Home/Car Stereo "Features"

[jbuntz]

I'd expect to see a lot more people complaining about all the "features" like "X-Bass" and SRS, other fake "surround" effects, crazy sounding eq presets, compressors etc. It's frustrating when you work hard on a mix and then give it to a client and say "okay listen to it in your car and see how it sounds there" and they've got the bass cranked to 11 half the time, and if they can, the "smilely face" eq is a popular choice. You can be guaranteed if there's some crazy button that does something stupid, it will be on. Iv'e even had requests to run mixes through a stereo for the "surround" effect which is not much more than like phase inversion on one channel effect. But I guess you can't really mix with "super bass boost" in mind because systems vary so much.

[drmad69]

I went around testing my mixes on car stereos in electronic stores last week. I was also quite floored at all the new gadgets in the car stereos. I also saw a boom box that had a multiband compression option although it was called something like super mix or something stupid like that. Out of the 14 mixes I listened to, I did notice the differences in the bottom end when it had been premastered differently and there were also two brighter songs that stood out as well. When I delt with the car stereo's I set the eq on the car player to various options and also used their handy dandy speaker selector box to switch around speakers. I had followed a mix of three curves from grammy winners from slightly different styles of music. My mixes all sounded pretty good, but it was clear to me as they all but a few that were different were in the "pocket". It made me believe the de-facto make it flat rule even more, people are going to tinker, the radio's always going to have all that radio processing before they mess around, so In general I really baught the make it flat and let the user adjust to taste. If they have their bass turned up into boom-boom land, then they like it that way, but anything
fitting the popular curve seems to fit more-less.

[Marty Shields.]

I Hate modern car HiFi, It really sucks, I reckon that muckin around with it while driving probubly causes most auto crashes. I'm going to build an analog valve job for the Holden!!!
Marts.

[jbuntz]

Another thing that sucks. Surround sound. You have know idea what surround people will be using so alot of times shit sounds really unbalanced, and really really phasey and unfocused. This guys was showing me his "system" because i'm into audio stuff. It also adds reverb in the surround speakers. Freakin' annoying.

[Marty Shields.]

Yuk, Surround Sound in a car, I can't think of anything worse! I think when your creating car sound its really important to achieve a nice balance front to back left to right, so's it sounds like a good pair of Koss headphones. I hate overmodulated out of phase surround thru too many speakers. it would kill just about any good mix.
Marty S.

[ExistanceMusic]

For what it's worth, I've heard many an amazing car audio setup.
Dynaudio make awesome car speakers and macintosh, audison and nakimichi make some amazing amplifiers, with ratings that would impress many a live sound guy.
And yes you can get class a valve amps for cars as well, and I did heard of a headunit that had a 6L6 in there, but I don't think that idea caught on.

[Marty Shields.]

I was serious when I said I wanted to Build A class a stereo amp for the car, I wouldnt use 6L6's tho' but a much smaller Beam tetrode, like a 6AQ5 these would be nice PP, theyre similar to a 6v6 but much smaller. Getting the HT would be the tricky bit, one would have to design a nice solid state inverter, can any one suggest a circuit?

[Pricey]

I've read that in the old days, pre-transistor, they actually found a way to make tube car radios run off 12V DC. I don't know how, though.

[Marty Shields.]

They used a mechanical vibrator unit in the early sets, these were quite a noisy and un even way to get HT as they had sets of points sparking all the time. Tho some of the early sets used battery valves and voltage trippler circuitry. to use 6BQ5's youd need a good quiet inverter that would provide 300v or so of smooth filtred dc HT.
Marts