The video provides an excellent and functional explanation of the core concepts around staging. However, to be precise, there is a distinction between "Distance to Soundstage" and "Stage Depth." Distance to Soundstage is determined by the perceived proximity of the nearest instrument from the listening position, while Stage Depth refers to the perceived distance from the closest point to the furthest point within the soundstage. For instance, in EMMA competition we only judge distance to soundstage, not depth (but we do judge room information).
For those that want the center directly in front of you, right over the steering wheel, it’s very doable. But you’re gonna screw up the rest of your sound stage. Like Nerijus said, you’re gonna squash one side and loose left of center or right of center information, depending on which side of the car you drive on. Also when you make the center in front of you what you’re doing is in effect just putting vocals and some drum beats in front of you because they’re effectively recorded in mono. You’re sacrificing the other stereo effects that are in the recording, like guitars if you listen to rock music. If you’ve ever listened to the “my voice is in phase, my voice is out of phase” track on the Sheffield or Iasca disc, you’ll notice two things if your system is tuned properly. In phase voice is center of hard left and hard right. Out of phase voice is hard to locate and sounds like it’s all around. Well that’s how recording engineers get that “wall of sound” that comes from guitars mainly in rock music. The same technique is used in other genres of music also. Not all recordings are created equally. There is a lot of out of phase in formation in recordings that create the desired effects of the engineer, and when you squash one side of your sound stage to put the mono information directly in front of you, you will sacrifice that intended effect and lose that dimension of the music.
It might be more "correct" to have stage center in the middle of the dash, but it is very unnatural feeling to look straight ahead when you drive and having center sound image coming from the side where your eyes do not look. This disconnects your brain from the sound, as eyes are looking in the direction different from where sounds comes from. That's why it is psychoacoustically wrong, despite technically being correct.
You just answered a question I had since forever... Never had good luck EQing speaker one at a time because it always resulted as the farthest speaker to play too loud, so I EQ my system by speaker pair thinking at the end, it's the pair that need to match the house curve. You just proved me wrong with your shifting image explanation that make total sense. Thanks.
I noticed in the past with having the center in front of you it has detrimental effects on say 80s recordings where they'd use stereo seperation effects on the vocals. Even some newer electronic music the stage feels smaller and doesn't have the same impact during song sections with panning. And I never really got that "on the hood" distance. The listening experience for the passenger is even more compromised as well.
I've learned everything about dsp's from you. I even bought the ezy dsp12. It's surprisingly really beefy and solid. The bluetooth works awesome for me on my iphone.
Half azimuth bro. Take a wide angle photo. The perspective dictates that halfway is not half horizontal angle. So probably to the right of your light sensor a tiny bit.
Nope! I want my center to be where it is with high quality headphones on. I want to be the center so I want it in front of me. I hate having the center in the center of the dash.
Well sir you are missing out on some of the best sounding cars built, take for instance the Gladen built Chrysler 300 incredible center image and 4 six inch Gladen woofers for subs and can play any type of music beautifully and the Audiofrog benz Andy Wehmeyer built just incredible and how can I forget the Arc Audio championship winning Cadillac crazy amazing sound. Do what you please but this is why I buy the equipment and learn from Nejerius so I can appreciate the music more and kinda justify my purchases and the thrill I built it even though I'm not a pro but people dig it and it makes me feel good. 2cents 😅
What about moving your left speaker to to the same distance as the right from the steering wheel, e.g centre of the dash. This would provide a center in front of the driver.
There's an issue with that approach- reflections will be increasingly asymmetrical to the right driver the further you move the left driver toward the listening position. Akin to setting up speakers in an asymmetrical position in a room. In home audio, we generally aim for equidistance from left and right walls for each speaker. Distance from left speaker to left wall should match the right speaker to right wall distance.... therefore early reflections occur at the same point in time, contributing to balanced soundstage depth and width. Aymmetrical placement can contribute to a narrower, asymmetrical stereo image/soundstage. Symmetry is vital- for instance, check out the monitoring setups of high end recording studios- they generally aim for symmetry. Often big in-wall midfield monitors with small monitors mounted nearfield on top of the main mixer. Yes, symmetry will cause nulls and peaks in the same frequency regions (causing "stacking" of nulls/peaks) but the stereo image stays more intact than the asymmetrical approach. It also effectively changes the "baffle" shape of the left driver, further impacting frequency response and timing asymmetry.
Center (IMO), should be directly in front of the listener. Phase and alignment will make your hard right (in your case) sound as if it's coming from the far right. I see where you're coming from, but if everything is done correctly, a center image to the listener is possible.
Phase alignment makes speakers sum together nicely in the crossover region, time alignment will make sou d from both speakers to arrive at the same time at the listener. It will not change where the hard left or hard right is.
@@RAW-CAt I'm still learning, but from what I've been informed of (by National SQ champs) that T/A combined with phase will widen your stage. Unless I misunderstood what they said.
I thoroughly enjoyed the stage directly in front of me, but because I knew it wasn't correct I changed it to the centre of the dash. I have different presets for each to allow for me to enjoy whatever i prefer on the day. The type of music plays a major role in the preference of the day.
What’s amazing in my opinion is when your system is dialed in and you’re listening to this very video, I’m going to assume the mic is attached to his shirt, but you can hear when the mic is pointed at him directly or if he moved to the left or right or even when he reaches over the dash. What you should notice is while the image moves as he moves it doesn’t become diffused at all. So it’s really easy it pick up what’s going on even with out watching this video. Idk just something that always amazes me lol
It won't feel stereo If you're not in between, receiving equal volume from each side. In a home theater aplication, whats the point of things like Dolby atmos, THX etc if youre tunning to satisfy a speaker with each other instead of satisfying your seating position...
Some people really crank that center over. To me that is just bad. My center is more like halfway between where you keep pointing and steering wheel center. Center shouldn't be straight over the steering wheel, but it should still still "make sense" and be enjoyable. To support my feelings.. I got pretty much perfect placement points all last weekend. It's also the tune I listen to daily (I only have one)
I am asking myself one question. How do you get the center image in the middle of the dash. Is it done by timealignmenet, which means that the sound waves from different speakers arrive at your head at different time or is it done by different gain from left to right ?
Good explain but isn.t it annoying to have center stage on the car's center and on long roads feel a bit weird? Like making you turn the head a little bit to the side while driving😂? I'm very curious how i will end up when system will be ready and have it tuned. I've listened some cars with stage exactly in the dash center and felt very odd. Now i am thinking maybe the stage was very narrow and made it feel that way. It felt odd because all of the instruments kind of came from dash center 🤔
Delay/gain settings of the center driver helps to dial in the perceived "center" of the image, it's all relative to the left and right driver delay. In oversimplified terms, more delay (relative) to the right driver will make the center driver sound as if it's spaced further away, and vice versa. We perceive sound delay as distance.
@@RAW-CAt probably getting used to it, ,indeed. Tho with my first ocasion will listen to some emma tracks and check their separation. I assume those cars were not tuned properly. There are so many tracks that play different instruments left and right and that didn't happened in cars i've listened. Or maybe they messed up a stereo/mono setting in the DSP and made them sound like that? Would that be possible?
Hi, what positioning tracks did you mention at about 6:40 in the video. It sounded like Emma positioning tracks is that right. Do you mind providing a link or clarifying which tracks you use specifically? Thank you for making these videos!
@@RAW-CAt thanks! Are there any other possible suggestions for these kind of tracks that are either free or open source? Specifically for imaging and sound stage.
Is there somewhere we can buy and download that CD you have that has center , right , left, etc. the one with the chimes, drum and the different sounds so we can center stuff well? Great videos!
Use the IsoTek - Ultimate System Set-Up disc if you really want to get a VERY accurate sound stage. It uses 20 clicks that you can hear move across your sound stage from beyond your left speaker to beyond your right speaker. When you have it perfect there is a 360 track of clicks that makes it sound like the sound is coming from behind you.
some people say they can make two passenger settings even sitting anywhere the sound can be phantom igame. do you think that is possible? (i don't think it is possible)
Can this one only be achived by using a DSP? or can we also achive this with digital time alignment and equalization feature of my car stereo receiver?
You can get close with a head unit as long as you have individual EQ per side. You can watch my videos "how to tune with a head unit". Head units in general offer very limited adjustability.
What's the best way to time align passive crossover. My woofer and tweeter are on same channel so I cant alter them in dsp separately. Should I measure tweeters or woofer distance. Also how would I connect tweeters to dsp as the only outputs are rca. I have the vibebox 65w dsp. Thx for the videos they are a great help for a noob like me.
In a passive system you time align the woofers. If you want to power tweeters, you need another amplifier. In active systems you need one amplification channel per speaker, that is why we run multiple 4ch amplifiers.
Nerijus, your content is unbelievably helpful, thank you for this and please keep making these videos.
The video provides an excellent and functional explanation of the core concepts around staging. However, to be precise, there is a distinction between "Distance to Soundstage" and "Stage Depth." Distance to Soundstage is determined by the perceived proximity of the nearest instrument from the listening position, while Stage Depth refers to the perceived distance from the closest point to the furthest point within the soundstage. For instance, in EMMA competition we only judge distance to soundstage, not depth (but we do judge room information).
Thanks for clarifying that👍
@@RAW-CAtnice video.... what mids and highs are you running?
Depth is in the recording, agree. Some install locations can be more destructive to "depth" than others. Mark Eldridge talks about this.
For those that want the center directly in front of you, right over the steering wheel, it’s very doable. But you’re gonna screw up the rest of your sound stage. Like Nerijus said, you’re gonna squash one side and loose left of center or right of center information, depending on which side of the car you drive on.
Also when you make the center in front of you what you’re doing is in effect just putting vocals and some drum beats in front of you because they’re effectively recorded in mono. You’re sacrificing the other stereo effects that are in the recording, like guitars if you listen to rock music.
If you’ve ever listened to the “my voice is in phase, my voice is out of phase” track on the Sheffield or Iasca disc, you’ll notice two things if your system is tuned properly. In phase voice is center of hard left and hard right. Out of phase voice is hard to locate and sounds like it’s all around. Well that’s how recording engineers get that “wall of sound” that comes from guitars mainly in rock music. The same technique is used in other genres of music also.
Not all recordings are created equally. There is a lot of out of phase in formation in recordings that create the desired effects of the engineer, and when you squash one side of your sound stage to put the mono information directly in front of you, you will sacrifice that intended effect and lose that dimension of the music.
It might be more "correct" to have stage center in the middle of the dash, but it is very unnatural feeling to look straight ahead when you drive and having center sound image coming from the side where your eyes do not look. This disconnects your brain from the sound, as eyes are looking in the direction different from where sounds comes from. That's why it is psychoacoustically wrong, despite technically being correct.
You just answered a question I had since forever... Never had good luck EQing speaker one at a time because it always resulted as the farthest speaker to play too loud, so I EQ my system by speaker pair thinking at the end, it's the pair that need to match the house curve. You just proved me wrong with your shifting image explanation that make total sense. Thanks.
Watch the previous video about targets😉
I noticed in the past with having the center in front of you it has detrimental effects on say 80s recordings where they'd use stereo seperation effects on the vocals. Even some newer electronic music the stage feels smaller and doesn't have the same impact during song sections with panning. And I never really got that "on the hood" distance. The listening experience for the passenger is even more compromised as well.
I've learned everything about dsp's from you. I even bought the ezy dsp12. It's surprisingly really beefy and solid. The bluetooth works awesome for me on my iphone.
Appreciate you for explaining DSP processing for people who want better sound that don't plan on competing.
Very informative video sir
Half azimuth bro. Take a wide angle photo. The perspective dictates that halfway is not half horizontal angle. So probably to the right of your light sensor a tiny bit.
Nope! I want my center to be where it is with high quality headphones on. I want to be the center so I want it in front of me. I hate having the center in the center of the dash.
Well sir you are missing out on some of the best sounding cars built, take for instance the Gladen built Chrysler 300 incredible center image and 4 six inch Gladen woofers for subs and can play any type of music beautifully and the Audiofrog benz Andy Wehmeyer built just incredible and how can I forget the Arc Audio championship winning Cadillac crazy amazing sound. Do what you please but this is why I buy the equipment and learn from Nejerius so I can appreciate the music more and kinda justify my purchases and the thrill I built it even though I'm not a pro but people dig it and it makes me feel good. 2cents 😅
Whatever makes you happy, man😉 Even if it's technically incorrect, the most important thing is your listening pleasure.
acabas de despejarme una duda que nadie te dice sobre un sistema eq. tus videos valen oro
here we go
What about moving your left speaker to to the same distance as the right from the steering wheel, e.g centre of the dash. This would provide a center in front of the driver.
If you want a super narrow stage - go for it.
There's an issue with that approach- reflections will be increasingly asymmetrical to the right driver the further you move the left driver toward the listening position. Akin to setting up speakers in an asymmetrical position in a room. In home audio, we generally aim for equidistance from left and right walls for each speaker. Distance from left speaker to left wall should match the right speaker to right wall distance.... therefore early reflections occur at the same point in time, contributing to balanced soundstage depth and width.
Aymmetrical placement can contribute to a narrower, asymmetrical stereo image/soundstage. Symmetry is vital- for instance, check out the monitoring setups of high end recording studios- they generally aim for symmetry. Often big in-wall midfield monitors with small monitors mounted nearfield on top of the main mixer. Yes, symmetry will cause nulls and peaks in the same frequency regions (causing "stacking" of nulls/peaks) but the stereo image stays more intact than the asymmetrical approach.
It also effectively changes the "baffle" shape of the left driver, further impacting frequency response and timing asymmetry.
Center (IMO), should be directly in front of the listener. Phase and alignment will make your hard right (in your case) sound as if it's coming from the far right.
I see where you're coming from, but if everything is done correctly, a center image to the listener is possible.
Phase alignment makes speakers sum together nicely in the crossover region, time alignment will make sou d from both speakers to arrive at the same time at the listener. It will not change where the hard left or hard right is.
@@RAW-CAt I'm still learning, but from what I've been informed of (by National SQ champs) that T/A combined with phase will widen your stage. Unless I misunderstood what they said.
Good stuff
Thanks. I have been centering it in the center but always wondered if it should be on the steering wheel or not.
Could you make a video about how set gains ?
I thoroughly enjoyed the stage directly in front of me, but because I knew it wasn't correct I changed it to the centre of the dash. I have different presets for each to allow for me to enjoy whatever i prefer on the day.
The type of music plays a major role in the preference of the day.
What’s amazing in my opinion is when your system is dialed in and you’re listening to this very video, I’m going to assume the mic is attached to his shirt, but you can hear when the mic is pointed at him directly or if he moved to the left or right or even when he reaches over the dash. What you should notice is while the image moves as he moves it doesn’t become diffused at all. So it’s really easy it pick up what’s going on even with out watching this video. Idk just something that always amazes me lol
Nice to hear that. I am filming using a pixel phone that is in front of my face. It has stereo mics so translates the location information very well🙃
Yet another incredible, informative helpful video! Thanks for sharing more of your great knowledge
It won't feel stereo If you're not in between, receiving equal volume from each side. In a home theater aplication, whats the point of things like Dolby atmos, THX etc if youre tunning to satisfy a speaker with each other instead of satisfying your seating position...
It will feel stereo with proper i.aging if you set your delays right, make good EQ work and set levels correctly😉
Some people really crank that center over. To me that is just bad. My center is more like halfway between where you keep pointing and steering wheel center. Center shouldn't be straight over the steering wheel, but it should still still "make sense" and be enjoyable.
To support my feelings.. I got pretty much perfect placement points all last weekend. It's also the tune I listen to daily (I only have one)
I am asking myself one question. How do you get the center image in the middle of the dash. Is it done by timealignmenet, which means that the sound waves from different speakers arrive at your head at different time or is it done by different gain from left to right ?
Both.
Good explain but isn.t it annoying to have center stage on the car's center and on long roads feel a bit weird? Like making you turn the head a little bit to the side while driving😂?
I'm very curious how i will end up when system will be ready and have it tuned.
I've listened some cars with stage exactly in the dash center and felt very odd. Now i am thinking maybe the stage was very narrow and made it feel that way. It felt odd because all of the instruments kind of came from dash center 🤔
Not really, when you get used to.it, then you don't think that it can be any other way.
Delay/gain settings of the center driver helps to dial in the perceived "center" of the image, it's all relative to the left and right driver delay.
In oversimplified terms, more delay (relative) to the right driver will make the center driver sound as if it's spaced further away, and vice versa. We perceive sound delay as distance.
Imaging now in the home theater calibrating speakers to meet somewhere where they share same distance instead of your main listening position.🥴
@@RAW-CAt probably getting used to it, ,indeed. Tho with my first ocasion will listen to some emma tracks and check their separation. I assume those cars were not tuned properly. There are so many tracks that play different instruments left and right and that didn't happened in cars i've listened.
Or maybe they messed up a stereo/mono setting in the DSP and made them sound like that? Would that be possible?
Hi, what positioning tracks did you mention at about 6:40 in the video. It sounded like Emma positioning tracks is that right. Do you mind providing a link or clarifying which tracks you use specifically? Thank you for making these videos!
Just go to official EMMA website and there you will find the CD to download.
@@RAW-CAt thanks! Are there any other possible suggestions for these kind of tracks that are either free or open source? Specifically for imaging and sound stage.
Is there somewhere we can buy and download that CD you have that has center , right , left, etc. the one with the chimes, drum and the different sounds so we can center stuff well?
Great videos!
You can find them on the official EMMA webpage.
Use the IsoTek - Ultimate System Set-Up disc if you really want to get a VERY accurate sound stage. It uses 20 clicks that you can hear move across your sound stage from beyond your left speaker to beyond your right speaker. When you have it perfect there is a 360 track of clicks that makes it sound like the sound is coming from behind you.
some people say they can make two passenger settings even sitting anywhere the sound can be phantom igame. do you think that is possible? (i don't think it is possible)
Watch my previous video about two seat tune.
Is upmixing is possible with helix V12 mk2 to get centrr spkr from L and R channel ?
I believe all newer ACO platform Helix DSPs have a center channel.
Thank you
Can this one only be achived by using a DSP? or can we also achive this with digital time alignment and equalization feature of my car stereo receiver?
You can get close with a head unit as long as you have individual EQ per side. You can watch my videos "how to tune with a head unit". Head units in general offer very limited adjustability.
What's the best way to time align passive crossover. My woofer and tweeter are on same channel so I cant alter them in dsp separately. Should I measure tweeters or woofer distance. Also how would I connect tweeters to dsp as the only outputs are rca. I have the vibebox 65w dsp. Thx for the videos they are a great help for a noob like me.
In a passive system you time align the woofers. If you want to power tweeters, you need another amplifier. In active systems you need one amplification channel per speaker, that is why we run multiple 4ch amplifiers.
Thx for replying, I see so the 4 rca from dsp are to go to other amps