[Shock and Steel]

Originally Posted by keep_hope_alive

I would like to know what the "buzzy bass" comments are referring to.

Is this panels buzzing (which is what I expect)? Panels can be quieted down pretty easily and you can test this by pressing/holding panels and listening for the buzz to go away.

It's not a buzzing coming from the car interior or panels. Maybe buzzing is the wrong word. I my car, if I have the bass, mid, and treble set to flat, there is an overwhelming, loud, muddy bass sound that cancels all punch and definition in the music sound, and voices as well.

I was wondering if this odd muddy bass could be curtailed by adding bass blockers to the front left and right speakers, or to the front center dash speaker.

I will try adjusting the fader one or two clicks to the rear again. I think I tried that and lost the clarity and definition I look for in a system.

[keep_hope_alive]

Originally Posted by Shock and Steel

It's not a buzzing coming from the car interior or panels. Maybe buzzing is the wrong word. I my car, if I have the bass, mid, and treble set to flat, there is an overwhelming, loud, muddy bass sound that cancels all punch and definition in the music sound, and voices as well.

I was wondering if this odd muddy bass could be curtailed by adding bass blockers to the front left and right speakers, or to the front center dash speaker.

I will try adjusting the fader one or two clicks to the rear again. I think I tried that and lost the clarity and definition I look for in a system.

There should be a separate control for the subwoofer, is there? Can you turn just the subwoofer down?

I suspect there is already a high pass filter on the speakers, but we do want as much midbass as we can get out of the door woofers.

[ctrlz]

Originally Posted by keep_hope_alive

There should be a separate control for the subwoofer, is there? Can you turn just the subwoofer down?

My 2017 Bose in the coupe has a simple 3-band EQ: bass, mid, and treb.
The bass control definitely impacts the doors, although there is no separate sub-bass control.
I would suspect that all crossovers are done in the digital domain, and the drivers are bare.

I've had the rear 4's out, and they were bare (no caps). And I don't see anything like an inductor on the parcel shelf 6x9's.

[FH-ZL1]

Originally Posted by MANNAXMAN

I had a feeling the lower sound quality might be attributed to the newer platform, that's why I made sure to point out I have a 2016. I also did notice FH-ZL1 has the Bose GM-LAN system, but his question seemed open to all vert owners. In addition, Chutzpah pointed out that Megahurtz's settings may not be relevant to this thread because he has a coupe.

Excellent point and my bad in not taking into consideration the changes in the system since 2019. But since no 2 people will hear things the same, nor will they possibly be looking for the same things in their "sound", I was looking for and appreciated all input (convertible wise) as one thing is certain, the 'verts are a different animal sound wise than the coupes. Most of the time I prefer to listen to the car anyways so since my audiophile days are behind me, I guess I was just curious as to what others had found to be their prefered settings for the system we have been given. Thanks for the input.

[ChevroletFan]

Originally Posted by Megahurtz

Hmm I have the premium Bose system and with a little tweaking it sounds pretty good.

I move the sound towards the back 2 clicks, then I think I have the EQ set to +4 +3 +6. It's not the greatest by any means, but its far better than standard settings. If you're setting the EQ in the negatives, I'm sure it sounds like crap.

You may be on to something with keeping the EQ in the positives. I had my bass at -5. But maybe this was backfiring and "turning off" of the 6x9s. which had the effect of making the door speakers the sub woofers.

But, it does seem strange to me that so much bass comes out of the doors. Everything else comes out of the dash speakers. Wouldn't it make more sense for the dash speakers to be for highs, the doors for mids, and the 6x9s for bass? To me, it sounds like only low bass comes out of the doors. If the bass guitar plays higher notes it switches to the dash speakers. So, that's annoying too.

[keep_hope_alive]

Originally Posted by ChevroletFan

You may be on to something with keeping the EQ in the positives. I had my bass at -5. But maybe this was backfiring and "turning off" of the 6x9s. which had the effect of making the door speakers the sub woofers.

But, it does seem strange to me that so much bass comes out of the doors. Everything else comes out of the dash speakers. Wouldn't it make more sense for the dash speakers to be for highs, the doors for mids, and the 6x9s for bass? To me, it sounds like only low bass comes out of the doors. If the bass guitar plays higher notes it switches to the dash speakers. So, that's annoying too.

The short answer to your question is no. It does not make sense to do dash highs, door mids, and rear bass. That is an old arrangement that is devoid of a useful soundstage.

The acoustical engineers for the car did a really good job building the soundstage, but they had garbage equipment to work with. If you look into build logs for sound quality vehicles, they do everything possible to get as much bass up front as possible, including putting sub enclosures in the passenger foot well, or building fiberglass enclosures in the front wheel well cavities for kick panel woofers, or massively built doors to handle a lot of midbass (like mine). The sub bass is all that should be behind us, if it must, but we need the doors to match output in the midbass region so we keep the "up front bass" effect.

We want as much of the mids and highs located at the dash/pillars so the soundstage is high and consistent. We want the bass to come from the soundstage as well. Think of it this way: We want the band to be placed on the dash/hood. We want the bass guitar to stay in the same position (imaging) as it goes through it's range. It would be weird for the bass guitar to jump around. Same for the drums, the toms and kick should be properly placed in the soundstage.

If you'd like to see how we judge cars in IASCA, here is the manual:
https://iasca.com/download/sq/2023-SQC-Rules.pdf
It explains how we evaluate a soundstage.
https://iasca.com/downloads/

When I tune a vehicle, I'm listening for soundstage placement and imaging, in addition to overall tonality.

[ChevroletFan]

Originally Posted by keep_hope_alive

The short answer to your question is no. It does not make sense to do dash highs, door mids, and rear bass. That is an old arrangement that is devoid of a useful soundstage.

The acoustical engineers for the car did a really good job building the soundstage, but they had garbage equipment to work with. If you look into build logs for sound quality vehicles, they do everything possible to get as much bass up front as possible, including putting sub enclosures in the passenger foot well, or building fiberglass enclosures in the front wheel well cavities for kick panel woofers, or massively built doors to handle a lot of midbass (like mine). The sub bass is all that should be behind us, if it must, but we need the doors to match output in the midbass region so we keep the "up front bass" effect.

We want as much of the mids and highs located at the dash/pillars so the soundstage is high and consistent. We want the bass to come from the soundstage as well. Think of it this way: We want the band to be placed on the dash/hood. We want the bass guitar to stay in the same position (imaging) as it goes through it's range. It would be weird for the bass guitar to jump around. Same for the drums, the toms and kick should be properly placed in the soundstage.

If you'd like to see how we judge cars in IASCA, here is the manual:
https://iasca.com/download/sq/2023-SQC-Rules.pdf
It explains how we evaluate a soundstage.
https://iasca.com/downloads/

When I tune a vehicle, I'm listening for soundstage placement and imaging, in addition to overall tonality.

Thank you for the insight. That is interesting. But to clarify one thing I said, the bass guitar does seem to switch speakers depending on where they are at on the fretboard. My previous Trailblazer RS I didn't hear anything like that. The bass range also seemed well placed. It didn't seem like it was dominating one part of the car.

Are the Camaro dash speakers large enough to handle and the mids and low mids they are playing then? They also seem a tad harsh to me.

[ChevroletFan]

I tried an experiment. I put the fade completely to the back. On the last click the front speakers actually turn off. Well after that, the 6x9s were almost imperceptible. So maybe they are only useful for people in the rear.

[Shock and Steel]

Originally Posted by keep_hope_alive

There should be a separate control for the subwoofer, is there? Can you turn just the subwoofer down?

I suspect there is already a high pass filter on the speakers, but we do want as much midbass as we can get out of the door woofers.

I have a 2LT convertible which means no Bose sub, so I don't know about sub controls.