Why do people turn down all the bass and mid frequency's in their doors?

[MCQuad 10+ year member]

I have noticed that all the car audio shops and enthusiast in my area tend to turn down all of the bass and mid range frequencies as low as they can go, allowing their subs to handle every thing. If your turn their bass down in their subs, then it pretty much sounds like your listening to nothing but s tweeter. This also, at least in my opinion, makes the bass sound terrible, ie, muddy & boomy. Why do they do this? I am a newbi to car audio but I do have some decent experience with home audio.

Would it not be better to adjust the mid range and higher frequencies to pick up where the sub leaves off? What is the point in getting awesome component speakers if you don't listen to the mids? I figure that most quality car audio subs will go up to at least 100hz or so, and most quality mid range drivers will go down to at least 100hz. Would that be a pretty safe assumption?

How would a person go about setting up their door speakers to crossover to their sub(s) at 100h? Do door speakers need an out board crossover? If so, is that cross over adjustable to help better blend the door speakers with th sub(s)? Or is all of this taken care of with the head unit?.

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[Why So Cereal? 5,000+ posts]

I have noticed that all the car audio shops and enthusiast in my area tend to turn down all of the bass and mid range frequencies as low as they can go, allowing their subs to handle every thing. If your turn their bass down in their subs, then it pretty much sounds like your listening to nothing but s tweeter. This also, at least in my opinion, makes the bass sound terrible, ie, muddy & boomy. Why do they do this? I am a newbi to car audio but I do have some decent experience with home audio.
my local shop does this as well....why? because thats typically what people who are ignorant to real car audio are after. They figure the subs make the system, and having highs gives it clarity, not even stopping to think that most of the important parts of the music are in the midrange/ midbass region.

Would it not be better to adjust the mid range and higher frequencies to pick up where the sub leaves off? What is the point in getting awesome component speakers if you don't listen to the mids? I figure that most quality car audio subs will go up to at least 100hz or so, and most quality mid range drivers will go down to at least 100hz. Would that be a pretty safe assumption?

generally yes, most people after sound quality setups typically cross lower than that though; but its not necessary, if your sub can play flat up to 100hz and still remain transparent then nothing wrong with crossing it at 100hz. You can usually atleast drop the mids to 80hz though.

How would a person go about setting up their door speakers to crossover to their sub(s) at 100h? Do door speakers need an out board crossover? If so, is that cross over adjustable to help better blend the door speakers with th sub(s)? Or is all of this taken care of with the head unit?.

really depends on your equipment, some people use the xovers on their amps, some use them on the headunit, all depends on the options you have available to you with the equipment you run

answered in bold //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

I have noticed that all the car audio shops and enthusiast in my area tend to turn down all of the bass and mid range frequencies as low as they can go, allowing their subs to handle every thing. If your turn their bass down in their subs, then it pretty much sounds like your listening to nothing but s tweeter. This also, at least in my opinion, makes the bass sound terrible, ie, muddy & boomy. Why do they do this? I am a newbi to car audio but I do have some decent experience with home audio.

I dunno. Maybe it's because that's how factory systems are setup - all the bass in the rear. Reminds me of the 80's with 6X9's in the rear deck and 3.5's up front //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/plthumbsdown.gif.d7966af824c93c6021d1aae1778b1c19.gif

Would it not be better to adjust the mid range and higher frequencies to pick up where the sub leaves off? What is the point in getting awesome component speakers if you don't listen to the mids? I figure that most quality car audio subs will go up to at least 100hz or so, and most quality mid range drivers will go down to at least 100hz. Would that be a pretty safe assumption?

Yep. In fact I like a bit of overlap.. subs lowpassed at 80-85, front stage hipassed at 65-70. IMO 100 Hz is too high for subs, though all of them will play there. Oddly if you look at home audio speakers many of them cross over the sub near 500 Hz. It's OK if you have a single point source, but not OK if the sub is behind you.

How would a person go about setting up their door speakers to crossover to their sub(s) at 100h? Do door speakers need an out board crossover? If so, is that cross over adjustable to help better blend the door speakers with th sub(s)? Or is all of this taken care of with the head unit?.

The hipass frequency for main speakers is typically done with the amplifier. External crossovers only handle the mid/tweet transition. Some head units have HPF built in but I like the variability of an analog HPF better. Same is true with the sub LPF, but if I use the sub preouts on my HU I'm forced to choose a LPF setting, so the amp's LPF is turned off.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

my mids are highpassed at 55hz and no eq. Same thing goes for the people on forums who leave a good octave or 2 out in their systems. "they only like low bass'' ******* jackass's

 

[tc300 10+ year member]

^^^^ how do you end up with 789 groans.....??!!?

 

[Sleeklsc 5,000+ posts]

In my setup I xover the subs at 80hz and my comp's at 100hz. Then use the 8 band to clean it up. I can set them to 80 but it's abit cleaner @ 100, If I had no substage i'd set them at 80 and leave it alone. It's diff for every install.

 

[duanebro 10+ year member]

car audio is no different than home audio - people don't know what they are doing! LOL

One thing I have found about car audio is that the noise floor is much higher than in the home setting. This leads to systems that are not flat sounding better in cars. At least at low volumes.

 

[BnGRacing 10+ year member]

Bass kills speakers and installers HATE having to warranty door/rear deck speakers b/c the user cranked up the bass boost on their HU. So, you turn the HPF up more than you usually would and the speakers live a little longer. You'd really be shocked on how much abuse a mid takes when someone turns up their radio to compensate for their windows being down while driving along at 60mph or so. While many speakers can take a bit of abuse, it's the duration that kills them. A higher HPF limits the abuse.

If you search these forums you'll see a lot of people looking for components well under $200. Same thing happens in shops. These component sets tend to be of lower quality & durability despite the numbers on the box.

For my own systems, I usually use 50hz @ 12dB for the front mids. Very few mids can actually play that low while not self destructing or sounding bad. The purpose is really to make it seem the bass is coming from the front stage. Most people don't care about that though and want things LOUD and clean. A craptacular $124.99 set of components will sound like garbage and will have lots of mechanical noise if ran like that. So, you turn the HPF up to 100+hz and all is well.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

bass boost kills speakers because of the clipped over driven signal. Bass it's self is a normal part of music and not damaging at all.

 

[disturbed471985 5,000+ posts]

Same here sub does 28- 80hz mids from 80hz -3500k and tweets from 3100k and up I like alil over lap..

 

[BnGRacing 10+ year member]

bass boost kills speakers because of the clipped over driven signal. Bass it's self is a normal part of music and not damaging at all.

A tweeter will play bass only once. Likewise, a crappy mid will reach its mechanical limits much quicker when it's tasked with trying to reproduce subbass and can/will fall apart.

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

I hp my mids at 80hz 24db/oct and lp mt subs at 63hz 18db/oct. I'd like to up the sub crossover to 80hz but the box I have it in right now just gets too peaky up there.

 

[disturbed471985 5,000+ posts]

^^ pretty much.. I blew a set of $80 tweets in anout.00000000000001 sec with a 1k tone burst and 1k is easy on a tweet compared to say a 50hz tone...

 

[Why So Cereal? 5,000+ posts]

Bass kills speakers and installers HATE having to warranty door/rear deck speakers b/c the user cranked up the bass boost on their HU. So, you turn the HPF up more than you usually would and the speakers live a little longer. You'd really be shocked on how much abuse a mid takes when someone turns up their radio to compensate for their windows being down while driving along at 60mph or so. While many speakers can take a bit of abuse, it's the duration that kills them. A higher HPF limits the abuse.
If you search these forums you'll see a lot of people looking for components well under $200. Same thing happens in shops. These component sets tend to be of lower quality & durability despite the numbers on the box.

For my own systems, I usually use 50hz @ 12dB for the front mids. Very few mids can actually play that low while not self destructing or sounding bad. The purpose is really to make it seem the bass is coming from the front stage. Most people don't care about that though and want things LOUD and clean. A craptacular $124.99 set of components will sound like garbage and will have lots of mechanical noise if ran like that. So, you turn the HPF up to 100+hz and all is well.

are you saying all sets around that price are "craptacular" and wont play that low? because I use the mid from the Pioneer D-series set (109new) as dedicated midbass, and as long as I'm not listening to bass heavy rap or something I can run mine crossed at 50hz sometimes even with no HPF and all is well. even with bass heavy tracks I can cross em that low, just cant crank em wide open.

 

[MCQuad 10+ year member]

Ok thanks for all the replys. I have been looking into component speakers for my doors and noticed that some, on eBay, do not come with crossovers. Is an external cross over necessary with all component speakers or is the head unit's cross over fine? Also any opinions on Massive Audio SK6's?