alpine imprint on facal utopia be

[Luke0011]

this is just a general discussion on alpines new imprint technology and focal utopia b speakers. I have heard a few imprint systems but find it ruduces the subwoofer too much but raises the vocal image right up to eye level. apparently it uses a 512 band parametric on each speaker. im told you can imprint the 4 speakers without the woofer and then plug in the woofer too get the bass you want. The kit 7's woofer does not have a convential magnet assembly but i am told it plays right down to 40 hz. I have just fitted the kit 7's and the new focal kprx in the rears of 2 focal amps using the alpine 502 with imprint.It installed into a r34 skyline with sound deadning and focal plain chant. I havnt yet fully tuned it but interesting to note that Marty Price who reviews all products from Incar Soundmagazine believes out of the box it makes a significant difference but believes that manual tuning is better. obviously the idea is to get the flattest freqency responce with a slight roll off. the imprint program uses a little bit of time alingment but you cant adjust it in any way. so you a bassically relying on whoever built the program to calculate what is best but not what is best for you. I think the prgram should give you access to the 512 band parametric to let youadjust accordingly

[Tasmaniak]

and what the hell is the typical person going to do with 512 bands of adjustment? ****it all up! I was never impressed with Imprint thingy from Alpine. don't know why, it just never gave me anything to go "Oh Wow" to me it's just alpine doing more stuff...

Focal...awesome, nothing more needs to be said.

[Luke0011]

Ok just finished the r34 skyline, and done some more tuning with the imprint IVA-502. When you add the imprint box, you get whats called a parametric eq and a gometric eq. You can use G-eq or P-eq only, not both. The p-eq gives you a q-factor setting as the g-eq does not. As well as time alignment. As well as individual crossover for high mid and low frequecies. You can also adjust the pe- eq or g-eq's left channell and right channell individually or both. This is all done manually, or you can plug in the laptop and sit the microphone in the drivers seat or wherever you want and let the imprint software program tune the above mentioned settings. It takes about 30 minutes to tune the system. After that the software program load 2 settings into the iva-502. It called curve 1 or curve 2. Linear is curve 1 and flat is curve 2. It shows you a graph of the frequency response curve and with this system it still showed a few rises and dips in the overall curve. A few things to note is that with the imprint software adjustment i find it raises the vocal image at mid volume, but i feel its over emphasised at high volume. SO i gues its ok to get the imprint box to add to your system for the time alignment and g-eq or p-eq adjustment. But not for the software adjustment.

[2LOUD2OLD]

interesting, I was under the impression that imprint could only be used for the auto tuning. if you can manually set the eq that would be great and a much cheaper alternative to the H701 if you dont need the extra channels.
although is the manual tuning available with all imprint ready HUs? I have a 9887 and have found the PEQ to be quite restrictive in that you cant put 2 bands too close to each other.
Thanks luke0011, gives me something else to ponder

[Luke0011]

There are 5 imprint boxes fot the various imprint units, not exactly sure but i think 9887 has it built in but you still need the box to do the auto tuning. And with the iva-502 the peq- and time alignment and g-eq become available only when you add the imprint box. the h701 is the imprint box i think, cant remember the model number myself.

[2LOUD2OLD]

nah H701 is alpines processor. its not imprint, has been around since before imprint.
the 9887 does have it inbuilt but yeah you need the box for auto tuning, maybe manual tuning is just not available.
maybe ill go talk to my mate who works in a car audio store and he can check with alpine for me

[moogley]

you can only tune the imprint feature if you have the kit for it which has the software and a microphone and a few other bits ,iv got a 9887 but the store who sold it to me do the tunning for free

[holdenboy]

Yeah, i second that thanks to Luke0011...valuable and useful knowledge