Yeah, so I went ahead and installed that Pioneer component set last night after work.

The install went fine but for some strange reason these speakers sound like garbage. There's no bass at all. It's weird. It's almost as if the cross-over is sending zero bass to the woofer. Or, it's like I hooked the woofer to the tweeter output on the cross-over. (But I didn't!)

I even went ahead and took everything out of the vehicle and put the factory junk back in and the bass returned.

I've never put a set of aftermarket speakers in anything and had the sound quality end up being worse than the paper-coned speakers I had taken out.

???

The speakers that I took out were 2 ohm and the ones I put in were 4 ohm.

I'm not expert when it comes to figuring out that kind of stuff, but could the ohmage be the factor here?

Increasing impedance shouldn't affect that. Amplitude to a degree, but not bass response, not like that. Sounds really strange, don't know what happened there. Was the crossover adjustable at all? What's the LPF cutoff freq for the woofer?

I know exactly what happened!! If you hooked up the speakers where you connected the positive to the positive and neg to negative but then the other you connected negative to positive and positive to negative then what you have is a speaker that is traveling out when the other is traveling in this is called phase and yes no bass!

Two channels being out of phase can cause very detrimental destructive interference, but it sounds like he's describing something more extreme. Besides, he could have disconnected one channel and it should have sounded normal, at least through one speaker. Sounds like something different to me, but it's impossible to say for sure without hearing it in person.

agreed, if he hooked up the speakers terminals not the same on both sides, the amp would shut off or something. are you running your speakers off your deck or an amp? i had a similar problem with a pair of speakers my brother had in his car and it was an amp issue. check your crossover if its on a high pass filter or not. if your running from your deck, is it set up with a hpf? what kind of deck are you using to power the speakers?

You will want to test this, i used to do stereo competition and if you hook the speakers where the left channel is ++ -- and the right channel +- +- The speakers on one side are moving out and the other side is moving in canceling each other out. This makes no distortion and is undetectable except the fact of complete lodd of bass as trebble is unaffected from this(or minutely).

be careful while testing, using the speakers while having the polarities reversed could cause the magnets in the speakers to demagnetize and make them inoperable. you should be ok if your just testing at low volumes but still something to watch out for.
also, your crossover should not be any higher than 120hz max on a 2-way setup. thats what was up when i looked at my brothers amp. his x-over was around 250hz

Ok lets get one thing staight, hooking up a speaker out of phase(backwards) will not demagnetize it. Anyone running theres sub inverted would be screwed, but cause you have to hook it up reverse to the one inside the box. Having the speakers out of phase will cause a decrease in the amount of bass produced, called phase cancelling.

Just to clear everyone's suppositions about whether my speakers are out of phase, they're not. I'm not a complete idiot.

Currently I'm powering the speakers via the Pioneer head unit that outputs more than enough RMS power to drive this component set.

I think part of my issue is the fact that I had to use a crappy set of two-piece mounting brackets that don't do a very good job of sealing the woofer to the door. Certainly not as well as the factory speaker was.

I'm going to modify the old speaker/bracket into a new bracket that I can mount the woofer into and see if that helps at all.

And regardless, I'm digging an old Alpine amp out of the closet to power the speakers.

The ass-hats at Crutchfield tend to think that the reduction in bass is due to the fact that I've replaced the inefficient speakers with a much more efficient set and that's where all my bass went. I don't exactly believe this, but we'll see what happens when I get the speakers mounted a bit better and throw a bit more power at them.

Just a useless fact: a paper cone speaker will reproduce bass better then a composite one.

agreed with the paper cone producing more bass statement.

If you are powering your aftermarket speakers with your deck, it is my experience that the decks never have enough power to really drive those aftermarket speakers. That is definitely a good possibility of why your speakers dont sound very "full". The preamps in those decks arent very good and will usually put out more highs than the lows unevenly. This is why a lot of the time it is worth the extra cash investing in a good power amp for your mains. Because they have better preamps within them that will distribute the frequencies more evenly. Especially when you really turn it up.

agreed, all you need is a better amplifier. currently im running at least 100 w rms per side to my comps at 4 ohms. i think they sound ok, dont forget to beef up your sound deadening in your doors. I did that and my response across the audible range coming from my comps improved drastically.

once i have a better cam, ill try to take pics of everything, im running new wore today anyway.

even through the deck you will still get a alright sound..... there is somthing wrong with the setup..... up until the X i have always powered my door speakers with my deck..... i have instaled many systems where they were also powered by the deck.....

even through the deck you will still get a alright sound..... there is somthing wrong with the setup..... up until the X i have always powered my door speakers with my deck..... i have instaled many systems where they were also powered by the deck.....

I thought there was something wrong too, but after tearing all the new stuff out, and putting the old back in it sounds fine, then re-replacing the new stuff, it sounds like garbage.

Crutchfield has extended my return time to 60 days. I've had some email correspondence with them and they're being really cool about the whole thing.

They want to know it the speakers are garbage, so they're giving me time to redo everything.

i for one am very interested to see how this turns out

last night we did an install on my buddies car stereo. Same situation with the speakers having no low end response. He was running off his deck. So I took them out and plugged them into the amp thats in my x, they sounded way better. Plenty of low end and everything.
There might be an off chance that your speakers are garbage, but im betting on the amp. Whats the wattage rating and ohm rating on your speakers? how about your deck?

last night we did an install on my buddies car stereo. Same situation with the speakers having no low end response. He was running off his deck. So I took them out and plugged them into the amp thats in my x, they sounded way better. Plenty of low end and everything.
There might be an off chance that your speakers are garbage, but im betting on the amp. Whats the wattage rating and ohm rating on your speakers? how about your deck?

Head Unit. (http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?i=130P6000UB&search=deh-p6000ub&tp=5684&tab=features_and_specs)
14 watts RMS (50 peak)

Component Set. (http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?g=410&i=130TSA1702&tp=106&tab=features_and_specs)
4ohm RMS range 2-50 watts (250 watts peak)

In theory the head unit has more than enough RMS power to drive the component set.

Now, I fully understand that throwing more power than just the head unit at these speakers is going to help them to sound much better but there's just no way that the HU is responsible for making them sound as crappy as they do.

Regardless, arguing over what could be the problem is useless.

I think it's a combination of crappy brackets and less than adequate power, or the speakers could just be junk. Either way, I'm not going to know until I tear everything out and re-do it the way I wanted to in the first place.

Something I find in car audio very interesting is the ratios between rms and peak. I am a sound engineer for my profession. I do all kinds of gigs, installs and whatever. In a pro audio rig, rms is always half of the peak power. (on good equipment) And when buying amps, i usually buy an amp that is if not equivalent, then close to the peak power of your speakers. because if your not driving that speaker hard enough, its going to sound like garbage. there are so many other variables but for now just keeping it simple.

Now when I started getting into car audio for my own cars, i didnt and still dont understand why the rms readings are so much lower than the peak. (other than the fact that the speakers are obviously not pro quality, they cant handle a beating) Coming from my background, it really makes me question the real peak handling capability.

When I bought my system, i looked around for a while and I found a component set-up from polk that gave me 100 watts rms and 300 peak. So i threw them in there (2 pairs, 4 sets of speakers) backed behind a 750 watt amp. So I have almost 200 watts going to each speaker. They really crank and sound nice and balanced throughought my volume levels even when im listening at low volumes and at high. the frequency output is fairly close in different volume levels and my speakers are really being pushed which makes them sound full.

Now ok not that helps you any, but my point is I really feel like its the amp that is the key here. I agree arguing over the cause isnt going to get anyone anywhere, but just hear me out. if your speakers can handle 250 watts peak, you should at least be driving them at maybe 50-75 watts (keeping in mind your rms reading) and if your deck is only putting out 14 watts rms (is that per channel or total? if its total then divide that number by how many speakers you got plugged in, so for 2 speakers its 7 watts rms, 25 peak), in my opinion, i dont think that is enough to be driving those speakers.

(keeping in mind that with decks, the preamps and other components in there arent very good so when you turn it up all the way on a deck, it doesnt have the power to drive the whole frequency range evenly, so it will put out more highs and take off lows which consume a lot of power, to get "volume" rather than balanced sound. I have seen decks that put out a little more power depending on how many speakers are plugged in and just how much it can put out and maybe that might give you a little more juice. but I really think its the lack of an amp.

ok ive said my peace and I know you cant do anything until you get some time to rip it apart. so yeah, dont mean to be pushy, just giving reason for my opinions and seeing if it bears witness to any of you homies.

Something I find in car audio very interesting is the ratios between rms and peak. I am a sound engineer for my profession. I do all kinds of gigs, installs and whatever. In a pro audio rig, rms is always half of the peak power. (on good equipment) And when buying amps, i usually buy an amp that is if not equivalent, then close to the peak power of your speakers. because if your not driving that speaker hard enough, its going to sound like garbage. there are so many other variables but for now just keeping it simple.

Now when I started getting into car audio for my own cars, i didnt and still dont understand why the rms readings are so much lower than the peak. (other than the fact that the speakers are obviously not pro quality, they cant handle a beating) Coming from my background, it really makes me question the real peak handling capability.

When I bought my system, i looked around for a while and I found a component set-up from polk that gave me 100 watts rms and 300 peak. So i threw them in there (2 pairs, 4 sets of speakers) backed behind a 750 watt amp. So I have almost 200 watts going to each speaker. They really crank and sound nice and balanced throughought my volume levels even when im listening at low volumes and at high. the frequency output is fairly close in different volume levels and my speakers are really being pushed which makes them sound full.

Now ok not that helps you any, but my point is I really feel like its the amp that is the key here. I agree arguing over the cause isnt going to get anyone anywhere, but just hear me out. if your speakers can handle 250 watts peak, you should at least be driving them at maybe 50-75 watts (keeping in mind your rms reading) and if your deck is only putting out 14 watts rms (is that per channel or total? if its total then divide that number by how many speakers you got plugged in, so for 2 speakers its 7 watts rms, 25 peak), in my opinion, i dont think that is enough to be driving those speakers.

(keeping in mind that with decks, the preamps and other components in there arent very good so when you turn it up all the way on a deck, it doesnt have the power to drive the whole frequency range evenly, so it will put out more highs and take off lows which consume a lot of power, to get "volume" rather than balanced sound. I have seen decks that put out a little more power depending on how many speakers are plugged in and just how much it can put out and maybe that might give you a little more juice. but I really think its the lack of an amp.

ok ive said my peace and I know you cant do anything until you get some time to rip it apart. so yeah, dont mean to be pushy, just giving reason for my opinions and seeing if it bears witness to any of you homies.

Oh no! I wasn't being an ass or snippy!

I totally agree that the speakers need more power. I never disagreed with that. For what it's worth I was going to install an amp eventually anyway. I just wanted to get the speakers installed to save me that step when I wired the amplifier up.

The head unit is 14 watts x4. If you really wanted to know. (That's what the links were for!)

No, I really appreciate any insight I can get.

It's really frustrating when you've done something a million times and the million and first time it doesn't produce the same results you're used to seeing, that's all.

for sure man.. understood.

Just an update. The speakers sound fine when I fabricated new brackets out of the factory speakers. Bass response returned when there weren't any gaps between the speaker basket and the mounting surface.

However, I still installed an amp.

good deal bro
where ya been? we've missed ya!

good deal bro
where ya been? we've missed ya!

Managing both a Nissan parts department and a Mercedes parts department doesn't afford me all the internet time I'd like during the day and sitting on the forums is the last thing I think about before my head hits the pillow.

lol, i heard that, but in any case, its good to see ya on clubX

Yeah bro... it seems a lot of us have been really busy lately. Especially me now that I'm working again. Good thing is though, I now have an office to hide in and stay on CX! hahaha

glad to see you back.. LOL