Unhappy with the sound quality of my install. Where can I improve it? Wiring?

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Blake Vandercar

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Basically, I think the lows are lacking on my 6.5" woofers, and the sound quality isn't at all what I was hoping for overall. In addition, there's a slight hiss from the tweeters, which I know always occurs at some level when no music is playing-- but you can hear it from 3 feet away which is a slight issue.

Here's my setup. I'll leave out things such my subwoofer, and everything up to the signal path of the 4ch amplifier since using a different, non-HU input to the amp produces the same result:

Front Speakers (5-60W RMS): Rockford Fosgate P165-SE Punch 6.5" Component Speaker System with External Crossover

4ch Amp: Kicker KEY180.4 4x45w 4-Ch Full-Range Smart Amp

The speakers frequency range is 43 Hz to 20 kHz so although my sub does most of the work on the low end, I think my woofers should pick up some of the slack on the upper low end.

I'm using terminal blocks like this in 2 locations in the output speaker signal chain:

F7638122-01.jpg


, as well as wire taps like this in 2 locations :

22-18AWG-Female-TTap-Male-Insulated-Connector-Wire-Terminals-Quick-splice-Disconnect-Combo-Tips10-25-50pcsMale.jpg


is it possible these are decreasing sound quality at a significant level? I could replace them with wire nuts or solder, but would that make the world of difference?

Also, I tried another amp, the Rockford Fosgate R300X4 Prime 4-Channel Amplifier, to isolate the problem to the amp-- but nope, no improvement in SQ.

 
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I actually did an install today using R165-S Rockford component speakers using an old Jensen Power760 4-channel. I'm getting an auditable hiss coming from my tweeters. I also used my phone with rca cable to the amp with the same result. the hiss gets lounder when raising the gain. If I turn the hu up it gets louder also. I have all my power wires ran on the opposite side of the car. I was reading all amps have a noise floor.  My mid bass also has a very very slight hiss.  I'm interested if you get this solved

 
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you never said what was your head unit make and model or signal source how are you getting signal to the amps?. or how the install is aka door treatments, gasketting  etc... OR how things are installed, how are your grounds looking like? Are they solid? Whats the signal path like? whats your music source? Are the RCAs on the different side of the power wire? Whats your electrical like? 

whatever you are focusing on are useless.  Signal quality, signal processing and tuning, along with acoustical treatments are the things that actually has any real impact on your sound quality.  The stuff you mentioned about the wires and amp swap will do almost next to nothing. 

 
you never said what was your head unit make and model or signal source how are you getting signal to the amps?. or how the install is aka door treatments, gasketting  etc... OR how things are installed, how are your grounds looking like? Are they solid? Whats the signal path like? whats your music source? Are the RCAs on the different side of the power wire? Whats your electrical like? 

whatever you are focusing on are useless.  Signal quality, signal processing and tuning, along with acoustical treatments are the things that actually has any real impact on your sound quality.  The stuff you mentioned about the wires and amp swap will do almost next to nothing. 
Head unit is stock, and I'm using an Audiocontrol LC7i line out converter rather than the amp's hi-level input... but as I stated, there is no improvement in SQ or hiss when I use an aux cord from my phone to the RCAs on the back of my amp, so I don't think the problem is anywhere in the audio signal up to the amp, but correct me if that's still a possibility.

Door install should be good. Dynamat all over (exterior panel and covering frame holes), baffles used. I had to drill holes for the speakers, and it ended up being pretty tight, hopefully tightening the screws down didn't bend the shape of the speaker but visibly it looks fine from what i can tell. External crossover is in the door.

Ground is less than 12" for everything-- large bolt that holds the seat down and has over 1/2" of threads contacting the car. 250W sub amp uses a different bolt on a different seat and has no problem.

 
Head unit is stock, and I'm using an Audiocontrol LC7i line out converter rather than the amp's hi-level input... but as I stated, there is no improvement in SQ or hiss when I use an aux cord from my phone to the RCAs on the back of my amp, so I don't think the problem is anywhere in the audio signal up to the amp, but correct me if that's still a possibility.

Door install should be good. Dynamat all over (exterior panel and covering frame holes), baffles used. I had to drill holes for the speakers, and it ended up being pretty tight, hopefully tightening the screws down didn't bend the shape of the speaker but visibly it looks fine from what i can tell. External crossover is in the door.

Ground is less than 12" for everything-- large bolt that holds the seat down and has over 1/2" of threads contacting the car. 250W sub amp uses a different bolt on a different seat and has no problem.
first off, audiocontrol and stock head unit, you cant expect anything decent or even mediocre out of that. Aux from the phone is even worse. its 100% the issue for most of your sound quality issues. Anything stock head unit is 100% garbage in nowadays standards. The only way you can possibly get anything good is if you have a DSP that can dequalize and restore the garbage signal thats coming out of the stock head unit but the sound is already low resolution from the garbage Dac of the stock head unit. Cant stress enough how every install with a stock head unit and audiocontrol unit I've come across IRL and all the people making complaint posts on this forum and facebook and other forums that the stock head unit is always been the issue for SQ issues.

Try a different grounding location or even a direct battery ground and do the big 3 upgrade for your hiss issues but the hiss could very well be related to your audiocontrol unit as well. actually 75% sure its related to the AC unit. 

You really dont understand how low quality stock head units are in terms of DACs. How they process music gives you garbage from the start, the audiocontrol doesnt fix anything it just boosts up that garbage now you get louder garbage to make things simple.

 
You did not mention sound deadening in your doors. The absence of this product poses a dramatic outcome to any after market you place on your doors.  Attend to this in your ride and please include the back speaker grill used to prevent water damage to the speaker cone /magnet area and use the stock foam surround that is used in front of the speaker cone when you remove the door trim. All these factors contribute to a stronger mid-bass presence in the front stage.

After you do this and still not satisfied with the speakers performance, then you can look into alternative component speakers.    I have found that entry level components have a brighter tweeter so the downside to this is it may seem like the mid-bass is lacking when you put it together and test it out.  I know for a fact that Fusion encounter speakers are notorious for this but not sure if you have this brand in US.

Let us know how you go mate!

 
Aux from the phone is even worse. its 100% the issue for most of your sound quality issues.
Give me one reason why a 320 kbps track from an iphone isn't a quality test signal.

Try a different grounding location or even a direct battery ground and do the big 3 upgrade for your hiss issues but the hiss could very well be related to your audiocontrol unit as well. actually 75% sure its related to the AC unit.
It's not. Hiss is present with RCA cables unplugged from the amp, and also with LR inputs to the amp connected to each other as recommended by Crutchfield to diagnose his. Hiss is 100% from the amp or somewhere after it in the signal chain. It also does not change with volume, or with alternator speed.

Using an aftermarket HU is not an option for me, my car would not integrate well with it. I would need a custom mounting plate, and would lose usage of many of the buttons on my dash. So I've used the Audiocontrol LOC, which I've read many, many times is the gold standard for LOCs, especially compared to passive LOCs of course. So I don't really know what you're getting at with saying that it causes problems. If you want to recommend a better solution for using the stock HU than the Audiocontrol LOC, then please, I'm listening.

The Kicker Key 180.4 does have an automatic DSP that it uses a microphone to tune. It really makes a world of difference, especially in terms of EQ and timing/soundstage-- but something about the EQ it outputs isn't perfect.

I think I'm going to try adding an EQ unit so I can also adjust the EQ manually.  The Rockford Fosgate components have notoriously bright tweeters apparently. I think these might be preventing me from turning the volume up and giving more power to the 6.5" woofers-- my ears have always been more sensitive to treble-- in every audio system, I've always turned the treble way down. We'll see how this goes, but I'm still open to other suggestions from this thread.

 
You did not mention sound deadening in your doors. The absence of this product poses a dramatic outcome to any after market you place on your doors.  Attend to this in your ride and please include the back speaker grill used to prevent water damage to the speaker cone /magnet area
Fully deadened with actual Dynamat, both the exterior panel and the frame. And yep, foam baffles to prevent damage. 

use the stock foam surround that is used in front of the speaker cone when you remove the door trim.
I don't exactly know what you mean by this. Like this?

 
61E9f+7P6HL._SL1000_.jpg


 
What level of output are you expecting out of these 6.5 inch drivers? I suggest you post a picture of the doors with the drivers installed to gather honest advice on where you're lacking

For the most part you're correct in wanting to use an EQ to adjust harsh distortion, but there's usually other factors to consider such as overlap and which filter slope you're using

 
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Fully deadened with actual Dynamat, both the exterior panel and the frame. And yep, foam baffles to prevent damage. 

I don't exactly know what you mean by this. Like this?

 
Yes, that's right, usually the stock speakers only have a 1/4 inch thin foam, the one in the picture is a good one!

 
Give me one reason why a 320 kbps track from an iphone isn't a quality test signal.

It's not. Hiss is present with RCA cables unplugged from the amp, and also with LR inputs to the amp connected to each other as recommended by Crutchfield to diagnose his. Hiss is 100% from the amp or somewhere after it in the signal chain. It also does not change with volume, or with alternator speed.

Using an aftermarket HU is not an option for me, my car would not integrate well with it. I would need a custom mounting plate, and would lose usage of many of the buttons on my dash. So I've used the Audiocontrol LOC, which I've read many, many times is the gold standard for LOCs, especially compared to passive LOCs of course. So I don't really know what you're getting at with saying that it causes problems. If you want to recommend a better solution for using the stock HU than the Audiocontrol LOC, then please, I'm listening.

The Kicker Key 180.4 does have an automatic DSP that it uses a microphone to tune. It really makes a world of difference, especially in terms of EQ and timing/soundstage-- but something about the EQ it outputs isn't perfect.

I think I'm going to try adding an EQ unit so I can also adjust the EQ manually.  The Rockford Fosgate components have notoriously bright tweeters apparently. I think these might be preventing me from turning the volume up and giving more power to the 6.5" woofers-- my ears have always been more sensitive to treble-- in every audio system, I've always turned the treble way down. We'll see how this goes, but I'm still open to other suggestions from this thread.
aux is one of the worst signal paths compared to usb and aptx signals processed by a quality DAC.  

Audiocontrol is not the gold standard anymore Actual DSPs that fixes the signal is the gold standard which has factory de-equalizition and restoration of bass, literally fixes the garbage signal out of your stock head unit. You are quite outdated on whats actually the gold standard nowadays. JL FIX or helix, alpine or audison DSPs all do this. Even a cheap alternative would be to bypass the stock head unit completely by installing a dayton dsp with bluetooth dongle with aptx lossless streaming for around 180. Pretty much your head unit wont even be in the equation and you dont have to remove it or anything just leave as is. but anything audio will go through the dsp. I never even mentioned getting an aftermarket head unit. The Factory integration game nowadays are DSPs .

For any worthwhile tuning you need actual hands on control and proper knowledge. Relying on a microphone will get you random boosted levels which leads to early clipping and innaccurate center stage.  Plus you are using components with a passive crossover, there's no accurate sound stage or tuning available with that because you are stuck with a set crossover point so your mid and tweeter blend is pretty much playing the lottery to see if it works with your vehicle's acoustics. 

What a proper setup would consist of would be using a DSP, foregoing rears, ditching the Audio control, the passive crossover and running active with your components on a dsp. With a 8 channel dsp, you have bandpass capability with the mid and high pass capability with the tweeters, a channel for subs and an extra channel for dedicated midbass or rears if you want to do so as well. The dsp will be your crossover and you can choose your own frequency and slopes to get the perfect blend between subs, mid and tweet along with indiviual left right level control for each mid and tweeter so the output is balanced between left and right since the left will be louder to you since you are in the driver side. You'll have 31 bands of EQ for each mid, sub, tweet both left and right independently as well. Your time alignment will be actually accurate because you can time align the tweeter and mid separately, they are in different locations of the vehicle and need different values.  With a passive crossover its lumped together and you get a really hideous attempt at a center stage thats not accurate at all. 

What the crossover functions will do is naturally tame peaks in the frequency response and make the overall system sound a lot smoother more detailed and resolving. AKA fixes your treble issue easily because on a lot of component sets they set the crossover frequency on the passive crossover too high and the mids are playing some treble as well or if your tweeters arent in an ideal location you get a lot of reflections off surfaces that creates spikes in the frequency response.  Also with the DSP you have phase control to fix phasing between mid, tweeter etc... which sounds like a major issue you are facing with the lack of midbass and lower midrange impact right now.

With a stock head unit, they have their own EQ curve placed in with boosted and cut signals to make the sh*tty stock speakers sound as best as they can. What you are doing with the audio control unit is boosting that sh*tty frequency response curve even louder. Not to mention its low resolution, most stock head units are using a low quality mass produced DAC vs a proper 24 bit burr brown dac meaning overall resolution is fked from the start. Hence why my suggestion with using a bluetooth aptx dongle straight to the DSP( lossless digital signal straight to a dsp with audiophile grade dacs)

Sorry when you mention SQ in a vehicle with so much reflections, phasing, road noise and driver positioning and distance etc.., there's a  whole world of issues that need to be addressed and fixed only with the proper tools.

 
aux is one of the worst signal paths compared to usb and aptx signals processed by a quality DAC.  

Audiocontrol is not the gold standard anymore Actual DSPs that fixes the signal is the gold standard which has factory de-equalizition and restoration of bass, literally fixes the garbage signal out of your stock head unit. You are quite outdated on whats actually the gold standard nowadays. JL FIX or helix, alpine or audison DSPs all do this. Even a cheap alternative would be to bypass the stock head unit completely by installing a dayton dsp with bluetooth dongle with aptx lossless streaming for around 180. Pretty much your head unit wont even be in the equation and you dont have to remove it or anything just leave as is. but anything audio will go through the dsp. I never even mentioned getting an aftermarket head unit. The Factory integration game nowadays are DSPs .

For any worthwhile tuning you need actual hands on control and proper knowledge. Relying on a microphone will get you random boosted levels which leads to early clipping and innaccurate center stage.  Plus you are using components with a passive crossover, there's no accurate sound stage or tuning available with that because you are stuck with a set crossover point so your mid and tweeter blend is pretty much playing the lottery to see if it works with your vehicle's acoustics. 

What a proper setup would consist of would be using a DSP, foregoing rears, ditching the Audio control, the passive crossover and running active with your components on a dsp. With a 8 channel dsp, you have bandpass capability with the mid and high pass capability with the tweeters, a channel for subs and an extra channel for dedicated midbass or rears if you want to do so as well. The dsp will be your crossover and you can choose your own frequency and slopes to get the perfect blend between subs, mid and tweet along with indiviual left right level control for each mid and tweeter so the output is balanced between left and right since the left will be louder to you since you are in the driver side. You'll have 31 bands of EQ for each mid, sub, tweet both left and right independently as well. Your time alignment will be actually accurate because you can time align the tweeter and mid separately, they are in different locations of the vehicle and need different values.  With a passive crossover its lumped together and you get a really hideous attempt at a center stage thats not accurate at all. 

What the crossover functions will do is naturally tame peaks in the frequency response and make the overall system sound a lot smoother more detailed and resolving. AKA fixes your treble issue easily because on a lot of component sets they set the crossover frequency on the passive crossover too high and the mids are playing some treble as well or if your tweeters arent in an ideal location you get a lot of reflections off surfaces that creates spikes in the frequency response.  Also with the DSP you have phase control to fix phasing between mid, tweeter etc... which sounds like a major issue you are facing with the lack of midbass and lower midrange impact right now.

With a stock head unit, they have their own EQ curve placed in with boosted and cut signals to make the sh*tty stock speakers sound as best as they can. What you are doing with the audio control unit is boosting that sh*tty frequency response curve even louder. Not to mention its low resolution, most stock head units are using a low quality mass produced DAC vs a proper 24 bit burr brown dac meaning overall resolution is fked from the start. Hence why my suggestion with using a bluetooth aptx dongle straight to the DSP( lossless digital signal straight to a dsp with audiophile grade dacs)

Sorry when you mention SQ in a vehicle with so much reflections, phasing, road noise and driver positioning and distance etc.., there's a  whole world of issues that need to be addressed and fixed only with the proper tools.
Thank you so much for your in-depth advice.

I’ve thought about a BT amp or dongle or something, but I use USB input for my HU and like being able to change songs from the steering wheel, and see the track metadata on the screen. If only there was a USB splitter/“tap” that allowed me to control my phone and see this data on the HU, but send the audio signal somewhere else... but I haven’t seen any product like that.

Let’s say I use that Dayton DSP, but not for the Bluetooth dongle reasons— what are reasons to get a ~$400 JL Fix DSP instead of that one for $150? Seems like it does the same thing (eq, time delay), minus a more-intuitive GUI on the PC. It has a high-level input so could also replace the AudioControl unit. I understand if you don’t know too much about that product though, doesn’t seem too popularly used...

 
Thank you so much for your in-depth advice.

I’ve thought about a BT amp or dongle or something, but I use USB input for my HU and like being able to change songs from the steering wheel, and see the track metadata on the screen. If only there was a USB splitter/“tap” that allowed me to control my phone and see this data on the HU, but send the audio signal somewhere else... but I haven’t seen any product like that.

Let’s say I use that Dayton DSP, but not for the Bluetooth dongle reasons— what are reasons to get a ~$400 JL Fix DSP instead of that one for $150? Seems like it does the same thing (eq, time delay), minus a more-intuitive GUI on the PC. It has a high-level input so could also replace the AudioControl unit. I understand if you don’t know too much about that product though, doesn’t seem too popularly used...
the dayton dsp doesnt DE-Equalize the signal or restore any loss on the stock head unit. The reason the other DSPs costs more is because they sum up the input signal and use that de-qualization and restoration features so you have a flat full range signal starting out as you would from an aftermarket head unit vs the same old shitty stock head unit signal.

if you have a GM car, you might get an I data link maestro connector with a rockford DSR1 that can work but that signal processor is buggy with crappy bluetooth connection. 

 
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if you have a GM car, you might get an I data link maestro connector with a rockford DSR1 that can work but that signal processor is buggy with crappy bluetooth connection. 
Honda so nope, but the DSR1 does work as a normal DSP without the data link so that could be a mid-price option at $250 (done a lot of research today haha)

Really, i should’ve predicted the auto-DSP on my amp wouldn’t satisfy my need to tweak things myself. I’m going to start off with the Dayton DSP and a new 4ch amp that doesn’t have the auto-DSP, and also raises the per-channel RMS from 45W to 60W to match my 60W rated speakers... If the setup doesn’t meet my expectations, that’s the beauty of free returns. Return, raise budget, check results, repeat...  will report back.

 
Honda so nope, but the DSR1 does work as a normal DSP without the data link so that could be a mid-price option at $250 (done a lot of research today haha)

Really, i should’ve predicted the auto-DSP on my amp wouldn’t satisfy my need to tweak things myself. I’m going to start off with the Dayton DSP and a new 4ch amp that doesn’t have the auto-DSP, and also raises the per-channel RMS from 45W to 60W to match my 60W rated speakers... If the setup doesn’t meet my expectations, that’s the beauty of free returns. Return, raise budget, check results, repeat...  will report back.
get a pioneer gm 8704 its a solid 135 dollar buy that'll sh*t on most offerings out there, you can never have too much power, you can always back off the gains. When you have an amp working at 100% capacity, your distortion levels will be a lot higher, your amp efficiency tanks and runs hotter.  You want to have a lot of headroom so you can get the clean output you want with a squeaky clean signal and have all your equipment lasting a lot longer being FAR from any kind of clipping while getting the output you need.  There is no overpowering because you directly control the power your amp puts out via gain settings however you have headroom for dynamic peaks that draw more power which usually puts your underpowered amp into clipping territory which screws up the sound as well. 

The dayton is actually waaaay superior to the rockford I've used both. Rockford one is trash by comparison works like 50% of the times, all the units have bluetooth connection problems to the app.  

I'd recommend just getting the bluetooth dongle anyways because you can do all your tuning on your smartphone rather than plugging a laptop every time you need to tune.  Also you can just see the difference yourself between wired connection and the bluetooth connection and see the major difference yourself.  Again you'll still run into the same issues if you do wired straight to the stock head unit, nothing will change other than you getting some tuning options. Your overall resolution is still low with the stock head unit meaning no matter how much you tune, its still never going to amount to anywhere close to a high resolution signal from the dongle. You'll just need to experience it yourself.

 
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