Have I been screwed?

ritalin · Post by **ritalin** » March 7th, 2007, 6:17 pm

I recently had a new head unit and speakers installed professionally, and to be honest, I'm not really very happy with the sound - especially not for what I paid. I don't know much about car stereos, so I think the salesman may have just tried to brush me off.

I selected a pretty good Sony CD head unit that would take an ipod input, and I told the salesman that whatever speakers he thought would be appropriate would be fine. I gave him the caveat that I didn't really want a sub or amplifier (as I can't drive with really loud music, and my only experience with subs has been with people who have them turned up so loud it makes the panels of the car rattle!).

Well I got the car back, and I have been pretty underwhelmed with the sound. Music sounds very tinny, thin and empty. I know I said I didn't want a sub... but there was more bass coming from the 16 year old stock speakers than this!

I happened to take the skin off one of the doors to look at something unrelated, and I noticed that the speakers in the door are the absolute cheapest bottom of the line 6" 1-way pioneer speakers. They have little tweeters that sit in the door too. What's worse, the metal frame of the speaker was bolted straight to the metal of the door - no washers or insulation - is this standard?
I checked the back speakers - they look like 6.5" 2-way pioneers.

I had been led to believe that I should have really good speakers at the front, as they provide most of the sound...but in the rear the speakers should be more basic as these just provide fill.

So can anyone help me out? Are my expectations for good sound just ridiculous given I don't want a sub or amp? Can anyone suggest a modest speaker combo that will give me a great sound?

Thanks!

Vanished · Post by **Vanished** » March 7th, 2007, 6:55 pm

take out the rear speakers, you don't need them. Your bets bet it to go into a car audio store, and actually listen to the speakers. Pic which one you like. Also, if you want more midbass or bass, get a componnet set. They won't boom, but it's better than what you have. Some good brands include

Apine (type-X)
Focal
Polk
MB Quart

Listen first then buy.

ritalin · Post by **ritalin** » March 7th, 2007, 8:00 pm

I have component speakers in the front already... and there's no bass there at all.

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » March 7th, 2007, 11:15 pm

Not trying to disuade you from MX-3.com, but have you been to http://www.teameunos.com ? They are based in Australia and might know where you bought the stuff from or maybe one of the members is close to you and can come help take a look at what you have. The fact is that paper speakers produce the best and most acurate sound in a wide range. Thus, most manufacturers use them to save money and still get a good quality sound. I had the same complaint with my first set of speakers. Since most higher end speakers are meant to be accompanied by a sub they are built for higher sound. You can easily get a smaller sub that will not require a big amp and have great sound without it being any louder than you would like.
I suggest contacting TeamEunos and see if someone there can help you out locally. I also suggest getting a small 8 or 10" sub and a amp to power it. You'll be much happier with the sound production. You can tune the subs volume through the amp with the gain control. Also, most headunits have sub control built into them if you have a sub hooked up so that you can change the sub output while driving to suit different songs.

ritalin · Post by **ritalin** » March 7th, 2007, 11:28 pm

Heh, I had tried to look at the team eunos site many times a few weeks ago, but the forums were constantly down, so I gave up on them.

Thanks for the advice.

ketamine · Post by **ketamine** » March 8th, 2007, 9:14 am

i have polks all around, 5 1/2" in the front and 6" in the back, and i have absolutely no bass....all 4 speakers have tweeters and arent in boxes...would putting the back speakers in boxes help or should i just replace them with non-tweetered speakers?

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » March 8th, 2007, 9:44 am

Boxes will help some, but the fronts would need kick panels made which is not that hard IF you know how to do it. Otherwise boxes for the fronts is going to be tricky if not impossible. The best answer is to buy a sub and amp. If you get a smaller sub it will not require that much power and you can get away with smaller wires and a smaller amp to keep the cost down.

Suresperance · Post by **Suresperance** » March 8th, 2007, 10:09 am

try pushing the volume button in on the head unit. this should alow you to tune perticular settings .... if you want more bass then just crank the bass up. aslo try tuning it more for the the rear like one or two notches to the rear. you have two ways in the rear so you should get alittle more bass out of that and they should handle alittle more power. if worse comes to worse it wouldnt hurt to get one 8" sub with a 100watt amp i couldnt see the whole setup costing more than another two hunderd or so expcialy if you buy off ebay. the cool think about the sony head unit you got (im assuming its almost the same as mine) is that when you do have a sub you can tune how loud the sub is right from the drivers seat.

neutral · Post by **neutral** » March 8th, 2007, 2:39 pm

Suresperance wrote:try pushing the volume button in on the head unit. this should alow you to tune perticular settings .... if you want more bass then just crank the bass up. aslo try tuning it more for the the rear like one or two notches to the rear. you have two ways in the rear so you should get alittle more bass out of that and they should handle alittle more power...

Also curious here to see if there is a head unit control adjustment needed. Esp when reading "Music sounds very tinny, thin and empty... there was more bass coming from the 16 year old stock speakers than this!" g/l

ritalin · Post by **ritalin** » March 8th, 2007, 4:58 pm

I've tried having a play with all the settings on the headunit, and the best sound seems to come from the 'Xplod' EQ setting, which I had been led to believe was the heavy bass setting? Any of the other preset EQ setting just sound totally thin and tinny.
I can manually set the EQ, but I haven't done this yet, as I don't really know what I'm doing, in that regard.

I think I'm going to have to get a small sub and amp, which I really didn't want to do. I've heard other people's car stereos give amazingly full sound, without an amp or sub, and from a $70 headunit, but I'll be damned as to how they managed it. :/

ariesdude · Post by **ariesdude** » March 8th, 2007, 6:33 pm

Make sure your speaker wires are not shorted or crossed and make sure the deck is grounded properly with the proper gauge wire. Also try a different cd or radio station just to make sure that is not the problem. If the deck has DSO - turn it on or off to see if it makes a difference. Also most sony decks i have seen have a "loudness" function that you can turn on or off from the menu - it basically boosts the bass 5 fold. You can also try experimenting with stock speakers - because the stock speakers IMO have good bass response.

Typhoonk · Post by **Typhoonk** » March 9th, 2007, 4:17 pm

Go back talk to a manager, say you are not happy. Ask for different speakers (but listen to them first).
Then make sure you spend some time with the installer after so he can show you some basic controls on the deck to tune your music to how you want it

cheers and good luck

SuperK · Post by **SuperK** » March 9th, 2007, 8:11 pm

I KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS!

well, OK, maybe not KNOW, but I have a good idea.
Those pioneer's he selected, they're pathetic. They are a low profile speaker designed for space-restricted areas.
If the specialist wanted to spend time doing your car right, he would have purchased an adapter kit to allow for a larger magnet speaker to fit without rubbing on the window. HOwever since they're mounted directly on the frame, it's undoubtedly that he chose the low profile model.

Before I purchased my Polk MOMO system, the speakers that were in there before were similar low profile kenwood's which housed two .8 ounce magnets, and the sound was very, very small. Bass not included.

Polk does have non-component line of their MOMO series speakers.
Remember, high quality fronts aren't going to have much kick to them, they'll be lacking on the bass, and absolutely fantastic on the mid-high end range. This is because manufacturers figure if you're going serious about sound, you're going to be running your larger subs for your low frequencies. Thus they'll tune the fronts for mid-high's.

I did some window shopping at Tweeter the other day to compare speakers. They had some Focal's, alpine's and polk's, mtx's and such.
mtx=crap. don't even consider them.
focal's are almost identical to the Polk's, but the Polk's win with cleaner highs. Plus, they're cheaper!
Alpines, I wasn't very impressed with.

However, the other 3 brands are very much capable of pleasing you without the use of a sub. However, I don't know how much the built in amp on your head unit is capable of supplying. You might need an amp to gain teh full potential from your fronts.

SuperK · Post by **SuperK** » March 9th, 2007, 8:15 pm

Let's to a comparison of low profile vs. big 'n juicy:

Big magnet = testimony to it's power capablilties. I guarantee your pioneer has something similar to the kenwood on the right

This speaker, too, was mounted as yours was. on a metal bracket directly to the metal frame.

chew* · Post by chew* » March 9th, 2007, 10:08 pm

I think a dollar amount may have had something to do with speakers that you received. A good set of components range in at $200. It sounds like you did indeed get components however pioneer isn't that great and the fact that they offer a Premier line of high quality products attests to that.

Also using radio outputs is pointless, to improve sound quality you need an amplifier. I won't even install or upgrade speakers in anyones car unless they use an amp. Most of the time they say ok i'll do it myself and then a week later they are asking me to do it right.

For quality sound you need a 3 way system. this consists of tweeters, midrange and a subwoofer.
For high quality sound you can get away with a 3 way but I highly suggest 4 way if the car allows for the use of it. For instance bmw 3 series use a 5.25 mid bass, 3 mid, 1 tweeter. I prefer the sound of the 6.5, 4 ,1 setup myself. and then a single 10 or 12 sub. Use of amplifiers and 30 band 1/3 octave equalizers such as audio controls DQS is also a neccesity to clean up the cars response.