Full Active Speaker system with Audison AP8.9Bit

[rattmobbins]

Killer setup man. Did you mention the brand of speakers you went with? If so I must have missed it.

Willing to share how much this whole thing set you back?

I'm starting to look into upgrading the craptastic Bose system in my '15 Escalade and I know it's gonna be a bear. Might just add a sub, turn the bass down on the factory speakers to eliminate distortion as much as possible and call it done.

 

[LGSONE]

Diamond Elite speakers. I used to be big on the high end speakers but with the DSP demo I had I was very surprised at the sound quality of the Diamond Elite. Plus without passive crossovers except in the driver itself for the tweeters there is a much cleaner path from amp to driver. Really what makes the system is the Audison DSP tuning. Years back I had the Audio Control 3050a Spectrum Analyzer and would spend hours tweaking EQL's in my system. It worked fantastic but with everything in the digital realm now the computer software for tuning really makes the system 10 times better. Listening to the system pre and post setup is really amazing. And to see what is cut from the output to get there is even more surprising. Biggest problem is the factory tuning with the Bose and bass. Holy hell do they chop the signal out of it. The de-equalization post bose amp was the key for me. I wanted to lose Zero functionality and clean up the signal. Plus, now I had a clean sub output, not one I had to constantly adjust with a gain knob to compensate for the bose "detuning". One of my buddies in the Car audio business was in town and the first thing he asked was if the speakers were the "Memphis" something or other, nope.. or the "C5's", nope. Then he just didn't believe me and he is a lifer in the CA business, in it since the 80's and know's his stuff. We pulled out the laptop and hooked in. He had not seen the Audison setup. He has a car with all Hertz gear and a bunch of other esoteric stuff and by no means does it sound like that but pretty damn good for the 3500-4K worth of gear and install.

Rambling, but hoped that helped.

LGSONE

 

[rattmobbins]

Good to know. Audison gear is pretty stellar for sure, just not sure if I want to drop the dough to upgrade or just add a sub. Thanks for the info though!

 

[Steveaux]

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.

Did you just tap into dash left/right speakers and utilized x-overs? Thanks

 

[Hectorbacon33]

Thanks for all the info! I’m trying to do something similar to your build. I’m on a 2015 Escalade so should be about the same. I didn’t see the middle speakers on the doors in your pictures. Do you have more pictures of the OEM speakers and/or empty hole where the speakers was? I’m wanting to use Dynaudio speakers and maybe a JL sub in the center console. Did you replace or eliminate that center console speaker?

I also don’t know what DSP to use that would be great now and in the future.

Did you do anything for video? I’ve read that OEM isn’t using hdmi or HD video. I would love to upgrade but it’s not a must unlike the speakers.

Hope you can help out with some info. Thanks again

 

[K2 Kaiju]

Good pics (bumpiddy)