1986 Toyota MR2 - We didn’t see it… Right?

[Sweetpea]

Nov 2, 2024 21:44:00 GMT mk2cossie said:

check out hexibase on YouTube.

Oh, what did you do that for!? I have enough trouble watching junk on PooTube without people suggesting more of it. Oh well, another rabbit hole to fall down. 


Mark,

You should get a 'reasonable' bass out of the 6 inch speaker. I don't know but I suspect that is what's in the Lexus and it sounds 'fine'.
I guess the question here is what do you want? In what way do you feel the current set up is deficient?

Like mk2cossie says, you may be able to get what you want by getting a decent amp (if you don't already) and an EQ so you can set it up.
If you want that thump of a kick drum then, personally, I'd suggest go big and hide it. You are more likely to have success that way than trying to do something clever with small stuff.
That said, I put a silly speaker in a tiny bit of wood and it seems to work. I don't understand how. I think it's got so much power available that it just grabs common sense by the neck and headbutts it into submission.

A couple of things to bear in mind.
Those tiny speakers in your TV probably have a very well designed cabinet behind them to get the best out of them. You won't be doing that unless you are very clever indeed.
Secondly your living room is a quiet well damped place. A car isn't and your car definitely isn't. If you put your TV in your car you'd probably find it struggled.
To make matters worse you have to overcome the natural bass noise of the car. Any bass set up that sounds natural in a moving car normally sounds over emphasised with the engine off.

And lastly, what do you listen to?
Katy Perry or Dua Lipa have truck loads of really low bass that really wake the MR2 up. But play some Genesis from the late 70's or early 80's and there is none. And they are a prog rock band for goodness sake. You may be looking for something that isn't there in the first place.
Why is there no bass in older recordings? The way it was explained it me was that if you tried to have lots of bass it would just cause the disc cutter to skip into the next grove when trying to cut the master record. So music was mixed with that in mind. It was one of the purposes of the RIAA curve used on vinyl. It took all the bass out of the recording so they could get the tracks closer together. Or so I believe.
Once you move to digital recording and reproduction none of that matters and you can have as much bass as you want so tastes have changed over the last couple of decades.

And lastly, lastly... If you tweak your hifi's eq you can make one record sound great, but another will sound curse word. (especially if you have 7 or 9 bands to play with.) So you tweak again and keep going iteratively. Eventually you'll find settings where most things sound lovely. If you can't get to that point then something is probably wrong. Listen to the human voice on it too. You are very used to listening to people speaking and it'll stick out like a sore thumb if somethings wrong in the mid ranges. Beware though because a lot of radio stations process their mics horribly and there is no chance on Gods green earth that they will ever sound natural.
I have to admit that when I do the iterative fiddling process in the MR2 I'm not finding a totally sweet spot. This would suggest that the bass reproduction has some horrible peaks and troughs in the frequency response. Frankly, given what I did, that's no surprise. I'm more astonished that it works as well as it seems to.

James

[blackpopracing]

James, thanks for the detailed response.

I'm not sure if I really need more bass - just the topic got me thinking..

The real issue in my car is the engine is too noisy for the stereo to work well. It would have decent bass if the rear side panel speaker were fitted in the boot panel instead, but if I could actually hear it then it would be a major improvement

Musical tastes - everything from Abba to ZZ Top. Opera, Kate bush, Floyd, Genesis, classical and trance euphoria - I have an eclectic taste in music

[The Cat Herder]

Nov 4, 2024 13:35:46 GMT blackpopracing said:

Musical tastes - everything from Abba to ZZ Top. Opera, Kate bush, Floyd, Genesis, classical and trance euphoria - I have an eclectic taste in music

Not trying to thread hijack here, but looks like you’ve been poking around my record collection. 👍

[jimi]

^^^^^^
With a few additions it could be mine as well

[Sweetpea]

Nov 4, 2024 13:35:46 GMT blackpopracing said:

I have an eclectic taste in music

I approve of people with varied musical tastes.
I always used to say that I had a varied musical taste but I had to draw the line at jazz which I just couldn't stand.
Of course I've come to realise that I quite like some jazz and that a lot of the pop music I enjoy has a strong jazz influence.

So there we go, wrong again. It's a good job I don't mind being wrong. Especially when you learn or discover something new.

James

[Sweetpea]

Just to prove the point that I don't like jazz except when I do, this is sublime in my opinion...



Luckily, other opinions exist and you are all entitled to disagree. (Even though I'm right! )

[skinnylew]

Nov 4, 2024 13:35:46 GMT blackpopracing said:

James, thanks for the detailed response

Musical tastes - everything from Abba to ZZ Top. Opera, Kate bush, Floyd, Genesis, classical and trance euphoria - I have an eclectic taste in music

This made me smile so much. Someone who has similar music spectrums is a rare thing indeed. My 6 disc changers tended to have a Genesis/Phil Collins album, a Yes or ELP album, 2 trance nation discs, a Delirious album, and a Jungle or D&B disc. Radio stations similarly eclectic, depending on mood and journey 😂

[75swb]

Nov 6, 2024 18:16:00 GMT Sweetpea said:

I approve of people with varied musical tastes.I always used to say that I had a varied musical taste but I had to draw the line at jazz which I just couldn't stand.
Of course I've come to realise that I quite like some jazz and that a lot of the pop music I enjoy has a strong jazz influence.

So there we go, wrong again. It's a good job I don't mind being wrong. Especially when you learn or discover something new.

James

I still do draw the line at jazz.  Now, swing, blues, big band, I will happily listen to, but I just can't get into Jazz. I actually went to a jazz festival this year which was excellent for largely playing no Jazz at all

[Alpina99]

Nov 6, 2024 18:16:00 GMT Sweetpea said:

Nov 4, 2024 13:35:46 GMT blackpopracing said:

I have an eclectic taste in music

I approve of people with varied musical tastes.
I always used to say that I had a varied musical taste but I had to draw the line at jazz which I just couldn't stand.
Of course I've come to realise that I quite like some jazz and that a lot of the pop music I enjoy has a strong jazz influence.

So there we go, wrong again. It's a good job I don't mind being wrong. Especially when you learn or discover something new.

James

Totally agree,
I too have eclectic music tastes,
I've always said I like everything from Bach to Black Sabbath, ( although no lover of Country or Rap, as in curse word !!)
Nigel

[Sweetpea]

Ah, a group of blokes brought together by a love of cars and eclectic music. Makes a chap feel like he belongs. I might have to buy a pipe and a pair of slippers...

Or probably not.

Nov 7, 2024 3:15:32 GMT 75swb said:

I actually went to a jazz festival this year which was excellent for largely playing no Jazz at all

Funnily enough I believe Jazz FM got in bother with Ofcom for much the same reason and ultimately rebranded as Smooth FM.

[Sweetpea]

I’ve spent more time fiddling with the sub woofer. Adjusting it and readjusting it. This is bad news because it suggests something is wrong with my frequency response. Now that’s not any sort of news. Stick a large speaker in a small wooden board paired with front speakers that are too small, put them in a tiny car and you are never likely to achieve studio quality sound.

I’ve heard a load of sub woofers over the years. By and large they sound somewhere between terrible and really horrific. Done properly you can’t tell that you have a sub at all. But then you’ve spent a load of money on something you don’t notice so a lot of people turn the up too much so you know you have one. The other ‘problem’ with subs is that you shouldn’t be able to hear where they are in the room (or car in this case). But that only works if the crossover is set to a pretty low frequency. Set it too high and your ears can locate where it is.

My dash speakers won’t go low enough so I have to have the crossover set a bit higher meaning I can hear where it is. I can set it to so it blends in really nicely but then you don’t get the sub bass that I want to hear so I’ve got it a little loud too. The Vibe amp has a ‘Bass Boost’ control. It’s an EQ centred at 45 Hz. Adds a pit of punch. I had a chunk of that dialled in but I’ve backed it off a little so the sub blends in a little better.

Yeah… I can’t quite get it right, but, I’m being hyper critical and it’s pretty bloody good for what it is.
If you sit in the passenger seat and listen to it things are actually better. You don’t feel it so much but there is more distance for it to merge into the car and so it’s harder to hear where it is. I might do a rebuild and move it to the other side of the car one day. But first I want to listen to it while on the road and that means actually having a car that’s legal. Like having an actual MOT and stuff.

Anyway, during this extensive testing I did notice this…





It might not be immediately obvious but the centre bulb in the dash illumination has gone out.
Well that’s of no consequence so we’ll just pretend we didn’t see it. Right?

We didn’t see it… Right?

We didn’t…

Ah poo. I can’t unsee it and it’s going to annoy me even though I can’t actually drive the car anywhere. Let alone drive at night.





I’d forgotten how many screws you have to take out to get this apart. And to make life marginally harder the light switch is on the binnacle on the MR2 so when you’ve taken it all apart you can’t turn the lights on to test it. Well, I mean I did, but it’s awkward.

The bulb was fine.





So I just reseated it and retensioned the contacts and it’s fine.
Yes, I did try thumping the top of the dash before I took it all apart.

Anyway that’s all fixed now.
What, you want proof? Really!? Ok. Here you go.





See! Would I tell you porkies?

In the next episode we’ll either get back to filling those holes in the bumper (remember that?) or we might modify the pop up headlights to make them less irritating.
“But, James, why are they irritating?”

I do like a leading statement to arouse interest.

James

[skinnylew]

I always considered a sub there to make it's presence felt and heard, if it ain't vibrating the mirrors it ain't loud enough mind you I always went with Alpine speakers because the quality was always better, had 10" type E subs but the only one I have left now is a 12" Type R beast sat in the loft for 10 years plus 😑

[teaboy]

I don't understand any of this crossover sub frequency stuff at all.

I particularly wondered why they are called woofers, do they have something to do with dogs?

[Sweetpea]

Nov 10, 2024 22:54:13 GMT teaboy said:

I don't understand any of this crossover sub frequency stuff at all.

When I get a moment I'll write something that will try and explain. The theory isn't hard. Actually designing a set of audiophile speakers probably is.

Nov 10, 2024 22:54:13 GMT teaboy said:

I particularly wondered why they are called woofers, do they have something to do with dogs?

You know that's a question I'd never even thought to ask and don't know the answer to. But according to Wiki...

"The name is from the onomatopoeic English word for a dog's deep bark, "woof"[1] (in contrast to a tweeter, the name used for loudspeakers designed to reproduce high-frequency sounds, deriving from the shrill calls of birds, "tweets")"

It seems you are an audio expert Mr T!