fing door speakers are distorting!^%$#

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

Ok so my front door speakers (the polks) sound really good most of the time....but sometimes on certain tracks they distort and sound like total ***...I'm kind of at a loss as to what I should do...this will be my third try at instaling these in the doors ...and I am getting frustrated. I am thinking about just free airing them because they are in these crazy pods I built...well not really built...I moded the plastic 5inch stock boxes to fit the 4x6 plates....WTF should I do now...getting new speakers is not an option at this point...

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[azngotskills 10+ year member]

Have you tried setting the gains on your amp again?

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

Yes I have.

 

[Black_Jesus 10+ year member]

make sure that the front and back waves are properly seperated. are there any gaps between the speaker and what its being mounted to? if so seal it up!

also what kind of distorting is it, are they being fed too much bass or is it the tweeter distorting, is the midrange distorting, what...

 

[ramos 5,000+ posts]

Is it distorting with low bass ? Do you have a high pass crossover on them ? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[elementxero 10+ year member]

I had a similar problem on my 5.25"s, but installing them with the foam baffling they sell on crutchfield and setting the high pass to only send >80Hz made all the difference.

Now to get a sub installed for the low end thats MIA! >_

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

bet you are feeding them too much bass.

they are coaxials right? you need to highpass them at like 80~100hz.

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

no not coax...seperate tweeter and midrange attached to a plate w/ two way crossovers...it's a low end distortion there are no air leaks that I know of...these speakers are in some uber funky boxes though....well I wouldn't really call them boxes....more like pods...they are made of plastic...I cut the front part off of them because they were made to take a 5" speaker and replaced it with some sheet metal and silicone...but they are ported so I wasn't really worried about the silicone blowing out or anything like that...what do you think about running them without the boxes/pods etc...stupid idea? it's just really hard cause I don't have a lot of options due to space requirements and I need to use these same speakers in the front as I have in the back...btw the ones in the back in sealed boxes sound wayyy better and louder than the ones in my doors so I think it's a box problem...I would make fiberglass floor pods but I don't have room on the drivers side to do it...

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

no not coax...seperate tweeter and midrange attached to a plate w/ two way crossovers...it's a low end distortion there are no air leaks that I know of...these speakers are in some uber funky boxes though....well I wouldn't really call them boxes....more like pods...they are made of plastic...I cut the front part off of them because they were made to take a 5" speaker and replaced it with some sheet metal and silicone...but they are ported so I wasn't really worried about the silicone blowing out or anything like that...what do you think about running them without the boxes/pods etc...stupid idea? it's just really hard cause I don't have a lot of options due to space requirements and I need to use these same speakers in the front as I have in the back...btw the ones in the back in sealed boxes sound wayyy better and louder than the ones in my doors so I think it's a box problem...I would make fiberglass floor pods but I don't have room on the drivers side to do it...

you may be hitting lower than the boxes are tuned to... which is a bit of a problem... though I can't imagine why you would put a front stage in a ported box?!?!?... try sealing up the port or cutting the back of the box out, sealing up your doors and run them IB...

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

so just use the door panel as a baffel (spelling?) and dont worry about enclosing the back of the woofer...heh heh ya I don't have a very orthodox system...as far as why I put them in a ported box...hehe i'm going to be sounding like a noob here I know this sounds stupid but I guess I thought (at the time) that since I was replacing a 5 inch speaker with a four inch speaker that I should keep it the same...I did try plugging the ports with some stuff...it didnt help... but ahh it's weird I almost need pics to explain it but everything is buttoned up right now so I can't take any.

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

you may be hitting lower than the boxes are tuned to... which is a bit of a problem...

ok I dont really know jack about box tuning...but i'm guessing the box will artifically boost certain frequencies that it shouldn't if it's tuned wrong?

 

[forbidden 10+ year member]

You are crossing them over too low for the amount of output you are expecting. A smaller speaker can play low frequencies easily until you feed them too much amplitude at a given frequency. As output levels go up, so does the amplitude. You are more than likely exceeding the mechanical parameters of the speaker at those frequencies. Either turn the gain down or turn the crossover point up. Need more output in that frequency range, go to a larger speaker that can handle the increase in amplitude that you are sending.

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

Ya so I fixed my problem by cutting holes in the back of the boxes and using the door as an enclosure. I had tried to use the crossover built in to the jl amp but it sounded bad because the speakers already have built in passive crossovers...anyways here's some pics...

Removed from the door.

Back of pod before.

After.

 

[brandontw 10+ year member]

it shouldnt matter if the speakers have passive crossovers or not, you should still use the high pass crossover on your JL amp, it wont counteract the passives on the speakers, it will just cut off the low end frequencies those little speakers cant handle at high volumes, it might have sounded bad when youi tried it because you crossed it over way to high, or low, its adjustable you know. you should have it at 80-100 as these guys said.

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

it shouldnt matter if the speakers have passive crossovers or not, you should still use the high pass crossover on your JL amp, it wont counteract the passives on the speakers, it will just cut off the low end frequencies those little speakers cant handle at high volumes, it might have sounded bad when youi tried it because you crossed it over way to high, or low, its adjustable you know. you should have it at 80-100 as these guys said.

they have two way crossovers...the lows are already cut...and yeah thanks I know it's adjustable...I tried it both ways and found I lost a lot of detail with the jl crossover engaged.