Do I like my CDT HD62?

[rammie 10+ year member]

Finally got my HD 62 installed and running off US Amps MD 22, front doors in a chevy tahoe. But im not sure how much i like them. They sound good but for the money im not super impressed. The CDT NEOX 6.5 slim I have in the rear running off alpine deck power (9815) are very impressive for the under $100 price. Anyone have tips on how to get more out of the HD62s? Im running about 200w to them, but might need to dial in all the crossover points and all that. They sound pretty good at higher volumes but im not getting the full sound i was hoping for.

Click to read more...

 

[rammie 10+ year member]

Also the doors are already deamplified or whatever with second skin, the bass is good but the sound is a little hollow for my taste. Is that typical with these or am i missing something

 

[PremierAudio 10+ year member]

Are they mounted to a baffle or directly to the doors? How much deadening do you have? Do you have an Eq on your H/U you can tweak with?

 

[rammie 10+ year member]

They are mounted in the factory "baffle" i guess, the truck came with stock components so there is kinda a spot for them already. They were installed and wired by a auto sound shop. There is one layer of the thick second skin over the whole door. The low end is good its just im not hearing $400 or so worth of sound out of these (right now i would ~almost~ prefer to have 4 of the NEOX in here). The alpine 9815 headunit does have its own x-over and eq. Im not an expert at sound tuning so I havent really messed with this too much. If possible id like to get more of a "rich" sound, with a good feel of "surround" sound, right now its a little harsh and directional, whereas the NEOX in the back have a nice enveloping sound. Let me note again that im no expert on this so I wouldnt even know where to start...

 

[alteraudiousa 10+ year member]

is it the midbass or the mid that you are having problems with? It could be EQ and the HPF on the HU if its on. Also where are the tweets located at? I've never had anyone complain about the HD's and if the NeoX are doing better my guess is bad install.

 

[PremierAudio 10+ year member]

Definetly install. The HD should be substantially better than the neos. Do you by chance have the owners manual of the H/U? If so, find the area dealing with filters and such...Read and follow directions, dont be affraid to play around to find what sounds best to You.

 

[BASSMEKANIK 10+ year member]

i love my cdt's. i love the sound and im only running them off hu power and the get loud and never distort. play around with your hu setting. that hu has a 5 band parametric so its going to take some tuning. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[alteraudiousa 10+ year member]

Also i would check the phase of them and make sure they are right. If they are out of phase that could change the sound of them also. But my guess is more install from the shop, they wanted it to sound bad so they could tell you how "good" their products will sound compared to the CDTs. I've caught some shops actually doing that which upsets me.

 

[Notwerk 10+ year member]

Well, being electrically in phase doesn't guarantee that the speakers will sound right, so it's always worth playing with the phase anyway. Also, check to see if there is a high-pass enabled on the crossovers (either amp or head unit) and try lowering it.

 

[suleman36 10+ year member]

The #1 problem is the lack of power your giving your hd62 set. Your not getting anything close to there potential with only 100 watts per side.

They will come alive with a solid 150-200 rms per side. Trust me on this as i have played with this set for over 1 year.

They are an amazing set once you feed them enough power.

Also try this. Set your amps HPF to pass or off

Set the HPF on the HU at 12db @ 100hz and then start playing with the freq. and drop it to 80hz and see if you get the sound you want.

You can also go with a more shallow slope and do 6db @ 100hz and see how that sounds.

Just play with that for starters but mainly keep in mind you will need more power to get them to there potential.

 

[Notwerk 10+ year member]

The #1 problem is the lack of power your giving your hd62 set. Your not getting anything close to there potential with only 100 watts per side.
They will come alive with a solid 150-200 rms per side.

This is very, very unlikely. I'll say once again, a speaker won't "come alive" because of a given amount of wattage, unless you have no idea how to set your gains. For normal listening levels, 50 watts would do. For safety's sake, I'd give them their RMS and call it a day. Of course, none of this matters because he already posted that he has 200w on tap. So, it absolutly isn't a power question.

I'd say to look at speaker phase and crossover adjustment. If neither of these helps, maybe the speaker just isn't for him. That's the danger of buying speakers you haven't heard in person: Sometimes you end up with something that just doesn't appeal to your ear.

 

[nosaj070 10+ year member]

I'm not sure how this wasn't mentioend, but how about tweeter placement....This sounds like an obvious imaging issue here, it has nothing to do with power, he said it sounds better at high volumes. I realize that you would prefer to have your tweets in the stock locations (which I'm assuming is in the sail panel?) but that may not actually be ideal as far as quality goes. The shop doesn't really give two shits about how well the speakers are imaging, so it may be worth your while to try and re-aim the tweets without moving them. If that still doesn't help you can always move them to a location closer to the mid (which I feel is the exact reason why your coax's sound better). If all else fails and you really don't want to move the tweet, you can live with it, or I've heard of pretty good success by putting in the image enhancement kits at the top of your windshield or so... Good luck, I've actually got a set of HD's comin in the mail by the end of the week so I'm pretty excited to see what they can do.

Also I don't see anywhere that he is running these things active, so in reality all of the talk about adjusting x-over points on the HU aren't going to do a whole lot while running them passive.

 

[adam71 5,000+ posts]

Other than running a pair of coaxials off of head unit power, there isn't much in car audio that is "plug and play".

Those components are more install dependent and tuning dependent than anything else. I wouldn't use the factory baffle. I would put them in the kicks if you have room. Also, if you have to go in the door then I would beef it up a little first.

Last but certainly not least, tuning will make or break ANY component system. You can have a set of rainbow references and they would sound like **** as well if not tuned properly.

 

[rammie 10+ year member]

Thanks for all the help guys, I will definitely have to check some things out with the setup and tuning. Ill try the filters first becuase it does sound like something is missing. Ive been messing with the EQ a bit but will have to work on that more. The install seems ok actually, there is no resonance or vibration and the bass/mid sounds pretty good and deep. The tweeter is mounted in the factory tweet location, a little above and to the side of the woofer. I will have to see how it is aimed.

What are some things that I could check and/or ask the installer (Ive dealt with him a lot lately and he is helpful) about the install and setup to be sure it was done best for these speakers?

Thanks again for assisting, Im pretty sure this is a good speaker, I just need to get it sorted out.