bad sound

[kodyvan20]

I recentley bought a new cd player and sub. The cd player is pioneer 7800-mp with 5 volt preouts. The subwoofer is a JL Audio 12W6v2-D4 in a JL powerwedge box powered by an Alpine MRD-M500 mono block amp rated at 500rms. The sound is horrible. Basically the old CD player (pioneer 7600) and sub (JL 12W3v2-D-4) sounded a lot better. Am i missing something. I have to turn the gain half way down on the amp to even get a decent sound out of the sub otherwise the sub sounds distorted. I am running the amp and sub at 2 ohms. Any ideas?

Click to read more...

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

Is the bass boost on?

 

[crow 10+ year member]

If you've installed a new head unit, you need to reset the gain controls on your amps to match the output voltage on the new head unit. The subwoofer amp is likely distorting because it is being fed a higher voltage from the outputs on the 7800 than the previous head unit. Nothing wrong with needing to turn the gain down, you are simply matching the new head unit to your amplifier.

 

[kodyvan20]

I did lower the gain on the amp to about -13 on a 0 to -24db scale. When I had my W3 I could have the gain set on -4 and it would be fine. I'm still trying to get used to the new pioneer 7800MP settings. Can anyone give me a good idea on how to go about tuning the cd player?

 

[rlcowboy 10+ year member]

OK, r u using the cross over on the deck or amp? Make sure your lowpass crossover setting is somewhere around 80hz or a little under. Then set slope on 12db to start with. Check those Low Pass filter settings I gave u against yours & if your r pretty close to that then make sure your sub is not wired out of phase, that would be another thing to check but it really sounds like your cross over settings need to be adjusted. Shoot me a PM if u need help with your High Pass filters.