Distortion problems with amp/components---easy fix i think

[pd1dish 10+ year member]

Hey guys, I recently had installed a set of Alpine SPR-60C components powered by a Soundqubed Q4-90 amp to upgrade from my stock system (I still have stock HU btw). Anyways, after installation, the speakers sounded great and I was getting great power output (which is the main reason I upgraded from my stock speakers in the first place).

However, I was getting a white noise in the background even when my radio was set to 0 volume. I had them for about a month and I didnt want to start messing with the settings on my amp so I waited until I had time to bring it back to where I had everything installed and they happily took a look at it. They successfully got rid of the white noise (by lowering the gain i presume), but now I have a few other problems that werent there before...

1. When the bass hits, the rest of the music gets softer

2. Power output seems to have gone down---I used to be comfortable playing my music at volume 28-30 and now I can crank it to max (35) and am still not happy with how loud it is

3. It seems as though the mids and lows are softer than before but this could be the result of the overall power output being lower but idk

I am a little uncomfortable troubleshooting this on my own so if you guys have any suggestions on how I can tune my amp to maximize the power and fix the distortion I am experiencing, I would greatly appreciate it, thanks

PS

I would prefer having maximum power with a little distortion than to have spent $800 to not really notice an upgrade from my stock system

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[sthib 10+ year member]

Set gains properly and see if the ran the rca's next to the power wire might be picking up some distortion from them being ran next to each other. This happened to my buddy when he had a shop install his mids and highs.

 

[pd1dish 10+ year member]

as far as how they wired it, I had these setup in my car for over a month with the only distortion being the white noise. they fixed the white noise without changing how they wired it, so these new problems must have started after they played with the tuning settings on my amp.

just playing with the gain levels isnt doing much (as far as I know). I turned up the gain to the point where the white noise came back even worse, then adjusted it to where the distortion is only there at about 50% volume and up. what I find odd, though, is that the music itself sounded best (it was louder, the mids/lows sounded better, the music didnt get softer when the bass hit) when I had a horrible white noise (i dont notice it when music is playing, just when I am in driving in silence).

as far as the power sort of being drained when the bass hits, could that be due to the base boost being turned up? I feel like since I dont have a sub, it should be turned to 0. also, would the LPF or HPF have something to do with it? I dont want to touch these settings unless someone who knows what theyre talking about suggests it...

also, if it helps in anyway, here is how they have my amp currently setup: RCAs connected to channels 1 and 2, X-over set to HPF