26-Jul-2019, 09:00 AM
Ha, I just stumbled upon this post (a little late) and man does this take me back!
I grew up at the height of the "car audio" movement and listened to countless car stereos. Some were just crazy bass (I think my eyes are still twitching) and some were set up with sound quality in mind. I ended up preferring the latter.
A couple years into the hobby I bought a p.o.s. Chevy Cavalier for 250$ just to do pizza delivery part-time and of course had to upgrade the tunes. 2000$ stereo in a 250$ car? Sure, why not
As I was installing my Mb Quart components I accidentally wired the passenger side mid out of phase and when all was said and done and I finally got a chance to hear it I was floored! The sound was so real and the imaging was better than anything I had ever heard! Drums panned across the dashboard perfectly! None of the sound seemed to come from the speakers! It was a true "soundstage", something I thought impossible in car audio, especially with no rear fill or center channel.
Time alignment and other forms of DSP were reserved for the rich back then so to get that kind of sound was lucky. Of course that car only lasted about a year and when I removed the stereo and realized that the mid was out of phase I was puzzled to say the least. Since that day I was always mystified by phase and have played around with it over the years. Sometimes it helped and sometimes the cons outweighed the pros.
On my current system I have tweeter phase switches and find that I like movies in phase and music out of phase though the crossovers are in the enclosure so I don't mess with it as much. But I'll never forget that car stereo. It was one of the best I ever heard and i have phasing to thank (at least partly)!
I grew up at the height of the "car audio" movement and listened to countless car stereos. Some were just crazy bass (I think my eyes are still twitching) and some were set up with sound quality in mind. I ended up preferring the latter.
A couple years into the hobby I bought a p.o.s. Chevy Cavalier for 250$ just to do pizza delivery part-time and of course had to upgrade the tunes. 2000$ stereo in a 250$ car? Sure, why not
As I was installing my Mb Quart components I accidentally wired the passenger side mid out of phase and when all was said and done and I finally got a chance to hear it I was floored! The sound was so real and the imaging was better than anything I had ever heard! Drums panned across the dashboard perfectly! None of the sound seemed to come from the speakers! It was a true "soundstage", something I thought impossible in car audio, especially with no rear fill or center channel.
Time alignment and other forms of DSP were reserved for the rich back then so to get that kind of sound was lucky. Of course that car only lasted about a year and when I removed the stereo and realized that the mid was out of phase I was puzzled to say the least. Since that day I was always mystified by phase and have played around with it over the years. Sometimes it helped and sometimes the cons outweighed the pros.
On my current system I have tweeter phase switches and find that I like movies in phase and music out of phase though the crossovers are in the enclosure so I don't mess with it as much. But I'll never forget that car stereo. It was one of the best I ever heard and i have phasing to thank (at least partly)!
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