Ok i need some sound system advice (paging Luke)

[quickervicar]

Probably clockwise, but check your manual to be sure.

[StereoInstaller1]

To be honest harris uses a pretty mid/high heavy bass tone, for more punch and clarity over girth due to his playing style.

IMO, the subwoofer simply fills out the bottom end, and if you've got a crossover or something you're going to be cutting out most 'guitar' and 'bass' frequencies anyway.

Guitar in standard tune, the low E string is about 80hz iirc, and bass goes all the way down to 40 or something close, but most of that will be rolled off or cut in the mixing/mastering anyway.

If you want to hear more of the sub you can try to raise the crossover frequency, which will lift the cap off of what it cuts out of its signal.

If possible you could turn the subwoofer up via the head unit, or EQ more bass in the mix for sure.

The gain is going to do exactly what gain does.. basically increasing the ratio of input level : output level.

Qbass.. couldn't tell you.

From my experience it wasn't a good thing to hear guitar and most bass parts thru the subwoofer, when I turned it up it sounded real blah. Once I turned it back and refined it a bit all was well. Try tweeking the settings a bunch and I'm sure you'll find a happy medium.

OK, so WTF...a R3V member who actually knows something about frequencies as they relate to music?

How the hell could this happen?

This guy is actually eloquent, too! Decent sentence structure, adequate grammar...damn, I am impressed!

So, on to the tech. Standard bass guitar tuning is as follows:

String Note Frequency
1 (thinnest) G 97.999 Hz
2 D 73.416 Hz
3 A 55 Hz
4 (thickest) E 41.204 Hz

and of course, this is primary frequencies, not allowing for harmonics and sub-harmonics, but you get the idea. Your subwoofer should handle about 85% of the sound of a bass guitar.

You should have some kind of high pass filter to keep the stock location speakers (satellite speakers) from playing much below 125Hz or so, but it isn't like a rev limiter, it is a gradual drop off in frequencies (called "slope") and is generally expressed in "db" per "octave".

Likewise, your sub will have a "low pass" filter to prevent higher frequencies from drowning out the mids and highs and muddying them.

My general recommendations are somewhere around 125Hz for high pass if 12db/oct, and lower if your midrange drivers can handle it.

Low pass on the subwoofer should run about 80hz or so as most low pass filters are 12db/oct. If you want boom only, you can go lower and raise your gains...or, if you are looking to listen to actual music, you can raise them a bit and drop the gains to get a real balance.

Oh, that "Q bass" thing is a bass knob. Same as "BASS" on your deck, but a lower frequency.

Pitch that crap out the window.

Luke

[iamsam]

so to listen to "real music" (i.e. Iron Maiden), i should lower the gain a bit and raise the crossover frequency?

btw thanks so much for all the help guys!

[genocide98]

OK, so WTF...a R3V member who actually knows something about frequencies as they relate to music?

How the hell could this happen?

This guy is actually eloquent, too! Decent sentence structure, adequate grammar...damn, I am impressed!

Long time guitar/bass player... Part time audiophile/gear nerd... and a novice bmw enthusiast. lol

So, on to the tech. Standard bass guitar tuning is as follows:

and of course, this is primary frequencies, not allowing for harmonics and sub-harmonics, but you get the idea. Your subwoofer should handle about 85% of the sound of a bass guitar.

You should have some kind of high pass filter to keep the stock location speakers (satellite speakers) from playing much below 125Hz or so, but it isn't like a rev limiter, it is a gradual drop off in frequencies (called "slope") and is generally expressed in "db" per "octave".

Likewise, your sub will have a "low pass" filter to prevent higher frequencies from drowning out the mids and highs and muddying them.

My general recommendations are somewhere around 125Hz for high pass if 12db/oct, and lower if your midrange drivers can handle it.

Low pass on the subwoofer should run about 80hz or so as most low pass filters are 12db/oct. If you want boom only, you can go lower and raise your gains...or, if you are looking to listen to actual music, you can raise them a bit and drop the gains to get a real balance.

Oh, that "Q bass" thing is a bass knob. Same as "BASS" on your deck, but a lower frequency.

Pitch that crap out the window.

Luke

Pretty sound advice. My statements above were a bit scatterbrained, but I thought I'd just throw a bit of my own advice in there.

the jist of what you're saying I think OP understood, though. 'real' music gets a higher low pass filter frequency and less gain, to get thump and heavy bass you're going to want to drop the filter to a lower frequency range and turning up the gain to produce a much louder bass signal in comparison to the rest of your stereo.

You're basically tuning your stereo to the style of music or production. You might even find some variance between specific artists or eras of music that might inspire you to change your EQ settings a lot. I always do =/

They need to put custom EQ presets in head units more often.

[iamsam]

Pretty sound advice. My statements above were a bit scatterbrained, but I thought I'd just throw a bit of my own advice in there.

the jist of what you're saying I think OP understood, though. 'real' music gets a higher low pass filter frequency and less gain, to get thump and heavy bass you're going to want to drop the filter to a lower frequency range and turning up the gain to produce a much louder bass signal in comparison to the rest of your stereo.

You're basically tuning your stereo to the style of music or production. You might even find some variance between specific artists or eras of music that might inspire you to change your EQ settings a lot. I always do =/

They need to put custom EQ presets in head units more often.

yeah my cd deck has no options whatsoever, and i just mounted my amp in such a way that i would have to take my rear seats out to dismount the amp so i can get to the controls.

my cd deck only has the generic low mid and high level settings, and some extra bass boost option with off, and level one and level two. I have it on the "off" setting, and i have the bass level turned up to 2 (mids 5 and highs 8 ) and it seems ok atm.