Center audio sounds horrible

[4sallypat]

While at the dealer for the 30K service, I had them take a look at the distorted sounds and they had the part in stock !

Had them do it under warranty the same day without having to return.

No more distorted nav voice, beeps, and AM radio!

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[thx10]

Nice. Now if they could only spell. ?

 

[DK_Min]

Just completed the Kenwood speaker install myself! Can say that it definitely sounds warmer but I think I need to play with my BEOsonic as it is still a little bit too bright for my liking.

Do most of you with the Kenwood run it in stereo or surround, and what tuning do you prefer?

Also time to tune my sub. What crossover point are you guys using and did you pull the signal from the sub leads or the fronts? I used the fronts myself for my Kicker Keyloc with my 12” Stereo Integrity sub but I feel like it’s not too linear. I’ll re-run the eq on it. Cheers!

 

[OH2AZ2OH]

I’m sure someone has mentioned this somewhere, but Spotify has an 6 band equalizer that you can access, pretty well buried in the settings. From the wording , it wasn’t entirely clear to me if it would get disabled when using CarPlay, but I verified that it does stay active. I have an early build without Beosonic, so this made me a little less jealous.

 

[DK_Min]

I’m sure someone has mentioned this somewhere, but Spotify has an 6 band equalizer that you can access, pretty well buried in the settings. From the wording , it wasn’t entirely clear to me if it would get disabled when using CarPlay, but I verified that it does stay active. I have an early build without Beosonic, so this made me a little less jealous.

Good to note! I also have an earlier build without beosonic but I as able to add it with forscan!

 

[DK_Min]

For anyone who has installed the Kenwood, do you now prefer stereo or surround?

BTW, I have spare one now if anyone in Alberta is interested.

 

[StuMc]

Just completed the Kenwood speaker install myself! Can say that it definitely sounds warmer but I think I need to play with my BEOsonic as it is still a little bit too bright for my liking.

Do most of you with the Kenwood run it in stereo or surround, and what tuning do you prefer?

Also time to tune my sub. What crossover point are you guys using and did you pull the signal from the sub leads or the fronts? I used the fronts myself for my Kicker Keyloc with my 12” Stereo Integrity sub but I feel like it’s not too linear. I’ll re-run the eq on it. Cheers!

Just completed the Kenwood speaker install myself! Can say that it definitely sounds warmer but I think I need to play with my BEOsonic as it is still a little bit too bright for my liking.

Do most of you with the Kenwood run it in stereo or surround, and what tuning do you prefer?

Also time to tune my sub. What crossover point are you guys using and did you pull the signal from the sub leads or the fronts? I used the fronts myself for my Kicker Keyloc with my 12” Stereo Integrity sub but I feel like it’s not too linear. I’ll re-run the eq on it. Cheers![/QUOTE].

I use surround mode almost exclusively and I roll off the top end a bit with the built in EQ. I also adjust the front to back balance placing the listening position just on the front edge of the back seats. This later adjustment was

 

[DK_Min]

Okay, wow!!! So I re-eq’ed my sub and between that on the low end and the Center Kenwood and dash tweets creating presence up front, dare I say this thing sounds pretty darn good!!

I have an extra alpine d class I was going to use to power the door speakers and was thinking of upgrading them too, but I think I can put that on pause and put time into my other 5.0 Mustang audio setup now!!

 

[McSquashy]

Just replaced my center speaker with the KW Excelon. Much better sound than the stock paper speaker, but very bright and loud. I'll have to mess around with the EQ to see about softening it some.

 

[McSquashy]

So I've been playing with the Beosonic and regular EQ settings for almost an hour, trying to find the right balance with the new center speaker. I listen to a variety of different music and wish I could save profiles for each genre.

Either way, finding a sweet spot is proving difficult due to the now louder, much brighter center speaker. My personal listening preference is in surround mode, but I keep going back and forth to see if stereo mode helps balance things better.

For now, I've settled in surround mode with Beosonic between energetic and warm and closer to neutral with the fade set to the middle of the rear seat. I'll probably play with it more later.

Is anyone else having difficulties dialing in your settings after installing the new speaker? I'm finding it to be a bit too loud and sharp.

 

[iexiak]

Is anyone else having difficulties dialing in your settings after installing the new speaker? I'm finding it to be a bit too loud and sharp.

I don't have the B+O so I don't have a center channel so take all of this with a grain of salt -

A 3.5" speaker starts beaming around 4000hz. My guess here is that B+O has boosted the signal above 4000hz to account for that. Dispersion patterns of average speakers below from Audiofrogs audioblog.

So essentially by putting in a coaxial driver, you've removed this beaming and enhanced the dispersion. You now are not just hearing these frequencies as they bounce off the windshield, they are basically doubling up as the wider pattern combines with what is bouncing off the windshield.

Because the frequencies are high hz, the wave is super small, this is creating additional comb filtering which might be described as "harsh" or "sharp". It's too bright because the wave form is no longer a U, it's more of an O, and the wave is now not just reflecting off the windshield to your ear, it's colliding with the waveform that can now come from the tweeter and causing that comb filtering.

Imagine we had a wave pool that was designed to optimally make waves from a single location, and we added a smaller wave generator on top of the current wave generator but this one goes 360 degrees around, bouncing off the walls and making turbulence.



My suggestion here would be to switch from a coaxial driver to just a 3" speaker to be closer to what the B+O DSP is tuning for. However, I think you could (maybe) accomplish some of the same manually with some careful foam placement. Try putting some thin foam over the tweeter.

 

[McSquashy]

I don't have the B+O so I don't have a center channel so take all of this with a grain of salt -

A 3.5" speaker starts beaming around 4000hz. My guess here is that B+O has boosted the signal above 4000hz to account for that. Dispersion patterns of average speakers below from Audiofrogs audioblog.

So essentially by putting in a coaxial driver, you've removed this beaming and enhanced the dispersion. You now are not just hearing these frequencies as they bounce off the windshield, they are basically doubling up as the wider pattern combines with what is bouncing off the windshield.

Because the frequencies are high hz, the wave is super small, this is creating additional comb filtering which might be described as "harsh" or "sharp". It's too bright because the wave form is no longer a U, it's more of an O, and the wave is now not just reflecting off the windshield to your ear, it's colliding with the waveform that can now come from the tweeter and causing that comb filtering.

Imagine we had a wave pool that was designed to optimally make waves from a single location, and we added a smaller wave generator on top of the current wave generator but this one goes 360 degrees around, bouncing off the walls and making turbulence.



My suggestion here would be to switch from a coaxial driver to just a 3" speaker to be closer to what the B+O DSP is tuning for. However, I think you could (maybe) accomplish some of the same manually with some careful foam placement. Try putting some thin foam over the tweeter.

I really appreciate the explanation, but my head hurts after reading that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the gist of what you're saying is that the new speaker doesn't play nicely with the stock B&O system and I should just put my stock speaker back in?

 

[iexiak]

I really appreciate the explanation, but my head hurts after reading that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the gist of what you're saying is that the new speaker doesn't play nicely with the stock B&O system and I should just put my stock speaker back in?

Maybe not the stock one, but one designed more like the stock one (without a tweeter).

My guess is that the B+O system corrects the flaws of not having a tweeter by boosting the upper frequencies. By adding a dedicated tweeter, you are basically double boosting it.


I think a relatively low cost solution is just blocking some of the tweeter frequencies by putting a piece of foam over it. I'd try that before spending more money.

 

[markboris]

I agree and would put foam over that tweeter. Personally, I removed the center channel speaker the day I brought the car home. I have no use for a center channel in any music audio system. Now, in a theater audio system that is a different story.

 

[Ahlarict]

So I've been playing with the Beosonic and regular EQ settings for almost an hour, trying to find the right balance with the new center speaker. I listen to a variety of different music and wish I could save profiles for each genre.

Either way, finding a sweet spot is proving difficult due to the now louder, much brighter center speaker. My personal listening preference is in surround mode, but I keep going back and forth to see if stereo mode helps balance things better.

For now, I've settled in surround mode with Beosonic between energetic and warm and closer to neutral with the fade set to the middle of the rear seat. I'll probably play with it more later.

Is anyone else having difficulties dialing in your settings after installing the new speaker? I'm finding it to be a bit too loud and sharp.

I listen to mine in Stereo mode, personally.

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