jb93
Junior Member
Equipment:
Kenwood Excelon XR-1800 Front Speakers.
Factory Rear Speakers (faded off).
Kenwood Aftermarket HU.
JL Audio 10W0v3 Sub in a sealed enclosure.
JL Audio RD400/4 amp sending 75 watts to the front and 250 watts bridged to the sub.
All the above were professionally installed in a 2007 Toyota matrix by a local car audio shop.
Problem:
There is little to no midbass coming from the front speakers. This is not an issue on tracks where the lows are below the cutoff frequency which sound great. However, tracks that have bass lines over the cutoff or worse, bridging the cutoff are unlistenable. In the first case they are too flat and have no depth and in the second case the sub will hit notes below the lpf nice and hard while the fronts will hit a note above the hpf that is flat and barely audible. Not only is the bass played by the front speakers quieter than the sub but it is also noticeably quieter than the mids and highs played by the same speaker. I have the X-Over set to 120 so the fronts should be able to play these notes easily.
What I've Tried:
I've turned off the HPF and LPF on the amp and used only the ones on my HU; I've set the x-over anywhere from 50 to 250 with no improvement.
I've turned off the sub, set the HPF on the fronts to through, and cranked the volume and bass. Even with the bass boost maxed out and the volume at uncomfortable levels there is very little midbass; there is no thumping, window rattling, and the notes that are audible sound weak and muted. Cycling through HPF Frequencies does not yield any improvements.
Ive done the above but set the balance from one side to the other to see if there is any phasing issues. Having the balance set all to one side or the other does not improve midbass at all; in fact i noticed the midbass increases slightly when the balance is equal.
Conclusion:
At this point I have no Idea what could be wrong. This is my first aftermarket audio system and it was professionally installed so I do not know much about the installation nor do I know what to look for. Based on the above information I have determined that the issue is not caused by a factory HU, underpowered speakers, x-overs, eq, or phase.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Kenwood Excelon XR-1800 Front Speakers.
Factory Rear Speakers (faded off).
Kenwood Aftermarket HU.
JL Audio 10W0v3 Sub in a sealed enclosure.
JL Audio RD400/4 amp sending 75 watts to the front and 250 watts bridged to the sub.
All the above were professionally installed in a 2007 Toyota matrix by a local car audio shop.
Problem:
There is little to no midbass coming from the front speakers. This is not an issue on tracks where the lows are below the cutoff frequency which sound great. However, tracks that have bass lines over the cutoff or worse, bridging the cutoff are unlistenable. In the first case they are too flat and have no depth and in the second case the sub will hit notes below the lpf nice and hard while the fronts will hit a note above the hpf that is flat and barely audible. Not only is the bass played by the front speakers quieter than the sub but it is also noticeably quieter than the mids and highs played by the same speaker. I have the X-Over set to 120 so the fronts should be able to play these notes easily.
What I've Tried:
I've turned off the HPF and LPF on the amp and used only the ones on my HU; I've set the x-over anywhere from 50 to 250 with no improvement.
I've turned off the sub, set the HPF on the fronts to through, and cranked the volume and bass. Even with the bass boost maxed out and the volume at uncomfortable levels there is very little midbass; there is no thumping, window rattling, and the notes that are audible sound weak and muted. Cycling through HPF Frequencies does not yield any improvements.
Ive done the above but set the balance from one side to the other to see if there is any phasing issues. Having the balance set all to one side or the other does not improve midbass at all; in fact i noticed the midbass increases slightly when the balance is equal.
Conclusion:
At this point I have no Idea what could be wrong. This is my first aftermarket audio system and it was professionally installed so I do not know much about the installation nor do I know what to look for. Based on the above information I have determined that the issue is not caused by a factory HU, underpowered speakers, x-overs, eq, or phase.
Does anyone have any ideas?
