The rear speaker volume seems to be very low comapred to front volume and dynamics of sound. I tried another radio from a friends truck but same results. Any ideas? Did radio manufacture high or low pass filter the rear channel??? Planning on adding 4 Channel amp with gain control to fix issue.

 

um, maybe ford already made a proper soundstage for you?
im not saying what they did was right or anything, but they made the rear speakers lower as to not overpower the front speakers

a good analogy is...when u go to a concert or a symphony, you sit and listen in a forward position. the stage is in front of you, not behind of you. my deck settings are such that the volume level is adjusted +3 or +4 more to teh front than the back. it sounds a whole lot better, personally

 

Key Word = "personally"

I'm one of those phreaks that believes that if the concert producers could economically justify installing speakers that completely surrounded the audience, they would do so.

Just stirring the pot...

 

yes well before music became digitized, back when all they had was a stage and an instrument, to get the full affect, you usually sit forward and listen forward. its the same idea that if you dont talk loud enuff when talking to someone in the backseat of your truck from the frontseat, they wont hear you because your voice is being pitched the opposite way. IMO, the only reason why you would need all 4 speakers running at the same sound levels is if you have something that needs surroundsound, *i.e. a movie.

 

Do not be afraid of technology!

 

Agreed, it has nothing to do with technology, it's about realistic music reproduction, imaging and soundstage. I have 75 watts going to my front speakers and the rear running off of head unit power, and still have the fader set to the front 8/12. you shouldn't be able to "hear" the rear speakers, they should provide the slightest "ambience".

The music I listen to is still played by musicians (real people, with real instruments), and when, on ocassion I go to a concert I sit facing them not with my back to them.

 

CAN YOU SAY QUADROPHONIC?

That is the real reason that rear speakers where ever put in a car to being with and was done so as early as the 1950's.

Anyway, since I have personally had experience in setting up pro-sound stage equipment in the past I can honestly tell you it does not have one single thing to do with costs. We have spent well over $20k just on amp for our stage monitors. In short cost is absolutely irrelevant so that theory is out.

Again we go back to the first applications of using rear speakers and find that they stem from a very old recording method called Quadrophonic. Think of it as a very ancient method of having surround sound. As for newer systems with DSP and Dolby Surround Pro-Logic and 5.1 etc. Well these were created for one reason only to make home and theater system sound more realistic. You see when playing a recording back through your system you typically want to hear it as it was recorded and not in an altered state. This altered state can actually come from the room in which you have the speakers located, since afterall the room in which the recording was originally made is more than likely not the same size and dimensions of your home or car audio system. Now there are some live recordings that sound wonderful even if played though a standard two-speaker setup. The reason this is the case is because of the original placement and type of microphone array they used. Some mic arrays are very good at picking up the ambience in a live hall as a listener may actually hear it from a particular seat in the venue. They have a configuration used for years now called a figure eight which records using 4 mics (this is how they produced the quadrophonic recordings of earlier times) that actually is designed to pick up front auditory cues as well as seperate rear auditory cues as a listener would actually experience if seated where the mics are placed. So you see if it really all about making the original sound like it is live and not a reproduction of the original. This is what we audiophiles strive for in our systems and hence the reason why most of us are only using front speakers.

One thing I would like to add is that not everyone has the same opinion of what sounds good to them. There is also nothing wrong with liking sound coming at you from all sides. If that is your thing I say go for it. The only thing I am stating is the facts of how all this 4 speaker 5.1 nonsense originated from and it's true intent.

 

Thanks Cgorris.

My technology comment was merely made to support my opinion. If I am able to have sound coming at me from all directions - I'm going for it. I am of the opinion that if a trumpet could be designed so that it's sound reached your ears omnidirectionally - then that's the way they would be made. Since this is not feasible - I choose to mimic this sort of characteristic by using more than two equally important sound sources. If you insist on reproducing music that sounds exactly the same as it's live performance - than fronts are appropriate. If you want to (imo) improve on the sound characteristics of the original music - then you can add speakers behind your ears. Because there is no visual representation of the musicians in my truck (pay attention, this is the reason for my all-around sound lunacy) - my brain is not confused by the sound coming from all directions.

I know I'm in the minority here. I am comfortable with that. I am just tired of certain persons insisting that staging is a requirement. To win a competition, maybe. To pretend you're in the studio sitting in front of the band, maybe. To individuals such as myself, it is not.

Thanks for reading. I feel better now.

 

Your welcome Medisconna.

Afterall is said and done. It is your money and your system. You most definitely should set it up however you feel it sounds best to your ears since your the one that will be listening to it more than any other.

I think one of my biggest gripes is that there are some out there that perceive perfect sound to be one thing and then another could perceive it as something totally different. The kicker is that they are both 100% right because that is what sounds best to them. There are few out there that hear sounds very close to being identical but still differ in opinion. This has been proven in competition with 2 seperate judges scoring the same car at the same time from the same seat differently.

With that said the only correct answer is the one that makes it right to you.

 

One more thing - congrats on the win Cgorris. And good luck in all your future endeavors.

 

medisconna, The whole imaging/staging thing is something that once your around a system properly setup, nothing will compare to the effects. I will say that it does take quite a bit of power and installation to make it work though. Set em up the way you like em!