GR86 Focal 2 way component OEM retrofit

Lots of this is new to me so is a bit to learn. As you say it can be trial and error and you can always default it. I'll fit tomorrow when it's light, I'll bear the app for now as I don't know anyone I can borrow a laptop from
 
Can anyone explain how the time delays work on the Puzu DSP? Should I reference to the furthest speaker and subtract distances from that? Or just enter distances from the driving position and the dsp works it out?

As the tweeters and door speakers are wired in parallel and will get the same delay, are folks delaying for the tweeters, the doors or somewhere in between?

I'm going to do some measurements with a measurement mic and design filters in REW when I've installed. If anyone is interested in the measurements or wants a filter set let me know.
 
Playing a bit more with it, I've found the sound staging more to my liking by actually having no time delay up front. The rears are so low volume, it doesn't come into play.

I think this is due to the amount of distance from the tweeter to the woofer. I'll be interested to see what your measurements results are, so please post them and share.

For time delay, just enter the distance from listening position (head). It's not perfect but gives a starting point to play around.

Like I said, with the tweeter and woofer so far apart, i've found aurally, it's best with no delay.

Looking forward to your results.
 
Hi,

Just a quick question to those of you that have this installed.

I've just installed the Focal speakers and had a very brief test which confirmed that they are working, albeit at quite a low volume most likely due to not enough power from the stock head unit. I didn't notice anything unusual with the sound output otherwise.

I then installed a Puzu, as recommended. It certainly goes louder but as I was entering some settings to adjust the DSP (with my laptop), I noticed that there's quite a lot of static noise at low volumes (head unit anything below 13 on the volume). Going higher, it's not noticeable. If using the Android app, there's some kind of volume/gain rotary on the screen. Basically if said rotary control is adjusted down to about 5, mostly the static goes away. Anything above that the static is noticeable.

This is playing via Android Auto via AAWireless adapter. Radio sounds a little bit clearer but I don't think it's completely static free at low volumes.

I saw that there's a setting for a noise gate which by default is 3 I think.

I haven't had more time to muck about with this but was wondering if anyone else has noticed the same thing of if there's anything that can be checked? I was using the Puzu settings as posted previously by @ninjin

Thanks in advance!
 
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I don't have any static noise induced by the PUZU on mine. I don't touch the noise gate. Haven't done in all 3 of my installs.

I played music via USB stick, radio and Bluetooth without issue but not wireless AA as haven't installed an adaptor.

Maybe worth trying the radio or usb stick without the wireless AA to see if that is inducing the noise.
 
Ok, as a follow up (as I hate it when others leave things unresolved...)

I did a lot of mucking about from taking it back out again to double check the connections, to making sure I'd not shorted something, etc. Or even possibly bundled the cables too tight inducing interference from somewhere.

The issue turned out to be the noise gate. By default it is set to 3. I'd changed this setting to 0. My understanding of those setting is that the noise gate hard filters out frequencies below a threshold. 0 is basically nothing so it lets everything through which was the cause of the extra static noise. Setting it to max of 20 basically stops anything going through(!) And shifting down you can hear it let more and more through. At level 2 I couldn't hear the static noise.

I was able to set this setting dynamically using the Android app and you can hear the changes on the fly.

Hope this helps anyone else - I was dreading having to send back just in case I had a faulty unit.
 
I fitted the focal speakers, then added a Focal 4.320 amp I picked up new on eBay for £100.
The amp JUST squeezes in to the gap above the glove box.
PXL_20231006_110631943.MP.webp


To wire it in without faffing about, you will also need:

Focal IW-TOY-YISO
And
Focal IW-IMP-EXT150

PXL_20231006_114755455.webp
 
How much all the cables cost?

Nice to have big brand products but the Focal amp won't give you the EQ function which helps so much.
 
Interestingly I've heard from more than one person that Focal's trademark is having quite a bright sound. In car or for home speaker setups
 
ninjin said:
How much all the cables cost?

Nice to have big brand products but the Focal amp won't give you the EQ function which helps so much.
Click to expand...
I managed to pick the cables up for £30 each on eBay.
 
KobayashiMaru86 said:
Interestingly I've heard from more than one person that Focal's trademark is having quite a bright sound. In car or for home speaker setups
Click to expand...
I have treble on -2. Mid +3. Bass 0, and it sounds great to me (though i'm no audiophile). You don't get the eq, but there are pass through, gain etc settings.
 
This is how I spent my evening. Wasn't that hard to do. Little fiddly with the clips for power but once off was fine. Do need to revisit to tape down the DSP and find the 10mm I lost down the dash somewhere. Literally the last bolt and it came off. Did have another 10mm so took it all off again but by this time I was dark and it's probably behind the Aircon. I've yet to do the lollipop trick with the shifter so the trim here needs to come off anyway so I'll do it then.

Initially I thought I'd messed up. Tried to copy settings and it sounded crap, especially at the high end with it distorting. Yes the app is painful for fine tuning and some figures I couldn't get to like in the example. Luckily the 6 presets the app comes with give a good start. I lost preset 1 messing about so preset 2 is good, other presets have way more bass, less bass, more treble, etc. Took it for a spin with a mix of stuff, all the headunit stuff back to defaults and does sound good. Definitely more beef now. Had to turn the volume down to 40 from 60 as at my usual level of 22 was deafening but was still clear.

It's got far more adjustment that I really want. You could spend weeks playing with it and even then it depends on source quality, the track and genre. I'll leave it where it is for now.

1000013352.jpg
 
Ok, installed the Puzu amp yesterday. Straightforward apart from dropping one of the HU bolts down the back. So if anyone has any retrieval tips I'm all ears!

Took some measurements and knocked up an initial set of filters. The attached screenshots show the smoothed response at the drivers head position and my C7 settings, targeting a Harman curve from 20 - 20kHz. Interestingly the C7 PEQ settings won't accept arbitrary values - they self adjust to the nearest 'allowed' values so I couldn't quite replicate exactly the filters from REW but close enough.

Already sounding great to these ears!

response.png


c7 L.webp


c7 R.webp


REW filters.webp
 
srappy said:
Ok, as a follow up (as I hate it when others leave things unresolved...)

I did a lot of mucking about from taking it back out again to double check the connections, to making sure I'd not shorted something, etc. Or even possibly bundled the cables too tight inducing interference from somewhere.

The issue turned out to be the noise gate. By default it is set to 3. I'd changed this setting to 0. My understanding of those setting is that the noise gate hard filters out frequencies below a threshold. 0 is basically nothing so it lets everything through which was the cause of the extra static noise. Setting it to max of 20 basically stops anything going through(!) And shifting down you can hear it let more and more through. At level 2 I couldn't hear the static noise.

I was able to set this setting dynamically using the Android app and you can hear the changes on the fly.

Hope this helps anyone else - I was dreading having to send back just in case I had a faulty unit.
Click to expand...
I haven't had any static noise, but I have occasionally been able to detect a bit of alternator whine. Whether it's been introduced by the amp, or it's always been there is is now just being amplified, I don't know.
 
TheRealMyodo said:
Ok, installed the Puzu amp yesterday. Straightforward apart from dropping one of the HU bolts down the back. So if anyone has any retrieval tips I'm all ears!

Took some measurements and knocked up an initial set of filters. The attached screenshots show the smoothed response at the drivers head position and my C7 settings, targeting a Harman curve from 20 - 20kHz. Interestingly the C7 PEQ settings won't accept arbitrary values - they self adjust to the nearest 'allowed' values so I couldn't quite replicate exactly the filters from REW but close enough.

Already sounding great to these ears!

View attachment 21340
Click to expand...

Excellent stuff, thanks for publishing your work!

What do you use, a Umik or similar?

My car is now in the UK, I'm tempted to order the speakers and Puzu now, but feel like I should give the standard speakers a go first.....

After 20+ years working in the audio industry and being a fussy bugger I know I'll be getting them pretty soon.
 
callahan said:
Excellent stuff, thanks for publishing your work!

What do you use, a Umik or similar?

My car is now in the UK, I'm tempted to order the speakers and Puzu now, but feel like I should give the standard speakers a go first.....

After 20+ years working in the audio industry and being a fussy bugger I know I'll be getting them pretty soon.
Click to expand...
Yep Umik-1 and REW 👍
 
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