A different kind of perfomance mod

[GorgeousGeorge]

james

how is your mate powering his mp3 player, an invertor or has he built up a power supply ???

i dont fancy having 110v running round my car but dont have the skill to build a dc dc power supply :'(

cheers

scott

[foggyjames]

He currently has both - a 150w 230v invertor is used at the moment, but he also has the plans for a DC-DC power supply, so he is gonna make one of those too.

It is one of those new VIA mini-itx boards (7" square), with everything on board (lan, vga, audio, processor - just add ram!), and they are designed to sacrifice performance for low power consumption. There is a 800mhz version which can software decode dvds.

cheers

james

Andy,

I like the car inside...... its leather & alcantara and reminds me of a livingroom setting in the Ikea shop :)

The bracket business is causing me a pain aleady..... although I have first option on a tabletop tripod for modifying }> and we'll see what happens.

I'm keeping the std head unit as it has the top line Premium 8speaker setup and it is rather good...
The portable DVD i've ordered will be kept in the boot (or maybe built into the kiddie seat / armrest ;) )
Although it could equally be slung under the dash on the passenger side on a sliding rail.... gonna have to wail until it all arrives..this week I hope !

The whole plan is to have a wiring loom in the car, with plugs to connect things in, built into the trim. This way it can all be taken out tidily and possible transferred to the other halfs car... or even used fully portable.

Jim,
'96 855-R (The Flying Wardrobe)

[noiseboy]

Jim (et All)

Sorry for not coming back except for speradically over the last few weeks... Work has been Loooooney!!!

I havent abandoned you all - I just needed to sleep some of the 5 hours I have been averaging a night at home :(

Tour over, I am back for a while, so will be making a few more appearences (Hooray).

Jim, I'll see you Saturday and you can have as much of me as you want!!!!!! :*

Phil :-)

[foggyjames]

>Jim, I'll see you Saturday and you can have as much of me as
>you want!!!!!! :*

I hate to break this to you Phil....and I will whisper....he only wants you for your cable....

I take back my comments about you having an easy life of it - im guessing touring is a nightmare. We did a two night show (full set-down at the end of the first night) last month. Two nights was tiring, but I get the feeling that there comes a point (third or fourth day?) where you just fall over!

cheers

james

Its not just his cable....... his plugs & sockets too http://mazeguy.tripod.com/smilies/animated/shocking.gif

Jim,
'96 855-R (The Flying Wardrobe)

[pettaw]

Just a quick thing, try your best to keep all this yardage of cable away from motors etc. There are ways of supressing signals with small capacitors etc etc. but you don't really want to go into that. As James said use the best co-ax cable you can afford.

Andy

PS: Van Damme multicore eh? ammbassador you are really spoiling us LOL! By 48 pair, do you mean 48 in and out, if so you're talking big stuff. Talking of XLR cabling, do you think that balanced cabling will ever make it into the domestic domain or is it a pro thing only, as hi-fi gets more hi-fi if you get what I mean?

[foggyjames]

> By 48 pair, do you mean 48 in and out, if so you're talking big stuff.

No, theyre balanced lines, so its referring to the 'hot' and 'cold' signal runs. by convention the cable is referred to (by me at least!) as x pair, but in fact they are usually grouped in 3's, with a ground as well. Beyond a certain size, it is also the convention that audio multicores only go in one direction, with a separate one for the return lines, so as to stop the cables getting too thick

If anyone rich is listening, what I really want is the multicore that 'wigwam' (big sound provider) brought to a recent show i engineered at. dunno which cable manufacturer makes it, but it was 48ch (x3 cores - as explained above), yet was thinner than my friends 12+4 ch cheapo multicore. as a fellow engineer said...'itll cost a months wages per meter!'

the obvious problem that this presents is that i will need a bigger desk to plug it into...and a bigger car / trailer to carry it in...and a mum who can take another piece of junk being strewn across the house :)

> Talking of XLR cabling, do you think that balanced cabling will ever make it into the domestic domain or is it a pro thing only, as hi-fi gets more hi-fi if you get what I mean?

Many high end (£1000+ per unit) hifi separates manufacturers use balanced lines at the moment. Noise is less of a problem in a house (particularly one owned by the kind of person who has a £10k hifi - more likely to switch off the hoover/tv/microwave/other electrically noisy device for a bit of handel...!), but as tesco say, every little helps.

British hifis are tiny - particularly in the bass region - compared to american ones. you will very rarely find american systems with just 'bookshelf' speakers as is the norm in the UK. my plans are for a high fidelity active set-up with quad 8" subs, and ~300w per side to power those (this is a house-party system!), so the kind of vaguely affordable power amps around will be balanced by definition, as will the crossover. the sources will most likely be unbalanced though!

to bring it back on-topic, i was reading the other day that Mark Levinson (*very* nice hifi - £10k for their entry level cd player) use all balanced line-level wiring in the lexus' they design the sound systems for. this makes an awful lot of sense, given how electrically noisy cars are.

cheers

james

[pettaw]

I understood the theory of balanced inputs etc. just not your terminology. I've heard of Mark Levinson stuff, but their stuff really is a bit too far in terms of price, OK if you can afford it, and can you really notice 8,000 worth of difference between one of their systems and a 2,000 system, for instance? Also, I'm not so keen on the heavy American sounds, I prefer the lighter, punchier British sounds.

I assume you're going for the 8" subs 'cos you want punchy direct sounds rather than heavy dull basses. The sources was what I was talking about, 'cos quality in equals quality out doesn't it? I always say, possibly naively, that you should EQ for something like classical music, or jazz or something, then you shouldn't change the setting for house/garage etc. Maybe it's just me.

I hope that this discussion has given Jim food for thought for what he needs to do. If he's just planning to use his DVD system at a standstill with everything off, noise won't be a problem, but as soon as any electrical stuff gets turned on, lines on the picture, hum in the speakers etc etc.

Do you reckon he'll have to uprate his alternator to accommodate the increased power drain, particularly in winter when all the electrics will be on to keep the windows clear etc.

Andy

[foggyjames]

>Can you really notice 8,000 worth of
>difference between one of their systems and a 2,000 system,
>for instance?

Probably not. IMHO, cd only systems dont get any better beyond £5k - only bigger!

>Also, I'm not so keen on the heavy American
>sounds, I prefer the lighter, punchier British sounds.

Agreed, although many British systems are too light in the bass. Mission seem to get the bass bang-on, but i dont like the upper frequency handling as much.

>I assume you're going for the 8" subs 'cos you want punchy
>direct sounds rather than heavy dull basses.

Exactly. The smaller cones have lower mass, so can accelerate faster (Force = mass x acceleration)

I also have (currently just one) dual 18" sub, and this designed for use outdoors / in huge halls. It would obviously sound daft in a living room - everything in its right place!

>I always say, possibly naively, that you should
>EQ for something like classical music, or jazz or something,
>then you shouldn't change the setting for house/garage etc.
>Maybe it's just me.

It depends on why you listen - for an entertaining sound, i would apply different eq to each genre, but for critical listening (and thousands of pounds worth of gear), it needs to have no EQ at all - you wont correct problems with components via EQ at this level of cost.

>Do you reckon he'll have to uprate his alternator to
>accommodate the increased power drain, particularly in
>winter when all the electrics will be on to keep the windows
>clear etc.

No, the dvd will draw next to nothing (in the broad scheme of things). Its big power amps that cause the problems - mine can dim the headlights if i run it flat out (which I dont!), and thats with a 55amp alternator. the bigger cars generally have 100amp alternators, but a big enough system can still cause problems, even if a big capacitor is used to buffer the supply.

cheers

james