Anyone know anything about car audio speakers?

Howdy

I have been through the mill with putting speakers in my car without much happiness. Am almost scarred to join an automotive audio website through fear of being told that unless I install "ABC123" speakers in my car for $10k everything else will sound rubbish.  I figured you guys may have good insight.

Basically my problem is a volume issue it seems. If I turn up the volume they sound alright but at lower listening levels its awful.

So my sorry plight started with being frustrated with the stock sound system. I read on the web that alot of people hated the factory stock system of the same car model but found that the head unit was fine if the speakers were changed - and my own experience of audio usually dictates that speakers are the first point of call.

I purchased Rockford Fosgate Punch splits (6.5" mid bass drivers and 2" tweeters) for the two doors to replace the existing door splits. These speakers seemed like a good idea since the crossover was built into the driver and there wasnt much space in the doors to fit a separate crossover.   The back speakers are tiny and I realised if I wanted proper bass I would need a subwoofer, but since the car is not large i figured I had no room to fit a sub and would simply have to do without a lot of bass.  But how much I would do without I couldn't determine. 

After about 10 hours installing the splits (yes really, those BMW doors are horrible!), I turned on the music. Zero bass whatsoever, but worse, -this very "distant" sound. Like the musicians are playing 100 feet away from your ears.  The speakers are supposed to be really good and as I noted above,  I had seen weblogs of people that used the same head unit in the same car but upgraded the speakers (albeit with a sub) and were thrilled with the results.

As I was driving the other night I had the windows open and turned the volume up really loud. The sound improved a lot and I have come to the realisation that the volume needs to be really loud to sound decent. It still doesn't sound great, but is much improved when cranked, almost like the speakers start moving and come alive.

Now I know that increased volume can sometimes fool people into thinking something sounds better (loundness wars in mastering etc), but i genuinely have a good set of ears and can hear that the speakers sound anemic or underpowerd when they are low.

Can anyone offer me any wisdom?

Experiment for you:

Temporarily move the tweeter very close to the woofer and see how you like it.
Seriously. Also, I HATE the metal - dome tweeters in my component set. If you have a BMW I'm going to assume the doors are solid. I would otherwise suggest doing what you can to stiffen the door response -  a panel and dynamat, before doing anything else.

Tweeter position is HUGE for me though. Component sets are tough. Hopefully you have silk dome...

Are the fronts and rears wired with matching polarity?  Generally (unless you are JBL) + voltage on the "+" terminal will result in an outward cone movement (positive air pressure).  I use a 9V battery and my eyes for polarity confirmation with woofers.

Does the sound change if you fade to the front (mute the rear) and vice-versa?

It sounds like they are out of phase - and the Punch Splits end up over-powering the rears at a certain volume - and then they begin to overcome the inverted polarity issue?

More details please.  I am a car audio "type guy" BTW - but I won't say you need $1200 Dynaudio 3-ways for good sound  ;D

Thanks for the responses.

I hope I haven't reversed the polarity between speakers but will have a look. If I use the fader the fronts are much louder and heavier than the back speakers this is true, but I thought that was just because the little 4" back speakers were just not good quality.

Does it get "Heavier" (more bass response) or weaker (less bass response) if you just slightly blend the smaller rears with the fronts?

Do the fronts sound better by themselves at lower volumes?  Or do they still sound funky and "thin" by themselves at low volumes?

What about L/R balance?  Does the sound have more bass response if you fade to the front, and pan to one speaker channel?

You can generally track down polarity issues with the fader knob and balance knob and your ears - or better yet test from the amp's or radio's connections (disconnect the amp of course) with a 9V and visually verify correct speaker movement.

Good luck!  8)

My employer is one of the major car audio manufacturers (take a quick look at my location, and you can figure that one out), so I've got some experience in this area.

Most factory head units these days have serious EQ applied to the outputs to compensate for the shear Sh*tiness of the factory speakers.
Furthermore, these EQ curves often change as you increase/decrease the volume.

Think of it as if you're loading a new EQ preset for every notch in the volume control.

This may be why you're getting really poor sound from a set of aftermarket speakers that should be performing better.

The solution to the problem I've described is to replace the head unit with an aftermarket unit (which will have full-bandwidth, flat outputs).
OR you may be able to connect an external summing device to sum all the signals from the factory head unit into a full-bandwidth signal which can then be passed through an EQ and into separate amplifiers and finally to your speakers & subs.

Factory head units are worse than ever these days, which makes it extremely difficult to upgrade your system and get it sounding good without replacing everything.
Anyway, I can't say for certain that this is your problem, but it's quite common on modern vehicles (especially those with "premium" factory systems).
You could play pink noise and scope the outputs of the factory head unit to see what's going on.

Let me guess - The pioneers of the stitched surround?  I know I had a few Kicker subs in my day  

JL and a few others make boxes that can "learn" the non-linearities of your stock head unit and compensate for them - then they spit out fairly flat  RCA level outputs to the amps.  But that then means you'll need the add-on box AND amps!

Luckily I'm still driving a 1999 Tacoma 4x4 - so swapping the Radio was cake.  I'm not looking forward to getting a new vehicle and the associated radio headaches I know I'll run into.  Supreme sound in my rides is a MUST!!!  8)

Randyman... said:

Let me guess - The pioneers of the stitched surround?

Click to expand...

*wink*

Your responses are a kicker guys!


So I did the fader test and the there is only slightly less bass when I fade all the way to the back. When I fade full forward slighly more bass but not a huge amount. As removing the doors was such a huge job last time I am reluctant to do so to see the wiring polarity.

Pushing the balance from one side to another doesn't seem to alter the sound that much. Maybe its just the head unit is the weakness.

Maybe I am just losing some hearing

Skylar said:

Factory head units are worse than ever these days, which makes it extremely difficult to upgrade your system and get it sounding good without replacing everything.

Click to expand...

I have to agree with Skylar on all his points.  Often times factory speakers are pretty good.  Especially if they're component speakers.  The real shortcoming is what is charged with the task of pushing them.  I had a VW Passat a few years ago.  The stereo was OK, but not good enough for an audio guy.  So I swapped out the head unit with a no frills Alpine, and added external amplifiers.  A 4-channel MTX powering the stock speakers and a mono MTX powering a 10" Polk sub.  It was far from elaborate, but it was by far the best car audio system I had ever owned or heard. 

When I traded in the car, I left the Alpine installed but wanted to keep my amps and sub.  So I got a cheap amp to power the speakers, to get more trade-in value for having a working stereo.  Wow did it sound bad.  It was back to sounding blah.

In the cars I've had since, implementing anything aftermarket is so difficult.  So I've decided to suffer through.  My commute is about 4 miles round trip, so I can ignore it.  But I have a complete stereo on a shelf, waiting for me to get a fun car that deserves it.

  I like a bit of peace and quiet when I drive home!

      ;D ;D ;D

strangeandbouncy said:

  I like a bit of peace and quiet when I drive home!

      ;D ;D ;D

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There's that aspect, too.  There was a time where the car was like my extra set of near-fields.  Today's factory car stereos are so "improved", I can't tell what the hell I'm listening to, let alone critique my mixes.  2011 sounds terrible.