What does sound quality mean to you?

[SQ_LSC]

If there's interest, I will start a series of informational posts. I'll start with this topic to get our feet wet and see what the general consensus is. I wanted to get this rolling before the new year because I don't drink and it will give me something to do! :rolleyes:

I've had many varied reactions from people giving auditions of my car audio systems. Until one hears something better, the best they ever heard is what they use to judge everything else. Myself included, the best I've ever heard is probably not the best there is.

So, I ask the above question,.... What parameters do you use to define good SQ? Please don't be shy, If you have an interest in high quality musical reproduction, please get involved.

[SQ_LSC]

Did I mention there are no right or wrong answers. This could become a checklist of sorts to determine where we are and where we may want to end up SQ wise.

[JoshMcMadMac]

quote:Originally posted by SQ_LSC:
So, I ask the above question,.... What parameters do you use to define good SQ? Please don't be shy, If you have an interest in high quality musical reproduction, please get involved.

I don't think most people really know what the parameters are. It's like going to an IMAX. Most people think it is really cool, but can't really tell you exactly why.

SQ to me is things like clarity, tone, and a good spectrum of sound. I know that in a car background noises and vibrations become an issue.
1. Clarity: I think that is pretty straight forward. Being able to hear every note clearly and being able to differentiate between each note.
2. Tone: This is hard for me to explain, but I think the term is common enough that it is self-eplainatory. The depth of the sound, or how full it is. An alarm clock sounds "hollow", where as a good stereo fills the room.
3. Sound Spectrum: To me this is where an EQ is required. Good SQ has an even balance of all frequencies. I don't want to hear just thumping of bass, and I don't want just the high pitch screams either. Covering the whole spectrum of sound id important, because otherwise you miss parts of the music.
4. Sound Dampening: On a car this is key. SQ not only depends on your system, but the interference of other "systems." Road noise can kill the listening experience. As well as the rumble of a trunk lid as the bass hits. Getting rid of this "white noise" is very important for good SQ.

That's my list, but I am sure there are other points that many of you have that I overlooked. Maybe you can modify or add to this list?

[Capt. Zilog]

CD's suck anyhow. When it's all said and done 44,100Hz @ 16-bit/channel sampling is just not good. Now, when DVD audio finally comes to fruition, and we see 32-bit samples, at 98,000Hz, then we can talk quality.

But if you want the best of the best today, you need a tuner. A CD with a good frequency spread and a good tuner will let you know what you're missing. They usually sell kits that do just that. Your speakers need to be compartmentalized with a good, high order crossover, (those that have very fast frequency dropoffs). You don't need very many speakers, in fact, it's recommended you have 2 tweeters, 2 mids, 2 woofers and 1-2 subwoofers. You don't need a million speakers, all that does is drive up the possibility for destructive interference and make cabin tuning a nightmare.

If you want to get into the whole mechaincs of it as well, there's other stuff to consider. Speaker phase, imaging, directing, power consumption, power filtering, EM interference, and the list goes on. I would like to help you and I'm sure PB_Halycon would too, he seems very very knowledgable on these topics.

[pro-five-oh]

Sound quality is relative to the car, as I prefer to use stock speaker locations for everything. I like the stock look, and I prefer not to advertise what I have to potential thieves.

Lucky for me my cars have 6 speaker locations, perfect for woofers in the back, tweeters in the dash/top of doors, and smaller woofers in the front doors.

I am pretty much stuck on JL XR-series speakers, though I amps and head units aren't a big deal. I just look at the numbers they put out and see what my budget can handle.

I like JL's XR components with Big tweeters positioned for good imaging, good mid-bass from the JL 6 1/2s in the doors, and then tight and strong bass coming from a bandpass sub in the back...

[SQ_LSC]

You guys are jumping to the mechanics. That's cool, but it's not really what I was shooting for. JoshMcMadMac hit what I was asking on the head. Most people don't know exactly what a SQ system is and that's why I started this thread. Your average person thinks Loud and Clear is SQ. I can't begin to count how many times I've been asked to demo my system but I had to almost wrestle them inside the vehicle! The notion of soundstage, imaging, realism isn't even considered until experienced.

By the way Capt. PB-Halcyon=SQ_LSC. I changed my screen name when I became moderator of this board.

So if we want to increase the realism of our listening experience in our daily comuters, we need to first understand what the goals are and then work on the mechanics of getting there. Preferably without destroying the vehicles and without breaking the bank in the process. I've never cut a single piece of metal or plastic in my competiton SUV. I can even put it back to complete factory in probably a day or 2.

Well, here's some of the things I persue when doing an audio system,...

*Tonality, this is probably the most important to me. Does a 6-string sound like one, or a Bass. Does a kettle drum sound like one, or a tin can. Are the tweeters so shrill it gives you a headache in an hour? Without this one, it's tuff to enjoy the music. This you can hear in or out of the car.

*Spectral Balance, Josh touched on this one. Is there too much bass? Not enough? Overpronounced midrange? Shrill or laid back tweeters? Neither one is desirable in my book if it doesn't mesh well with the rest of the system. A heavy midbass will actually make the midrange sound Muddy. Not enough midbass and the system sounds thin. Looses it's richness. Along this same line we have,..

*Linearity. If the system is well balanced at low volumes does it fall apart when turned up? Vise-versa, does it sound great at loud volume but loose low end response at low volume?

Those are the basics and can all be heard outside the vehicle. Now, this is where we take a step up.

*Soundstage, This is the physical boundaries of the stage the band is playing in. It's comprised of height, width and depth. It's possible to create a soundstage larger than the interior of the vehicle. Creating the illusion of a real band OUTSIDE the vehicle is the goal. Making the vehicle dissapear or seem larger than it really is.

*Imaging, This is the actual location within the soundstage of the individual performers. This also encompases the SIZE of the instrument or performer. Is the singer at eye level out on the tip of the hood about the size of an grapefruit or is the singer about 2 foot wide, down in the middle of the dash? If your back speakers are playing too loud, your soundstage may be the whole interior of the vehicle and the instruments won't have any defined location at all.

*Volume, This isn't even anything audiophiles concern themselves with. If the system can play at realistic volumes we're happy.

*Dynamics, This is the difference in volume from soft passages to loud ones. Does the system have enough "oomph" to not break up during those short duration bursts of volume common in classical music.


That's a basic list of what audiophiles "hear" in a SQ system. It's so much more than just "loud and clear".

[Capt. Zilog]

Arrr, ya got me. I should have recognized your sig...

I see, you want the more hard-to-grasp concepts... Well, how would you like us to discuss them? You pretty much summed everything up, would you like to discuss more along the lines of how to achieve that certain je ne sais qois that is the perfect audio system? Or do you want good definitions of imaging, staging and the like?

[SQ_LSC]

Yea, I tried to sum them up in one posting. These are the things that make up a SQ system. If you have better deffinitions, by all means elaborate. Personally I wasn't looking to discuss any one thing imparticular. I'm kind of hoping that someone will look at the list and say to himself "hey My system does all that decent except this one thing" and maybe they'd want to discuss that one thing. If not so be it. How about you guys posting. Do you's have all these items pegged or would you like to discuss any of them?

[ December 31, 2003: Message edited by: SQ_LSC ]

[Capt. Zilog]

Well, here's what I have done so far...

Moved the 6" speakers down into the door, and mounted them (sort of, the hardware provided was not very good. Next time I go to ACE first and get longer screws.) I now have room to install the 6x8's in the upper part of the door. This is done for a good imaging and staging of my cabin. I may have to get some woofers to fill out the freq range from 400-800, I think my subs don't handle that too well and my 6x8's are crossed over too high.

Subwoofers are 2 10" Kenwood somethings, going to be replaced by Alpines when I get the chance, the kenwoods are kind of overly tight, I do not like their sound. My dad and I custom built a seperate box for each, out of 3/4" MDF Particleboard (used for shelving, big mistake, they do not use true saws when cutting that shelf material, trust me).

I have a 3-way 3rd level adjustable crossover being driven by a Clarion 7 band Graphic Equilizer, which in turn is driven by a Sony Xplod CDM-630.

After the crossover is a 4-channel Kenwood 500W Amp. I really never needed to mess with its settings, as the crossover is the greatest thing ever. Also, the crossover drives a 760W Pioneer Sub Amp, which is controlled by the crossover as well.

I wish I remembered the frequecues I set the band passes to, as I did that so long ago I've forgotten.

A few notes: I screwed the amps into the car body. That was a poor choice, it lets the amps have 2 gounding points with a potential difference between them, creating a whine. I need to make some good amp racks for the wheel well pits. The stock wiring sucks. It's very hard to figure out phase it's in when the wire is 10 feet from the sound and you can't tell which way the cone is going. I recommend upgrading the old wiring first thing if you're serious. And now I'm going to bed. I like this thread, but it needs a lot of participation. Any small things you think I may have missed would be appreciated.

[Dereck]

Hi All

I have near perfect hearing, I can hear a mouse fart at 200 yards but when it comes to audio systems I can bearly tell the difference between a $20 set up and a $2000 set up. In the confines of a car with road noise, engine noise, heater blower noise, the so called "crispness of sound" from a hi end stereo is some what lost when the background noise is added in. Is it really necessary to have a million watts of power in a car when 40 will do just fine?

Regards

Dereck

[SQ_LSC]

Dereck, no. Good sound in a vehicle is 80% install. Good equipment helps but it's only a small factor in the equation. Using damping products greatly reduces road noise also. I had a Head unit in for reapair once and a 4X regional lvl show came around. Actually it was this past season at Carlisle. Well I bought a 20$ walkman so I had a transport and could go compete. I won with the Walkman.

[Capt. Zilog]

I hope I didn't give anyone the impression that I drive the amps to their limits. My equilizer is on about the lowest setting it can be and still hear it at the lowest head unit volume. I just bought amps capable of producing loud sound because they will scale better as the volume is raised.

[SQ_LSC]

What Capt.Zilog is refering to is commonly refered to as "headroom"(I believe). It's having enough watts to cover the transients I refered to up above. The guys with a billion watts want to bang the bass as loud as they can. As I stated up above, Those of us trying to attain a higher level of musical realism, don't general worry about volume above realistic levels. After that point, your just risking hearing damage which isn't a good thing. Having headroom allows those transients to be played without the system running out of steam.

I'll try to give an example. Human speach is approx. 60db. in volume. Say you have the volume on your audio system set at about halfway and it's playing at that volume on average. Remember that's an average. When musical peaks come along the volume can increase. This is dependant of the recording how big the swing is. Classical or orchastra music will have much wider swings than other types of music. So the musical peak comes along and your system tries to reproduce it. What does it do? It increases the voltage being output. So your loafing along at 60db. with your 25watt amp using around 10watts of power. That musical peak comes along and there's a short duration burst of 15watts. All is good and the system should handle that with ease.

Now let's roll down the windows in the car. We're cruising down the highway and can't hear the music over the wind/road noise anymore. Most of us would now be turning the volume of the radio up so we can hear it. Let's say we're up to 90db. in volume now just to understand the words in the music. You might be up over 3/4 of max volume on your radio now. Let's say we're using 20watts average now. When that musical peak comes along and the system needs 30watts of power to reproduce that difference in volume, what happens? The system tries reproducing it but the amp can't so it goes into a state called "clipping". It can probably do the 30 watts for that short period of time but electrically it's being overdriven. The clipping amp is heard by our ears as distortion. Generally most people would hear this. Some will leave the volume there and others will turn it down a notch. A larger amp would allow that transient to pass undistorted allowing you to play the system at that higher volume level cleanly.

Realistically, most of us are only using about 5-10 watts of power on average. A 25 watt amp would be fine. A 50 watt amp would give you a good measure of headroom and it's probably the most common configuration out there.

Does this help clarify?

[White'88LSC]

Just what the Dr. ordered, an Audio section.
I call my self an Audiophile, (built my own Vacume tube amp and use a vacume tube pre-amp as well). Now that doesn't make me an expert either. I've done a few car systems down thru the years as well.
My philosiphy is "keep it simple" The less electronics the source signal has to pass thru to reach the speakers, the better(in general). Re-creating realism is no easy trick and phasing and location of sound source can be critical.
Now my newest challange is my '88 LSC, I bought it from a guy whose son used a tape adapter to hook in his portable CD player, and although I'm just getting around to the sound system (there were other more pressing problems to overcome), it sounds like the head unit's very distorted with the tuner as a source, actually the only way I can use the system is low levels with fade all the way to the rear spkrs. Anything louder, and I hear crackling from the system, but it doesn't sound at all like blown speakers.
My first guess is a bad ground to the head unit, bringing the operating voltage way out of range. Or he just blew the amp in the deck. Anybody know how these units die?
So that brings me to the choice of replacement. Keeping is simple, I'd just like a tuner cd deck with say 40-50 watts per channel (rms)x4 and a good full range fader front to back. I plan on starting with the stock front spkrs and disco-ing the rear jobs and use the rear output to drive a simple band pass double 8" woofer box placed in the trunk. Relying on the front spkrs for the bulk of the sound and using the f/r fader as a bass/loudness control.
I've done this on an '88 scorpio I had with great results, and no smear from using rear speakers, except the sub in the trunk.
Now anybody out there got a good sugestion on a deck that looks good in the MK VII with full range fader and doesn't cost a foutune?
Or coments or sugestions....SQ? :cool:

[SQ_LSC]

Hey White'88LSC, Welcome to the audio section. Weather a unit looks good is a very subjective matter. I tend to go for units that have very little color in of themselves with as few levels of menues as possible(if you get my drift). Most manufacturer's are making there units with several colors which I think isn't very appealling. For a car like a Lincoln I think it should be a very stately looking unit. Black radio on a black dash would be the most conservative. If you have enough silver/grey trim, that's the other most common HU color and would stand out more. I have the "ice" edition LSC with a white/grey interior and went with a silver unit in that.

Rather than making blunt recommendations, I'll tell ya what I like to use. In an all black unit I like theNakamichi (http://www.nakamichi.com/) decks. These are also available in an indash 6 disk changer. These are very good units and even there "bottom of the line" unit rocks. These are the only "black" units that I like the ashetics of. I also like the Pioneer (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/mec/category/0,,2076_4035,00.html) units. Most of the current models use a combination of silver/black.

Those are the 2 I'm most partial on. Every manufacturer makes good units. It's actually tuff to buy a bad sounding unit. My best advise to anyone is get something that's visually appealling to YOU, that has ergonomics that won't keep you fumbling for buttons, and has more features than you think you might need so your not looking for a new unit if you decide to upgrade the system later down the road.
Peace.

[pro-five-oh]

Wow, this is a great thread. Thanks for the information SQ.

I have finished dynamatting my Mark VIIIs doors (made a nice improvement) and the stereo and matching EQ are next. I'll probably need more theory when I start trying to implement crossovers and all that jazz with my speakers...

[SQ_LSC]

Hiya Pro, yea, I wanted to get this thread up for the lurkers that aren't into SQ to get an idea of what the heck we're talking about. Also to get a feel for the guy's that do. Actually I'm digging the thread on the years they went from common ground. I'm getting a history lesson.

So ya dampped the doors huh? make a nice improvement in midbass? Next to decent speakers, that's probably the next best improvement you could do in most vehicles. Fortunatly, Lincolns have a good amount of damping built in. I was shocked when I first found stuffing up in the fenders! Enjoy those XR's.
Peace