more questions

vawakemonster

Ive been lurking trying to sink in as much as possible since i joined and asked about an amp. I installed my profile amp and sub i love them.

so when I play rap music it sounds wonderful I like the sound but when I play rock music my stereo just gets loud. with the audition of the sub the first 2 weeks I got back into rap just because theres more bass. but my favorite music is rock and when I play it my high frequencys sound kind of generic, voices sound harsh and almost sharp feeling and my midbass jsut sounds like crap. the musci ahs no real acuracy jsut kind of loud.

I admit to most people it doesnt sound bad but i am really into my audio sounding loud and including ALL of the frequencys acurately

I have some rockford 6 by 8 two way speakers powered by the HU i belice this is the problem.

I can get my hand on an MTX amp that came with those bets buy mtx combos for 40 bucks from a friend and its new in box. this ampis something like 75 RMS by 2. should I add an amp or should I go with components and an amp.

sorry for the long post and thanks for you guys' help. its always nice to help me fuel my audio mania.

MacLeod

I kinda doubt the 6x8's are very good so youll want to upgrade them as soon as possible.

However, the biggest problem is using your head unit to power them. A head unit is a horrible source of power. At best itll only make 7 or 8 real world watts and thatlll still be at a high distortion level. So when you turn it up to keep up with your subs, they distort and sound like crap.

The best thing you can do right now is to buy a good amp for the fronts. Something in the 50-75 watt range per channel. Then look into some better speakers. That will be a night and day difference.

vawakemonster

last month before I got the sub i left my stereo on all day while iw as in school (7 hours) and ever since hten my volts have been a little low and with the audition of the sub when my stereo hits the voltage SOMETIMES moves to the music at high volumes. today when I went to get my cars oil changed they said the battery was testing low and needed replacing. is this from my sub? if it is would adding a speaker amp make this problem worse? or would a new battery erase this.

MacLeod

Buy a new battery.

Go to Autozone and get one of their Duralast Gold batteries. 875 CCA and 1000 amps and a massive 165 minutes reserve capacity. All for $70.

You cant beat that anywhere.

exalted512

MacLeod wrote:

You can beat that anywhere.

youre a helluva salesman
-Cody

MacLeod

oops

vawakemonster

hahaha will they guive me any credit for my battery I have now? cause I know they just going to trick it and recharge it.

Greg Peters

vawakemonster wrote:

so when I play rap music it sounds wonderful I like the sound but when I play rock music my stereo just gets loud. with the audition of the sub the first 2 weeks I got back into rap just because theres more bass. but my favorite music is rock and when I play it my high frequencys sound kind of generic, voices sound harsh and almost sharp feeling and my midbass jsut sounds like crap. the musci ahs no real acuracy jsut kind of loud.

I admit to most people it doesnt sound bad but i am really into my audio sounding loud and including ALL of the frequencys acurately

With vastly upgraded audio gear in your car, the sound quality is ultimately limited by a couple of things-

-Compression of the music you play back (source material). CD quality will usually be far superior to any kind of compressed music of the mp3 variety. All mp3s are not created equal, but for critical listening I usually resort to the original source CD.

-Recording quality of the source material. Recording quality varies in commercially available music, ranging from "suitable for AM radio only" to outstanding. The artists and their respective sound engineers don't always "get it" when it comes to mixing and mastering the music. A lot of recent CD releases have recorded the music "hot", in that it's almost a clipped signal to start with, and the high/low frequencies are recorded at levels so high that it doesn't take much volume to distort them (without significant adjustment specifically for these tracks).


The down side to having great audio components in your car is that they reveal poorly recorded source material more so than anything lower-end or stock would...but the upside is that well recorded music sounds just that- great.

I usually end up playing the same well-recorded music every time I set up or tune a system, partly because I'm familiar with exactly how it should sound, and partly because the balance of frequencies in the track makes it easy getting a nice balance that isn't offensive with any one type of music. That said, no amount of tuning can make a track sound outstanding if it wasn't recorded particularly well in the first place, and there's a lot of popular music that falls in that category.

Bill Ayotte

I would go with a high quality component set-up and a separate amp. Keep in mind, just like home audio, quality is better than quantity with watts. I have a alpine/diamond audio set-up in the trunk now and am very happy. It does out run the stock components in my jetta though. I plan on replacing them with JL XR's or something comparable. That 7" stock size is a ****. I am looking at a carver amp to use for the components, but I am kinda biased twards anything Bob Carver.

vawakemonster

well I cant be looking for a while seeing as a totaled my truck, should i by the MTX amp know since I can get a good deal on it or should I wait till I get another truck? I should be getting a new truck in a month or two once my father and I get our tax returns. for componets I was thinking of going with either polk momo or boston acoustics, before I wrecked my ford I was htinking of getting the boston compnent 5.25/tweeter in the 6 by 8 frame.

this time around, I can avoid all of the mistakes I made with the last truck. wiring and crimping mistakes and sup placment and amp mounting area. Thats one of the positive things I can get out of this whole ordeal.

Bill Ayotte

If you can get a sweet deal on it, go for it. If nothing else, you might find something that you like more and flip it for an extra couple of bucks. I always take the deals as they come because you never know what it could cost you when you pass and then start looking a couple of months later. I would fabricate some sort of plate if you plan to use a speaker that is a different size than the stock hole. If you have a friend that plays with sheet metal, I would have him cut you a template to mount and dynamat it. It kinda depends on your truck. If it has a set in the headliner, for instance, you could have that plate made, dynamat it, then redo the headliner so it looks like it always belonged there. The best installs I have seen always looked stock. Like it was always there. Kinda cuts down on the "steal me" factor too.