bass delay

[murrdogg24]

Anybody know why, when listening to techno on a car stereo system there always seems to be a slight delay in the bass timing???

[dlh1999]

Obviously your stereo doesn't like techno...who could blame it?

All kidding aside, do you have the correct enclosure for your sub? Have you checked all your settings? Whats your setup?

[nightcrawler60]

Turn down that Drumb And Bass Murry lmao.

[axis]

It depends on how you have your enclosure set (facing towards the back or towards the front). In any case, see if your radio has a setting to change the non-fading preout's polarity. I had to do this when I had my 350Z and it took care of it. If your radio doesn't have that feature, you could try swapping the positive and negative leads on your sub box. Let me know how it works out for you, k.

[hookedontronics]

High quality cables go a long way

[Aaron'z 2.5RS]

Originally Posted by axis

It depends on how you have your enclosure set (facing towards the back or towards the front). In any case, see if your radio has a setting to change the non-fading preout's polarity. I had to do this when I had my 350Z and it took care of it. If your radio doesn't have that feature, you could try swapping the positive and negative leads on your sub box. Let me know how it works out for you, k.

It has absolutely ZERO to do with the direction your sub enclosure is facing, I assure you..

[Daishi00]

Originally Posted by hookedontronics

High quality cables go a long way

Complete crap.

To answer your question OP it has to do with the rest of the speaker placement. The sub is farther away therefore takes longer for the waves to reach your seating position.

[Aaron'z 2.5RS]

Originally Posted by Daishi00

Complete crap.

To answer your question OP it has to do with the rest of the speaker placement. The sub is farther away therefore takes longer for the waves to reach your seating position.

I don't believe it... There isn't enough distance in our cars to produce enough actual delay for it to be consciously precieved(SP?) as a delay..

If this was true, everyone with a rear facing sub would hear delay..

[couchflambeau]

What kind of enclosure? Also I'm wondering about the "cleanliness" of the original recordings. Cables? Snake-oil.... lol!

[Back Road Runner]

I'm agreeing with Daishi00 on this one though. The distance is enough to cause noticeable delay, even for very long subwoofer frequencies. If it is significant enough, you will notice the actual time in between the note the front speakers make and the note the sub makes. Less delay may just create a slightly disconnected feeling to the note. Ported enclosures get worse because of the group delay from using the rear sound wave from the speaker for port excitation. The delay can be somewhat significant on bigger enclosure subs with lower tune frequencies. This group delay just with the sub can be noticeable just with the sub playing high to low frequencies.

Time alignment is useful to sync the subwoofer to the front speakers by delaying the front speakers just enough for the subwoofer's sound wave to catch up. In a ported enclosure one may even go a step further and partially or largely counter the group delay (depending on what kind of frequency range you are having the sub play).

Direction alone will not play a useful role in how a sub sounds. Directional influence requires beaming, and that doesn't happen until over 600Hz for a 12" woofer. What you will get different is reflections and panel excitation. These two things will vary and create a different overall presence. We typically face the sub back and near the rear trunk wall to keep the original sound wave and reflection wave very close to in sync. It just creates a less messy experience.

+1 on cabling. Find the crappiest cabling you can find that will support the current load, and I'll happily run it. If it ends up being a bunch of coat hangers soldered together, I'm happy run it.

[murrdogg24]

I have a JL 12w1 in a non ported box, it sits almost against the back seat and faces the rear of the car. For the most part it sounds good only on techno I can hear a slight delay in the bass. Thanks for the responses guys. Maybe one day I'll figure out the timing thing.

[robbieb]

Originally Posted by Aaron'z 2.5RS

It has absolutely ZERO to do with the direction your sub enclosure is facing, I assure you..

this is correct. sub placement does not have an effect on sound timing (at least not an effect that we can hear).

I can imagine that rotating a sub can result in the gain or loss of 5-6 feet of distance between the listener and the sub. Since the speed of sound is 1,125 ft/s, this would give a .0053 second delay with 6' difference.

Since most bass from a sub is 30-100 hz, this results to the timing per oscillation of the speaker being .033 - .01 seconds. This means that the delay created is less than the time it takes to make the speaker produce sound in the first place. .0053<.033-.01

[labcoat]

Have you checked the phase of your sub?

R-

Timing and phase delay are real

http://sound.westhost.com/subcon.htm

[Daishi00]

Originally Posted by Aaron'z 2.5RS

I don't believe it... There isn't enough distance in our cars to produce enough actual delay for it to be consciously precieved(SP?) as a delay..

If this was true, everyone with a rear facing sub would hear delay..

Sure there is. Why do you think time alignment works for centering an image?

[Sky92x]

You aren't exactly hearing a delay. They just aren't level-matched with the rest of your system and/or you need to swap phase.

Both of these issues make it sound like your subs are playing to the beat of a different drum. They aren't - they're just drowning your system out or you are hearing nasty cancellation.

[Daishi00]

Phase and time delay are different beasts.

[labcoat]

I was just thinking the OP might have the sub wire out of phase and that would sound odd.

Any way the attached image might help.

R-

[Daishi00]

I was referring to Sky92x's thread

[1FakeAero]

xxxxx

[Aaron'z 2.5RS]

Originally Posted by Daishi00

Sure there is. Why do you think time alignment works for centering an image?

I'm agreeing with Daishi00 on this one though. The distance is enough to cause noticeable delay, even for very long subwoofer frequencies.

Theaters (and home theaters) would have serious problems if this where true...

This...

this is correct. sub placement does not have an effect on sound timing (at least not an effect that we can hear).

I can imagine that rotating a sub can result in the gain or loss of 5-6 feet of distance between the listener and the sub. Since the speed of sound is 1,125 ft/s, this would give a .0053 second delay with 6' difference.

Since most bass from a sub is 30-100 hz, this results to the timing per oscillation of the speaker being .033 - .01 seconds. This means that the delay created is less than the time it takes to make the speaker produce sound in the first place. .0053<.033-.01

[Back Road Runner]

I agree that the delay isn't as big of an issue because of the long wave lengths. You don't get nearly the problems you see with a tweeter or midwoofer. The problem still exists though. It does become more apparent when you do start TAing a sub in a system. I would be hard pressed to find anyone who's used TA with a sub say it did nothing.

[Daishi00]

Aaron, you do realize that 1 ms is about equivalent to 1ft of distance correct? When the brain has two inputs for sound (i.e. two ears) it is pretty damn easy to notice a difference in timing between the two. BRR is absolutely correct that it isn't nearly as important or noticeable as mids and tweets, but it still is a factor.

HT systems compensate all the time for speaker placement including the sub. Hell, Audyssey EQ built into pretty much every decent AVR now asks you to set the distance for each speaker so it can calculate out delay and attenuation levels.

[Aaron'z 2.5RS]

Originally Posted by Back Road Runner

I agree that the delay isn't as big of an issue because of the long wave lengths. You don't get nearly the problems you see with a tweeter or midwoofer. The problem still exists though. It does become more apparent when you do start TAing a sub in a system. I would be hard pressed to find anyone who's used TA with a sub say it did nothing.

Ok...

Aaron, you do realize that 1 ms is about equivalent to 1ft of distance correct? When the brain has two inputs for sound (i.e. two ears) it is pretty damn easy to notice a difference in timing between the two. BRR is absolutely correct that it isn't nearly as important or noticeable as mids and tweets, but it still is a factor.

HT systems compensate all the time for speaker placement including the sub. Hell, Audyssey EQ built into pretty much every decent AVR now asks you to set the distance for each speaker so it can calculate out delay and attenuation levels.

Ok...


What I think you guys are failing to realize is that the DELAY you would need, for the average person, who isn't versed in T/A, to hear a odd delay in the average CA system would be well over MS...

Milliseconds of delay do more for are subconscious hearing than our conscious hearing...

You guys are splitting hairs again... which is ok, but it's not getting the OP anywhere...

The delay produced from the direction the subs are facing is not enough to notice a delay.. It might destroy a proper sound stage, but it's not going to created an "echo" effect...

Something else has to be happening...

[Daishi00]

Are you kidding me? If I put a 10 ms dely on my left drivers the image almost sits on the right drivers. I think you need to read up on how much delay a bit more. It doesn't matter if you're versed or not. The brain picks up on extremely small delays.

I am wondering if the OP is getting a tactile sensation and that's throwing him off.

[Aaron'z 2.5RS]

Ok, i'm done, you guys have it covered.. obviously..

Make sure your subs face forward, you wouldn't want to put TOO much delay on them...

I'm gonna have to move my HT sub too, there has to be too much delay on that as well...



Not to discount the OP in any way, but I think a lot of times, average people are lost in the "expert speak"

Most don't even know what Time Alignment IS, so how the heck could they quantify Milliseconds of time delay caused buy a speakers placement...







Splitting hairs we/you are.. I'm done..