What should I do?

[new2one]

Hello, first want to say thanks for the advice on here, I wound up getting a JBL 1200 watt amp and 2 12" Kicker L7's sound great!

I have the sub and amp hooked up to my only pre-amp output on my HU, it is a Aiwa CDC series with 2.2v output.

I have my 2 front component speakers (Boston acoustics RX57 35W RMS 140W Peak - in the front) and my 2 back component speakers (Kenwood KFC-1079ie 20W RMS and 100W peak) hooked to the HU directly.

When I crank the bass on the HU at low volumes it sounds great, but when the volume is loud and I turn the bass up all my component speakers distort badly.

I have added "bass blockers" hoping that would help (cause if I turn down the bass to negative on the HU) I can blast the stereo and have no distortion, nice and crisp.

The bass blockers don't seem to block out the bass only the mids which the speakers seemed to handle (I have 600Hz on the 5.25"''s and 800Hz on the 4"'s)

What would be the best thing to do to get this sounding good?

I was thinking a few options:

1) Buy a 4 channel amp for the components turn the high pass filter on and run it like that. (Id have to hook the amp up to speaker-level inputs)

2) Buy a Sony Xplod CDX-M630(or similar) HU with sub control and built-in crossovers

3) keep it down low (this is unacceptable)

Anything you guys would recommend me to do?

Click to read more...

 

[MTX BUMPA 10+ year member]

you know had 3 friends that bought x-plod hu's, 2 of them were screwed up after about 2 months of use... thats not a good percentage of working hu's... dont go w/ an x-plod, or anything sony car audio for that matter... go with pioneer, alpine, or eclipse

 

[morris85 10+ year member]

I had an xplod hu in my old car, it worked...although had some odd short in the volume as it would take off on its own turning up and up..then down..

also a friend of mine had an xplod, year newer than mine that died.

I agree strongly with mtx bumpa, do not buy sony products for car audio use, no exceptions..

I however love blaupunkt...had a couple of their hu's, and so has my bro...we've never had a prob with em.

 

[MTX BUMPA 10+ year member]

ok, if you want bass.. it's easy, get a sub... you wont be able to crank it w/ very much of anything when you turn your bass up on the head unit and expext every speaker in the car to handle it the same way... my recommendation, if you dont want too much bass, then buy only one sub for the bass and a monolock amp for it... also buy a multichannel (preferably 4 channels for your case) to hear that crisp, clear high pass for music the way it was meant to be heard..

 

[SPLThunder 10+ year member]

i heard some of the xplode HU were recalled a while back.

im glad i got rid of mine

 

[99concorde 10+ year member]

you could buy an amp for the mids and highs and use the crossovers on the amp. probably be your best choice especially if you like your current headunit. then you would have your speakers amped and the low bass crossed.

 

[Matador 10+ year member]

I have the sub and amp hooked up to my only pre-amp output on my HU, it is a Aiwa CDC series with 2.2v output.

I have my 2 front component speakers (Boston acoustics RX57 35W RMS 140W Peak - in the front) and my 2 back component speakers (Kenwood KFC-1079ie 20W RMS and 100W peak) hooked to the HU directly.

When I crank the bass on the HU at low volumes it sounds great, but when the volume is loud and I turn the bass up all my component speakers distort badly.

I have added "bass blockers" hoping that would help (cause if I turn down the bass to negative on the HU) I can blast the stereo and have no distortion, nice and crisp.

The bass blockers don't seem to block out the bass only the mids which the speakers seemed to handle (I have 600Hz on the 5.25"''s and 800Hz on the 4"'s)

i would:

get another HU (pioneer, alpine, eclipse, panasonic...) that has 3 outputs hopefully, so u run the subs thru the sub output, n then fronts and rear thru their respective outputs. this way it will be better as u 'll be able to customize the levels of bass n filters separately for the speakers and for the sub.

after this, get a 4channel amp to power the speakers better. this is just an improvement not a soln to ur problem.

the 4 channel amp will send a cleaner signal n it would prevent distortion as u wont be pushing it to its max as u do w the hu.

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

a few things I thought about when reading your post...

1. First I agree with the peeps talking bout sony car audio products being crap...

2. I can also personally attest to running a four channel amp for the mids, this made a HUGE difference in the clarity of my sound. When I stopped using the HU's internal amp it enabled me to turn up the HU more before distortion ( the way I see it you can have the best amps and speakers but if you have a weak or shitty source then it really doesnt matter cause your screwed from the start) plus you will be able to control the level of the front and rear speakers independently so that you can balance the sound so it doesnt sound like you are sitting on top of the dash board or on top of the rear deck...

One thing you might try since you have subs is turning the bass down to 0 or +1 on the HU get a crossover and let the subs play the bass Make sure you have the bass blockers on the correct terminal you can get much better filters from places like madisound.com or jcwhitney I believe, they have a much higher dB cut so you will hear more of the sound you want and much less of what you don't

one thing I wish I did was get a six channel amp instead of four for obvious reasons

one more thought is to look for an amp that has preamp outputs so you can run the signal for the mids/highs through it then to the other amp for bass but getting a new HU with three sets of outs would be the ideal thing in my view. if you are into names I like alpine cause they have real good specs and seem to be held in high regard as far as reliability goes. OK Im done now, sorry if I'm rambling....let us know what you come up with....