The SoundQ Garage
Tech talk for the DIY car audio enthusiast that care about sound quality
The SoundQ Garage
Inside the Mind of a Master Tuner. How Miguel Rios is Revolutionizing Car Audio One System at a Time
What separates good car audio from truly exceptional sound? In this deep-dive conversation with Miguel Rios of Waveform Tuning, we uncover the secrets behind creating automotive sound systems that rival high-end home setups.
Miguel shares his fascinating journey from audio-obsessed kid with a boombox strapped to his bicycle to becoming one of the most respected mobile audio tuners in the country. His unique business model—flying directly to clients nationwide to perfect their systems—has given him extraordinary perspective on what works and what doesn't across countless vehicle platforms and system configurations.
The most surprising revelation? Expensive components often aren't the limiting factor in sound quality. "You can throw utopias, accutons, microprecisions, whatever in there, it's not going to make a difference if the problem is that it's not dead," Miguel explains, emphasizing how proper sound deadening transforms systems more dramatically than premium speakers. He shares his methodical tuning approach, from EQ work to time alignment to phase coherence, and why the human ear ultimately matters more than measurement graphs.
We explore common mistakes both DIYers and professional shops make, why some vehicle platforms naturally sound better than others, and how Miguel's background in military intelligence analysis informs his problem-solving approach. For those considering their next audio upgrade, Miguel's insights on what truly matters will save both money and frustration.
Whether you're a casual listener or competition-level enthusiast, this conversation reveals the critical fundamentals that separate mediocre systems from those that deliver spine-tingling, emotionally moving musical experiences. Connect with Miguel at waveformtuning.com to learn more about his services.
all right, welcome back everybody to the sound cue garage podcast. This is officially episode six. Welcome back to the sound cue garage podcast. This is episode six. Today we take a deep dive into the art and science of sound quality in cars. Today I'm joined by someone who's widely considered one of the best tuners in the country, miguel rios of waveform tuning. Everybody's very excited, so miguel's built the unique business flying out to clients across the country, which is a pretty damn good gig, if you ask me. So people fly him out to them to perfect their high-end systems, and he just recently relocated from Florida to Texas. So we're gonna dig into his story, his tuning philosophy and what it really takes to bring the best out of a system. So, miguel, why don't you say hi to the people of the interwebs?
Speaker 2:hello, hello everybody. Welcome to Eddie's podcast thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1:So, miguel, for those who don't know your background. How did you get into tuning car audio in the first place?
Speaker 2:all right. So you know, we gotta go back when I was just a little one. Now I'm playing um, but you know, I feel like most people, most people. I feel like if, if we look back, like, if they look back in time, they're like man, I've always been into audio, at least that's my kind of like you know story, ever since I mean I mean I can literally remember in puerto rico and I think I was like two or three Like man. I've always been into audio, at least that's my kind of like you know story, ever since I mean I can literally remember in Puerto Rico and I think I was like two or three, like literally having a boombox strapped into my tricycle. So you know, and those are kind of like one of my earliest memories. But I've always been into audio my entire life.
Speaker 2:Growing up I've always had some type of stereo system, just like the Sonys and the Pioneers, nothing crazy. It kind of started with my dad. He had some Technics floor stander towers and I was always intrigued by that. And then when you get older you start getting a car. So I was 15, intrigued by that. And then when you get older you start getting a car. So I was 15, got my first car and definitely the loudest bass system ever in the world. I had one Rockford Frostgate P1 with an MTX on their hand. Oh boy, I tell you what it's definitely, looking back at it, when I first turned that one 12 inch on, I thought it had the craziest bass. When I first turned that one 12-inch on, I thought it had like the craziest bass notes. I was like no one can touch this bass. Now, looking back at it, I think I was maybe putting 250 watts into this P1. But you know, just like nostalgia and just like thinking back, like that was the first time I really introduced it to like car bass, to like car pace, and I feel like most people's first system is always their best system, even though logically it's not, but in their heart it just holds a special value. Um, that's funny. So, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:So then, moving on, you know I was always trying to trying to get loud and clear and at that point I thought loud and clear was sound quality. I didn't know the difference. Um, it wasn't till around 2015 ish. Um, maybe 2016 it was. This was in a honda cord where I had poke audio, momo, um and two kicker q12 in a seal box and everyone's favorite audio control amps. Um, and I started I think it was yeah, it was, it was andy waymire he put out his one seat tuning guide and at this point, like I thought I had a decent sounding system, you know, and I would take it to shops and they're like dude, this sounds amazing. Keep in mind, I thought that was sound quality. People told me there's a sound quality. It was very far from sound quality. Um, it was just loud and clear with a lot of bass. Um, it was fun.
Speaker 2:But I started reading this tuning guy and I started learning about, like time, alignment and sound stage and imaging and tonality and, um, really, it was just every single day I would come out of work and, you know, read and tune, read and tune, read and tune and so many failures, um. And then I moved to louisiana and I switched cars. I got a mazda 6 um and I bought all audio frog gear and that's where I met my one of my best friends if not my best friend, uh, joshua howell and him and I started just learning how to tune together. Um, so pretty much like the same thing happened every day. I would literally go in my car and wipe it and tune, and every single time it would sound like crap. So yeah, and then just failure after failure, and one day it started not sucking and it just kept getting better and better. And now we're here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people don't realize tuning is a little bit like witchcraft, it's a dark art because, um, I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I, you know, I spent months and months, and months in my car, sweating bullets, trying to find a quiet spot, just testing and tuning. And you're sitting there and, uh, you know, sometimes you'd be in the car for hours and you're like man, I am the baddest mother effer around.
Speaker 1:I got this great center image and it sounds really good. Something happens with your ears because the next day right, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about you get in the car.
Speaker 2:It sounds like this sounds so bad and it sounds bad.
Speaker 1:You're like what, what it?
Speaker 2:just sucks, yeah, yeah, it sucks. It's like you've definitely all been there. I tell you what ear fatigue is a real thing what was I thinking 12 hours ago?
Speaker 1:this sounded awesome, you know, I thought I was gonna win a championship.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Honestly. The best one is when, like you think you got it nailed and like you have for like a week or two, or like you know right before a show, and you're like this is killer. And then you go sit in one person's car. You're like my car sounds like crap, why am I even here?
Speaker 2:they call that a reference. Yeah, yeah, so funny enough about like references. Um, my first start into like wanting car audio. This is in louisiana. Um, I bought a pair of elac. Um what was elox, elac something? It was their higher end elac, it wasn't. It wasn't their, their reference line, it was a.
Speaker 2:I can't remember what the name is, my bad but it had a consecutive driver and yeah, and this was an andrew jones um design and, you know, tuned by him and designed by him. So it was a. It was a really good sounding speaker, um, so every so time it would just go, you know, from the car to the home and I'm like, yep, car sucks. Um, I keep my like. This is these speakers. Speakers were just in an open living room. You know. They probably I know for a fact didn't sound good, especially not compared to what I have now. But it was some reference.
Speaker 2:And then that's when I started watching Aaron Hardison's Aaron's Audio Corner, youtube, yep, learning about, you know, spinorama and you know on axis and off axis of, you know cabinets and speakers and directivity index and horizontal and vertical, you know just all the things that he talks about. And I started realizing, okay, my elex are not that good. So then I bought some jbl synthesis hdi 3600 and that was kind of like my reference for a while. And then it was. I think it was like a year ago or two years ago.
Speaker 2:I met John center things two years ago and I ended up buying some rebel towers, which is, you know, same line farming, but they're luxury line. Rebel about the F two, oh, eight towers, aka they literally called the giant killers, because they're not that expensive and they're just phenomenal towers. And that's kind of been my reference. And now that I moved to Texas College Station, I actually was able to set up a listening room, which I actually just finished. I haven't painted it yet, but yeah, dude, having a true listening room and a true reference, it's just. I literally sat here and I was like why am I doing karate again?
Speaker 2:so like it's just it's not even the same. I'm just like, yeah, this is this is.
Speaker 1:This is next level but yeah, sorry if I was long-winded no, no, that's your question. I know exactly what you're talking about because I I got some elax myself and yeah, it is a little bit easier to get imaging and staging with, you know, at home and uh. But you know, don't, don't, uh, don't fret, because that that hobby can get pretty damn expensive too.
Speaker 1:I know people that oh, trust me, I have a million dollar setups and and you, you, if you think the car audio is a rabbit hole, that's like a rabbit freaking trench and a half, because I mean oh, it's expensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean at some point on this podcast. You want to, if not, um, I'm also pretty knowledgeable in home audio and you and I can deep dive into into that if you want to later on. I know I know you probably got some questions for me, you know lined up, but if you ever want to talk a little bit about it, let me know, because there's a good amount that I know. That can probably help a lot of people out yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker 1:Definitely maybe for another podcast another day yeah, so uh, yeah speaking of questions, so I wanted to ask you so what's the story behind starting way forward, tuning like? That's a really unique business model. What you're doing, you're flying out to people which, like I said before, that's a pretty good gig. I'm sure you've been to like have you officially hit every state in the country?
Speaker 2:pretty close to it. Honestly, I haven't hit washington yet, um. I haven't hit oregon, um, I've been to those places, just, you know, by my own account, but not by tuning. Uh, nothing in nebraska or kentucky. That's about it. Every, almost every other place I've been to almost every other place that's pretty awesome yeah, I've been to a lot.
Speaker 2:I've been to a lot, um, it's good, so like kind of how it started. So waveform, or at least part of its business model, was something that I thought of when I was active duty military. So my wife and I brie were both prior air force um mental analysts. So of course when you're active duty you can't do a business like waveform is um, so I kind of like wrote it up and thought about it and then kind of just shelved it um, and it stayed that way dormant for a while. Um, I got medically separated from the air force um, so essentially medically retired um, and then I got a contracting job at for general dynamics in mcdill in tampa. So that's why I moved to tamp Florida and I did that for a while and I just I was good at Intel but I just didn't, I didn't love it. Like every day I will, I will wake up, I'm like I gotta go to work. This sucks. But about nine months into working in Tampa and keep in mind, at this point we also realized, oh, we hate the city, we do not like Tampa, it is not for us, keep in mind, at this point we also realize, oh, we hate the city, we do not like tampa, it is not for us. Um, they were like, hey, mcgill, like we need a senior intel analyst in kuwait, do you want to go? I was like I don't want to go overseas again. They're like, after all your bonuses and everything, you'll make about 350 to 400k tax free. I was like you know what? Maybe so, uh, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:There's some people who kind of, if they do remember, you know, back in 2023 finals, uh, I was. Everyone asked me was like, oh, who are you? Because at that point, like no one really knew me. I was like, hey, I'm a girl, you know, but, um, don't worry, like I won't be here, like I'm leaving two months for, or not even months, like a month from now, I'm going overseas for, you know, a while. But right after finals and that was my first like true finals and I was surprised and I asked her I scored second, which is in the amateur class, which is like a really big achievement, because amateur is, even though it's named amateur, there's not amateurs in that group. No, no, there's not.
Speaker 2:My first time around with my own team was like, you know, I was really happy with that, but I left. And finals, of course. And then I get home and I get a phone call from my future boss in Kuwait and he's like hey, dude, you can't take your family. I was like what you need? They're like, yeah, it's just can't happen right now. I'm just like, well, I'm not going there without my family, I'm not doing that again. I've done that before in my life Like it's just not happening.
Speaker 2:So they were trying to work it out, but they were just being non-cooperative, if you will. So I was like you know what, guys? I quit. And that was it. Um, because of my wife's and I disability like we, that's the way we make our daily living. Um, so I didn't. We didn't really need the money and I made enough doing the contracting gig, so I paid everything off. So, long story short, I was like I got nothing to do. Wife was like why don't you tune cars? I was like I don't know. She was like just see what you come up with. I'm a business major, so I haven't met my my business degree.
Speaker 2:So I pulled out my thought that I had a long time ago, and it wasn't named waveform tuning. Uh, what was it named? Hold up, let me see, I remember it fly to you. It was mte. I remember mt, mobile tuning expert, that's what it was called, mte, and of course that name wasn't going to stick.
Speaker 2:So essentially I wrote a whole like marketing plan and did some data analysis and kind of figured out, like you know what was missing, what's the problem and can I offer a solution. And the problem I kept on realizing was like there's some really good builds but the tunes aren't good. And then people are constantly just changing equipment when equipment isn't the issue. Um, and then I was like, okay, how many tuners are there? And then of course there are a million, two remote tuners. And I'm like I've tried this remote tuning, at least in my opinion, doesn't really work. Um, so I was like what can we do to like do something different? And then that's when I thought about like I could fly to people. And you know there was waveform.
Speaker 2:Um, how did the, the thought waveform tuning name came out? I don't know. Um, I was trying to think of a like a, like something to kind of bridge the gap. And then I, when I was trying to design my logo, because everything of waveform, they all, all the pictures, the website, everything was designed by myself and Bree. So literally we just started trying to come up with a design and I drew a Waveform and I was like huh, waveform tuning. And then it just clicked. I looked at domains and no one really had it and I was like, cool, I guess that's my name and it stuck. I asked a couple of my close friends. I'm like what do you guys think of this name? They're like it's catchy, we like it and it kind of makes sense. So yeah, there's waveform tuning.
Speaker 1:No, it's a unique business model.
Speaker 2:Pretty much. I don't think anybody else in this country does it. That that I know of right, you're probably. Uh, I don't, I don't think. I think I'm the only one who does it? Yeah, which that was the goal. You know, to kind of be in my own little niche and for most people I mean for for anybody like imagine having a nine-to-five and also traveling like it's just it won't be possible, like this has to be something that's only, it's kind of like your only job yeah.
Speaker 1:So I know that you know a lot of people out there on internet land. You know the do-it-yourselfers, even people who have professional installations. Um, a lot of people don't know that when you know when a tuner gets in your car, that there's just you know he's not just going to hop in your car and start tuning, uh, that would be great if that was the case. But I know, sometimes you know, let's say you're, you know you're in texas now, but back when you were in florida, let's say you're flying out to like, uh, you know, freaking washington state all the way across the country and I'm sure you're not bringing like an, an armament of tools that would be heavy and you know um not practical to do.
Speaker 1:But you know, have you ever gotten to somebody's house that you know you're? You're 3 000 miles away, 2 000 miles away, whatever, and they got rattles and buzzes and things are just not.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:What do you do in in a situation like that, because you know they paid for the, or you know, uh, they paid for you to be out there and they're expecting you to tune the car and they think their car is ready for prime time, but it's not what. What happens in that situation?
Speaker 2:yeah. So it's kind of like a two-fold question. So I try to eliminate that as much as I can. Um, so if you ever go to my website, the first thing if you click like book now it says consultation. Um, and the conversation is really just a phone call between me and that prospective customer and it's really just asking like hey, the, is your car ready? And I'm asking detailed questions like how's the sound dead and do you have any pictures? How is it installed? Where is it installed? What vehicle is it? What are your goals? Like, what are you looking for? You're looking for perfect imaging, looking for loud and clear like what are you looking for?
Speaker 2:I'm asking all these questions and I'm essentially interviewing them to make sure that they're ready for me to come out there, because my goal is never for people to waste money. Um, if I come out there, not only like my time, but I don't want to waste their time and money. So I I try to do a very thorough like interview, slash, consultation to make sure the vehicle is ready, just to make sure that when I come out there I can do my job appropriately. And this is not because I do it on purpose, but one thing that most people agree with. Customers lie, not on purpose, but it's just because they're ignorant. And a lot of people think ignorant is like a derogatory word, it's not. Ignorant just means you don't know't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lack of knowledge yeah, uh, a term that I learned in the air force, um, when in my actual 905 intel job, was you don't know what you don't know. And if you really like, just take that like into heart and like really think about it, it's like it starts getting really deep. It's like huh, I don't know what I don't know. So what do I don't know? So you need someone else to kind of guide you, to help you know what you don't know. Meaning I'm here to try to guide them. Be like hey guys like how's it sound? And they're like oh, dude, it sounded imperfectly cool. How's the door? So like yeah, dude, I'm using this kill mat. I was like pause right there.
Speaker 1:We're already having an issue um I'm using peel and seal man from home yeah yeah, and then exactly, and I'm like, okay, like where, where's that all?
Speaker 2:like dude, I got four layers on on the outer door. I'm like, okay, that's not, those other four layers aren't doing anything, but what else? Like that's it. I was like that's not truly sound, dead. Um, so then I, you beforehand, I, you know, just deep dive, talking to them and consulting them to get them set up properly, and then, once you kind of educate them, they're like, you know, their kind of eyes open up.
Speaker 2:And most people in this audio community like, when you show them like and teach them like, dude, there's more to this. Most people don't get upset, they get giddy and excited. They're like, oh, I can do even more to make it better. It's rare that I ever get someone that's like I don't want to do any of that. They're like cool, I'll do it right away. Like, let's get it done, but it still ends up happening. When I come out there, there's still buzzes, there's still rattles, things that need to be fixed, um, even with all the pictures, you know. So what ends up happening is I still do my job, you know, I still tune it to best, best of my abilities. Um, a lot of people and hopefully this is, you know, this podcast, whoever's listening.
Speaker 2:A tuner and tuning your vehicle is not a band-aid. Um, I am not doing black magic where I can just take a car that has rattles and buzzes, a whole bunch of install issues, and make it sound good. It's not the way it works. So if there is buzzes and rattles and limitations, I will finish the tune, go and hop inside the vehicle, because I'm there in person and I make adjustments to the tune to kind of, you know, help alleviate some of that. So we still have a good end result.
Speaker 2:But that does mean that some stuff has to be removed, especially energy in the doors. Sometimes I have to cross the doors up higher because the doors are just vibrating so much that they will not be happy. So what do I do? I remove the energy from the doors, um, so I leave stuff on the table, but that's to get a better end result for their current system. And then I let them know hey, guys like this is what's wrong. This is what I'm seeing, this is what you can do better, but this is what you have now. You have both tunes my, you know the original one and then what I ended up doing to help you currently but go fix these issues. So, and that's kind of just the way, the way I do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people. Um, one of the things people don't understand when you're building like a high caliber car, there is a lot of ringing out and kind of like you know, uh, even when it's done, it's never done, so to speak. Because, uh, you know, you start hearing buzzes and rattles. Even a buzz that you might not have now, it might creep up two months from now.
Speaker 1:You know, from from from the energy that the that's creating and the car's getting used and things are starting to loosen up. It's it's just kind of like a race car. You're shaking things down you know what I mean and you're finding things as you go along. So it's not like, you know, you can go to shop and drop 50 grand, 40 grand, 10 grand, whatever their budget is, and the car is 100 ready. I, I know people think that's, that's how it is, you know, and but not to the level that we're talking about. We're talking about competition vehicles or super high-end sound quality cars, so to speak, that you, there is kind of like a um, uh, some some, uh, what do you call it? Like testing and tuning, going on and ringing the the to get the best out of the car. You know, yeah, you do have to sometimes take a panel off or get in there and do something again and or use a different type of sound treatment because what you use didn't work. So, yeah, it's kind of like a work in progress.
Speaker 2:So so it is. You know, I just I just want to touch on that real quick, eddie, if you don't mind like, yeah, I don't think it has to be. I think it's just something that are kind of our community has learned to just accept, but I think it's a it's a bad thing that it's like that. Um, for instance, right, I have a customer of mine uh, I'm not gonna mention his name, you know, shoot, I will chris hodge um. I met him last year and super nice dude, like honestly, one of my favorite clients, you know, not even clients friend um, and originally the system that he wanted me to hear at Luke's Luke at let's Get Together that he paid, I think, like 60 grand for at a shop I'm not going to mention the shop, but it's up there in Maine somewhere, if I'm not mistaken, and it was so bad and I just you can tell like he's so hurt because he spent so much money and this doesn't literally sounds terrible, like it's not good because he spent so much money and this doesn't literally sounds terrible, like it's not good, it's not okay, it's not possible, it sounds terrible. And he's like Miguel, can you tune it real quick? I'm like no, I can't. And of course it wasn't the answer he was looking for. You know he won't be like, yeah, sure, I can tune it, but I kind of like to be the honest and transparent person when I'm like, dude, you're just going to waste your money with me. Like your car isn't tunable, there are so many install limitations that even if I try to do the best, you're not going to get the appropriate results. Like this needs to be done correctly. And then he was like, okay, you know, and I didn't hear from him for a while.
Speaker 2:And then one day, you know, I reached. I think I think either I reached out to him or he reached out to me. I think I reached out to him and was like hey, you know, chris, just checking on you, dude, and seeing like you know, how you were doing, I know, I think it was like a month or two later I was like, I know, like the answer I gave you wasn't what you were hoping, but hopefully the demo I gave you with some of my customers' cars, you know, kind of opened your eyes on what's possible in car audio. He's like yeah, dude, I'm kind of I got rid of the Frontier, but I want to do something in my Jeep Grand Cherokee. I was like okay, let's talk about it. And him and I started talking and he was like okay, we can reuse your gear if you like, but the only thing I don't want to reuse is the musconi dsp. Get a helix like there's. The helix is so much better it's not even funny like nothing's touching helix right now, especially in terms of software. It's just not happening. Um, and he's like okay, I can do that.
Speaker 2:So I started designing the system for him and, long story short, he was like there is no budget can do that. So I started designing the system for him and, long story short, he was like there is no budget. What can we do? And whoever's following you know this build that Luke's doing. But let's talk about how we got to Luke. So I was like dude, we have all this great gear you know Brax RX2s, brax DSP going full Dysac, like fully digital, all the way through. I going full dissect, like fully digital, all the way through.
Speaker 2:I'm like this needs to be installed correctly. If not, it will never be good. He's like I can do it. I was like I, I promise you you probably can, but can I just suggest we take it to an installer that I know will do the work appropriately. He's like dude. I don't really trust installers like listen, I hear you, I hear you. And I don't trust many of them either. There's very few shops in the US I trust. I was like, but I know this shop and this person. I was like they will do the work.
Speaker 2:Long story short, luke Owlett from RW Soundworks took on the project and Luke knows how to install properly when he does sound deadening. This is not like yeah, put a piece on it. No, he spent weeks sound deadening this vehicle. So when that Jeepep is done, it should be done um. And when I come out there to tune it, luke already has so one. Everything's modular so it can be removed, but he already has an entire box of sound deadening kind of put away. So after I'm done tuning it does any buzz or rattles, we're fixing it before it gets delivered to the client. That's the way it should be done. Um, so like no, I don't think it should ever be like uh, this is gonna last forever. I think it can be done right the first time.
Speaker 1:It's just there's not many shops doing it right the first time yeah, I mean, when you're talking about the caliber, you know the level, um, like that. You know luke, luke level and you know there's probably a handful of people that I know that would you know, because in, in my opinion, I think you do get some rattles down the road or some buzzes, or you know some things that you gotta retighten.
Speaker 1:Re, re, re um you know, look at, it's just nature of the beast. You know what I mean. If you, if you're running a couple of 12s or a couple of 15s in the car, it's bound to rattle something loose, no matter how much sound treatment you got in there. Because you know I can't tell you how many times, like you know, I've had to. You know, re, uh, retreat something in my car. Then again I'm driving a freaking cheaply made car.
Speaker 1:But, um, yeah, you can do it if you, if you go you know the level that your buddy there is going yeah, it can be done the first time. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think you know I would say most of the time that, um, that's not the case. I mean, I, I know even big-time sound competitors that we've talked about this before and they're like you know it's not practical to leave a car at a shop for three or four months so that they can, you know, ring out every buzz and every imperfection that they're getting down the road to find. That's all Mickey Mouse stuff anyway, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But I think that's par for the course.
Speaker 1:So when you get into a client's car, like like, your buddy here, what's his name? Chris, yeah, chris, yeah. So what, what's your process? Like, like, do you got a certain flow? Um, does every system does demand a different approach? Like, what, what? What's your process? When you get in there, do you like, do you go? Um?
Speaker 2:like, what do you do? Yeah, you know I just. I just cast a spell and call it a day.
Speaker 1:I knew it was black magic, I knew it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got you. So the very first thing I ask is like what are you going for? Are you going for this? Is this vehicle for you or is this vehicle for competition? And they say competition, okay, is this vehicle for you or is this vehicle for competition? And they say competition? Okay, I'm going to start with this. I don't tune for competition because competition is just a different beast, so let's just remove competition out the scene. Some people compete with my tunes. They do pretty well, but I don't tune for competition because typically with competition, you've got to do stuff to your vehicle, like move the seat a certain position and, you know, recline it and do all these little things that, like most people that are just wanting a great system for them, for themselves, don't want to do um. So I'm like what are you going for? Like daily driving? Cool is this?
Speaker 2:your driving position. That's always my first question like, is this where you drive? And they say yes or no. The answer is no. Okay, hop in it. Maybe take it around the block, find the perfect position where you want me to set up my or your seat so I can set up my microphone array. So they do that. I set up my mic array and then I start playing pink noise throughout the system and I start getting to work. So the mic array's up. You know, I've got my octa capture set up and ruse up and smarts up and the helix software is up or whatever dsp I'm tuning um and I just start getting to work and I tell each one of my clients I mean, you can stand right next to me or you can go inside or do whatever you want.
Speaker 2:I don't need you right now, but if you want to ask questions, feel free. You can watch over my shoulder every little thing I do, you can scrutinize, you can ask questions. I'm here to help. I'm here as an open book um. Most of my clients like to watch me work. So they do um and they they ask me questions and I answer it and I always start with looking at all the kind of drivers, without eq, of course, and lower levels around like 75 80 db, but essentially no crossovers, except for the tweeter. I'm trying to get a raw response of each speaker and start getting a better understanding of where am I going to place crossovers at. Um then, especially if they're near me, if I haven't already asked question, I ask them how loud do you want to play the system? Because it's going to dictate where I start placing crossovers at if they're like hey, I'm a 85 db listener, um, and to caveat, no one's 85 db listener, no one every single person I've ever every single person I've ever tuned a vehicle for that, tell me.
Speaker 2:I only listen to 85 db, not once I'm done. Once I'm done and you start enjoying the music and you're getting after it and you're like really enjoying it, what do you just start doing? You start turning it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you start cranking it up.
Speaker 2:You just start cranking it, yeah Right. So like especially in the beginning, like when I first started like doing waveform, I would listen to what people say, like, oh, I don't listen to it loud, and then I will make crossovers better, optimize for those locations, but it will limit the output. And then what would happen at the end? They'll be like, oh, can we get any more volume? I'm like not really, like we can, but I just got to like start changing crossovers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not without harming the drivers right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So the reason why I still ask the question, so I can get a better understanding like, how safe do I want to be? If they tell me, off the get good, no, I listen to it loud. Cool, I got you, you listen to it loud. But if you tell me no, I only see about 85 db, maybe a little bit. That tells me. All right, I can be kind of a little bit more lenient on crossovers, but it still needs to have some balls behind it, um, but it doesn't have to get crazy loud. So you know, once I find the appropriate crossovers, how loud you listen to it, then I start sending those crossovers up and I start eqing.
Speaker 2:I always, always, always. It's just my process. I always start with my right mid, um, mainly because either the right mid or right mid base is always going to be a limiting factor in a left-hand drive car, because the speaker furthest away from you has to do the most amount of work. Um, so, right mid, then left mid, right, tweet, left, tweet right mid bass, left mid bass. Um. Then they have a front sub. I do the front sub, then rear sub and I do all the eq work first. Um, that's just the way I do it, then I'll go back and if most people don't know eq in a minimum phase situation, um, when we all use ir filters, not fir filters. Ir filters is what you find. Every dsp pretty much, except I think many dsp, has some fir filters. Don't quote me on that, I'm pretty sure yeah, they have some sort of filters that.
Speaker 1:Uh, I've never understood fully what what it does, especially with direct. I just know that it works. Some, some magical voodoo in there and I and I set it up and boom, it sounds good so pretty simple, or at least at least a difference.
Speaker 2:You know to kind of break it down very like you know, I guess elementary style level it can get deep but you can get technical ir filters.
Speaker 1:Podcast is all about okay, cool.
Speaker 2:So ir filters essentially what the only thing you need to know is that it changes phase with the EQ. Fir filters do not affect phase. That's it. That's the biggest difference between the two. But every warmer DSP is using an IR filter. So sweet, so sweet.
Speaker 2:So the reason why I'm using or I'm eqing first is because I want to look at time and phase once the, the face has been corrected for the constructive um environment that the car is. So if I have now huge peaks because of cabin gain right, let's say you have a 8 db, you know q of 2 peak around I don't know 150 hertz because of cabin gain, well, if I look at the, the phase, that's going to be out of whack because that's creating a, an additional phase wrap or phase anomaly. So with the cut of e you're actually fixing the phase. So that's why I always do EQ first. So then I do time and I do it by impulse, and then I do phase. And the way I do phase is I do right mid-bass first, because typically that's my furthest driver. The first thing I do is find which is your furthest driver. Nine times out of ten is going to be your right mid-bass, so you do right mid-bass, left mid-bass, those are now one. Then I do right mid to right mid-bass, left, mid to left mid-bass, and then make sure left mid and right mid, both are in the exact same phase trace, perfect. Then I do right tweet, left tweet, impulse.
Speaker 2:I don't look at phase. Really, for Twitter Frequencies are so small. You move that microphone half an inch to the right or an inch to the right or left, completely change everything you just did. So wasting your time looking at phase trace isn't beneficial. And then if they have a front sub, then essentially what I'm looking at and keep in mind you never change your reference delay or I never change my reference delay um, then I'll do front sub and I'll look at the trace on how it's going.
Speaker 2:Um, so if people don't know how to look at a phase graph, essentially, if you know these things, you know a lot more than most people. If the angle is, let's call it, I don't know, I don't know how to explain, I'm over here, I have my hand up, like you can see me. Um, if it's, if it's going, you know up to down, like, let's say, a 45 degree angle, right, let's just call it that. And also, then you get another phase trace which is like going like a 70 degree angle. That means that is coming in earlier or later. Hold up now.
Speaker 2:I'm confused yeah, move your hand the other way yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like, I'm over here, look at my hand. So you, we, we cannot speed up time. We can just delay it, right? So? Or if it's no, that's coming in later, yeah, that's coming in later. Yeah, that's coming later. If it's going up, it's coming in earlier. There you go, so I can delay time, but I can't add time to it. Jesus, my head right now.
Speaker 2:Um, so a lot of times you'll see that the front sub is gonna, you know, come in at a steeper angle. So if I do see that, I don't change my reference delay because I already made everything from mid-base up one cohesive unit and I already know that in my head. So then once I get the front sub set up, then I'll match, then I'll mute it, I'll go to my rear sub. Where's the face trace? Looking at that, most of the times I have to delay the rear sub to match the front sub. So I had delay, I had delay. Cool, face trace are nice again. Once I get that, I capture both front and rear subs. So I have that face trace because now they're both acting as one and I will group tweeter to mid base all of them because we we already established they're all working as one units and already, and I'll just add delay until that mid base trace now matches the front sub. And now we're all lined up and there you go so do you.
Speaker 1:You know this is something that me and a couple of my buddies talk about, and I know everybody calls it the front sub. But do you treat the front sub as a sub? Because the way I treat it is, I treat it as a front woofer and I use it more to take the energy out of the doors because door locations just suck. Everybody knows that and you know the best way to have a speaker in the door is if you could seal that up, kind of like, you know, if it had its own enclosure, which would be a lot, a lot of work, a lot of labor.
Speaker 1:So the way I treated my front speaker, my front woofer, was I'm using it not to do sub frequencies, but I think I don't remember what crossover frequencies I I chose, but I think, a 50 to like 120 or 110 or something like that and, believe it or not, my, my, my front mid bases, they're actually firing from like 110 or 120 and up, because I just I couldn't tame the rattles in that door. It was so bad. So do you, or or do you do both? Do you do? But you know, I know everybody calls it the front sub, front sub, but I feel like it's it's better to call it a front woofer, because the sub is still doing its sub duty. I have mine at 50 and below, some people do 60 and below, and so how do you treat the, the front woofer?
Speaker 2:do you treat it as a sub, or do you treat as a woofer, or do or is it depends um, so typically I treat it as a woofer with maybe a you know an s in front of it, not the full sub, but so, like, once again, this kind of depends on the vehicle. So if I, if I have a vehicle and I hear it's hollow, I'm like this door's gonna fall apart. Yes, I will, I will if the sub has good enough inductance and it can play high enough. Um, yes, I will go ahead and let it, you know, let it play up into the mid-bass region. But typically I like to and like.
Speaker 2:Funny enough, you say that I don't actually think that doors suck.
Speaker 2:I just think that doors are never treated well enough and that's why doors suck. But doors typically, the internal volume is so large relative to the speaker that essentially it is an infinite baffle. So whenever people are like oh, infinite baffle is. So, whenever people are like oh, infinite baffle, so great, I'm like, well, your door kind of is infinite baffle, because infinite baffle is just an infinitely sealed box. And if it's relative to the um, the speaker, then it's, it's, it's enough airspace, it acts like ib, so it's really just deadening the living crap out of it. Um, but most people don't know how to do it properly and or they've gone through so many material and all of this and if anyone don't think about CLD. It's not easy to come off, and especially when like I tell people this constantly like if you, especially if you just bought a car the less amount of times you pull a panel apart the better, because each time you pull it apart it gets slightly weaker every time yeah, I've said that before, especially like all the little, yeah, all the little clip holes.
Speaker 2:So it's like, you know I'm not sure if you remember, excuse me you know, when you first saw your door panel but that thing was like it's almost like, am I about to break this thing? Yeah, but after like the 10th time that thing comes out like nothing was holding it, you know. So I tell people, like every single time you remove the door panel, replace every single clip, even if it's not broken, just replace it. You know, just try to do the things to kind of keep that as tight as possible. But, like with Chris's Jeep, you know, luke went not even overboard, he did it appropriately. Not only did we like you know, full mega CLD resonance, everything butyl, you know CLD, of course, black hole tiles, ccf all the night. But he went above and beyond when he actually like drilled holes in DuraGlass Part of the reason when a six-by-nine is going to be on the door card itself and on the plastic door piece that goes on the um, on the physical door itself to make sure that thing is solid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, doors, at that point it's not going to suck, it's going to. It's going to be phenomenal, um. But again, how many people go that that level? Not many, um. So then again, that's what a notion door suck, but I don't actually think they do now. Are there better locations? Sure, 100, um, but I think more people just took more time and just properly sound dead in their doors. There'll be a lot less kicks being made well also the, the, the frequencies.
Speaker 1:You know the mid-bass frequencies, one of the. You know it's not so much just the door sucking as far as like treatment wise, but also the frequencies are. You know that that the mid-bass frequencies are about two to three feet long and there's always a, a center console in the way and your leg is in the way, your calf is in the way, but that's also one of the you know the weaknesses of a door location. You know what I mean is in the way, your calf is in the way, but that's also one of the you know the weaknesses of a door location. You know what I mean. Back in the day a lot of people used to go with kick panel locations because that's one of the stronger locations in a car. And also, you know now you're getting equal path links, but that's difficult on some cars because of all the electronic wizardry that's back there these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially nowadays.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one of the ideal locations, but unfortunately you always can't get in there. But yeah, doors do have their advantages and disadvantages. Yeah, they have their limitations.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, for sure. Kind of like everything in a car, eddie. Everything does A lot of the frequency response issues that most people, a lot of people, pay too much attention to the RTA graph and not enough to the way the human actually hears. If you have a very narrow dip in your frequency response, especially in the mid-bass, acoustically or not acoustically, but like when you listen to music you're not going to notice it. It's just not going to happen. It's just too narrow of a dip, even if it's like let's call it 15 dB lower, it's too narrow, especially with how dynamic music is. And, funny enough, a lot of times a lot of those cancellations that are happening is because of improper installation of the mid-bass in the door. And if you fix those installation issues, a lot of times some of the stuff actually gets fixed.
Speaker 2:Now, yes, there still are some cars like Luke's GMC. It's just not the great location. It has bad dips because of just the cabin. It happens sometimes. But like the Ford trucks and your ones, those doors actually sound really freaking good and the response isn't bad at all. Um, so you know, it's all simply gonna be car-to-car dependent. And I know you asked me beforehand like do I do the same thing to every car. No, every car. I, I, the process is the same, but the end result and like how I go about is every single car is different.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah so I'm gonna ask you something that's I got. I'm sorry yeah, that happens. I hate me. There's got to be a saying for that. You know, when you get this thought and then it just goes, it just disappears, it's like a bubble, it just pops and you're like damn it, what was it?
Speaker 1:And you usually think about it like, or you remember it four or five hours later, usually when you're asleep, like going to sleep, I'm like, oh yeah, I was going to ask him this. Damn it, it happens to all of us, man. So do you see any common mistakes that enthusiasts or even shops make when it comes to tuning?
Speaker 2:When it comes to tuning Comes to tuning.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you've seen kind of like you know, not the same thing over and over again, but like a common mistake that that enthusiasts or shops make when it comes to tuning, or even installing.
Speaker 2:I guess let's start with installing not proper sound denting is huge. Um, for most people don't know the difference between an okay vehicle, a good vehicle and a freaking amazing vehicle. It comes with sound denting. Um, I tell all my customers this all time go to a high-end speaker shop. Go not go find some rebels, some kefs, um, you know some mofis.
Speaker 2:Knock on that speaker cabinet. Just knock on it and you'll see and I, I use this for a ton like it hurts you. You don't hurt it. Yeah, that's how inert that cabin is. Um, or that cabinet, excuse me. So, like, I tell people like that's your goal for your vehicle, every place you have a speaker at or whatnot, when you're playing music, you should not feel it. When you knock on it, it should hurt you, not you hurt it. And I was like the more you get your vehicle to as close as that, the better it's going to sound. Because home drivers typically aren't that expensive, um, the relatively, you know, inexpensive. But a lot of the money and components came into designing the cabinet and crossover type. That's where the money is. And a vehicle, it's the same thing. Whenever you have a speaker right and let's say you put it in the dash. Actually, let's use a mid-base driver, because we were just talking about that.
Speaker 1:Mid-base driver.
Speaker 2:It's doing its thing right and maybe it's just a transducer right. So say, an electrical engine, it's moving it when that amplifier, that signal, is telling it to stop, move the other direction. What happens to the speaker? It does that right Because it has a motor behind it. But if at that same time it's, you know it stopped, but you have a resonance in your door panel that is what's smearing your sound. Yeah, you're turning the.
Speaker 1:You're turning the door into a speaker.
Speaker 2:Essentially exactly it is essentially a passive radiator, yeah, um. So I tell people like you can throw as many utopia, accutons, microprecisions, whatever, whatever in there, it's not going to make a difference. The problem is it's not dead. So your speakers no longer. You're not hearing that? $2,000 mid-bass, $1,000 mid-bass. You're hearing the door? Yep, we need to remove the door from the speaker.
Speaker 2:So like that's number theme number one that I've constantly seen all the time it's like there's not enough proper sound. Two Theme number one that I've constantly seen all the time it's like there's not enough proper sound to make. Two is so many shops don't actually understand acoustics. What they do understand is how can I make money? Right, which I get, you know, I get at the shop. You own a business, I own a business. You have to make money, especially to keep the lights open or the doors open, the lights on, I get it.
Speaker 2:But but like I'm not gonna mention names, but like when I see a model three, a tesla model three, or mention names, man, and then all of a sudden I see mid-range in the a-pillar, I'm like what is happening? I was like they literally had the perfect location right there. Why, why are we? Why did we? Just one ruin's, you know, acoustics for audio in a negative direction. And two, charge the customer how much money for these A-pillars and I bet you money. I bet you I don't know how much money. Dude, I'll bet you my entire paycheck that if I put my hand on that A-pillar where that mid-range and tweeters now at it is resonating like hell, bet you money yeah they might be trying to get you know a bigger paycheck in in uh labor oh, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:And listen, it looks cool. But if the proper location was already in, at least in a tussle model three it was it was already there. There was no reason to have moved the mid-range to a now less advantageous location. And I'm like what's happening here, or I see it happening to, like challengers and chargers. I'm like guys, do you know how easy it is in those cars to have a good sounding car? You really don't have to do much. Um, yeah, if you already have a mid-range location in the corners.
Speaker 1:You're already halfway there. I mean, I wish I had that in my car. You're the nb. There's people who you know. I said it in the last podcast. It's not out yet, but with matt kim, um, you know, because matt kim designs those, those, uh, dash pods.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and um, good friend of mine yeah, he's an awesome guy and, um, you know, he designs those dashpods, he designs a pillar pods and, uh, just beautiful work. But there's people out there that pay good money to have their windshield removed or their dash removed to put, uh, mid-range locations up in the corners. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:I know, I know you guys are doing that with the jeep right well, yeah, not only that, but in my mom's, the aka gray, you know that's, that's what russ from octave, him and I did. We pulled the whole dash just to build sealed car locations because they didn't exist there yeah um, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, now, now that I got rid of that car and people want to know why did I get rid of it? Honestly, a month or two after I bought it in 2023, I was like this car is so uncomfortable. I'm not a fan of it, but I bought a cash and I was like, whatever, I'll keep it. So I kept it for as long as it did. I did really well in competition, great but like it was time for it to go. Um, but like it was time for it to go. And that was it. Like I did what I wanted to do. My goal for it was to go to every Money Round event and, you know, place top 10 every single one. My first time around. I did that. Every single Money Round. I ever went First time around to SVR Aggieland. I always placed top 10. So after Aggieland, when I placed eighth and got best sounding vehicle, I was like, yeah, I'm done, like I'm happy now, like I got everything I wanted. And then that's when the brand new 2026 model came out, cause I didn't, I didn't like the previous versions of them. Um, and I looked at it and it worked out. You know money, you know the, the. The numbers were right. So that was that. Um, but yeah, that's why I got rid of my Mazda. But the Tesla is going to be next level, but yeah, continuing.
Speaker 2:What else do I see wrong? So those are the two big things. It's like proper or lack of proper sound deadening and not paying attention to proper acoustics in a vehicle. Another thing that I think is a common theme is customers not getting educated on what actually matters. So like they will spend two grand on a DAP but they're not worried about sound deadening. Or they'll spend you know a thousand dollars on RCA cables but there's buzz and rattles everywhere, or there's you know know they'll buy utopia and not having the soul properly. So like getting educated, understanding, like, what your goals are, how much money you're trying to spend, um, and I think kind of lastly, is getting understand what you're looking for, meaning, like, if your goal is to be loud and clear, let's call it loud and clear. If your goal is to be loud and clear, let's call it loud and clear. Let's buy the appropriate speakers for that that can actually handle those you know thermal limitations that you're asking for. Don't get an Arc Audio A10, one of them in the back and be like dude, I want to see the pounds. Like not going to happen, buddy. So you know, I guess that's kind of the last thing is kind of like understand what equipment you're buying.
Speaker 2:Personally, I'm a fan of timbre, matching Spell timber but pronounce timbre. So I like keeping my three-way up front. Personally, the same. I at least mid and tweet. I like keeping the same, just to make sure the timbres are matched. Mid-bass I'm kind of more open to changing depending on the application, but typically mid and tweet. I advise people like just keep the same line, keep the same brand, because you don't want one speaker to have you know this timbre and the other speaker to have a completely different timbre.
Speaker 1:It's just not going to work. Yeah, and spending, you know a king's ransom doesn't always equal great sound either, because, um, you know, I'm a do-it-yourselfer, a lot of do-it-yourselfers. You know we, we kind of swap speakers out, test and tune, you know test angles, whatnot, and, um, you know we're taking the expensive route, but, yeah, and I don't recommend it. But, um, uh, you know, I bought some Utopias and they didn't really sound that good in my doors and then I went with the next level down, which are the K2s. Those actually sound really good in my door.
Speaker 1:So, you know, depending on the driver you know a driver that you buy, might you know the, the top end one might not sound good in your door. I don't know why, whatever the parameters are, but sometimes going with a different driver that you know it just meshes well with your door for whatever reason. You know, I don't know the reasons. You know it could be, like I said, the, the ts parameters on it or whatever. Sometimes, you know, going with a lower end model sometimes works out better than buying the top end esoteric driver, you know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and a lot of, especially in just audio. In general, um, and this is something that people just need to understand there's so much marketing bs. It is not even funny. You know how many times I've seen people say we have the best speakers. I'm like what? Like blaupunk came out with their new signature series I think it was gold dude, what. I was so confused. I'm just like and they're like next level. No one's such. I'm just like, just because you painted it gold and this is so, just so much marketing BS.
Speaker 2:And I'm like you know you finding a person that would be transparent with you, not even trying to plug myself in, but I'm going to. I offer consultations called waveform talk, where it's just like it's a hundred bucks and I will design an entire system for you for a hundred dollars and ask you the appropriate questions what are your goals? What's your budget? What kind of vehicle do you have? Sometimes I you know, there's some of my customers that are like I'm trying to find a vehicle first. Cool, I can help you locate a vehicle. You know, not like physically locate, but like I tell you like this and this vehicle is good for acoustics and blah, blah, blah, um. But like one of my customers, he bought an Acura TSX or TL or something like that and he was like yeah, I'm trying to compete, I'm trying to win. Like you know, super high up in SVR, I was like Good luck with this car. You're going to have to do a lot of work Because it didn't have advantageous locations. Now, for a daily driver, great, no problem, no problem.
Speaker 2:But if you're trying to do so well, at a high end Competition scene, your car needs to be up to par and you'll notice Some of the cars that do the best. They kind of start having the same concepts. Longer dash you're further away from them. They all start coming the same. I mean, look at Mark Bruno's car Challenger, look at Robert bruno's car challenger, look at robert boyd's another challenger, uh, luke's truck mids in the dash it starts becoming a repeated pattern. Um, so you can kind of know like why things do well, why things don't do well in at least competition yeah, me and luke talked about that.
Speaker 1:If, uh, for the people out there that don't follow the podcast, but, um, we talked about that. That. You know, sometimes talking with somebody like you or luke, luke does the consulting too. I think nick nick does the consulting and, um, uh, if you think you know some people are out there, I'm like I'm not gonna pay this guy. I can freaking do all that. You know what. You're actually gonna save money getting a consultation. You know what I mean. Or, instead of fighting the car, like you said, your one of your buddies bought an acura. You know they're actually going to spend more money fighting the physics in that car because when they could have bought another car, if their sole goal is, you know, sound quality, it doesn't mean that you know one of the cars that you recommend the person's, you know, uh, not not gonna like it. You know what I mean. It's like if you told me yeah, man, check out the, uh, the chrysler, blah, blah, blah. I'm not a chrysler guy, so I'd be like, hey, miguel, what?
Speaker 1:else you got.
Speaker 2:You know I like imports and you exactly well, dude, you know, check out the toyota camry or the camry, or get an avalon, you know, get a raft, for you know that all these cars, essentially you gotta find a car. If it has a stock mid location up in the dash, you can actually it's a true mid-range. That's a good platform already starting, yeah, um, you know. Or like my mazda when I bought it, the reason I bought that mazda one I like the way it looks, I'm a huge Mazda fan but it had the mid-bases up inside the dash and I was like I can do something with that because I have a really bad back. And I was like I can't do kicks, like I can't have my dead pedal being removed for a speaker day, like I can't drive the car if it has it it um. So I was like this is a way that I can have really far away mid-base drivers with probably no tactile feel, and it's not in the way and it's also not in the doors, so I don't have the tactile feel.
Speaker 2:Um, so what ended up happening? I put a nine inch there and every single time people kept on hopping my car like dude, your mid-base is crazy, like where is it at? And I'm like inside my dash they're like you know, they'll try to look. I'm like you can't see it. It's literally buried inside my dash, um, and it worked. And mark bruno's car. You know it's the same way. That's what his mid-base works so well, um, because he's also up inside the dash.
Speaker 1:You know, as far as what is possible, yeah, some, some cars have a better platform to start with and uh, that's gonna save you a lot of money, it's gonna save you a lot of time, it's gonna save you a lot of headache. You know and I'm not saying you can't pick any car out there you know you can make just about any car sound good, but it, you know, kind of like in the tuner world, with people who modify cars for speed, it's easier to make a car fast. That's already fast to begin with.
Speaker 2:Exactly, if you get a BMW with a B58, you're not going to have to do a lot of modifications to put a lot of power out of it. But if you buy yourself a Mazda 3, have fun, yeah, exactly, you can make it fast's that? Um, another thing that a lot of people that I notice, um, then typically this is answered beforehand. But factory integration, um, a lot of people, or some cars, don't have good factory, good factory integration and then they go high, low and they're expecting you know what, their full utopia system or full Morel, you know, like Cartoon Pro or Acuton systems or whatever. I'm like, dude, I want Soundkiller. I was like, well, it's not going to work here because we're going high-level. I was like, so we have two options. We can do high-level in and that could just be your daily one, and that can make you a real team where we're going like direct into it.
Speaker 2:Now, if you have a pack harness or a nav TV, cool, that's kind of bypassed. But you know, that's another thing that people have to like, you know, be conscious of is like, do I even have a harness? Of course, me being a dummy, I would have assumed. I assumed, hey, I'm driving a computer on wheels. Of course there's a harness for it, because of course they don't make one for mazda. Guess what? They don't make one for tesla either. Yay me. So, uh, if anyone's out there that's a programmer and is hearing this and will be so kind of hitting me up and see how the heck I can get digital sound of a computer on wheels, let me know. I know it has to be possible, I just don't know how to do it.
Speaker 1:I'm not that smart yeah, I know there's a company I watch, um I don't know if you ever watch sam rack, but there's a guy, uh his but one of his youtube buddy there, um, they cracked. They had to crack the, uh the tesla computer because, um, they couldn't, they, the guy couldn't get fast charging for some, whatever reason you know, once, once tesla get fast charging for some, whatever reason, you know, once, once tesla blacklists a car, for whatever reason, if it's been rebuilt or something, they, they put something in the, in the thing where. So they there's like a, a whole market out there where they kind of go into cracking tesla computers to get in there so that they could do because Tesla's not very aftermarket repair friendly. You know what I mean yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know most people don't keep their. You know most people don't try to fix Tesla's themselves. You know it's, it's not a small feat, but um, this guy kind of has a whole YouTube channel devoted to it, so um, but yeah, definitely check them out um. So you recently moved from florida to texas to texas. What prompted that change?
Speaker 2:uh, my wife brief, um, her passion is health, just like my passion is audio. So she actually grew up near this place, like in like two hours away from here, um. So she always wanted to attend Texas A&M. She had a full-ride scholarship to Texas A&M but she joined the military first. So she joined the military and she was like I want to become a doctor, so that's why we're here. She's going to attend Texas A&M to get her medical degree. So that's where I moved, oh wow.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. Congratulations, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, so that's why I moved. Oh wow, nice, nice congratulations man. Yeah, thanks, dude. Yeah, I will support my wife whatever. Whatever she needs, I'm here to support her. So if that's moving, I'll move, doesn't bother me then. As long as she's happy, I'm happy, um, and plus, I mean I feel like any man, if their wife's like hey, I'm gonna be a doctor, I think they'll move yeah, yeah, yeah, so you know, yeah yeah, so that's why we're here.
Speaker 2:And plus, honestly, um, given the whole military background, there's been many times where I've been in texas and I actually fell in love with texas and the culture and the people, so I was not at all opposed to moving here. Um, so when she was like, hey, I want to attend texas a m, I was like awesome, I like college station, I like the people, I like like Texas. So now we're here. So, yeah, it all worked out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of people are migrating to Texas, so it's it's gotta be a good state. I know we were talking about Matt Kim earlier. He's moving to Texas and it seems like Texas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I was going to say that uh seems like texas is a um pretty, uh, growing. It's a growing state because a lot of people are migrating there, especially from the west and the east, so it's got to be a good state yeah, yeah, no, no, it is, it's great.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, matt came with that should be like an, not even an hour and a half from my house oh, so yeah uh, you might see some collaboration between audio and region waveform tuning. There you go, um, you know, like I said, mac is a good friend of mine, so him and I talk audio all the time and you know he's just cool people. He's actually coming over friday to uh, hang out and take a listen to my to my listening room okay, sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he told me he's moving soon. So speaking, yes, of of you guys collaborating, so where do you see waveform tuning going in the next few years? More travel, maybe training? Yeah other guys to be the next miguel rios flying around, gallivanting all over the us yeah, so I don't really know.
Speaker 2:You know, right right now, like this is always, always was supposed to be phase one. For people who don't know, if I haven't already mentioned it several times, I have a really bad back Along another slew of medical issues, but because of that, traveling is not easy on my body. So, with that being said, I am kind of trying to work on a way to kind of transition from so much from me traveling to you and you bringing the vehicle to me. I'm trying to figure out those logistics. It'll be shipping and just trying to figure things out. I don't know yet.
Speaker 2:For now it's staying the way it is, um, but given that I have to fly out of houston now, which was we went from 20 minute drive in tampa to the airport to now an hour and a half plus, depending on traffic. Um, another reason why I prompted my my charges to be upped um, only when I'm flying out. All the rest of my charges, actually the exact same, have not changed. The only price that changed was when I fly out. Um, and that's just to cover all the expensive. We're going to tear down the vehicles, gas oil changes, parking, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, but given that the airport's now so far, you know, when I have to fly out at six in the morning, that means I have to wake up at like three in the morning, two, 30 in the morning sometimes. Um, you know, wake up, take a shower, do what I need to do three in the morning, two, 30 in the morning, sometimes. You know, wake up, take a shower, do I need to do? Hop in the car, drive an hour and a half, get to the airport, you know, do my thing. Then fly out. However, you know how, wherever I'm going, to the tune and then fly back, and typically I fly back late, so then I'll get back to Houston at like 10 pm, 11 pm, then I still got another hour and a half. So you know, it's definitely taking a little bit of a toll on me. Um, I still enjoy it and I still love helping people, but at some point I think I'm gonna need to transition it somehow. Um, because I don't think this is not gonna work long term. I don't think yeah, well, you know.
Speaker 1:Hopefully people can understand that well, yeah, I'm sure they would. That's where, yeah, that's why I asked you what's the next phase in that? And, uh, I'm sure, with the technology just getting, you know, better and better and it's and it's happening at a rapid pace. Uh, me and my friend were talking about this. Um, uh, how you know, back in the 90s the technology was, you know, a lot different, but the technology has has gotten so advanced now that the technology was, you know, a lot different, but the technology has has gotten so advanced now that it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:You know, like, I know you talked about remote tuning, you know earlier and stuff like that. But I mean, you know, the fact that people could even do that you know now is pretty incredible in my eyes, because I grew up in the 90s and I remember you know how they tuned back then and they didn't have a lot of the tools that they have now. You know, back then they had an rta. I don't know how old you are, but the rtas are basically like these little led dots that pop up and yeah it didn't tell them much.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so it, it has gotten. Uh, the technology has advanced and I'm sure it's going to keep advancing, especially with guys like you. Nick Matt. I mean you guys are on the cutting edge of this stuff and you guys keep on.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, buddy, appreciate that, you know, like I have. So I use the NB's M7NB microarray system. That's the best microarray I've used. That's why I use it. I also always carry a U-Mic too, but now I actually got gifted Huge shout out to Aaron Bottle. He gifted me an Earthworks M23R. I don't know why he just did that's the one I carry with me. I use those interchangeably.
Speaker 2:If, if there's ever in a car and I'm like, huh, something don't sound right, I'll bring out my. You know, I'll bring out my little mic, plug it in and do the moving my brother to figure out what, what I'm missing, um. But you know, like it's not that I can't do remote tuning. I've done it before. I know how to. I got multiple of the of the natal microarrays so I mean I could be shipping out mics throughout the us and you know, doing it that way, away from tuning remotely. But the reason why I don't is because, like, I've come to find out that no matter how pretty the screen is, there's still some of that human, human interaction that really makes a difference of a vehicle, um, and to me it's the difference between, like a good sounding car, an okay sounding car, to like others really good and they're just sometimes things in the rta just don't match up or phase or impulse. I just don't match up to what, to what we're hearing. Sometimes it's just a crazy resonance in the doors that, like your, your ears need to tell you, or like you need to add a little bit more time because reflection, or you need, or you need to move the seat, you know, just a hair more and it, you know, takes you away from behind the big the b-pillow to in front of it and it changed the sound drastically. Or like the customer is like man, like it sounds great.
Speaker 2:But I just need this one little thing in this song. I was like cool, got you, I'm there in person, I can make all these changes, um, and really get it dialed in for them the way they want it, so they're not constantly having to do tweaks after tweaks, after tweaks after tweaks, like it's just typically 95 of the time once I'm done in a car, I'm done, um, and they're done as well, like they don't have to continue getting small tweaks and things like that. Now, it does happen sometimes and it's easy, you know. I ask them what the issue is. I remote into it. I, you know, I do the little feedback change A lot of times. I just want more base. I'm like cool, yeah, I'll do that real quick. And then we call it a day and that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah so that's why I do it in person. Yeah, you do have some trained ears, because last time at the HBR you were one of the judges, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was yeah, that was the first time he judged me. It was cool, yeah, yeah, and I competed. I really didn't want to. I'm not a competitor, you know, I'm just a music enthusiast and I love, you know, to have a nice system that images and it sounds clear and and images correctly. But, um, you know, I run dirac, I use the mini dsp with dirac and, uh, you know, I set everything properly and I knew my system was missing something.
Speaker 1:And uh, my buddy, ryan, you know, ryan, obviously with the camry, yeah, um, you know he kept on egging me on and I'm like I don't think you know I knew something was missing in my car and I was like nah, I don't think you know I knew something was missing in my car and I was like, nah, I don't want to compete, dude, my car's not competition worthy, it's not ready yet. And he's like compete man, compete. Yeah, your car's ready. It sounds really good.
Speaker 2:And I was like eh, you know.
Speaker 1:so I didn't really look at competition this way, uh, but you got in it, nick got in it, kevin got in it and you guys gave me some really good feedback. And when I came home I did those tweaks, the stuff that you guys told me, and the thing was was that all three of you guys were giving me the same feedback, more or less. So I was like, well, if these guys are saying it, then it's got to be. You know, it's got to be, it's got to be true. So I went in there and I did those exact tweaks that you guys said man, night and day difference.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I didn't care if I was in 20th place, just getting that feedback from you guys. You know, because I'm not a competitor, I'm a listener. You know what I mean. I'm an enthusiast, I'm a sound competitor, I'm a listener, you know what I mean. I'm an enthusiast, I'm a sound quality enthusiast. I'm, I'm, you know I'm. I'm a proud audiophile, you know.
Speaker 1:So I know a lot of people like, ah, that's cliche, but no, I think we're audiophiles, we like to listen to our music nice and clear, and for it to image correctly and for, you know, to have the right timbre, like you say, but sometimes getting your car out there to a competition or to a get-together and having somebody with a tuned ear like you guys listen and give you back that feedback, that that's that. That stuff is priceless, man, and I'm kind of glad that ryan egged me on and got me in there because I knew something was missing with my car. I knew, you know, like when you've had reference uh, listen to reference systems, you know what to listen for. Knew you know, like when you've had reference uh, listen to reference systems, you know what to listen for.
Speaker 1:And you know something you're like you know my car sounds good but it could be better. That's where you guys came in. You gave me that advice and and I did those, those three or four tweaks, and man, yeah, it really, really did change things yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:No, that's awesome. I'm glad that worked. I mean, that's to me, that's what competition should be, you know, is people with actually good trained ears, with a good reference in their head, to actually give valuable feedback. Um, unfortunately, a lot of times, especially in the bigger shows, which I mean, it's no fault of their own, it's just they have so many cars to judge but, like, there's not so much feedback they can be given, and then when they actually give the feedback and you get the score sheet, it's all in scribbles because you can't read their handwriting. Um, but, once again, like this is this is no, this is not me. Like you know, that's the first time me ever judging. I tell you what it's not easy. Um, so, you know, huge props to all the judges. But you know, to me, a big thing is like if you're gonna have the title of a judge, you should have a really good reference.
Speaker 2:And if I'm going to judge and if people ask me to judge, I'm going to give feedback and I'm going to attempt to not just be like, hey, something's wrong, because anybody can say that. Almost anybody with any type of ear would be like, yep, something doesn't sound right. But what doesn't sound right. And one thing that I've come to realize is especially with like tuning other customers car. If you give them everything, if there's like a low down list of like dude, your car is just messed up. You know what I mean Like it's just wrong. If you just like give it all at them, they're going to be so defeated, they're not going to be receptive to it.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times what I end up doing is's like hey, dude, like this is the main things I'm hearing. You know, I call it like twitter's a little hot, between four to six k because of this song at this part. You know mid-range a little muddy. You know between two to four hundred. Fix that, um. And you know bass, the back is is not in phase and sometimes I even hop in the car. I'm like this is how I know this and I'll play the songs, I'll play the tracks and I'm like fix those things, come back. If those things are fixed, then the judge won't mention it, but they'll mention other things. But these are the big things first and I think that way one it continues bringing people back into the competition, which is great, you know, but it allows them to work on the things that really need to be addressed first, versus being like dude, everything's wrong and they're like well, where do I start? You know, if you give them everything's wrong, then there's nowhere to start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your system sucks man, Get out of here.
Speaker 2:This thing is garbage, nah, but, like you know, I think everybody wants to have a good sounding vehicle and the one thing I tell people constantly Because a lot of people enjoy my tonality my tonality comes from my rebel towers. That's where it comes from and to me, kind of the way it is I didn't really coin this term, but I use it a lot People know when correct is correct is like I didn't really coin this term, but I use it a lot which is like people know when correct is correct, meaning if you hop in a car and you're like this is great, it's correct, you know it's correct. It doesn't take a genius. Even someone who doesn't know anything about audio will be like wow, that sounds great. They might not know why it sounds great, but they know it sounds great.
Speaker 2:Um, to me, that's when things are correct. Um, so that's why, when it comes to my tonality, I have that preference, which is like my goal is just to get as close to these rebel towers as possible. Um, the only other speakers I like more than these are the Kev blades. I don't know many people with Kev blades.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, yeah, I'm a huge fan of the calves. I like the. Uh, what is it? The LS fifties or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yep, the LS fifties are good. They have some deviation, um, especially in like the upper mid range region, um, but I mean it's not bad, especially for the price. But I urge people to look at spinoramaorg and go look at your speakers that you have. And just go look at two things on-axis response, directivity index, which is I'm not going to get into it, don't worry about it just on-axis response. And then look at estimated in-room response, especially above the shorter effects, above 300 hertz. Clipwatch does a really good job of estimating what that speaker is going to do in a room to a very high degree of accuracy and you'll be surprised how many speakers. I don't give a crap for the price, I'll honestly tell you.
Speaker 2:Now, bowers 803 suck. People are like oh bowers, I'm just like, just go look at that spinorama dot, are you gonna throw up? You're like, really this is terrible. Um and like, when it comes to like you know, just towers in general or bookshelves doesn't matter. There are two things you gotta notice. There's on axis and the off axis response, and the in-room response is a culmination of both of them. So, like the rebels, they're on axis. On axis response and off axis are very similar, and if you just look at the on axis, you'd be like oh, there's a couple deviations, which there are. Every sweep's gonna have a couple deviations, no big deal, um, I think they're all plus or minus a db and a half, which is not that much deviation, um. But then if you look at the in-room response, it gets really, really tight, um, and that's because it's tuned to not only have a good on-axe response but when the reflections hit you because you know the reflex is always going to hit you it combines the creative, smoother response.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, there's a little insight about yeah, home towers sounds like you know you're not home.
Speaker 1:Audio yeah, you're not all created equally you and aaron must talk for hours because, um, he's, he's into uh, home audio too, and I tell anybody listen. You don't even have to spend a lot of money. You could get some some low price elax or even some used speakers on facebook marketplace and just get a reference for what a proper image is supposed to be. Because when you put, like you know, you set up like some near field monitors in your room or your office, you're like, oh, that's what, that's what a center image is. You know what I mean. It doesn't have to be like perfect, perfect speakers that you have, you know the best, you know tube Macintosh amplifier. You don't have to go out and buy a hundred thousand dollars system. You could spend under a grand and have a great set of speakers and you're going to be like oh, wow so this is what they're talking about.
Speaker 1:This is, and when you get that, when you get that in the car, you're like oh my God, this is awesome, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, a lot of times with homes or what. What I ended up finding is that, just like there's just so many home audio can, can and is just as deep as car audio. Oh yeah, Um.
Speaker 2:I think, just like how, like, yeah, you know, not every Regular speaker, you know, for a car Raw speaker is created equally, not every cabinet is created equally, meaning like, for instance, like these Rebels, because they're kind of like a, they are a three way design with a waveguided Tweeter. They have a pretty good dispersion pattern horizontally, meaning that it's going to be a wider image. You would never get this imaging in a vehicle. Absolutely not happening. I don't care what was, it's not happening. But you have, like, let's say, your Kev LS50s, right, because that's a concentric design, meaning that the tweeter is built inside the woofer and the woofer is acting as the tweeter's waveguide. It is a point source, I guess not really precise, is the correct, is the correct word? But a more narrow sound stage, um, which is more keen and in line to maybe what can we can expect in a car because of all the reflections, um, but my personal enjoyment, and that's kind of like up to you, like what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy. If you like a speaker that has a wide radiation pressure and you like a wide sound, sweet, get a speaker with a wide horizontal dispersion pattern. But just know, because of that dispersion pattern, that means it's going to have more interaction and the room is going to play a bigger part, especially if it's not tuned correctly Not me tuning it, but like from the maker.
Speaker 2:Like Harman makes Rebel, I tell them this is an engineered speaker, meaning that the on-axis and off-axis response are extremely similar. So when both sounds hit me, one's not wildly different than the other, so it doesn't muddy up the sound, um. So I can kind of get away with a more untreated room with these rebels than, let's say, the bowers. Where those aren't, I mean good, lucky, they have been a tree room and even then the on the on-le response isn't that good when, like the LS50, even though the frequency response isn't that great but the dispersion pattern is narrower.
Speaker 2:So you can kind of get away with having a non-treated room. And having a treated room really makes a huge difference, just like sounding in your car. You can have the most expensive speakers possible, but if room is echoey, um and messing up, the group delay because of time smear, it's never going to sound right. And just like in a vehicle doesn't matter how much money you spend on the, on the speakers or the towers, if, if the car vehicle, if the car rooms, the issue. You got to treat that first yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's funny how a lot of the stuff that applies to home audio also applies to car audio in a sense you know, reflections and resonances, and you know, on access response, off access response. It's physics, is physics. I keep saying that all the time. But but, miguel, I think we're gonna wrap it up. We got a lot of content. You in almost two hours, buddy. Uh, where can?
Speaker 2:people find you online and or on Instagram.
Speaker 1:What's your handle Give?
Speaker 2:people out there your information.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, it's waveformtuningcom, that's my website, or waveformtuning on Facebook and Instagram as well. Also have a YouTube waveformtuning, so if you want to check out some of that stuff there. I'm still cringing on why I couldn't remember the different phase wraps, so if anyone got to the end, my bad. I understand it now. Steeper slope, more delay phase going up, it means arriving earlier. Clear that up I'm an idiot, but not that much. No, I just be forgetting, kind of like. Sometimes, man, you tell me go left and I go right, my brain just forgets. I'm like what's happening today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's good stuff, man Give you a lot of information. Thank you, buddy, but everybody say goodbye to Miguel. Thank you, miguel. Stick around, miguel. Thank you, yeah.