# How-To: Alpine Time Alignment



## afinley (Dec 29, 2004)

Because I have seen a few people who have talked about how they set thier time alignment up wrong, and more who dont know how to set it up, here is the walk-through;
Things Needed:
A Car.
An Alipne Head Unit that supports time alignment.
A Tape Measure.
1.
The *most important* thing to do is go to setup in the easy menu first. Go to the "display" menu, and in "t. corr." set the units to inches.
2. 
take your trusty tape measure, and get the distance from the head rest, or a bit in front, to the F/L, F/R, B/L, and B/R speakers. Subs, too. Take all measurements from the tweeters, or on the subs, the dustcap.
3.
find the shortest one. it was the drivers side tweeter for me, but i dont run my bck doors. subtract that from the rest. put the new numbers into your time alignment settings.
4.
weep.
If you are really lazy, PM me and i will send you my settings.


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## jaybong (Jun 11, 2005)

lol- good writeup for ppl who dont read the manual (admittedly most of us)
kudos! for content, not just another which sub thread...


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## afinley (Dec 29, 2004)

*Re: (jaybong)*

im not gonna lie, i set mine up wrong the first time. i just put in the distance to each speaker. super wrong. and when people talk about looking at the table in the manual that converts it to milliseconds i kind of cringe.


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## afinley (Dec 29, 2004)

*Re: (afinley)*

Aww crap. I was re-reading my owners manual, just in case, and I've had it backwards!
Step 1:
the same thing, set the t.corr to inches.
Step 2:
Measure it all again
Step 3:
find the largest distance (the subs) and subtract everything from that. so your F/L would be the distance from your headrest subtracted from your subs distance from your headrest. your subs should be 0, and the rest should be positive numbers.
WOOPS!
to be honest, i like the sound a bit better before...


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## coffeeaddict (Aug 28, 2006)

*Re: (afinley)*

have you listened from the passenger seat? or worse yet the back? idk if you care, but i felt weird about having things sound good to me and like ass to the passenger...then i tried using the correction "symmetrically" (left and right fronts same delay)...and eventually i bagged the whole time correction thing. it does do what it's supposed to though...


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## afinley (Dec 29, 2004)

*Re: (coffeeaddict)*

yeah when i take people for a ride and tell them how much ive spent on my stereo, they say it sounds like crap.







The one time i was on the passenger side, it sounded like the performers were over in the drivers side view mirror. terrible.
however, most of the time, i'm driving. and my stereo is for me.


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## Ryan Sickles (Mar 10, 2005)

Well, I love the fact that you can have a couple settings and switch them (for when you get passengers in your car).
However, I am too lazy to ever change it, so I just run everything symmetrical. I only have a time delay on the subs, which sounds decent....


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## wookie1 (Jan 12, 2002)

*Re: (Ryan Sickles)*

Who cares about the passengers? They can get their own stereo! Now if they want to pay a toll to listen to a stereo that is not tuned for the driver then maybe.


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## pwnt by pat (Oct 21, 2005)

*Re: (wookie1)*

I have read theories on time aliging to the closest speaker or the furthest speaker.
My take:
If you can get a good install w/o time alignment, then good. If you can get close without it, then good. Either way you do it, you're screwing someone over.









something else to keep in mind - the ear has a LOT harder time percieveing vertical distance discrepencies than horizontal. Don't waste time trying to use T/A on high mounted tweeters and lower (door) mounted mids. Instead, just T/A the midwoofers and try switching the phase of the tweeters and/or woofers and seeing what sounds best.


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## afinley (Dec 29, 2004)

*Re: (pwnt by pat)*

actually because i can store 6 settings, i usually have one for average settings, so it sounds ok for everyone, one for me, and one thats super wide (just the distances of every thing, no subtraction)
i tried putting in a setting where each door had the same settings, instead of each driver independent. it really does bring the sound stage up when i put in what i now know were wrong settings for the mids. that is even with the type-x's phase alignment in the crossovers.
i love time alignment.
you may or may not be aware that i really really want to keep my car looking stock, so angling my mids is out of the question. i need everything i can to help with the image.


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## 2.ohh (Jun 21, 2002)

*Re: (afinley)*

don't measure from the tweeter, just the mid-bass. higher frequencies benefit more from adjusting the output level than using TA.


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## Ryan Sickles (Mar 10, 2005)

*Re: (2.ohh)*


_Quote, originally posted by *2.ohh* »_don't measure from the tweeter, just the mid-bass. higher frequencies benefit more from adjusting the output level than using TA.

Noticed this works a helluva lot better aswell. http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


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