DSP Audio Tuning for Audio Geeks

[Mainah]

I thought about starting a pm with a few folks here as I know this will likely get very technical and a bit esoteric. I know some may gain something from it or enjoy it, while others may recommend that I join a 12 step program, wonder what language I am speaking, or use it to put themselves to sleep. So there it is, you have been warned that this is headed for the deep end of the ocean before reading on.

For multiple reasons I decided to buy a 2 channel rca input, 6 channel rca output DSP. This is going to enable all kinds of cool overkill tuning stuff for me that I understand from purely a electrical signal perspective and some of the options exceed my knowledge from real world impact to what the human ear will perceive. Obviously I am going to have to play with some things a bit but I would like to get somewhat close on the first go so I don’t spend days at it even though this is the kind of thing I enjoy (yes I am a bit of a geek). I am not looking for sound stage quality sound but rather to get best performance (LOUD and hard hitting) out of what I have while staying fairly balanced and not frying anything. Keep in mind I like rock, hard rock, classic rock, club type music, country, and my kids like modern pop. Most of it high energy stuff on the boat and we save Sinatra and the like for the dinner table or hanging out on the back patio.

My first steps will be figuring out the best top end output of the source unit to get the best rangIe of adjustability and clean signal into the DSP. 1.5v to 2v rms at 1khz out from the source unit should get me there. Next will be to match output curves as a percentage between the amps by playing with each gain setting on the DSP and amps. There will be a bit of math and graphs involved in that taking X input voltage multiplied by Y DSP db gain multiplied by Z amplifier db gain = V final output voltage and W final output watts below clipping. Yes I know resistance is involved at multiple stages but lets just assume 4 ohm speaker resistance and ignore the rest unless it presents a problem. Once that is done I am getting to the part I am not quite sure about.

I am familiar with on board amplifier simple low pass and high pass “filters" and how they really attenuate at a rate (slope) per octave such as the common 12db per octave. In my DSP I can set some hard cuts and am going to do that for each channel just a bit inside both ends of the response frequency range for the speakers the channel feeds. In fact I am going to cut the high end for full ranges to about 17khz as that is about the upper range of what a middle aged adult such as myself can really hear. That part is easy enough and pretty cool in that can set both high and low hard cuts for each channel. Now I am going to have to choose between Butterworth, Bessel, and Linkwitz-Riley crossovers, frequency setting, and 12, 18 or 24 db slopes for both low and high pass for each channel. I have done a bit of reading on the different types and understand the knee is sharpest on Butterworth and softest on Linkwitz-Riley. I have no idea what type most car/marine amps resemble the most as it will be different for each amp depending on the analog hardware components. For my sealed subs I am thinking that I want the sharp knee Butterworth at 100 or 120 hz and the slope of course will be dependent on the X times Y variable curve mentioned above to cut to near 0 db at 200hz. Does that sound right to anyone familiar with what I am saying? For my JL 8.8 towers I am thinking Bessel to get a bit more punch given the size of the driver and for my polk mm full range 6.5s I am thinking Linkwitz-Riley. Yes I know three different types but remember this is not all in one enclosure but all separate mountings at different vertical levels in an open environment. So do I have this backwards? Will I end up with very polarizing sound from each type of speaker or will it all blend nicely playing to each speakers strong suit? My thinking is to maximize the output of each speaker by both limiting the ranges sent to it and choosing a frequency/slope best suited for it while ensuring there is some overlap between the sub and full ranges with the towers getting a bit more low end than the 6.5s since the jl m880s can handle it and fill in some mid bass at the top of the listening environment.

Next will be to take the summed input for the left and right channel and output the summed to each sub channel to get true summed mono to each sub (each sub on separate amp channel) without a dedicated subwoofer on my source unit and even then some source units are left channel only so that is an improvement over what I have now. With two 10 inch sealed outward facing surface mounted subs facing each other about 6 feet apart and slightly offset with summed output will I get more boom with both at 0 degrees phase, with one slight out of phase, with both 180 degrees, or with one at 0 and the other at 180. I know the answer in a close distance enclosed environment like a car in various placements but what about the 6 feet apart, facing each other and slightly offset in an open boat?

Of course I will post up my experience, observations, and final settings. I hope to have the patience to stop and take screen shots of my oscilloscope and excel gain/db/output graphs as well. I plan to do all of this while my wife is at march madness with her best friend since I anticipate it taking a long time to get dialed in with way too many option combinations.

Tagging some folks who may be interested or may be able to help answer some of my questions.
@Jaylex , @adrianp89 , @Jgorm , @jcyamaharider , @swatski , @FloJet , @Cambo , @the MfM, @Earmark Marine

 

[Bluewater272]

I think I followed about thirty percent of that. Looking forward to seeing how this goes, but probably never jumping into this rabbit hole.

 

[swatski]

Ok, google DSP - check.
Purchase clarion xc1410 (non-tunable, non-bridgeable) amps - check.
Read @Mainah DSP post w/some understanding - WIP...

--

 

[ralphsmithiii]

I'm in 100% for your findings. I've studied tuning, dsps, crossovers myself recently as I wanted to understand how to tune my new Silverado via a Rockford Fosgate DSR-1. Once I got the appropriate tools (test tones, RTA, multi-meter) I went to school tuning my truck. The tools along with tuning by ear after I got a baseline provided me with my best results, however, with these boats, it's a different animal. I've considered trying to wire in another DSR-1 into the boat since I like the concept of a tiny form factor iPhone app controlled DSP. However, it's by no means marine grade although looking at it, there's no real metal parts other than what's inside on the mainboard. It seems like the Westsounds DSP is the go-to for the boating scene and maybe its decent enough to tune the speakers with a small twist of the knobs here and there. But, if you could REALLY dial in the sound with a more configurable DSP....

Curious, which DSP did you go with?

 

[Mainah]

I went with brand BR aka brazilian made board that in is a few different devices. In this case taramps pro 2.6 s. I intentionally avoided anything that requires an app. The issue is future support for that app as the platform it runs on gets upgraded. No this is not marine grade out of the box but when I am done with it it will be a lot better. I will conformal coat it, silicone any gaps, and mount it to a piece of aluminum with thermal paste in between to make up for me sealing it up.

I want to be very up front is that there a lot that has to be done right to get this right. The biggest hurdle is tuning multipe stacked gains such that everything comes out balanced without clipping. After limits and aafe crossover points are also set then it is just knowing what to play with. Each sytem will be different including the exact same boat with the exact same headunit, amps, speakers and wire but different batteries. Volatge makes a difference along with voltage drop amd this varies between batteries. Point being is that I recommend a basic conceptual understanding prior to getting this deep.

 

[Mainah]

Ok, google DSP - check.
Purchase clarion xc1410 (non-tunable, non-bridgeable) amps - check.
Read @Mainah DSP post w/some understanding - WIP...

--

In a seperate thread I have commemted on the primary reason I am headed down this path. I would have been just as happy buying a jl mhd 600/4 and having it simply work. I took a risk on an off brand and thank goodness I enjoy tinkering. I get to experiment now but ignorance would have been bliss. Expensive bliss but bliss nonetheless.

Starting from scratch with simplebut decent reputation amps like you linked and a dsp might by the best budget way to go aside from needing to push subs. Subs need big clean power. Of course the way you went makes that simple too with the AIO infinity. That thing has been around for two decades and stood the test of time.

Of course now you have me curious. What did you buy the clarions for?

 

[Jgorm]

When i have a choice (on my old Alpine) i set the sub to 24db and about 120 to 150hz. I put the mids at 6db set to about 100. The goal is to remove the sub 60hz that clips without lots of power and high travel speakers. I tune until audible clipping and adjust from there. I think subs get overpowering above about 150hz. My other goal for tuning is to do as much as i can with the amps without changing anything on the deck. Then when i loose power and settings i don't have to spend a ton of time getting it correct.
I had a poor man's dsp in the form of an eq that took 1 rca and output sub, front, and rear. It was awesome! It has a parametric band on the low end and a full eq. I dig your enthusiasm and I'm looking forward to hearing more. I'm pretty into audio stuff, but I'm not a musician with a trained ear. I play radio and mp3 only. My experience is that spending money on speakers results with better sound than spending that extra money on quality amps and quality decks. I just bought my second jcv deck for 80 bucks. My alpine deck in the mustang was 800 in 2003, but the jvc radio stations tune 10x better. My home stereo is klipsch rc7 all around off a mid grade Yamaha deck. I would be interested in seeing how you use your scope for tuning amps. I have an old scope i got from work for free.

 

[Cambo]

Signal processing should really help clean it up and dial it in . Curious to see how it goes let your ears guide you to the final resullt .

 

[swatski]

Of course now you have me curious. What did you buy the clarions for?

I was being facetious with my comments of course, I'll be reading and watching your progress with most interest.

I have had the clarions already, and have the WS420 driving everything, I don't love it but it definitely helps balance my somewhat unbalanced system - 2 tower ICON8s w/WS HT-2(?) and 10 DB651s w/2 XC1410s, on top of the BassLink/amped sub. The only thing I'm chanign is replacing a pair of bow DBs with a pair of JL M650(?) (or MX, I think) - not done yet, as the bow is the same zone as cockpit in my boat and it can use a bit more volume for the kids and their friends like to aggregate there...

What scared me with going high grade everything is precisely what you are doing! Since I would have to pay someone to do this, probably would not end up happy...
I also go ICONS for that reason - scared of needing to tune any high end HLCD, those being way more sensitive than conventional tweeters I figured it could easily turn into a nightmare - reproducing all off/clipping HU/untuned amp flaws!!

--

 

[MrWes12]

I was a car audio technician/fabricator for over 6 years, and then went on to work for Alpine in the technical support department and there’s 1 thing I’m sure of, music is going to sound different to everyone. From what Ive read, your doing everything by the book, but that doesn’t mean its going to sound good to you.

My advice, set everything like you mentioned in your original post, and use it as the beginning point. Then start tweaking until you are happy with it.

No two installs are/sound the same.

 

[Mainah]

When i have a choice (on my old Alpine) i set the sub to 24db and about 120 to 150hz. I put the mids at 6db set to about 100. The goal is to remove the sub 60hz that clips without lots of power and high travel speakers. I tune until audible clipping and adjust from there. I think subs get overpowering above about 150hz. My other goal for tuning is to do as much as i can with the amps without changing anything on the deck. Then when i loose power and settings i don't have to spend a ton of time getting it correct.
I had a poor man's dsp in the form of an eq that took 1 rca and output sub, front, and rear. It was awesome! It has a parametric band on the low end and a full eq. I dig your enthusiasm and I'm looking forward to hearing more. I'm pretty into audio stuff, but I'm not a musician with a trained ear. I play radio and mp3 only. My experience is that spending money on speakers results with better sound than spending that extra money on quality amps and quality decks. I just bought my second jcv deck for 80 bucks. My alpine deck in the mustang was 800 in 2003, but the jvc radio stations tune 10x better. My home stereo is klipsch rc7 all around off a mid grade Yamaha deck. I would be interested in seeing how you use your scope for tuning amps. I have an old scope i got from work for free.

Make sure the oscope is calibrated. You can pickup clipping, noise, slope (with delay on a sweep), output frequency and more. I am sure lots of videos on youtube on this. I agree speakers make a bigger difference to a point. Dirty amps, not enough power, sending low bass to full ranges or anything but bass to a sub all sounds bad. The cheap amps have gotten better since I was in my late teens.

 

[Mainah]

I was being facetious with my comments of course, I'll be reading and watching your progress with most interest.

I have had the clarions already, and have the WS420 driving everything, I don't love it but it definitely helps balance my somewhat unbalanced system - 2 tower ICON8s w/WS HT-2(?) and 10 DB651s w/2 XC1410s, on top of the BassLink/amped sub. The only thing I'm chanign is replacing a pair of bow DBs with a pair of JL M650(?) (or MX, I think) - not done yet, as the bow is the same zone as cockpit in my boat and it can use a bit more volume for the kids and their friends like to aggregate there...

What scared me with going high grade everything is precisely what you are doing! Since I would have to pay someone to do this, probably would not end up happy...
I also go ICONS for that reason - scared of needing to tune any high end HLCD, those being way more sensitive than conventional tweeters I figured it could easily turn into a nightmare - reproducing all off/clipping HU/untuned amp flaws!!

--

The ws420 handles some of what you want. Turning down the bass just a bit on the full range and tower speakers will allow a bit more volume. Those icons can handle a lot of power. What do you have driving them? Its no secret I take things too far at times. It is possible to tune a system completely by ear. I fall back to the electronics becuase that is what I know.

 

[Mainah]

I was a car audio technician/fabricator for over 6 years, and then went on to work for Alpine in the technical support department and there’s 1 thing I’m sure of, music is going to sound different to everyone. From what Ive read, your doing everything by the book, but that doesn’t mean its going to sound good to you.

My advice, set everything like you mentioned in your original post, and use it as the beginning point. Then start tweaking until you are happy with it.

No two installs are/sound the same.

Thanks any ideas on what type of crossover is best for what kind of speaker? As in Butterworth, etc.? I am going to bench the dsp after I make it marine grade to preset a bunch of stuff for a better starting point and would just like to get in the ball park. One issue is my neghbors may get ticked if I do too much cruise volume ear tuning. I did set off my neighbors car alarm quickly running some bass tones at high level last weekend (he does have it set too sensitive).

 

[jcyamaharider]

Thanks any ideas on what type of crossover is best for what kind of speaker? As in Butterworth, etc.? I am going to bench the dsp after I make it marine grade to preset a bunch of stuff for a better starting point and would just like to get in the ball park. One issue is my neghbors may get ticked if I do too much cruise volume ear tuning. I did set off my neighbors car alarm quickly running some bass tones at high level last weekend (he does have it set too sensitive).

LOL, I can relate to this.....I am sure my old neighbors didn't like it when I did audio upgrades. That is one reason why I moved out into the country.

 

[swatski]

The ws420 handles some of what you want. Turning down the bass just a bit on the full range and tower speakers will allow a bit more volume. Those icons can handle a lot of power. What do you have driving them? Its no secret I take things too far at times. It is possible to tune a system completely by ear. I fall back to the electronics becuase that is what I know.

My Icon8s are pushed by a Wet Sounds HT-2 amp, I purchased those together to simplify - and followed box instructions. Those icons are LOUD in the boat, so the WS420 indeed comes in handy to level things out for my lill’DBs, lol. Albeit with 10 of those I never come even close to needing to push the system for loudness. Except for in the bow area.
(And except when Im hang out with friends who are residents and need to blow some steam off playing Southern rap, lol, but that’s different)

—

 

[Bryan L]

I love talking sound and I can't help to take a moment and throw in my two cents. Full disclosure, I haven't played with the sound system on our boat, yet. Even though it isn't comparing apples to apples, I have a background in live sound engineering and I completely understand everything you are saying. With that being said, I am afraid of the rabbit hole once I start digging into this boat's system, which annoys me to no end. ( BOAT - bust out another thousand).

First off, I love you and care for you @Mainah. Your contributions to this forum are some of the best reads. Whenever I see a Mainah post, it quickly becomes a must read. Thank you.

Like I said earlier, my experience doesn't 100% translate to what you are trying to accomplish, so bear with me as I may be all over the place. I think it is great that you are trying to fine tune your speaker array with crossovers, but I am scared that you are trying to find the perfect mix. I don't know much about the different hardware pieces, but rolling off the low end will help with muddiness. Nothing worse for me than a sound field with way too much low end. I play bass guitar and love a good low end reproduction, but I don't need to have 40hz thump completely smothering the rest of the mix. Now as others have mentioned and I will agree 100%, what you hear will always sound different from person to person and from venue to venue. With an ever changing and open air environment like on the boat, your mix is going to be in constant flux, so you can't let that bother you. One thing I noticed with these motors are that they hum in frequency range which causes a lot of sound issues for me. Also, don't go with some canned mix. Trust your ears and work the GEQ. Try to find something that works with your boat, speaker array and your ears. What I did for my Tahoe will be completely useless for the boat. EQ'ing on the fat channel, is easily where I spend 90% of time. Also, because the soundboard has certain functions, doesn't make it right to use them all so don't over complicate things with your boat. Frankly, most people won't even notice. Another thing comes to mind, what kind of source are you using? I can't imagine the DAC in the head unit is worth a damn, which is a shame because I love Yamaha's music and sound products. Are you sourcing from some compressed audio file or streaming from Bluetooth? You might not need to worry about rolling off the highs because you may not hear them properly replicated anyway. Nothing worse than the decay on a ride cymbal getting screwed by a bad DA conversion. Not like we pumping .wav files and multi-tracks.

Anyway, I'd tweak the EQ to scrub some muddiness out, small adjustments of the sound field to help with any perceived delay issues and gets plenty of amps to drive the speakers. Outside of that, may be too fine of an adjustment to even notice let alone in such fluid environment like a boat. Good luck to you, and I am looking forward to hear about your findings. One day, I'll tackle the boats audio and some of things that drive me nuts.

 

[Mainah]

I love talking sound and I can't help to take a moment and throw in my two cents. Full disclosure, I haven't played with the sound system on our boat, yet. Even though it isn't comparing apples to apples, I have a background in live sound engineering and I completely understand everything you are saying. With that being said, I am afraid of the rabbit hole once I start digging into this boat's system, which annoys me to no end. ( BOAT - bust out another thousand).

First off, I love you and care for you @Mainah. Your contributions to this forum are some of the best reads. Whenever I see a Mainah post, it quickly becomes a must read. Thank you.

Like I said earlier, my experience doesn't 100% translate to what you are trying to accomplish, so bear with me as I may be all over the place. I think it is great that you are trying to fine tune your speaker array with crossovers, but I am scared that you are trying to find the perfect mix. I don't know much about the different hardware pieces, but rolling off the low end will help with muddiness. Nothing worse for me than a sound field with way too much low end. I play bass guitar and love a good low end reproduction, but I don't need to have 40hz thump completely smothering the rest of the mix. Now as others have mentioned and I will agree 100%, what you hear will always sound different from person to person and from venue to venue. With an ever changing and open air environment like on the boat, your mix is going to be in constant flux, so you can't let that bother you. One thing I noticed with these motors are that they hum in frequency range which causes a lot of sound issues for me. Also, don't go with some canned mix. Trust your ears and work the GEQ. Try to find something that works with your boat, speaker array and your ears. What I did for my Tahoe will be completely useless for the boat. EQ'ing on the fat channel, is easily where I spend 90% of time. Also, because the soundboard has certain functions, doesn't make it right to use them all so don't over complicate things with your boat. Frankly, most people won't even notice. Another thing comes to mind, what kind of source are you using? I can't imagine the DAC in the head unit is worth a damn, which is a shame because I love Yamaha's music and sound products. Are you sourcing from some compressed audio file or streaming from Bluetooth? You might not need to worry about rolling off the highs because you may not hear them properly replicated anyway. Nothing worse than the decay on a ride cymbal getting screwed by a bad DA conversion. Not like we pumping .wav files and multi-tracks.

Anyway, I'd tweak the EQ to scrub some muddiness out, small adjustments of the sound field to help with any perceived delay issues and gets plenty of amps to drive the speakers. Outside of that, may be too fine of an adjustment to even notice let alone in such fluid environment like a boat. Good luck to you, and I am looking forward to hear about your findings. One day, I'll tackle the boats audio and some of things that drive me nuts.

Thanks for that. I have been doing more google queries and reading. I am finding answers to my questions or enough information to start with anyway. Almost everything out there is geared towards cars, sound stages, or speaker cabinet design so some extrapolation is needed. I was attempting to leave out specfic components so folks don’t get too wrapped up in that part as the principals apply widely. Since you have the same boat I will get more specific.

The Polk pa4a sucks IMO. I did do some basic oscope testing on it. USB is plently clean and powerful but BT sucks, there is no sub out, and calling the remote marine grade is a farce IMO. I had my remote replaced once already and even added marine grease behind the knob to prevent it from degrading. The grease only helped some as the second one is still rusting. Add to that the contact circuit board behind the buttons is also rusting and there is no good way to prevent that. I have no idea why they are still selling it as they must know all of these that see water will fail even with the silicone cover. Even Yamaha must have relized the issue as they swapped to fusion. I don’t have the links handy but someone pointed out the alternate remote and that is much better from a marine grade perspective. I made a aluminum plate in the shape and size of the original since the new remote is smaller and have installed that. I will do a write up on that seperately in the future.

Back to my source. Even though usb is cleaner and has much less signal compression I have gone to BT as my source for the simple himan interface of it. Having my phone tethered when I want to take a photo or do something else with it just does not work out well. So yes with the older bluetooth stacks and streaming, the signal is already compressed.

As far as DSP goes anything is going to be better than the signal it is being fed from BT so even the budget option I went with is ok for this use case. The primary reason I went down this path is I have an amp with a really crappy low pass crossover. Of course I could have just built my own analog low pass from raw parts. Instead I am taking it as a opportunity to roll of the channel specific useless stuff and push everything harder but safer with adjustability. The real gains (ha) over my current setup will be subs with more punch, 6.5s that sound crisper In the low/mid range, and towers that excel in full range. Basically just all more efficient and of course balanced for a blend that I like.

Perhaps I should have followed my own advice and gone JL only for everything. Yes I know it costs more but their marine grade stuff is legit. I bet their amps would run underwater with the way they are sealed, their crossovers work, and their speakers will handle the low end. I bet a 100% JL system with bare basic tuning will still sound better that my mixed system with way too much time and effort put in. Justifying spending JL money on 12 speakers and 3 amps is hard though.

 

[Bryan L]

Thanks for that. I have been doing more google queries and reading. I am finding answers to my questions or enough information to start with anyway. Almost everything out there is geared towards cars, sound stages, or speaker cabinet design so some extrapolation is needed. I was attempting to leave out specfic components so folks don’t get too wrapped up in that part as the principals apply widely. Since you have the same boat I will get more specific.

The Polk pa4a sucks IMO. I did do some basic oscope testing on it. USB is plently clean and powerful but BT sucks, there is no sub out, and calling the remote marine grade is a farce IMO. I had my remote replaced once already and even added marine grease behind the knob to prevent it from degrading. The grease only helped some as the second one is still rusting. Add to that the contact circuit board behind the buttons is also rusting and there is no good way to prevent that. I have no idea why they are still selling it as they must know all of these that see water will fail even with the silicone cover. Even Yamaha must have relized the issue as they swapped to fusion. I don’t have the links handy but someone pointed out the alternate remote and that is much better from a marine grade perspective. I made a aluminum plate in the shape and size of the original since the new remote is smaller and have installed that. I will do a write up on that seperately in the future.

Back to my source. Even though usb is cleaner and has much less signal compression I have gone to BT as my source for the simple himan interface of it. Having my phone tethered when I want to take a photo or do something else with it just does not work out well. So yes with the older bluetooth stacks and streaming, the signal is already compressed.

As far as DSP goes anything is going to be better than the signal it is being fed from BT so even the budget option I went with is ok for this use case. The primary reason I went down this path is I have an amp with a really crappy low pass crossover. Of course I could have just built my own analog low pass from raw parts. Instead I am taking it as a opportunity to roll of the channel specific useless stuff and push everything harder but safer with adjustability. The real gains (ha) over my current setup will be subs with more punch, 6.5s that sound crisper In the low/mid range, and towers that excel in full range. Basically just all more efficient and of course balanced for a blend that I like.

Perhaps I should have followed my own advice and gone JL only for everything. Yes I know it costs more but their marine grade stuff is legit. I bet their amps would run underwater with the way they are sealed, their crossovers work, and their speakers will handle the low end. I bet a 100% JL system with bare basic tuning will still sound better that my mixed system with way too much time and effort put in. Justifying spending JL money on 12 speakers and 3 amps is hard though.

I get annoyed with the way this sound system is setup and I haven't run into the same problems you have with the remote. There are so many things to address. One day, I'll get bored and start looking into a complete overhaul. Right now, I'm trying to get the trailer right.

I'm with you, the JL marine equipment is legit! Not sure what you did with the tower tweets, I like the concept, but without a woofer to balance them out, they are pointless. They are harsh and bright I'd like to add woofers to both sides of the cabin around the captains chairs to balance out the sound field. Swap out the other six polks, add a sub and a massive amount of power. Id like to add a sound bar and not the pod speakers. Maybe zone control? I'm afraid at 6'4 I'll end up cracking my squash on the pods.

I love the fact that you ran an o-scope. Im a slave to the spectrogram. I wish they ran a separate USB to the glovebox. I'd be just as content hooking up my old iPod and tossing it into glovebox. Keep me posted!

 

[Mainah]

I get annoyed with the way this sound system is setup and I haven't run into the same problems you have with the remote. There are so many things to address. One day, I'll get bored and start looking into a complete overhaul. Right now, I'm trying to get the trailer right.

I'm with you, the JL marine equipment is legit! Not sure what you did with the tower tweets, I like the concept, but without a woofer to balance them out, they are pointless. They are harsh and bright I'd like to add woofers to both sides of the cabin around the captains chairs to balance out the sound field. Swap out the other six polks, add a sub and a massive amount of power. Id like to add a sound bar and not the pod speakers. Maybe zone control? I'm afraid at 6'4 I'll end up cracking my squash on the pods.

I love the fact that you ran an o-scope. Im a slave to the spectrogram. I wish they ran a separate USB to the glovebox. I'd be just as content hooking up my old iPod and tossing it into glovebox. Keep me posted!

When I am done I will diagram my system. The number one thing to do is add 6.5s in the black recesses next to the captains chairs. When amped and leving to factory tower tweets on the hu they are not bad.

 

[Bryan L]

When I am done I will diagram my system. The number one thing to do is add 6.5s in the black recesses next to the captains chairs. When amped and leving to factory tower tweets on the hu they are not bad.

Is there enough room to add speakers in the coamings? I wonder if JL makes a component marine quality just to go in the captains area. Tweets in the tower and woofers on the floor. I suppose I can go 2 way's, but rather break it out.