alecbings
Junior Member
On a recent road trip I noticed an extremely bothersome development
with my car stereo, an early 2008 Hyundai OEM. (I initially noticed
the issue running my iPod into an 1/8" Aux In, but the same problem is
also noticeable when listening to music via the built-in MP3-CD
player.)
I do most of my music listening in the car, so I'm primarily used to
the sound of my favorite records as heard through my car stereo.
Halfway through the trip, however, I noticed that the stereo seemed to
all of a sudden be ruining the mix on most songs I listened to; a lot
of the time the changes were fairly subtle (usually raising the levels
on vocals and drums and isolating them awkwardly from the rest of the
arrangement) but in more extreme cases it would almost entirely
suppress other elements of the recording, especially keyboards and
strings.
I wouldn't characterize myself as an audiophile, but hearing my
favorite music sonically mutilated is another matter, so I've just
been sticking to audiobooks & podcasts in between painful bouts of
trying to find concrete enough examples to take my car in to Hyundai
and have them look at it.
So far, though, I haven't managed to find a strong enough illustration
of the problem to trust a non-audio specialist (I'd like to get it
handled under my warranty @ Hyundai if it's a legit hardware problem,
and at this point can't stand the thought of putting an ugly third
party stereo in) to hear and understand what I'm talking about. (My
wife, for instance, would occasionally notice, but for the most part
thought I was crazy.)
So: any thoughts/opinions as to what might be the issue, or additional
steps I can take to more efficiently diagnose it, or good places to go
to get a (ideally free) consultation on it?
The iPod doesn't have the problem when hooked up to other systems, and
we replaced the cable connecting it to the Aux input to no avail, but
the carryover to the CD player seems to essentially rule those out anyway. All
four speakers in the car seem to be working fine, and though I
initially suspected it was only getting one "mono" channel and then
simulating stereo on the back end, I've tested it using split-channel
audio and there doesn't seem to be an imbalance. Both channels
work, it just (to phrase the problem in another, possibly less
accurate way) seems to be giving the "center" channel unreasonable
precedence over the rest of the sound.
The only external factor would have been an increasingly cold climate
as we drove north.
Thank you for at the very least reading! Hope you can help. This is killing me.
with my car stereo, an early 2008 Hyundai OEM. (I initially noticed
the issue running my iPod into an 1/8" Aux In, but the same problem is
also noticeable when listening to music via the built-in MP3-CD
player.)
I do most of my music listening in the car, so I'm primarily used to
the sound of my favorite records as heard through my car stereo.
Halfway through the trip, however, I noticed that the stereo seemed to
all of a sudden be ruining the mix on most songs I listened to; a lot
of the time the changes were fairly subtle (usually raising the levels
on vocals and drums and isolating them awkwardly from the rest of the
arrangement) but in more extreme cases it would almost entirely
suppress other elements of the recording, especially keyboards and
strings.
I wouldn't characterize myself as an audiophile, but hearing my
favorite music sonically mutilated is another matter, so I've just
been sticking to audiobooks & podcasts in between painful bouts of
trying to find concrete enough examples to take my car in to Hyundai
and have them look at it.
So far, though, I haven't managed to find a strong enough illustration
of the problem to trust a non-audio specialist (I'd like to get it
handled under my warranty @ Hyundai if it's a legit hardware problem,
and at this point can't stand the thought of putting an ugly third
party stereo in) to hear and understand what I'm talking about. (My
wife, for instance, would occasionally notice, but for the most part
thought I was crazy.)
So: any thoughts/opinions as to what might be the issue, or additional
steps I can take to more efficiently diagnose it, or good places to go
to get a (ideally free) consultation on it?
The iPod doesn't have the problem when hooked up to other systems, and
we replaced the cable connecting it to the Aux input to no avail, but
the carryover to the CD player seems to essentially rule those out anyway. All
four speakers in the car seem to be working fine, and though I
initially suspected it was only getting one "mono" channel and then
simulating stereo on the back end, I've tested it using split-channel
audio and there doesn't seem to be an imbalance. Both channels
work, it just (to phrase the problem in another, possibly less
accurate way) seems to be giving the "center" channel unreasonable
precedence over the rest of the sound.
The only external factor would have been an increasingly cold climate
as we drove north.
Thank you for at the very least reading! Hope you can help. This is killing me.
