Highs on my Pioneer speakers sound distorted at louder levels..what's wrong?

[yo0123yo 10+ year member]

My system consists of 2 12" Kicker L7's powered by a ZX2500.1 and then I have 4 interior Pioneer speakers (can't remember which ones, as they were bought 2 years ago) powered by a ZX350.4 and then I have a Kenwood Excellon DNX6980 as the head unit. Before this head unit I had a pretty good Pioneer head unit and never had this problem with the speakers. I have no solo tweeters set up in the car either, any help is appreciated. I have two extra batteries in the trunk so I know that power is not an issue. I have tried many options from tuning the hz on the HU to changing the gain/hz on the amp and had no good results. Any suggestions on what I can change on the amp or anything to make the interiors sound clear when turned up? Like should the input level be pushed in or out on the zx350.5 and should the fader be on or off? how about xover1 and xover2? What should they be at? ALL bass boosts are off, I know it has 5volt preamp outputs if thats important to this problem. I know my interior Pioneers came with crossovers themselves which I have installed as well, with that being said...Do I need to be messing with bass, middle, and treble xovers on the HU itself? Thanks so much for any help.

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[d77543020 10+ year member]

alot of those pioneer coaxs are 30 to 40 rms you might just be over powering them

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

alot of those pioneer coaxs are 30 to 40 rms you might just be over powering them

I believe that this may very well be your issue

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

http://www.kicker.com/sites/default/files/2008%20ZX%20350%20650%20850-4%20d01%20web.pdf

link to a manual - probably not your exact year, but similar features.

amp is fine for the speakers. the speakers may just be too cheap to give you the volume level you want. more likely, you are overdriving the amp.

start by turning the gain down. shoot for around 5V which is the max input level accepted - so gain should be near minimum.

crossovers should be set to HI

crossover Hz should be between 100-120Hz given your issues and the slope.

fader should be pushed in when using both front and rear inputs (either hi-level or RCA level)

when using one RCA to feed all four channels, the fader button should be out

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

Do I need to be messing with bass, middle, and treble xovers on the HU itself? Thanks so much for any help.

you can choose to use crossovers on the HU or amp. Or use both for a steeper slope (try to get them equal in Hz). play around with them until you find a balance of suitable bass response with controlled excursion with your listening volume and material (rap vs. rock).