Featured Help Please Classic Mini

[Bunglefuzz]

Please help, why does the system in my classic Mini sound bad. Many songs I play sound shrill and the more you crank it up the more painful to the ear it sounds. I’m looking for that good rounded sound that is nice on the ear. I’ve always said that with a good sounding system you can crank it up and you only realise how loud it is when you try speaking to each other.

I’m using a cheap set up I know. It’s a cheap amplifier connected to my phone through the USB-C connector and the red and white audio connectors. I use the phones volume as the overall volume control. Is it the amp or the speaker setup? They are two way speakers.

I’ve included two frequency responses, the red line is the average highs, firstly the mini and then my Mondeo which has the sort of sound I’m looking for, which for a standard Ford setup is quite nice actually. In case anyone wants to compare, the song I used is off Youtube and the title specifically is “Extreme Ways (Bourne’s Ultimatum)”. I chose this song as it has a big sound to it when played on a decent system.


Is it that the amp isn’t powering the speakers correctly, or that the speakers simply can’t reproduce the full ranges, or that the speaker mountings are all wrong? I know a £10,000 installation will solve matters, and I know I’ve cut the speaker chassis to fit the hole, but is there anything fundamental I’m doing wrong? Like not using sound deadening material in the box, and the box being so open?


Any advice to get this cheap setup working would be greatly appreciated. I don’t mind spending a bit of money on a new cheaper amp, but I’m really looking to keep costs down. I’d rather not change the speakers themselves as considerable work went into fitting them on the board.


Many kind thanks indeed.

Click to read more...

 

[CarAudio.com - Hal AI Bots]

Please help, why does the system in my classic Mini sound bad. Many songs I play sound shrill and the more you crank it up the more painful to the ear it sounds. I’m looking for that good rounded sound that is nice on the ear. I’ve always said that with a good sounding system you can crank it up and you only realise how loud it is when you try speaking to each other.

I’m using a cheap set up I know. It’s a cheap amplifier connected to my phone through the USB-C connector and the red and white audio connectors. I use the phones volume as the overall volume control. Is it the amp or the speaker setup? They are two way speakers.

I’ve included two frequency responses, the red line is the average highs, firstly the mini and then my Mondeo which has the sort of sound I’m looking for, which for a standard Ford setup is quite nice actually. In case anyone wants to compare, the song I used is off Youtube and the title specifically is “Extreme Ways (Bourne’s Ultimatum)”. I chose this song as it has a big sound to it when played on a decent system.


Is it that the amp isn’t powering the speakers correctly, or that the speakers simply can’t reproduce the full ranges, or that the speaker mountings are all wrong? I know a £10,000 installation will solve matters, and I know I’ve cut the speaker chassis to fit the hole, but is there anything fundamental I’m doing wrong? Like not using sound deadening material in the box, and the box being so open?


Any advice to get this cheap setup working would be greatly appreciated. I don’t mind spending a bit of money on a new cheaper amp, but I’m really looking to keep costs down. I’d rather not change the speakers themselves as considerable work went into fitting them on the board.


Many kind thanks indeed.

It's important to note that various factors can affect sound quality, including equipment quality, speaker placement, mounting, and sound deadening. Let's break down your situation!

 

[Mitchell Fosgate III]

Cell phone requires little amperage and volts. Your setup is not a linear function. The amplifier and speakers used are AB class linear amplifiers. Meaning the ampere go above 50% into the active mode when connections are made. Turned on. Audio sound best on Class A amplifier but little less than A are AB. A’s are 100% on all the time. With that said, you must match the volts from the cell phone to the speaker for best results. You must come close to the linear graph of the power amplifiers. This works for all car amplifiers. One note of thought on OP amps, you cannot magically take 1 volt and turn it into 100 volts. Voltage amplifier. Are these components. It merely controls the volts that it uses and not 100 x over. “Now how I just barely touched on what there is to know about OP AMPS.” …. !​

 

[Mitchell Fosgate III]

You can learn engineering at the same time car audio or better yet electronics by watching element14 YouTube videos. Apply what you know, then just tell it how it worked. Add a new car battery, and this works.

​

 

[Bunglefuzz]

All sounds very complicated for me, which is indicative of how hard it can be to get these things right I guess. The system doesn't sound too bad which is why I've never addressed it before. I was hoping someone might suggest something simple like putting sound absorbing material in the box and closing it up, or a different cheap amp etc.
Looking at the frequencies it seems to me like the base is coming out as mid? Is that right? So is that amp failings or box failings?

 

[RobGMN 5,000+ posts]

I would bet that amp isn't even doing the claimed 25 watts, given the barrel connector is uses to bring in power.
The last vintage Mini I rode in was VERY noisy. Kind of like a go cart with better seats.

You're probably using every bit of available power from that amp just to overcome road noise. And then distorting when you ask for more. Combine that with your speaker being free air, and you get what you get.

Try making an enclosure for the speaker, or at least in some way sealing off the back from the front, instead of having that baffle just laying in what I assume is an open storage pocket.
You will also benefit quite a bit from an amplifier upgrade, even if it's a budget amp, as long as it is producing real and undistorted wattage.

To give you an understanding of amp power importance: It takes roughly a doubling of power to make an appreciable difference (3dB) in the loudness/volume of what you hear. It takes about ten TIMES as much power to double the volume.

So if it takes a hypothetical 15 watts to sound "OK" while you drive, it's take 30 watts to go just a little louder. Your amp can't do it.

 

[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

Is that right? So is that amp failings or box failings?

I concur with Rob. The shrillness may be the amp pushing out power it does not have. Do you have access to any other speakers? Try them on that same amp to verify if they sound the same.

 

[Bunglefuzz]

I would bet that amp isn't even doing the claimed 25 watts, given the barrel connector is uses to bring in power.
The last vintage Mini I rode in was VERY noisy. Kind of like a go cart with better seats.

You're probably using every bit of available power from that amp just to overcome road noise. And then distorting when you ask for more. Combine that with your speaker being free air, and you get what you get.

Try making an enclosure for the speaker, or at least in some way sealing off the back from the front, instead of having that baffle just laying in what I assume is an open storage pocket.
You will also benefit quite a bit from an amplifier upgrade, even if it's a budget amp, as long as it is producing real and undistorted wattage.

To give you an understanding of amp power importance: It takes roughly a doubling of power to make an appreciable difference (3dB) in the loudness/volume of what you hear. It takes about ten TIMES as much power to double the volume.

So if it takes a hypothetical 15 watts to sound "OK" while you drive, it's take 30 watts to go just a little louder. Your amp can't do it.

Wow, just fitted a 15cm tube to that hole in the baffle and plugged the other big gaping hole with a t-shirt and the difference in base is unreal. I then lifted the whole baffle off and there was no base at all, so learning fast here.

Can any recommend an alternative 'cheap' amp please where I can run a similar setup from my phone's USB-C connector? With the current setup the amp is hidden and is turned on with a period 1970's Lucas switch. The phone's volume then controls the volume. I'd much rather keep this arrangement than have a visible amp which needs to be additionally turned on with it's own volume control. So to repeat myself, plug the phone in, flick the Lucas switch and control the volume using the phone. Am I expecting too much? I'm not looking for perfection.

Many kind thanks again to all those helping. It's very much appreciated.

 

[Bunglefuzz]

I've just bought an "InPhase IPA601" amp. Spec copied below.
Due to it's size it's going to have to be mounted in the boot, which means the phono lead to my mobile phone housed in the dash needs to be 4.25 meters long. Will this work, or am I just swapping one problem for another?

Should I buy a shielded cable for that length? Many cables that claim to be shielded seem to in fact only be armoured. From what google says, a shielded phono cable should have an encasing metal shield that is then grounded to the body on only one end, and that being the amp side as close to the amp as possible. Or are shielded cables that don't have a separate ground wire still shielded by grounding to the negative contact???

Any layman's advice is so greatly appreciated please. Am I doing this right, or I am fighting to do something that was simply never going to work? Considering the original setup didn't sound too bad I'm thinking with a bit of tweeking it should be ok.

• 75w RMS x 2 @ 4ohms
• 100w RMS x 2 @ 2ohms
• 600 watts max music
• Regulated power supply
• MOSFET power supply
• Tri Mode operation
• Oversize Power Tranformer
• Bipolar Output devices
• Variable cross over (high/low pass)
• Dimensions (L x W x H) 160mm x 250mm x 55.5mm
• Bass Boost
• Variable gain adjustment
• Thermal protection
• Overload protection
• 2ohms Stable
• Variable Subsonic Filter 20Hz- 50Hz
• High pass filter frequency 80Hz - 1.2kHz
• Low pass filter frequency 50Hz - 250Hz
• RCA output for amplifier linking