I have Focal KR 165 and ARC amp KS 300.2 and need to adjust sound. Please help

[egello]

Hi everyone

Ever since I got my new amp Arc KS 300.2 my Focal speakers are outta control. Classical music and natural sounding music is just incredible, but anytime I listen to really heavy mid bass and bass techno or other electronic music where there is a lot of sharp thump noise both high and low, the sound is too harsh to bare. I can't listen long enough because it's too sharp and thumping and I like to listen to my music loud sometimes and with these two set up I just can't. Any recommendation on how I can adjust my speakers to not be so harsh? I read somewhere that cross over can be adjusted to bring down certain level. Is this something I can do or should I take it over to my car installation guys? I don't want to bring the gain down too much on my amp since it is already kinda on the lower side (below that half way point). Adjusting the bass or mid bass on my head unit doesn't really help because all it does it get rid of the sound instead of calming the harsh sound.

Any suggestion would be most helpful and thank you in advance.

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[Kastlez_ 10+ year member]

Are you running active or passive (crossovers)

If you're using the focal crossovers they should have a -3db, 0db, +3db setting for the tweeters... If it's too harsh on the high end adjust the switch down to -3db

Other than that you're going to have to either bring the amp gains down or do some EQ/Tuning

 

[egello]

I don't think it's the issue with the tweeters though because female vocal even when screaming in operatic voice or violins and etc sound totally find even at a high volume. It's the mid bass that sounds really ear piercingly harsh. it could and should be softer. is there anything I can do with the cross over to tone down the mid bass?

also I am not sure if it's active or passive. how do i find that out? also, how do i adjust the switch to -3? thanks

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

Midbass shouldn't sound harsh. It's probably coming from higher frequencies. Instruments will cover a wide range of frequencies, and what may start at 80 Hz, for example, could have harmonics playing much higher that can sound offensive.

The easy answer to your question about active or passive is if you don't know what active means then you're not running active. What we call "active" means powering the tweeters and woofers without using the crossovers that come with the kit. The tweeters get their own amplifier channels.

To adjust the tweeter level switch you need to get to the crossovers and remove the covers. It should be fairly obvious once you do that since the circuit board or cover will be labeled.