Sony or Alpine for more bass? w/o sub

[cheezies]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum, great community you all have going on here and thanks for checking out my post.

I used to own a no-name Nextar head unit, this unit had a "loud" button, upon pressing this button, the bass was very noticeable and it didn't require high volume to be noticeable. All this without a sub woofer.

Being a no name brand, the Nextar had many problems, so I replaced it with a Sony GT310 head unit. The highs are clear on the Sony, but the bass is really lacking and there is no "loud" button. The only thing I can adjust on the Sony are the LOW, MID and HIGH settings. Adjusting LOW to max doesn't give me the same effect my Nextar unit did. Turning up the volume helps, but then it gets too loud in proportion to the bass.

Since I paid twice as much for the Sony, I thought maybe I needed better speakers in order for the Sony to give as much bass as the Nextar. So I went ahead and had 4 Alpine SPS-13C2 speakers installed. But no luck, the sound is more "surrounding" but the bass is still lacking.

So now I'm looking for a new deck that will give me the same type of "boom" as my Nextar. A lot of the members here seem to like Alpine.

I checked out the Alpine CDE-9873 PDF manual online and it had 3 settings for bass. BASS LEVEL, BASS CENTER FREQUENCY, BASS BANDWIDTH, my Sony unit has none of these!

Given my situation, would it be better to return the Sony unit and install an Alpine unit instead?

Click to read more...

 

[sue bee 10+ year member]

If your deck allows it, you can change the EQ to bring out the bass of the "speakers." If you really want bass, you should get a speaker that is capable of properly reproducing "bass" notes, i.e. a subwoofer, or a midbass speaker if your application is limited. It seems like you want bass, so why not get a speaker that is meant to have some. And yes, Alpine is better than Sony, but it has nothing to do with how bassy they will get your [Alpine] speakers.

 

[cheezies]

Thanks for the informative reply sue bee.

I may have very well gotten used to the "bass" or "punch" and over expected my new setup to perform wonders. Perhaps I will hang onto my Sony unit for now since it matches my dash very well.

On the other hand though, for what reasons do enthusiasts choose Alpine decks over Sony?

 

[andytb 10+ year member]

alpine

 

[alxmlr789 10+ year member]

Thanks for the informative reply sue bee.
I may have very well gotten used to the "bass" or "punch" and over expected my new setup to perform wonders. Perhaps I will hang onto my Sony unit for now since it matches my dash very well.

On the other hand though, for what reasons do enthusiasts choose Alpine decks over Sony?

Most people choose alpine/pioneer/ (higher end) clarion mainly because of the build quality. All of the product lines have SOMETHING cheap, but the higher end stuff just cannot be compared to sony. Sony car audio really lacks, you will learn that from being on this forum. They use crappy parts, poor build quality, and they just need to stick to making HD tv's and video game consoles //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif. I personally have never owned a sony head unit, but ive messed around with them, and believe me, if you get an alpine, pioneer or something else (high quality than sony) You will never want to back to sony. Keep the questions coming, you are a good newb..no exclamation points //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif

 

[cheezies]

I went over to my local car audio store today and decided to test my Sony GT310 against an Alpine CDE-9873. I figured it would be a good comparison because they had everything on display, my existing deck, the deck I was interested in, and my existing Alpine speakers.

The first thing I noticed was that the the Alpine was much louder for the same volume level (e.g. 14) compared to my Sony. This doesn't mean much though, since I could easily just turn up the dial on my Sony to about 20-22 to achieve the same loudness. However, at higher volumes, the Alpine with 0 settings for treble and bass, sounded more bassy and "3D" than the Sony with XPLOD presets (it's the preset I normally prefer when using the Sony). After playing with the bass levels on the Alpine, I noticed that it could achieve a more "bassy" sound without the high's getting too loud.

The Sony looks better than the Alpine in my opinion, but the sound of the Alpine is noticeably better. I caved and bought the Alpine given the discounts the salesman threw at me. The Alpine will be installed next week.

I agree with sue bee's advice (2nd post), but I am very surprised that I was able to notice the stronger "bass" and better "depth" that the Alpine provided over the Sony.

 

[ShakesAllDay 10+ year member]

Just to throw this out there - you could consider a low-priced mid-powered amplifier to run your speakers. IMO, 35-50 watts would get you sound you wouldn't believe (if you've never heard amplified speakers before). A simple 2 channel amp stable to 2-ohm can be had fairly cheap. Some people here should have some good recommendations.

Personally, I have an Alpine 9883 head unit, and an Alpine F250 (40 watts per channel) amp powering my 5x7 speakers and it produces GREAT bass without a sub. This amp is ~$130 online, but there are much cheaper amps you could use.

My 9883 head unit put out good sound at moderate volume, but the difference between before and after external amping is night and day.