OK, try the new version of the software; this isn't relevant to you yet, but I found that even though it was showing as being set to high power mode on version 4.52, it had somewhere gone back to low power mode - it was showing as disabled in 4.65...This was good as it confirmed how much better it sounds running high power mode once I enabled it again!

 

The other thing I can confirm is that on my car at least, the rear channel outputs from the standard headunit sound awful. In one of my previous posts I said that I've disabled the rears as I just couldn't get them to sound right; they sound out of phase whichever way phase is selected in the M5's settings.

 

I did the following which improved things (although I'm still not sure about running the rears due to the rear door tweeter being closer to my head than the front tweeter!):

 

• DCM Page > Plug & Play Features > Routing Mode: 2 Channel Input - Front/Rear

 

 

This mixes the front only inputs from the car's headunit to the M5's front and rear channels, and on the IO page you should see the following configuration:

 

 

I then set the car headunit's balance all the way to the front, muting the rears, so in theory lowering the distortion level as the power supply is only having to drive the amplifier's front channels.

 

When I tried a different configuration of mixing all four of the car's headunit outputs in the IO page to the front channels, they suddenly sounded a lot worse.

I think (but am happy to be proven wrong) that there's a little bit of time delay and phase processing built into the standard headunit to integrate them with the front speakers.

 

With regards to your comments about Placebo & NIN sounding flat in comparison to Anunjadeep, I think it's just now that your car system is able to resolve the sheer dynamic range in the electronic/dance that just isn't there with those other rock/metal recordings. 

 

The door panels come off really easily, and as long as you take your time and put everything back in place you shouldn't get any rattles; I bought a pack of ten trim clips before I took the door cards apart and glad I did as a couple inevitably broke, but I had the spares to replace straight away. The only reason I've found rattles is because the new setup goes a lot deeper and louder than the standard!!!

 

I did a simple check on how loud the system goes without distorting now - I spoke at normal volume and asked myself if the system was loud enough, and couldn't hear my voice 🤣

 

The other interesting thing about this is that I also stood outside the car with the system playing loudly to see how much of a yob I was looking like, and with the amount of sound deadening I've put in, it's actually quite quiet; you wouldn't even be aware that there was a sub in the car...open the boot and it's certainly pounding away!

 

The other thing I also discovered when looking at the original speakers the other is that they all have cracks in the baskets; normally speaker baskets are pressed or cast metal but the standard speaker baskets are plastic! I'm not surprised they've cracked considering the environment they're in...

 

 

   

 

Needless to say, they're not for sale any longer and have gone into the electronic recycling - I couldn't sell them with a clear conscience!

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

 

 

Edited 1 July, 20205 yr by Cubbington

Just switched to 2 channel input and dropped the rears by 3db, massive difference. What were Skoda thinking with the rears in standard setup? I've dumped my old config done with the RTA/mic and gone with trying to do it by ear using a lot of different music. It's only in the car that I am ok with the "loudness wars" as some of the older recordings need a lot more effort to sound good. The actual EQ looks pretty awful visually but at least it sounds better! 

 

I recently got new tyres which has dropped ambient noise significantly, next up is doing the boot with MLV (already has silentcoat and closed cell foam on top). Doors is on the list as well..

Nice one buddy, glad you made a positive move forward, and I wasn’t imagining that the rears sound so different - have you set the car’s fader control all the way to the front so it’s only having to drive the front outputs?

 

Who cares what the EQ curve looks like if it sounds good to your ears 😊

The boot and doors will make a massive difference, and tyres are a big contributor to noise - looking forward to reading your progress.

 

Interestingly, I played about a bit the other day muting front and rear channels independently, and it’s amazing the difference between them, which I can only put down to the volume (as in volumetric size) of the doors - think of a speaker cabinet; generally the larger they are, the greater bass depth, and the front doors are somewhat larger than the rears...the fronts have more depth, whilst the rears seem to have a higher mid-bass hump, which to my ears just sounds wrong...I’ve muted the rear speakers again and prefer fronts + sub.

 

Whilst you were tinkering with amp settings, I stuck a piece of soft foam to the top of the sunglasses holder in the roof lining; hopefully no more sunnies annoyingly rattling around 😁

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

 

Edited 4 July, 20205 yr by Cubbington

Couple more updates to this thread, as more progress has been made.

 

@rossinio, you may be interested in the following video I found on YouTube, posted by an Audiotec installation company:

 

 

They explain the software much better than Fischer's own guides, and it's enabled me to adjust the gain setting on the IO page I hadn't even been aware of so I can now crank the volume up without overloading the inputs!

 

I've also set the crossover point at 120hz between the doors and sub, and am currently tweaking the sub's phase and level to blend it in properly.

 

It's starting to sounds even better!

 

I've also got a pack of 4mm SilentCoat to line the outer front wheel arches when I get the chance, so hopefully that'll make the front end a bit quieter now the rear's so quiet.

 

Cheers,

Nick

Thanks, when I get a chance I'll go through the videos. I'm still not 100% happy with it, mainly due to lack of isolation from road noise and a sound that has bass but feels unbalanced. MLV is next in the boot area when I get time.. I did the arch on the front right (from outside the car, after removing wheel and arch liner) with silentcoat 4mm and 6mm closed cell foam but tbh it doesn't sound much different to the left when I am the passenger. It was a lot (lot) of effort and I should have done the boot mlv instead. Getting the interior panels off to reach the rear arches isn't obvious from the workshop manual but I'm going to try removing the covering panel next to the glass above the rear seats. Once you have full access to the rear arches it looks like you have quite a lot of room for silentcoat/ccf/mlv which should really help.

 

Main improvement so far is still the tyres, going from awful Bridgestone Potanza S001 to Goodyear Asymmetric 5 has completely changed the amount of road noise. Still cheaper than the amp  

 

I see quite a few people now saying the M5DSP sounds much better on high power mode. Is it really that noticeable, even with stock speakers? Also, how did you remove the rivets for the stock speakers?

 

Another annoying creak seems to have appeared but only when the passenger is in the seat, sounds like plastic creaking but need to be the passenger for a while to isolate it. Thought it was the speaker at first..

Edited 27 July, 20205 yr by rossinio

How hard was sound deadening the front wheel arches?

 

Having the space and axle stands, the rears were we’re pretty easy.

 

Definitely do the boot and doors. The boot isn’t obvious until you lift the carpet and wooden base; start at the back, removing the plastic trim lip between the boot floor and bumper and you’ll find more plastic trim clips. Remove the plastic trims at the rear of the car to expose a hex screw, and remove the trims the behind the seats (as you say), the shopping bag hangers need to be removed, and the little plastic hooks on the side panel trims. You should then be able to wiggle the trim panels from the metal hooks on the boot floor at the back to swing them into the car without having to remove the rear seats.

 

If you’re going to this level, do the doors too. Removal of the door cards is easy if you’re careful, apart from popping the light switches, which are a real PITA, and you’ll no doubt break a couple of the little clips...I need to order a new passenger side switch as I completely trashed the clips after removing it about 10 times 🤦‍♂️
 

It is well worth enabling high power mode, but not before doing the other work, and they do suggest you upgrade the speakers before doing it to. On that note, the plastic rivets are easy to remove as you just pop the centre through with a small screwdriver and fish it out of the door...maybe buy a few spare rivets, or be careful not to lose them - they tend to hide in the waxy gloop in the doors, so you’ll need a torch to find them!). You don’t want to leave them in the doors to rattle around, and I found them all every time I popped them out.

 

And of course, if you’re going to the level, then it’d be foolish not to sound deadening the doors 😊

 

With regards to the imbalance you’re experiencing, have you set the amplifier to accept a 2 channel input and routed the front inputs to rear outputs as per my earlier post?

 

I’ve enabled my rear speakers again, but after watching the video I set them to ‘Rear Fill’, which seems to be a mono-matrix, and now I’ve discovered the gain setting on the IO page, I set them to 5db lower than the fronts, so I’m not aware of the tweeters so much, and it’s helped integrate the sub even more.

 

Still yet to calibrate it with the mic though 😉

 

Hope that helps!

 

Nick

Fronts were just a pain with axle stands and a jack, I had to remove some soundproofing once I tried to put it back together as there wasn't enough room above the wheel arch liner round the wheel. I would love a garage and a flat surface to do this stuff on, it would make it a lot easier..

 

I've already done the boot (but not above the wheel arches) with silentcoat 4mm and 6mm CCF. It did make a difference, but MLV will make more. Doors is after everything else  I also did under the rear bench seat with silentcoat/CCF but not sure if that really did anything.

 

On calibration, I just had another go with the umik-1 and used the RTA with the automatic mode, from 100 - 1k, then 1k - 10k, then 10k -18k. I did front left and right and it has made a big difference (and is much easier than doing it by ear or with REW etc). It's on my other laptop but I'll get screenshots of the EQ. I also did input alignment with the input signal analyser to get things flat first. I'm routing FL->RL and FR->RR, my rears are 4db lower than fronts and it seems much more sensible. For some reason I got better sound with "4 channel Input Front/Rear" in the routing mode section, needs another look as previously I did have it on 2 channel input.

 

Very tempted by the Focal IS165VW, but will be when I get to doors. I didn't realise you could just pop out the rivets (and that they are plastic). It's not obvious from photos and I thought you would need to drill them out. If everything is a straight swap then it seems like a good idea, do you need to buy extra connectors for the speaker cables or do you reused the existing ones?

I understand why it was a ball-ache now...I'm in a similar position as you, and all the extensive work was done at my buddy's in a 2-car car port with a roof and space to work around so the car was left in pieces safe and dry over a few days, rather than being at home where I have a shared drive and have to get everything packed up each day!

 

Good that you'r cracking through the sound deadening, and I'm sure under the bench did make a difference, as it's a big piece of hollow metal!

 

Funny you posted when you did, as I nipped out for a while at lunchtime today to have a first pop at using the UMIK and eq software...not particularly intuitive when you're using a 13" laptop with a shiny screen...it took a few attempts figuring out the reference curve and offset levels, and I know it's wrong; I had the mic sat on a stand on the centre armrest for the measurements and did the auto setup as you did...cut it short as I needed to get back to my desk, and I've just looked to get a screenshot to compare to yours (please post) only to find that both front speakers have measured wildly differently and I thought I had the distance settings correct, but only had the front right speaker set...

 

 

Hey ho, got the time to play here and there, and even though it's not right, it certainly sound better than non-eq'd as the Focal's are tad brighter than the standard speakers!

 

Glad to have helped with regards to the fitting of the Focals, you do need connectors as Skoda use different ones to VW, but if you look up through the thread, you'll see which ones you need to buy.

 

If I didn't post the part numbers, I'll try to find them and post them up for you; I also needed to buy a cheap crimp tool from Ebay for the pins.

 

Almost forgot, I also ordered the URC.3 remote control so I can switch between two setup memories for 'driver' and 'all passengers' without having to get the laptop out to switch between the two.

 

Glad you're making progress too!

 

Cheers,

Nick

Edited 5 August, 20205 yr by Cubbington

OK, so I was up at the crack of a sparrow's fart this morning, so decided to look at what I'd been playing about with yesterday and could see what I was doing without the sun hitting the ultra-reflective screen of the crappy old laptop...I've ordered a cheap anti glare screen protector as it's really unusable with any sort of light on it...

 

Anyway, I figured out that I was adjusting individual, rather than global channels, so that's one thing to try again.

 

After finding so much additional information from the first Apicella Auto Sound video on YouTube, I watched their second video on configuring the input/output settings, and they showed yet another configuration screen I hadn't known about...an image of sliders, which is actually a button tab to get to the page...

 

Anyway, this page allows you to analyse the incoming signal from the headunit to see if any EQ, time delay, or filters have been applied.

 

You need to use an correlated (mono) pink noise signal, which you can download from Audiotec-Fischer's website, mute the outputs within the DSP software so you can turn the volume up without annoying the neighbours, start the test tone playing, and then hit the start button in the software, let it sweep a few times, and you'll see exactly what the factory headunit's outputting, and can then tweak up to 5 points to get as flat a response as possible...this answered the question as to why the rear outputs sound so different to the fronts, see the images below of the difference; the red line is the EQ adjustment and green is the actual output:

 

Front measured & unadjusted:

 

 

Rear measured & unadjusted (that upper midbass hump confirms how it actually sounds):

 

 

Front left channel adjusted:

 

 

And this is the icon on the IO page you need to click to get you to the page above:

 

 

Link to the setup video:

 

 

@JohnnyType2 I don't know if you've got the ability to do something similar with your amps and DSP setup, but if so, probably worth looking at!

 

I've not got the time to play about with this today, as it's not a 5 minute job, so will have a play about on Sunday if I get the chance, or take a day off to play properly.

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

 

Edited 6 March, 20215 yr by Cubbington

@rossinio, have you played any more with the EQ settings?

 

I spent some time reading the sound tuning magazines from Audiotec, and it makes more sense now.

 

I bought a Umik-1 mic & small microphone boom stand, and had a quick play yesterday.

 

Using a long cable so I could sit in the back of the car, I got a very nice measurement:

 

 

The key to it is to try not to go into +0 (increased) on the equaliser, as it introduces distortion if you go to far. Dropping down into -0 (decreased) settings is fine according to Audiotec’s setup recommendations.

 

I also used the ATF reference curve (increased low frequency and decreased high frequency) as this is a much nicer presentation than a flat response curve. If you're interested, do some research on the "Harman Curve", which I'm sure is what the ATF curve is based on.

 

I didn’t have time to EQ the rears and sub, but this is a very good start - with no EQ, the Focals are very bright, as you can see from the dips from 12.5k!

 

Cheers,

 

Nick

Edited 15 September, 20205 yr by Cubbington

Hi very nice job. I am going down this route to. Got a Match 5.4 and a JL Audio sub going in a Basser box in my combi. Just want to know how much space there is around the Basser box? Thinking about damping the box on the outside but is there room for that?

Hello,

 

I wanted to add a match 5 MK2 to my existing Skoda Octavia MKIII Facelift VRS 2017 non-canton model without any wire slicing. I do see 2 harnesses sold on the Audiotec-fischer website.

 

1. MATCH PP-PAM 92b - https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/match/adaptors-harnesses/pp-mqs-1.4

2. PP-MQS X.4 - https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/match/adaptors-harnesses/pp-mqs-1.4

 

What are these adapters used for?  They cost quite some money. Do I require both of them to fit the match amplifier or only one?

On 17/11/2024 at 06:29, a2k said:

Hello,

 

I wanted to add a match 5 MK2 to my existing Skoda Octavia MKIII Facelift VRS 2017 non-canton model without any wire slicing. I do see 2 harnesses sold on the Audiotec-fischer website.

 

1. MATCH PP-PAM 92b - https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/match/adaptors-harnesses/pp-mqs-1.4

2. PP-MQS X.4 - https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/match/adaptors-harnesses/pp-mqs-1.4

 

What are these adapters used for?  They cost quite some money. Do I require both of them to fit the match amplifier or only one?

Then I would use the PP-MQS. That is plug n play.

 

I used the other one but made the speaker connections my self.