andyh41

Morning All.
I've replaced a good deal of the speakers in my *** equipped A4 saloon but i'm still not happy with the sound (i'm always unhappy with something!). I know if I could swap straight back to the OEM setup I would realise how much it has improved, but you lose sight of that gain after a while.
I purchased the Faital pro dash speakers from Bruce and then fitted Audison AP6.5p in the front doors. The dash speakers came fitted with a 250Hz hi pass and I added an inductor to the Audisons to low pass at the same frequency. Then I added a small active sub to replace the parcel shelf sub (Alpine SWE-815). At low volumes it sounds pretty good, but as the volume goes up it becomes too shouty. When I say louder, I just mean towards half volume, so not excessive. I can think of a few reasons why this might be happening but would appreciate some thoughts before I start changing things:
1. The Faitals have a limited volume range and i'm over driving them?
2. The dash speakers were only HF tweeters in the basic setup so the amp only has limited headroom for that channel?
3. The Faitals and Audison just aren't well matched?

I don't know if I should just try raising the crossover frequency, or maybe swap to a paired mid and tweeter set (replace the Faitals with an Audison tweeter?). I'm a bit loath (maybe lazy) to tests loads of options so just wondered if anyone had any thoughts or experience to guide my initial direction.

Thanks.

bruce_miranda

The dashboard end and front door speakers share the same channel from the MMI (amp) in the Audi Sound System. That channel has a fairly full range signal fed to it.

I can't see how you might be over driving the Faitalpro speakers because they are plenty capable for the MMI output.
Did you feel the need to add the inductor to the Audison or was that your attempt to try and fix things?

If you go back to using just a tweeter at the dashboard end, Audison or any other brand, you will realise how bad the Audi layout was to begin with.
This is probably a combination of music choice and ears that are making you not like the sound.

One thing to try, but willl involve a lot of rewiring is using a 3 way passive crossover and using the door speakers on the low pass, the Faitalpro on the band pass and then adding a tweeter on the High pass. You may want to use the trim panels from a B&O car to house the tweeters. I helped someone with such a setup and they were quite pleased with the results. However they put in new B&O door cards and new B&O A pillar trims. So the mids were in the doors and the tweeters in the pillars.

Another thing to try is to actually play around with the actual MMI sound datasets and see if changing the MMI DSP settings, if there is a better setting that suits you.

andyh41

Thanks for the thoughts Bruce.
I installed the Audison's without the inductor at first, but it sounded too hot in the midrange so it made sense to remove the frequency overlap with the Faitals. That dip help.
You could be spot on with my ears being the culprit - I have tinnitus which I think probably makes me sensitive to certain frequencies. But it seems odd that it sounds pretty good at lowish volumes ang get worse as the volume goes up.
The 3 way passive option sounds like a nightmare to me!
When you say the MMI sound datasets and DSP settings - do you mean the sound focus (is it 'All' or 'Front' or something similar), and the bass/treble? I haven't seen any other adjustments.

bruce_miranda

You will go down a massive rabbit hole once you start to mess around with the DSP of the MMI.
But there is a guy now who has turned, what a few of us used to call minor tweaks, into a full time end user editor.

The reason things are better a lower volumes is the combination of Loudness and Speed Dependent volume. Both add a weird filter to the sound spectrum depending on the speed and the volume.

https://mqb-blog.com/sound/

Read
https://mqb-blog.com/en/2023/04/17/s...ttings-editor/

Be warned it can get quite addictive.

The biggest drawback with the current system is the shared channels. The moment you split that, things get easier. And this is really easy to do in the rear door. Not so easy in the front as the wiring split is actually in the footwells. So you need to find it and then add the passive crossover there.
Splitting the system between a dashboard mounted band pass speaker and an A pillar tweeter is also easy as its in roughly the same area.

A multi way passive system between door, dashboard and/or A pillar is not straight forward but probably the way to go if you do not plan to pursue the software DSP route.

andyh41

Oh wow. I thought there was enough going on with speaker replacement, let alone trying to fix all the undefeatable processing that Audi have added.
It seems like they have done their very best to make it sound crap!
Have you tweaked the DSP, or left it alone?

bruce_miranda

Two things to try.

Disconnect the Centre speaker and see if its that speaker that is causing the issue.

Or something else that is worth trying especially if you can return the item is a 3 way adjustable crossover and then just use the mid range band pass filter for your dashboard end speakers.

Its probably something with the higher frequencies is probably not sounding good to you.

andyh41

Good point about the centre channel - I'll have a listen and see if it might be the issue. Getting the grills off is not the easiest exercise though (without losing a tab or two).

I am intrigued by the MMI settings editor. The ability to tweak the frequency spectrum per channel could improve things - and potentially easier than altering the hardware (changing speakers or adding passive crossovers).
Although, even after reading the blog posts I don't have much of an idea of how to do it in practice.

bruce_miranda

This method works every time and no broken clips so far. Just becareful of the clip in the middle nearest to the windscreen.

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/aud...akers-3004624/

andyh41

So i've been running without the centre speaker for a week now and I think it's an improvement. I can definitely go to higher volumes without it irritating me, so I think that's a win. No clips were broken either
Now I just need to quieten all the rattles in the doors that I seemed to have introduced when replacing those speakers.
Thanks for all the help.

enzo.barr

Has anyone tried the coaxial version on the doors? It is only 43mm high but the magnet looks quite large.

https://audison.com/es/product/apx-4/