First of all, i'm not shareholder of any accs shop, i'm just a greenhorn who loves ice, so i used to visit accs and audio shop nearby, chit chat with owner/tuner, sharing my problem with them. To my surprise, most of the accs are kinda ignorant in audio tech, you will see all kind of funky stuff like p80+preamp, D2+ bit one processor, P90 running passive so on so forth...

Then definately, i was misleading and suffered certain monetary loss, but most of all loss of time & effort, I must be grateful that my previous mechs are really kind, they didn't slash me at all, but too bad, they can't provide what i want... So in my own conclusion, there are
3 kinds of bad merchant:
a) know shit in audio but act like he is the only master in the world and charge sky high
b) same as above but they dont charge that much
c) familiar in SQ and charge sky high

Then
2 kinds of good merchant:
a) still know shit in audio but they never bullshit, only do the things they know and charge fairly
b) Fair pricing and familiar in SQ

In my years of searching, there's only so limited audio shop able to fulfil my requirement, in fact... less than 5

So some tips for SQ kaki:
Before you decided to invest in your audio, make sure you hv done enough research, so you know what your mech doing.
Even if he charged you little, but your gear could be totally wasted... it could be better
Dont overjoy if your mech shows you super ex bill, you could be fooled by category 1a , the worst case scenario
you might also being misled to assume this is the best result you can only get which is totally not true
The key point is A good mech, will not stop you from watching/observing/asking/sharing/obtaining/learning Audio knowledge. So you know how to spend wisely... Only a bad mech will hope you are idiot, so you keep on supplying him money...
So next time, if you find that your mech always pusing pusing, maybe its time to seek for second opinion


If you happened to encounter the following situations/statements:
-- You can't get staging or imaging in car therefore you can only go for tonality
A: Its because he dunno what's active, and normally person who said so, don't know what is tonality...

-- Active can't give you good tonality as passive
A: Wrong, its all boils down to tuning regardless active or passive, its just that for active, you are setting frequency/slope in processor and passive kaki hv to change a suitable coil/resistor/cap. And to be honest whether you are using active processor or passive xover, the frequency setting are normally the same in same car, because they all facing the same cancellation issue.

-- Active setup will destroy your speaker
A: Wrong tuning destroy your speaker, not processor, processor only do what you told him to...

-- The original passive crossover is good enough
A: Wrong!! original passive xover have to cover so many kind of cars, and the interior of sedan/mpv/suv/hatchback is so different, so original setting is more like a universal tuning, suits for all car but not carrying out the best performance. So a customise/modded passive xover is needed, but replacing same value parts with high quality parts ain't tuning, even the dumb know how to take out and solder back the part. The tuning is about changing the original frequency setting to solve the cancellation issues in car.

-- Cheap gear (entry level stuff ) can't give you good result
A: Wrong, with proper tuning and installation, you still able to get a good staging and achieve certain level of SQ tonality even you using low-end hu, china made amp/speaker/cable & etc. The problem lies with tuner/installer skill, not hardware. So don't blame the stuff, blame your tuner.

-- Sound of competition car its not nice because it's meant for competition not daily drive
A: Super wrong!! The judges ain't stupid, just because the so called "competition sound" tuned by the particular person is not good, doesn't mean the "competition sound" is not good... so you must listen to believe.

-- 5-band EQ not enough, please buy another processor which have 31-band to match this HU (D2's tragedy )
A: Super Wrong!! The R&D people ain't stupid, no one will sell a product full of flaws. A properly installed system with correct sound deadening, angle & enclosure space, even in a lousy car like proton wira, you will only facing peak or cancellation issue in less than 5 band, if your RTA shows more than 5, then trust me, problem lies with installer.

-- RTA machine cannot be used for reference
A: Wrong!! It can definitely be used for reference and its a must for thorough tuning. Normally the tuner who says so dunno how to operate one or to be exact, dunno how to interpret whats RTA trying to say.

This post has been edited by zacisme: Jun 14 2011, 12:54 PM

very helpful. Thanks...

it actually all boils down to ur initiative to learn and to gain knowledge. the www is full of information. Its just a matter of extracting what has already been given. Like all other things, committing money to a certain product/service without first surveying is actually suicidal. Like buying house or even buying a car, the concept is the same as investing in ICE. I say know ur stuff, know the 'market price' and invest in 'ICE knowledge'. With these, u are in ur right track in choosing your installer/ICE guru. There is always 2 side of a coin, be clear minded, and always always take everything with a pinch of salt. Happy ICE-ing everyone...

ps: zack, amjb & craziechild... orgynise tt next month? as quoted by arnold ' i'll be back' lol....

Awrite bro when? But 16th July I'll be in KL - YNWA!!!!

Any other date / weekend is fine with me hehe....

your writings sound so familiar, i remembered i read that somewhere..hehe

This post has been edited by taaron: Jun 14 2011, 09:03 PM

A calibration machine needs to be calibrated after a period of time....
If this is not done, that machine are useless.....
For this case, the RTA machine....

posted the samething in icehifi too