[cdgatti]

Been debating between ms-8 which basically does everything OR going with a combination of audiocontrol equalizer and/or spatial enhancer like esp-3. How much would I be giving up with the old school stuff?

Amps are xd400/4 on front and rear components and 2 channel soundstream on the underseats.

[ctuna]

If you have L7 I would think the tendency would be to provide upgrades to the major speakers and amplification to them all.
Its funny some of the threads on L7 say that system sounds better if you turn off the L7 processing.

[cdgatti]

I have hifi and bsw mids and polk coaxial center and ssmb8 underseats.

[ctuna]

What drives the center ?

[cdgatti]

either the ms-8 or the esp-3, that is the question of the thread. RIght now it is driven from the QD-2 from dynaco.

[cdgatti]

Let me ask a more specific question to elicit some responses.

With the old school stuff I can achieve equalization, extract center channel and add some 'spatial' character. One thing I can't seem to add is time alignment like the modern dsp can do.

For those experienced in listening to systems with and without time alignment how critical is it?

[taibanl]

I notice a signuficant difference when sitting in seats other than the driver seat. (other seats arent ta'd yet)

[cdgatti]

Bump for some specific feedback on the esp-3, anyone use one before?

[808MGuy]

Originally Posted by taibanl

I notice a signuficant difference when sitting in seats other than the driver seat. (other seats arent ta'd yet)

What do you mean by yet? You can only TA for one location. Whether that location is right in the center of the car or at one particular seat is up to you but I don't think you can TA for multiple positions as the same time.

I tend to not use TA because of the fact that it really makes things sound odd from the other seating positions. If you mainly drive by yourself, then its not a big deal but if you regularly have passengers, you might think twice about TA.

[kaigoss69]

You can only have one sweet spot in the car and you can only have it with TA (using OEM speaker locations). TA makes ONE seat sound great. No TA makes ALL seats sound like crap.

[taibanl]

Originally Posted by 808MGuy

What do you mean by yet? You can only TA for one location. Whether that location is right in the center of the car or at one particular seat is up to you but I don't think you can TA for multiple positions as the same time.

I tend to not use TA because of the fact that it really makes things sound odd from the other seating positions. If you mainly drive by yourself, then its not a big deal but if you regularly have passengers, you might think twice about TA.

I mean they arent t/a'd yet. I have ms-8 so i plan on calibrating all seats and having them selectable so i can demo the system to pax.