Please help me with my Bass (or lack thereof !)

[rc2776]

Hello Car Audio Buffs & Experts: I am a total newb as far as car audio is concerned but I am an engineer and am good with electronics so I decided to upgrade the audio on my 1999 Honda Accord myself.

Before I go any further let me apologize right here for making (not yet but will be by the time I finish) this post such a long one. I want to give you all the details so that you have a better idea of what might be the problem in my system.

The equipment I bought over the internet and installed inlcudes:

Alpine SPR-17s 6.5" Component set for the front

Alpine SPR-69C for the rear deck.

Alpine SWR-1242D Subwoofer (Type R 12" DVC 4 Ohm )

ONIX .7 cu ft sealed box with Polyfill

Kicker ZX700.5 Amplifier

Kicker CK44 4 gauge wiring kit

Bazooka FAST 1721 harness (so that I don't have to cut/splice the factory wires)

PAC OEM-2 LOC (includes remote turn on trigger) later replaced by:

David Navone NE-774V LOC and N-902 Remote Turn on

OEM Honda Head Unit (Alpine) with no Pre-Out

The good news is that after spending full 8 hrs everything is up and running. The sound is clean and there is no noise whatsoever (I am surprised !). But the not so good news is that the bass is at 10% (or even less) of what I had with my 8" 100 Watt powered bazooka bass tube ! It is sad isn't it ? I know .. it is and that is why I am here to ask for the advice of the true experts.

At first I connected the PAC OEM-2 LOC using the bazooka FAST-1721 harness near the headunit and used a 15' twisted RCA patch cord to send the signal to the amp (in the trunk). The sound coming from the speakers was muffled and bass was non existant and the amp kept going into protection mode. On checking with a multimeter the remote turn on signal from OEM-2 was fluctuationg between 0 and 12V. I then connected the remote wire of the amp to a switched 12 volt source. Now the amp did not go into protection mode but the sound quality was still pretty lousy.

I then connected my sandisk MP3 player to front channel RCA inputs of the amp using the same RCA patch cord and sound was truly amazing and bass was thunderous.

So I thought that the PAC LOC was at fault. After doing a bit of research online I went the David Navone route. Today I replaced the PAC LOC with David Navone NE-774V. The sound quality (both clarity and volume) improved dramatically but unfortunately the bass was still not there. One would think the head unit is to be blamed but the signal from the same headunit amplified by the built in amp of the bazooka gave some serious output from the 8" woofer. It can't be the RCA patch cord either because the signal from the MP3 player has amazing sound quality, volume and bass.

I really don't know what to try next. I seem to have run out of options. I don't want to replace the OEM head unit because I don't want to spend an extra $300-400 for a quality head unit and I like the factory appearance and I know from previous experience that the head unit is capable of giving out a clean and loud bass signal/output.

So please help me out whichever way you can. Thank you all for trying to help me out.

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[CrazyKenKid 10+ year member]

question for you, since your head unit has no preouts how do you hook an sub up to the deck? is there like a little wire that is called out for subs? b/c maybe your issue is that you aren't getting the proper amout or rahter right kind a bass to go into the new sub you have. wiat does that make sense....

 

[CrazyKenKid 10+ year member]

o hey you are using this amp

http://www.techronics.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=3718&gclid=CLy3gpzOnJACFVB1OAodhwQg8Q

to run your 6x9, components, and your kick *** sub? and you know that that sub needs a minium of i belive what 300rms and recommend 500max but you can put them 2 about 700rms, anyways, i don't really know man to be honest it is all odd

 

[rc2776]

Thank you for your responses guys.

I seem to have discovered the problem but don't have a true solution yet. Seems like there is some kind of a short circuit in the Amp 2 inputs of my brand new Kicker ZX700.5.

The amplifier has three sets of inputs for three separate built-in amplifiers: a) Amp1 Input (Front Channels); b) Amp2 Input (Rear Channels); c) Subwoofer Input.

At the minimum you need to feed a signal to the Amp1 inputs and the built-in crossover will supply the sub frequencies to the subwoofer and the full signal to Amp2. The only problem with this setup is that you cannot use Fade controls.

It was baffling to me that while feeding the amp with the signal from MP3 player, the system sounded rich and full with a ton of bass but the signal from the high quality LOC, it was sounding as if somebody had hit the 'half mute' button.

The difference was that the mp3 player was feeding the Amp1 inputs only whereas the LOC was feeding both Amp1 and Amp2 inputs. To test my theory I unplugged the RCA feeding the Amp2 inputs and 'KABOOM' the system sounded even better than the way it sounded using the MP3 player. Plugged the RCAs back into Amp2 inputs again the volume became half and the bass disappeared !

Just to make sure that there was nothing wrong with the rear output of the LOC or my headunit I fed the rear outputs from the LOC into the Amp1 inputs (the system sounded great !) and then I fed the front outputs of the LOC into the Amp2 inputs and the sound quality went down by 10 folds and volume went down significantly ! When I fed the front channel output from the LOC just to Amp2 the system sounds very anemic and lifeless. So at this point I am fairly confident that Amp2 inputs are to be blamed for this heartache !

So now I am facing a dilemma whether to live with the current setup and not worry about fade control or pay for shipping and get a replacement.

 

[eric12421 10+ year member]

I wouldnt worry about fade control too much, but im not you...also By posting everything you have and making it a lengthy post you might think its a bad hting, but id say about 95% of the people on here actully appreciate it when you do things lke this...instead of just posting and saying, I have no bass? whats wring? so if you ever have any more questions, id say dont be sorry about making a long post!

eric

 

[rc2776]

yeah Eric I am thinking along the same lines. This is the car I use to drive to the office and back so 95% of times I am alone in it and fade function has no real use. But my Honda Pilot is the family car and the fade function is critical specially when the same cartoon is playing for the 1000th time on the DVD player ! I will upgrade the audio on that car next and I am hoping the amp for that car will not have this issue !