I have a 91 GT. It currently has a Sony cdxs2210 I have Rockford Fosgate speakers in the doors and dash with some pioneer 5X7s in the back seat area. Over all the sound has to much highs and not enough low end. I have tried playing with the EQ but when I pull the highs down then it sounds to muffled. If the head unit had a loudness setting I think I'd be all right since I'm not looking for a big thumping sound. I could ad a sub box, but I take my car to the track so that means throwing tires and a jack in the hatch. I don't want to add something that I always have to take out. I've been down that road before and its a PITA. Any ideas on something that could stay put, or would adding an amp to the current speaker setup be the trick? TIA
The factory locations are not designed too well for bass applications. The door COULD act as a big enclosure if you seal the rear wave of the speaker from the front. This will cuase a drastic increase in bass response. Your speaker also come into play as well. What size are they? Most drop in speakers are just that and will not have much bass extension. Just the way they are designed. I could go really into detail on this, but I need some more infromation first. As far as the rears are concerned, forget about them ever playing any real bass. The design of Ford's mounting scheme does nothing but cause cancellation. Only way to get any bass out of them would be again to separate the front and rear waves by either means of an enclosure, or somehow sealing the rear of the panel. Not an easy undertaking. Adding an amp always helps as most headunits will start to clip or distor once the volume goes up. I have a ton of ideas for you, but I need a goal and budget to work with here.
get a pioneer deck. they have a loud feature that amplifies the depth of music and really brings out the bass. i have my bass set at +3 (it ranges from -6 to 6), mid at +4, and high at +1.
Loudness is not going to help in this instance. Loudness only works when the volume is on the lower levels anyways. It's nothing more than a simple voltage boost when the volume level is below a certain percentage. After that, it's ineffective.
no it definately brings out more depth in the music. i can turn the loud off and have my volume at 25 (out of about 30 i think) and it still doesnt sound very deepor full. I then turn it down to 10-15 volume and turn loud on and it sounds infinitely better.
Exactlt as I said, you have to turn it down for the loudness button to be effective. It's not a good idea to go out and purchase a new headunit though. The Sony should have some form of bass boost or loudness somewhere. It would be cheaper and easier to work with what he has rather than buying new.
The dash speakers are 3-1/2 and the doors a 5-1/4. Nothing fancy at all. My budget isn't very big at the moment since my engine's oil pump locked up Saturday night. Most of my cash is going for a poor mans rebuild. I'm open to ideas. I have a couple older amps laying around. I'll bet at least one still works. I really didn't want to mess with a sub box in the hatch, but I might have to by the sounds of things. TIA
as for a loudness setting I can't find one and I have been thru the manual even! lol. That is what seems to be missing based on other units I have had in the past. They have their built in EQ settings but they all pretty much sound like crap. I have a custom setting of low +10 mid -8 and high +2. The range for all settings is -10 to +10. It still doesn't sound very good. They part sounded a lot better in the store, but I'm assuming they were running them thru an amp. After reading Kwik9550 reply I'm guessing the store's board was a better encloser as well.
I never base my purchase from listening to a sound board. The rooms they are in are usually too spacious for you to get a realistic point of view as to how the driver(s) will sound. Do you know anything about phasing? The speaker contacts have a + and -. Soemtimes these are switched around and will cause cancellation. DO me a favor and flip the balance from one side to the other and see if the bass response improves. If it does, your speakers are wired out of phase. If that doesn't help, I would seal up the door the best I could first off. Separating the front and rear waves of the driver is going to make a HUGE impact. IF you're still not satisfied, you can try an outboard amplifier, but I personally would go with a better set of drivers that will more adequately produce the entire frequency spectrum.
firstly, why do you not have the mids up? i think that makes up a lot of the sound, and for you, u have it turned down. secondly, try getting some 6.5" speakers in place of the 5.25".
Most Sony's dont have a loudness feature,I found this out in in my moms Astro when the bass wasnt that good, i replaced it with a pioneer and the whole system came alive(theres a 4 ch amp and 2 10" and 4 separates). I would replace you door speakers with some Pioneer coaxials.Most boards are separate enclosures for each speaker,I put a few together for my last company and they are very misleading.
Just an FYI. but I've had to put the sounds on hold for now. My oil pump set up and now I have a $700 bill at the machine shop for labor and parts. The up side is a 9.75: 306 shortblock.
update The left and right channels where out of phase as described above. For some reason the striped wire was - on the passengers side and + on the drivers. These where the wires that came with the speakers with the pre made big and little ends. And they were the same brand speakers. go figure. I also bought a new Pioneer deck with two loudness settings. Along with the fixing the +/- its exactly what I was after. thanks to all for the help. Now I just need some more warmer weather to actualy drive the car in. lol
Yeah, phasing can be a pain sometimes. Occasionally it's necessary for a proper soundstage to run drivers out of phase. Glad to hear all is well now.
