Hybrid Audio Technologies Clarus-Series, Installation Manual

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Clarus User’s Manual ©Hybrid Audio Technologies Page 18 of 26
Section II - Moving Forward – Advanced System Installation
The previous section detailed a typical, basic installation of the Clarus product. In this section, Hybrid
Audio Technologies has prepared a more advanced topical discussion of Clarus installation
techniques, concepts, and principals, where a little bit of additional installation work can net immense
gains in overall sound quality.
There are certainly many things you can do to improve your mobile audio system, such as addition of
amplification, a dedicated subwoofer system, higher-gauge speaker wire, and higher-end passive
crossovers, and active crossovers. All of these things require an additional amount of monetary
investment into your audio system, and may not net the immediate gains that other, more elementary
installation items can net. The following discussion is pertinent to easy and cost-effective
enhancements you can do for your audio system, particularly as it relates to the installation of Clarus
component speakers.
In any mobile audio system, the weakest link will always be the speaker systems, followed closely by
installation techniques (sometimes its vice-versa). Since the Clarus component system you have
purchased has solved the first issue, the second issue, that being installation techniques, can see a
significant improvement as well by understanding and incorporating some or all of the techniques in
the following sections.
Lessons Learned
We like to call this our “Lessons Learned” section, where we expose some critical lessons that we
have learned through thousands upon thousands of hours of trial and error:
Lesson One: Off-Axis Response
When a speaker system like the Clarus is placed in an automotive environment, we hear the direct
(shortest path) and reflected (longer path) sounds, such as resonances and reverberations. The two
sounds are processed by the brain as one sound, and this influences our perception of height, width,
and depth of soundstage, as well as rearward ambience. For this reason, the off-axis radiation pattern
of any speaker in a vehicular environment has a significant influence on how natural the music
sounds.
The lesson to learn here is that most mobile audio sound systems benefit greatly from having the
front stage speakers at least partially “off-axis.” Off-axis means that the speakers are not pointing at
you, but rather at some angle less than 90 degrees away from you.
Lesson Two: Equalization of Pathlength Differences
Quite possibly the most important functional consideration that a do-it-yourself enthusiast or
professional installer should give to the Clarus speaker placement is to optimize, as best as possible,
pathlength differences (PLD’s) in the vehicle. PLD’s are defined mathematically as follows (this
example assumes a right-hand drive vehicle---PLD’s are always a positive number):
X – Y = Z