More Power=More Harsh

[efm80 10+ year member]

just got the new JL HD600/4 installed. The thing is amazing and puts out great power. Its 150watts x 4. Before I was running a PPI PCX 480 that was 80 watts x 4. Now, with my old setup my Infinity Perfects were getting really harsh, bright, and just blaring when at loud volumes. They would start to get distorted at extreme volume. Now with my new JL HD amp the speakers definitely get louder without distorting much, but because they can get louder now they seem more harsh, bright, and almost painful at very loud levels. I really notice it in the midrange frequencies. If I turn up the mid eq level on my deck during rock music it gets so bad. Few questions:

1.) Would this extra power make my already harsh sounding Infinity Perfect components sound even more harsh??

2.) Do you think its the speakers or my headunit causing this?

3.) Does anyone here have some amazing components that handle midrange beautifully and can play so loud and so clean??

4.) Does anyone think its the amp? I highly doubt it, but is 150watts each channel still not enough?? would more power help the brightness and harshness? I wouldn't think so

please help, thanks so much

eddie

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[mcsoul 10+ year member]

do you have attenuation on the infinity passive crossovers?

 

[king ranch 5,000+ posts]

mainly they are harsh because they are infinity they are known for that, turn down the treble on the HU and if they have a setting on the xover turn it down as well

 

[BassAddictJ 5,000+ posts]

im going to venture a guess that the amp is not tuned right and the reason your getting a harsh sound is from a clipped signal. your previous amp with less power was probably clipping really hard and causing tons of distortion. the new amp isnt clipping as hard...but its still clipping.

lower the gaina ll the way. turn your HU volume up to around 75% or 80% up. then slowly turn the gain on your amp up until the mids are loud and clean. soon as you hear distortion you've turned it up too much.

clean unclipped signals will give you virtually no distortion and your amps will run most more efficently.

by coincidence were your amps heating up alot after playing music for a while?

 

[Savstyle 10+ year member]

Ygpm

 

[efm80 10+ year member]

im going to venture a guess that the amp is not tuned right and the reason your getting a harsh sound is from a clipped signal. your previous amp with less power was probably clipping really hard and causing tons of distortion. the new amp isnt clipping as hard...but its still clipping.
lower the gaina ll the way. turn your HU volume up to around 75% or 80% up. then slowly turn the gain on your amp up until the mids are loud and clean. soon as you hear distortion you've turned it up too much.

clean unclipped signals will give you virtually no distortion and your amps will run most more efficently.

by coincidence were your amps heating up alot after playing music for a while?

the gains were set exactly to jl specs with the test cd and voltage meter so I don't think its that. do you think more power can make harsh components sound more harsh??

the attentuator is set to the lowest possible on crossover to -3db.

also its really not so much the treble, but more the mid frequencies. I love treble and brightness does not both me so much, but the harshness does. With my treble turned up it does not contribute to this blaring sound so much, but with the MID eq up on my deck causes this "harshness" to be really bad. I know I can turn it down and while it helps I lose alot of the mid sounds. I hate setting everything flat because then I do not like the sound of it as much. Sounds more muffled.

also the harshness happens only on some rock songs and is passed the 3/4 volume level on my deck. maybe I am just turning it up too much. can a headunit clip at high volume on it??

eddie

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

sounds like you have a peak somewhere in your upper mid-range. it's common in a car.

you could RTA your system and see where there may be spike(s) or dip(s). for example, i had a big dip at 500hz then a huge spike at 1k that i was unaware of until i got an RTA and started messing around. i fixed both, and now it sounds so much better and so much smoother.

 

[efm80 10+ year member]

sounds like you have a peak somewhere in your upper mid-range. it's common in a car.
you could RTA your system and see where there may be spike(s) or dip(s). for example, i had a big dip at 500hz then a huge spike at 1k that i was unaware of until i got an RTA and started messing around. i fixed both, and now it sounds so much better and so much smoother.

forgive me, but what is RTA your system mean again? and how would I do that? That does make sense. And I would I go about fixing the peaks?? thanx bro

eddie

 

[king ranch 5,000+ posts]

wat test tone did u use to set gains

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

forgive me, but what is RTA your system mean again? and how would I do that? That does make sense. And I would I go about fixing the peaks?? thanx bro
eddie

it means Real Time Analysis. a good local car audio shop may have a setup you or they could use to tune your system with. or if you have a lap top you can buy the whole setup for about $175.

$50 measurement microphone

$50 mic preamp/usb adapter

$35 usb cable

$40 for true rta (the program you use with it all)

you'll also need a decent EQ to be able to fix anything. your HU may have one, if not you may need to buy something external. but the more bands or adjustments the better.

many will say tuning by ear is better, but the RTA will show you things that you may have never heard or realized about your setup. it's really useful when trying to set crossovers and crossover slopes as well to get the smoothest transitions.

just overall a great tool to have around if you care about great sound.

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

wat test tone did u use to set gains

it doesn't make a difference. setting gains with a DMM is for noobs anyway. just use your ears. they will tell you when things are being pushed to hard. you just have to listen.

 

[king ranch 5,000+ posts]

so how far off in power wise is setting gains with a 1khz test tone on comps with a dmm setting to 175rms, is that more like setting them to only getting 100rms or wat, i dont have enough guts to do it by ear worried about blowing the speakers

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Those speakers don't like a lot of power for the exact reason that you're noticing. Infinity tweets are infamous for being harsh at high volume. They're efficient and really don't benefit from the extra power.

Since it appears that your budget isn't that tight, I'd look at some speakers that could make better use of the power that you have on tap. I've used CDT Eurosports personally with great results. The high end Boston Acoustics sets get great reviews and I've liked every set I've ever heard. Lots of other options, but those are probably the most readily available.

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

so how far off in power wise is setting gains with a 1khz test tone on comps with a dmm setting to 175rms, is that more like setting them to only getting 100rms or wat, i dont have enough guts to do it by ear worried about blowing the speakers

what? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif

here, do some reading.

Music is not constant in its peak amplitude. The ratio of average power to peak power is in the order of 10-20dB. (10dB = 10 times power and 20dB = 100 times power). I would imagine that modern rock and roll/rap music the value is closer to 10dB. This means that with typical music the average power when using a 200w/ch amplifier is in the order of 20 watts per channel with the peaks rising to 200 watts. Anything higher than the 20 watt average will most certainly push the amplifier into clipping. With this scenario the tweeter in a typical bi-amplified system or one with passive crossovers will receive about 10-15% of the power. So the tweeter’s power is about 20-35 watts with our 200 watt amplifier. This is a lot of power for any single tweeter. But let us assume it is OK with this.

taken from here:

http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36040&highlight=clipping+explained&page=2

so unless you are listening to test tones, don't set your gains with one.

 

[dipitydoo 10+ year member]

your gain structure is not responsible for the harshness. more than likely, your speakers are reaching their limit of clean output capabilities.