Car audio sounds like poop :(

[2g spyder eclipse]

Well my new to me 97 spyder gst has a aftermarket head unit. I put a sub in the rear and it sounds decent on rap songs, but when I want to listen to my rock it seems like it is hardly there. I had the same woofer set up in my camaro and had no problems bumping some avenged sevenfold. The headunit is a panasonic cq-c7103u and I think it hates me.. I have no clue what to set the HZ to or adjust the SQ.. I put brand new 4 way pyle 6.5's in and they sound good. The rears are shot and need new ones but it still shouldn't effect my sub. All the wiring to the sub is correct. Do I just suck at adjusting the head unit?

 

[slickers111]

Maybe adjust the gains on the amp? Amp settings are huge when trying to get an all out boom.

 

[2g spyder eclipse]

I have played with the settings on the amp to no avail..

 

[clipto]

Check the wiring make sure its good wires not cheap crap. If you have trouble figuring out what the settings do on the stereo read manual or look online or find audio place in your area that can help you out.

 

[firstdsm2g]

If your head unit has a loud option turn it on turn your hrz to the lowest like something like 80 hrz put your fader to like 3 to the rear. Adjust your bass up Maby treble if you want and your eq should be on jazz it has the most bass settings but some head units it will go to cousyom after you turn the bass up.
Now your amp should be rated over what your sub will run you should never have your gain turned all the way up. I hope this helps what amp and sub are you running ?

 

[Spooled420a]

Also to add you might want to check and see if you rear pre amp output is set on rear and not sub. Some models are set to rear and not sub from factory.

 

[2g spyder eclipse]

I hooked my subwoofer to the "sub" output coming from my head unit. It is a 12" kicker comp and like a mtx 400w amp or something.

 

[Spooled420a]

also might be because you went from a hatch to a convertible. the glass hatch will refelct the bass harder then going thru your convertible.

 

[2g spyder eclipse]

Tue, but it still seems like it just refuses to hit on rock songs. But yet if I play some deep bass music, it will shake the whole car.

 

[Spooled420a]

is it a sealed or ported box?

 

[2g spyder eclipse]

sealed.

 

[Spooled420a]

yea that is weird. cause a sealed box for a trunk is suppose to pound. May have to play with the settings again like they posted before.

 

[2g spyder eclipse]

I honestly think this head unit is weird. Because it distorts my speakers at half volume and the sub seems all muddy, but if I play with the hz I can get the sub to sound great but the speakers have to be at full volume to even listen to and enjoy it.. My camarp's stock speakers were waaayy louder on my old head unit. I'd switch head units but it's a huge pain in the ass.

 

[Spooled420a]

well if you live near a circut city they sell a direct plug and play harrnes's for many aftermarket radios for less than $30.

 

[2g spyder eclipse]

The problem is the current panasonic unit has all the pre amps and speaker left/right inputs.. my other headunit doesn't

 

[Breezio69]

I used to do installs when circuit city was still around here in ut... they've since gone out of business at least here... thought company wide?

Anywho. When we would have customers come in, in your same scenario... with either stock or less than great 2 or 3 way speakers. You have to use them to the best you can with setting it up all custom.

A) turn gain on amp all the way down, just listen to the speakers alone
B) set bass at all the way negative on the head unit, go to the volume you listen to music at 30-40 whatever it is.
C) adjust bass up one click at a time till it distorts, could be zero, could be -5, then back it down one.
D) use the sub output, not rear
E) set to 80hz, if it has option of sub control on the unit, like 0+/- turn that down to as far negative as it will go
F) turn amp gain up, try 3/4 at first ( still haven't listed setup so I can't say crank it)
G) start going up with the sub output till you pound. You can also just use this to adjust bass, don't play with the "bass" setting that controls all of the speakers

What this does is seperates your door speakers from running any bass, they shouldn't distort at any volume and you still have full control over your sub.

I've run my own stereos with the bass on the head unit as negative as it will go and just used the pre out for the sub properly... that's what its there for

Then just tune your mids and highs on the head unit for the door speakers, should rock.

I always did the final tunes after installs because I had a knack for getting decent sound out of cheap azzzz customers speakers... spend $900 on a sub and amp and $59 on 6x9's, haha. Kids...

Now your amp should be rated over what your sub will run you should never have your gain turned all the way up.

This is also not accurate information. The amp should either match or if its a mono it can be lower as long as you wire the sub in accordance to the min or max ohm load the amp can handle. I had 2 rockford p2 12's in a blazer hooked to mono 300 watt amp and it sounded like a $2000 system. You do this by running the lowest ohms your amp can handle by series wiring or parallel wiring subs together, or by doing the same on a dual voice coil single sub.

You don't want to have a 600 watt amp pushing a 300 watt rated sub.

We carried 8-9 different brand subwoofers at circuit city, out of them all the only three that could really take the abuse of a 1k mono block we had setup in the shop was mtx, rockford, and alpine.

We had a "1200 watt max rated" sony xplode drop a voice coil after 1 test song, and it sounded like ass doing so...we had fun blowing speakers in our spare time.

Right now I'm running an 800watt amp to an mtx thunder..... I think 6500? Sounds great, gain all the way up, tuned how I have told you above. I also have rockford 6x9's and 6.5 doors, they see -3 on the bass, sound clear as a bell.

Hope this helps and hope you get it sounding good

 

[Squirrlee]

OK can you give me the Model of this head unit? Mine is a Pioneer DEH-X7500HD. This might give me an idea as to why you are having issues getting it tuned.

 

[2g spyder eclipse]

Panasonic cq-c7103u is the head unit.

 

[DSM1G90]

"RAP CRAP" junk has the dB output curve heavilly increased in the low freq range on the final mix than good ol' Rock and Roll uses-which is a flat dB frequency curve...plain and simple.

 

[91-GS]

Didn't see if anyone asked, but how big is the box? Is it custom or store-bought? What is it made of?

 

[Breezio69]

That is one other thing I have noticed... dsm1g90 is correct on the different styles of music.

Avenged sevenfold has always had low bass even on my setup, I always have to adjust my bass through the subwoofer settings when I feel in the mood to listen to them... on the other hand, if you listen to chevelle, throw that in and you will see they are very different bass wise... the same settings for avenged are way too much bass for chevelle.

I've also noticed, if you are playing music from an mp3 player (mine is direct usb ipod cable) the settings on the ipod mess with the overall settings when played... if you have bass boost on on the ipod it plays bass boost through the radio.

Just some more things to play with...

 

[Squirrlee]

Ok I see one issue and that is the 3 EQ options. You have little control of the EQ curves. I have a custom setting on my deck. Then I think you might be running a bass Booster option that is to powerful for the Rap/bump songs when set for Rock. Like someone else said Rap/Dubstep is that the bass crafted to be bigger, where Rock is a real Kick drum and a real bass Guitar behind it. With my old deck I ran it in Flat EQ mode and tuned it with just Bass and Treble because it had no Sub Pre-out. Running full range to the sub is not recommended but I did it until I got the new Deck.

Breez really explained the steps well and it's pretty much the way I tuned my head unit when I put it in. The Door speakers really don't need to have much bass in them, just enough to give the nice warm Mids and the highs need to just cut through the Bass but not be screeming at you.

The Sealed Box is what I have also, I like them best because the bass is very accurate. If it's getting muddy you are putting too much in or it's leaking air.

Now as for the box.......Is it 3/4" MDF and a quality box? Check to see if air is sneaking out around behind the sub or out of the speaker wire connecter. If not check all the seems with the back of your hand as it plays or even a lighter. If you even think the box is leaking from the seems use silicone on the inside and add another layer.

I'm running some older gear but it's all quality stuff. Like Breez said you can make not so good door speakers sound good if you stop feeding them too much bass. The Sub is your Bass the door speakers are your Mids and Highs. Feed them just enough bass to give nice warm mids and no more. I'm running the door speakers just off the deck power for now, I'll add amps and better speakers later on when I have the money for that fun.

 

[2slow4now]

Some good info on audio in here.
Another thing I would add to what Breez said on adjusting amp gains is after you think your good and not distorting or sending the amp into clipping to leave the windows down, music up to your max listening level , walk away and see if you notice any distortion. Sometimes you can hear it farther away.

Ton of information here on stereo stuff. Basic Car Audio Electronics It's even got pictures.

 

[DSM1G90]

I'm a cinema sound technician ....

Love the wire section.

E.G., If using 14/2 braided gauge wire, use a higher strand count wire than a lower count strand. Current flows quicker in a higher strand count wire with less resistance.

..and NEVER use solid wire, for it takes tonnage of voltage to drive the windings in the speaker than a braided wire run.

 

[Breezio69]

One other thing, I know the spyders have a trunk as opposed to the regular model.... after 199x many trunks were starting to be built with pretty much a secondary firewall into the back seat. To completely seal off the trunk. I don't know how spyders are set up... but in my 01 a4 I had, the difference between having the 40% section of 60/40 split rear seat was about 30db on the bass. It literally sounded like nothing with the seat shut.

A few times at the shop we would have customers come back who weren't happy with the sound with seats up. Then we would pull the rear deck carpet, cut holes in the upper trunk deck (3" hole saw) and reinstall the carpet. Sometimes we would add a port tube... same thing as one taken from a ported box.... and it helped with the sound. We usually only added port tubes on trunks with forward facing boxes, with the port in front of the sub. Length of the port tube didn't seem to matter as it does in a ported box.

We also did this on a few trucks with shells that wanted thier subs built in the carpet kit in the bed, 3" ports running straight into the cab from the bed... you wanna hear loud, think about bass reverberating in an entire truck bed then being plumbed into the cab.

Also, the box size and material really matter. Too large and you lose your high bass frequencies, too small and you lose the lows. Usually rock music fall in the mid to smaller box category, tighter sound,higher frequency range.... unless of course you're listening to 311 and sublime, then bring on the lows... haha.

One band that gives me goosebumps listening to, of course on a crisp clean system... deftones, they are really the only band I can give credit to for near flawless final editing on an album, super lows, crazy high effects. If you wanna tune a system all around, throw in white pony or diamond eyes and go to town.

Sorry I kind of got off track there... haha