[Extended Power]

Ok so I absolutely love the sound quality of my ear buds I use while watching movies, or listening to music.
They are Klipsch Image S4i.
With music playing, you can litterly imagine where every instrument is on stage.
And the detail in every frequency is staggering. (The bass is incredible)

Now when it comes to imaging in car audio, is the main idea just to be able to put the stage in the middle of the hood?
With the ear buds, it's like your standing right in front of the stage.
The separation part confuses me though...say your listening to some Led Zep....the stage doesn't start spinning, but the music does...unless your totally Phuked up. Lol

How can you get the same imaging and separation in a cab, as in a set of ear buds, when one is directly in each ear, and the other is mounted feet away? (Say kick panels, or door panels)

 

[ZeblodS]

You can with a good DSP and a lot of sound processing, in order to have a nice gain response with no phase issues at your head's position.

The only way to have a "as perfect as possible" result, is tuning using a calibrated microphone to see exactly what you're doing.

[EDIT] The main idea is to put the stage between the two mirrors, with a real center stable on the middle of the dashboard (or a bit further on th hood) and to have a filling of the stage like the one you have with your earbuds. The différence with the buds is that you can feel the sound with your body (the low frequencies especially) and the high frequencies will sound more "ventilated".

 

[Extended Power]

Yeah, I am leaving it to the shop to tune the system.
I have a Mosconi 6 to 8...plan to write down every setting there is, just in case I screw it up afterwards somehow...at least I could go back to the original setup.

 

[JVD240]

I honestly prefer a well tuned car audio system over good earbuds or even full size headphones.

Headphones have great separation... I think mostly because they're just that; Fully separated. Left ear only hears left info, and right ear right info. I've just always felt they lack that sense of space you get from a nice stereo rig or well tuned vehicle.

It's going to be quite difficult to get that kind of separation in a vehicle though. It's a completely different environment. Many more things come into play.

EDIT: To sort of answer your question... Balancing the L/R power response is going to be the key factor.

 

[ZeblodS]

Not to be shabby, but I never saw a shop tuning properly a DSP...
They just don't have the time to do it right. In order to do it right, you have to measure each speaker separately in ~18 positions all around the head position to have mean mesurments. That will take at least 3 hours, and it's only the initial mesurment.
A full setting takes at least 2 full days with all mesurement, simulations of EQ/Xover, mesurement, time delay computation, manual listening corrections, mesurement, phase correction, mesurement, manual listening corrections again, etc. No shop take the time to do this, or they will chage you hundreds $...

Some insight with my website (well it's in french...) : http://sono.zeblods.org/7
And with my new setting topic (still in progress) : http://www.caraudio-processing.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=62

 

[sqnut]

Cans and buds are good for a tonality reference but pretty lousy for imaging, cause the room is inside your head. A 2ch in a room or a well tuned car are better reference points for imaging.

 

[Extended Power]

Not to be shabby, but I never saw a shop tuning properly a DSP...
They just don't have the time to do it right. In order to do it right, you have to measure each speaker separately in ~18 positions all around the head position to have mean mesurments. That will take at least 3 hours, and it's only the initial mesurment.
A full setting takes at least 2 full days with all mesurement, simulations of EQ/Xover, mesurement, time delay computation, manual listening corrections, mesurement, phase correction, mesurement, manual listening corrections again, etc. No shop take the time to do this, or they will chage you hundreds $...

Some insight with my website (well it's in french...) : La brique audio [ZeblodSite]
And with my new setting topic (still in progress) : Caraudio-Processing • Afficher le sujet - La brique audio

What???!!

You mean Bass, Treble, and Fader aren't gonna do it? Wtf?

Lol, just kiddin.

I know it is an extremely involved process, but I think the shop tuning it will have it better than a "out of the box" setup.

 

[sqnut]

Not to be shabby, but I never saw a shop tuning properly a DSP...
They just don't have the time to do it right. In order to do it right, you have to measure each speaker separately in ~18 positions all around the head position to have mean mesurments. That will take at least 3 hours, and it's only the initial mesurment.
A full setting takes at least 2 full days with all mesurement, simulations of EQ/Xover, mesurement, time delay computation, manual listening corrections, mesurement, phase correction, mesurement, manual listening corrections again, etc. No shop take the time to do this, or they will chage you hundreds $...

For someone who has the ear and knows how to use the dsp it could be as long as a few months. The average installer using an RTA will most likely tune it to a flattish curve, far from satisfactory.

 

[ZeblodS]

What???!!

You mean Bass, Treble, and Fader aren't gonna do it? Wtf?

Lol, just kiddin.

I know it is an extremely involved process, but I think the shop tuning it will have it better than a "out of the box" setup.

Most of the shop setup I heard used the "autotune" function of the DSP... And they all sounded like crap.
But maybe it's just the shop here in France...

For someone who has the ear and knows how to use the dsp it could be as long as a few months. The average installer using an RTA will most likely tune it to a flattish curve, far from satisfactory.

For someone who's doing his own tuning, it's a never-ending process. Always something to improve (even really slightly), and taste evolve with time.

But to have a really decent tuning, it will take at least two full days of work. It won't be perfect, but good enough, even if further work would improve it slightly here and there.