setting speaker-level output produced increased brightness but no distortion that i could tell. i fed the bit-ten disc back in and did the eq/de-eq process again: turns out there's no need for it w/ speaker-level output.
since speaker-level is back in play, fading all the way forward doesn't cut out the rear door speakers anymore. probably tomorrow, i'll disconnect them completely
one of the judge's feedback was a phase issue in the right midrange. i played w/ test tones and saw it myself: 300-400hz then again at 600hz.
i wanted to see if i had a room/cabin issue, so i put a mic in front of the speakers to minimize the room impact. i disabled the eqs and measured:
turns out the responses are mostly the same but the right channel's frequency response is shifted up a little.
i wondered if i could fix this with more polyfill in the right sail pod. i grabbed some from my wife's craft stash and put it in. turns out it worked!
it filled the area below the curve quite a bit between 250-600hz and brought the peaks more in line with each other.
now the center is all screwed up but the lower midrange is better.
i also spent an hour playing with the midbass settings today, got rid of the 8-10db 100-120hz peaks, and otherwise flattened their response.
back to tuning and learning i guess.