Section II - Moving Forward – Advanced System Installation
The previous section detailed a typical, basic installation of the Imagine product. In this
section, Hybrid Audio Technologies has prepared a more advanced topical discussion of
Imagine I61-2 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 Imagine 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 Imagine component
system you have purchased has solved the first issue, where speakers are the weakest link in
your audio system, 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 thousand upon thousands of hours of trial and error:
Lesson One: Off-Axis Response
When a speaker system like the Imagine I61-2 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 Imagine speaker placement is to optimize, as best as
possible, pathlength differences (PLD’s) in the vehicle. PLD’s are defined mathematically as
© Hybrid Audio Technologies, 2010
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