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LGSONE
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Full Active Speaker system with Audison AP8.9Bit
- Thread starter LGSONE
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Denada
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Fantastic setup, looks (and I'm sure sounds amazing). The one issue I had with the vehicle speaker layout is that the sound stage is narrowly focused directly in front of you and it's hard to achieve depth. The sound just doesn't envelop you like a good system should. My solution, and it has made a WORLD of difference, is to do what other auto manufactures do and put tweeters in the sail panels. Heck even the Eskies come with that type of setup I believe. I used a pair of Infinity Reference tweeters and it looks completely stock.
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LGSONE
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Did you omit the dash tweeter, I would think so. The audison tuning is pretty sweet and the sound stage is really opened up and has a very wide feel to it. With compressed music it is not as easy to really create the depth but when I played some CD's I was very surprised to hear the difference in the sound stage. To most it sounds great but these little touches really immerse you in the music... nothing better than a long highway drive and you just take it all in..
LGSONE
LGSONE
Denada
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The Bose dash speakers sound more like a tweeter / midrange hybrid so I left them. Which meant the system was lacking the punch of directional tweeters which I have grown to love in high end car audio systems. They are running off a dedicated Kenwood micro amp in the rear jack space. Aside from subs, the optimal setup would involve having every speaker pointed directly at you.
You bring up an interesting point about music source...it makes such a difference. Songs on the radio are horrible (even HD) and XM/Sirius isn't that much better. Digital versions of songs copied from CD can sound pretty good if you convert them properly/use a losless codec like FLAC (although not sure our systems can play them, haven't tried). CDs obviously sound the best but who listens to those any more!?!
Plus you would need one of those 10 disc changers like they had in the 90s to provide any kind of selection. Pandora, Spotify, etc. probably offer the best mix of selection and sound quality so that is the predominant source in my car. Steaming music is still compressed a great deal which is why I like having the tweeters pull those high hat and snare drum hits out of the song and deliver them directly to my ears.
You bring up an interesting point about music source...it makes such a difference. Songs on the radio are horrible (even HD) and XM/Sirius isn't that much better. Digital versions of songs copied from CD can sound pretty good if you convert them properly/use a losless codec like FLAC (although not sure our systems can play them, haven't tried). CDs obviously sound the best but who listens to those any more!?!
Plus you would need one of those 10 disc changers like they had in the 90s to provide any kind of selection. Pandora, Spotify, etc. probably offer the best mix of selection and sound quality so that is the predominant source in my car. Steaming music is still compressed a great deal which is why I like having the tweeters pull those high hat and snare drum hits out of the song and deliver them directly to my ears.
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LGSONE
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From the audio shop that did the install they had simply disconnected the mic's, and for some reason they did it at the mic locations in the headliner. Didn't understand that but my vehicle did not have the cabling / mic's so it was a mute point for my install. After having listened for several days now I could not be happier. I have the Audison tuning software and have made some minor tweaks in gains and some eq curve's. The software has A and B settings with A being the shop / mic tuning and B being the "tweaked" version. Is it super loud, no 35x8, but by no means is it lacking. If I was a younger man I might have done a Bit Tune model or a Helix DSP PRO with a JL 75x8 amp..
My dad, who just bought a '15 High Country and thinks I'm crazy for installing the stereo changed his tune after listening to some Elvis and Dusty Springfield. And Big Love off of the Dance CD from Fleetwood Mac is amazing.
LGSONE
My dad, who just bought a '15 High Country and thinks I'm crazy for installing the stereo changed his tune after listening to some Elvis and Dusty Springfield. And Big Love off of the Dance CD from Fleetwood Mac is amazing.
LGSONE
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LGSONE
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Chimes still run thru the same bose amplifier to the audison but all I did was to turn them all the way down in the radio setup and they are not loud at all. I do wish there was a MOST to line level adaptor but because the amp does all of the chimes, onstar etc... just not going to happen. Too bad you cannot get a Bose PREamp with all the inputs from MOST and the GMLan29 inputs.
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LGSONE
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GM needs a different adaptor, we contact audison directly as well as other resources for this issue... just not made.
One note on this install. I notice some mid / vocals distortion on a couple of songs and wrote it off as the recording but then by chance I pulled my SD card and put it in my wifes 2015 Jeep Cherokee, not a hint of distortions. Long story short, when using the audison SPM-4 you have to flip the phase of one of the front channel dash / door inputs or you end up with a big spike in the crossover range the de-equalization can't entirely correct for in the factory tuning. Once this was done it was re Bit-tuned and sounded much better. As I'm sure most of you audio head know with this stuff sometimes you have to step away and listen to the system on multiple occasions to pick up on this stuff. Independence Audio in KC stuck with it to get this right, at first it was assumed a speaker or hardware was bad but a bit of RTFM and viola... come to find out this was the first SPM4 they had installed and it is great to work with a company who really takes the time to make sure clients are happy.
LGSONE
One note on this install. I notice some mid / vocals distortion on a couple of songs and wrote it off as the recording but then by chance I pulled my SD card and put it in my wifes 2015 Jeep Cherokee, not a hint of distortions. Long story short, when using the audison SPM-4 you have to flip the phase of one of the front channel dash / door inputs or you end up with a big spike in the crossover range the de-equalization can't entirely correct for in the factory tuning. Once this was done it was re Bit-tuned and sounded much better. As I'm sure most of you audio head know with this stuff sometimes you have to step away and listen to the system on multiple occasions to pick up on this stuff. Independence Audio in KC stuck with it to get this right, at first it was assumed a speaker or hardware was bad but a bit of RTFM and viola... come to find out this was the first SPM4 they had installed and it is great to work with a company who really takes the time to make sure clients are happy.
LGSONE
