Rather odd question....

SportsFan

I have an Alpine CDA-9847 head unit, with Polk db650s for the front, and Polk db690s for the rear. I've had this particular system for the past couple of weeks.

For some reason...last night, after an hour or so of listening to the radio at a fairly decent volume level in my car....I put in a CD. Now here's the thing that I find a little odd. Maybe it's my hearing, or maybe it's my imagination.....but I swear, when I put the CD in....it seemed as though the VOCALS were a little less pronounced than usual. The bass, drums, guitar, any other instrument, etc., all sounded great....but the vocals seemed less pronounced than they have been the first couple of weeks.

Now, I had been listening to some AM talk at low levels, and then some FM at mid to higher levels.....all for about an hour/hour and a half. But when I played two, three...even four CDs or more, the vocals just didn't seem to be what they had previously on all of the disks. I listened tonight, after giving the stereo a break for the day, to see if it still seemed that way. IT DOES!

So my question is, how can I check to see if something is wrong, or if I am simply crazy? Seriously, other than "taking the speakers out"....which really isn't feasible, is there a way to check to see if there is truly something wrong, or if this is just my imagination?

Greg Peters

Could it be that your dbs are still breaking in? The four dbs I installed took their time to break in. They were listened to at normal levels for weeks and sounded rather flat in the lower end, and then they went through a phase where I had to keep juggling the EQ in the head unit for sound preference until their performance leveled out.

Once finally broken in, these speakers began to sound much stronger in the mid-bass department, and I had to cut the lower frequencies back to balance the sound quality out to where they mixed well with the highs. After a month or so of regular listening, they sound consistant and have been going strong for over a year and a half.

I ran these speakers off H/U power for months, and bet that they would have loosened up alot quicker if they had been given a good dose of amplifier power from the start.

It may be possible that your speakers are simply performing better in the bottom end after a few weeks of use and the mid-bass is now overwhelming your high frequencies with current EQ/tone control settings.

MacLeod

Its your imagination. The radio is not a very good measure of SQ.

FM radio is treble heavy and it accents the voice a lot more and even makes it more sibilant. On the few occasions I play the radio I notice very little to no bass response at all.

Mono radio is all about the voice as its mono. Its made for vocals and the music is horrible.

Also, CD's being a much superior source will reproduce the instruments a lot better than radio and that would overshadow the vocals more.

SportsFan

Greg Peters wrote:

Could it be that your dbs are still breaking in? The four dbs I installed took their time to break in. They were listened to at normal levels for weeks and sounded rather flat in the lower end, and then they went through a phase where I had to keep juggling the EQ in the head unit for sound preference until their performance leveled out.

Once finally broken in, these speakers began to sound much stronger in the mid-bass department, and I had to cut the lower frequencies back to balance the sound quality out to where they mixed well with the highs. After a month or so of regular listening, they sound consistant and have been going strong for over a year and a half.

I ran these speakers off H/U power for months, and bet that they would have loosened up alot quicker if they had been given a good dose of amplifier power from the start.

It may be possible that your speakers are simply performing better in the bottom end after a few weeks of use and the mid-bass is now overwhelming your high frequencies with current EQ/tone control settings.

Thanks, Greg. This is kind of what I thought as well. Perhaps they were still "breaking in", because the bass definitely seemed to be MORE pronounced....just as the VOCALS definitely seemed to be LESS pronounced! The vocals didn't sound completely like they were being sung through a bottle or from the bottom of a pit.....but where as they used to kind of play ABOVE the music, they now appear to be (listening volume level) below the music volume. Doesn't sound like an echo....or with any tinny rattle sound......so I'm not thinking that anything is blown, but they just don't sound as clear, loud, and as pronounced as they did originally.

MacLeod wrote:

Its your imagination. The radio is not a very good measure of SQ.

FM radio is treble heavy and it accents the voice a lot more and even makes it more sibilant. On the few occasions I play the radio I notice very little to no bass response at all.

Mono radio is all about the voice as its mono. Its made for vocals and the music is horrible.

Also, CD's being a much superior source will reproduce the instruments a lot better than radio and that would overshadow the vocals more.

Mac....I'm not talking about the vocals while listening to the radio itself. I'm talking about listening to the vocals THROUGH THE CD PLAYER! It's just that I noticed this AFTER listening to the radio. But the vocals when playing CDs seem to be the only thing affected.....at least, in a somewhat negative light. The bass does sound more pronounced, and that's why I was wondering if perhaps something had been blown (tweeter, midrange, etc.)....because the sound was definitely different, with somewhat less mids - definitely lower vocal volume - but more pronounced lows (bass). If there's nothing wrong with them, then I guess that's simply what they mean when they talk about "breaking in" speakers....

MacLeod

Youre saying that compared to the radio's vocals the CD vocal's are not as prominent, right?

If so, then its because a radio is going to sound different and usually worse than a CD and if you are listening to the radio for a long time and then switch to a CD, youre going to notice a difference because youre used to the radio.

If youre still concerned with it, just take one of your CD's from your car youre noticing the problem with and try it on a home stereo and see if it sounds any different.

SportsFan

MacLeod wrote:

Youre saying that compared to the radio's vocals the CD vocal's are not as prominent, right?

No, I mean that for some reason (and it could very well be my imagination) the vocals when I listen to the same CD NOW that I listened to a few days ago just sounds different. Not a HUGE difference.....but the vocals just seem less pronounced. For example, if I was listening to a Nirvana CD a few days ago.....Kurt Cobain's vocals just kind of seemed a little louder and more pronounced than they do NOW. It seems like a few days ago, the vocal track was louder than the bass, guitar, drums, etc., but now....they seem to be more "in the middle of the pack". I haven't adjusted anything on the receiver (bass, treble, etc.) either, but it just seems that the vocal track for virtually any CD that I play now doesn't sound as loud and/or as clear as before. Like I said, that COULD just be my imagination....or as Greg suggested, perhaps the speakers are being broken in and the result is "adjusting" the sound frequencies for different tracks (vocals, bass, other instruments, etc.) somewhat (?)

MacLeod wrote:

If youre still concerned with it, just take one of your CD's from your car youre noticing the problem with and try it on a home stereo and see if it sounds any different.

That's a really good suggestion. I'll try playing them in a factory CD player in our other car, as well as my home stereo and through my PC to see if I notice the same thing or not. Perhaps the vocals are actually meant to be at the level which they are at now, but at first, they were playing a little more pronounced than they probably SHOULD HAVE been......

MacLeod

Maybe you shouldnt be drinking while listening to your music!

1996blackmax

MacLeod wrote:

FM radio is treble heavy and it accents the voice a lot more and even makes it more sibilant. On the few occasions I play the radio I notice very little to no bass response at all.

Some of the stations here are also very bass heavy.

exalted512

sibilant
-Cody

cam5860

I could of understood what you were saying if you had said, (I played my cd's for a hour and then I switched to the radio and now my vocals do not sound as good). I would say it's all in your head because cd's sound a hell of a lot better that local radio.