I'm assuming it's from a connection somewhere within the unit being funky. This is okay for MMA, when you can either ignore the spike or restart the measurements. But an algorithm can't do that, it just works with what's it's given, and you can't tell that the data got wonked up upon taking it.
So hopefully this will help, and I will report back

 

[Picassotheimpaler]

I also leaned twords the umik-1 over umik 2 because of the smaller capsule. Since all the speakers in a car are on very different axis from each other, what is 90° off axis for the tweeter is more like 145° off axis for the midbass. So my thought process was that the smaller capsule should keep the mic omnidirectional for more of the bandwidth of hearing, making positioning of mic less important.

 

[dumdum]

Why do people say this? I've had members say the same thing to me. What I get from this is back in the day when car audio was at it's peak we didn't have good systems until now.

To me, just because things are new and up to date, doesn't mean it's better. It's like an incandescent light bulb, the main concept hasn't changed, maybe minor changes but not necessarily a better product. My point being, there haven't been any major breakthroughs since speakers and equipment were created and refined...the wheel hasn't been reinvented. Everything made today is still based off the same basic principles

As to the OP, I feel you and what you have said. The one thing that comes to mind is you stated the only difference that has changed is the weather...that is the biggest and most important aspect of differences. The atmosphere changes make the biggest impact on everything, especially in audio and the way a car performs. This would be my thinking on why you see the differences that you do. it could change day to day, hour to hour. Maybe I missed something that you stated but I would think these factors would be the biggest culprit.

However you may be onto something with what you discovered about the mics and changes with heat/ environment as well, IDK
I feel many older things were better than what's available today. However, to get equal quality today takes a lot of money it seems. Times have changed too quickly and the economy is too messed up IMO. Today, people want everything cheap...so manufactures have to have something that fits the bill and we know what that gets us. Too many variables at play

Unless you spend lots of thousands you are never going to get a passive setup to match up to modern dsp, even with an active setup the best cars had the ability to use time alignment in the systems, 99% didn’t… and at that they also didn’t have anything like the staging and imaging my SQ corsa has, it is a romantic notion of how good old cars used to sound

It’s the same as when I was a late teen and I’d just passed my test a chipped escort rs turbo was immensely quick… in reality my 2009 Clio rs200 in standard trim was as quick and handled way better, it’s memory, audible memory lasts seconds, so are we really meant to remember about everything a car sounded like many years ago?

I think I’d be very disappointed if I went back and listened to a few competition cars from years ago, whereas years ago (even though I was a through and through db drag guy) I thought they sounded stunning… well they would compared to my sq references back then

Things move on, equipment gets better and more available… dsp is a go to now for anyone who wants a reasonable sounding car… three way is easy to do and cheap… it’s just like we used to do joinery with a foot operated lathe and a hand saw, now we have a whole tool shop! And lots more education from the internet 😎

 

[dumdum]

If you want almost earthworks performance you need to look at isemcon emx7150 I think is the part number, half the price and very accurate, these can be used without a cal file pretty much for most of the freq range, the cal file corrects the high and lows more than anything

 

[oabeieo]

I also leaned twords the umik-1 over umik 2 because of the smaller capsule. Since all the speakers in a car are on very different axis from each other, what is 90° off axis for the tweeter is more like 145° off axis for the midbass. So my thought process was that the smaller capsule should keep the mic omnidirectional for more of the bandwidth of hearing, making positioning of mic less important.

the capsule size and axis isn’t a issue…. It’s a over blown thing said by some that are just looking to find a downside and ignore the upside

minidsp knew what they were doing ……. If you point mic at the celieng then sure but we’re not doing that…… we’re pointing 45deg up

but it will work for u just fine

 

[hella356]

the capsule size and axis isn’t a issue…. It’s a over blown thing said by some that are just looking to find a downside and ignore the upside

minidsp knew what they were doing ……. If you point mic at the celieng then sure but we’re not doing that…… we’re pointing 45deg up

but it will work for u just fine

I've always done 90°, aimed at the ceiling with my standard UMIK-1. Am I doing it wrong? If going 45°, should I use the 0 or 90 degree cal file?

 

[oabeieo]

I've always done 90°, aimed at the ceiling with my standard UMIK-1. Am I doing it wrong? If going 45°, should I use the 0 or 90 degree cal file?

not not wrong , for diffuse field that is okay, although CSL gives a 45 file and that will be better

they actually recommend a 70° Angle for single measurements

for multiple measurements they recommend putting the mic at three different angles because it is not a true diffuse field Mic, it is a open field Mic….

so for Dirac , where we can’t do 3 measurements per location, the 45 deg is preffered, and umik2 works great.

the mic almost has to be pointing to the back of the car (-180) for umik2 to start having issues….. most of its axial issues at at 180.

 

[hella356]

Great, I'll try that. Unemployed, so can't currently justify the $200 for the calibrated UMIK-2, but I'm going to once I start working again. I think I'll do my next tune the way I have been doing it, then run one at 45 degrees & compare them.

 

[oabeieo]

Great, I'll try that. Unemployed, so can't currently justify the $200 for the calibrated UMIK-2, but I'm going to once I start working again. I think I'll do my next tune the way I have been doing it, then run one at 45 degrees & compare them.

youll like the CSL cal , it’s very VERY minute differences , but to me that is worth it…. Because any post Dirac eq is so detrimental and making targets that don’t resemble a flat line (and have peaks drawn) usually don’t sound good. It should be leaps and bounds above the AF mic as I recall Andy saying it’s a generic cal file

so having a really accurate calibration is gold

 

[hella356]

At this point I'm excited to try both 45 degree approach and the APF method. I'm assuming (hoping) that between those and the new sealed box door midbass and upgrade from 1st gen SI M3 to M3 Carbon I'm installing this week, my rig will be at its best yet. But I do see one of those new mics in my future.

 

[oabeieo]

At this point I'm excited to try both 45 degree approach and the APF method. I'm assuming (hoping) that between those and the new sealed box door midbass and upgrade from 1st gen SI M3 to M3 Carbon I'm installing this week, my rig will be at its best yet. But I do see one of those new mics in my future.

maybe we can do a remote tuning session and I can validate some of the setup

I’m really surprised your not liking something, even with AF mic it should be real good

 

[hella356]

I'm actually really liking the results using a standard UMIK-1 and multi channel Dirac tune. The M3 is being upgraded because I've heard the Carbon is a fair bit better than the original, and I have Valicar pods I'm no longer using, so I'll be looking to sell the old mids + pods as a package deal. It seems my doors cavities aren't great enclosures despite being deadened no matter what midbasses I've tried & the results people have reported with sealed boxes sound like just what I'm looking for. And it's fun to geek out building. But any extra I can also squeeze out with Dirac methods will also be welcome.

 

[oabeieo]

I'm actually really liking the results using a standard UMIK-1 and multi channel Dirac tune. The M3 is being upgraded because I've heard the Carbon is a fair bit better than the original, and I have Valicar pods I'm no longer using, so I'll be looking to sell the old mids + pods as a package deal. It seems my doors cavities aren't great enclosures despite being deadened no matter what midbasses I've tried & the results people have reported with sealed boxes sound like just what I'm looking for. And it's fun to geek out building. But any extra I can also squeeze out with Dirac methods will also be welcome.

okay good , then you got it! Awesome

what I’ve done in the past is delete all but about three anchor points and draw a tilt down to about 2.5 K by about a half of a DB and then look at where that’s at on the scale and put the target points back on because super small quarter DB changes can really make or break it as far as tonality

like if you feel like there’s too much high frequency play with the target like a half of a DB at a time

you’ll get there … and the new gear is sure to be awesome

 

[hella356]

The fact that two different people said my car rocked their world in a similar way to how a 3rd friend's Martin Logan electrostatic home speakers did was confirmation that I'm on the right track. Hoping that I'm closing in on an end point with the front stage hardware-wise, although the obsession never ends, I suppose. I will try your more straight-ish line approach with the curve, as well. Thanks, you've been a huge help in moving my rig along!

 

[dumdum]

the capsule size and axis isn’t a issue…. It’s a over blown thing said by some that are just looking to find a downside and ignore the upside

minidsp knew what they were doing ……. If you point mic at the celieng then sure but we’re not doing that…… we’re pointing 45deg up

but it will work for u just fine

You shouldn’t be pointing it any way other than with the tip/shaft at 90 degrees to the tweeters. Any other way you will have variances between left and right due to the different angle of the mic to left and right…