Time Alignment

[Neel]

i have a pioneer premier deh-p880prs and i want to take advantage of all its features, one of them being the time alignment. It does have an auto time alignment feature but i wasnt happy with the results. From what i have heard the easiest way to set it is to start with your mids only and to not delay the right mid, instead delay the left mid enough until its right where you want it. After thats done connect your tweeters and do the same, and then with the sub i should delay all 4 speakers 1ms at a time until the sub itself feels like its up front with the rest of your stage.

My main question was, on my 880, i dont have the option to change the time delay in ms, instead i have the distance in cm and inches.... would i make the adjustments the same? Also is the procedure i wrote on how to set up time alignment correct? Any help would be appreciated

[Dave Brooks]

I think you've got it right. I don't know about the subwoofer part though, never tried it.

I use a 3-way setup up front. I start with the midranges; delaying on the driver side. Little by little, until the vocals are coming out of the rearview mirror. I take note of that setting and then close my eyes and listen while bumping the delay above and below that reference point to see where it sounds best tonally. In the last few builds of the truck, I usually wound up with a compromise that ended up about an inch to the left of the rearview mirror. That yielded me the best center image without sacrificing tonality. (I'm not saying that's what you should shoot for, just saying that's where I ended up without sacrificing tonality.)

I then move to the midbass drivers and delay the left side until a centered stand-up bass guitar sounded like it was coming out of the dash. Sometimes inverting the phase on one side will get you close enough without TA to the mid-bass, but you have to play with it to be sure for your application. Every car is different.

I don't time align my tweeters. I've never really been able to tell the difference.

For subs, I just invert the polarity and go with whichever sounds loudest and up front.

Hope that helps!

[roscoe1129]

Agreed with mr brooks and no dont delay the sub, I used cross it over a little higher to "move" it closer to the midbass and front stage.

[Neel]

thanks for the response guys, as far as subwoofer goes, i meant delay all the speakers evenly until the sub starts coming up

[roscoe1129]

The only problem with delaying the front speakers till the sub comes up is if you have a long vehicle it may move your front soundstage too much.

[Neel]

sweet, anyone got any good music choices for setting up my front stage? i was thinking about buying a jazz cd, or maybe something like ray charles? anyone have any good suggestions?

[roscoe1129]

I always used the USACI SQ competition disc. It has everything youll need on it and its what they use to judge. The main song on it is Hotel California from the eagles performed live.

[kingsuv]

I always used the USACI SQ competition disc. It has everything youll need on it and its what they use to judge. The main song on it is Hotel California from the eagles performed live.

nice Cd.

I also Like to use the IASCA Test CD

then I will Move to The Big Phat Band Jazz CD's Very nice to test the limits of the system.

[huge]

try to use focal tools cd. you can easily adjust all speakers mids, high, sub. try to set at 80-90 at the left and 17/ 60+ in. at the right speaker. the staging seems like the vocalist is performing in the center of your dash. for the sub set it at 0in then try to adjust it until you heard the sub is in front of you. before, i have a pioneer 8850mp and it comes with a mic for auto time alignment i dont know if the p80rs have that kind of feature. if you have good ears you can also correct the time alignment through pink noise.

[jhmeg2]

Sweeeeet. I finaly found an actual sound quality page. If your setting time offof pink noise, your my hero.