I just finished installing my entire new stereo. I posted a thread with some thoughts on the install process. It's been raining every day since I finished the install, and I finished at 11:00 at night so I barely had any time to listen to it before I went to bed.

Yesterday was finally dry so I had a chance to play some different music and adjust some things. Sadly I've found that the system sounds terrible. It's offensively bad. It's so bad I can't stand listening to it for more than a few minutes without it hurting my ears and giving me a headache.

I'm trying to figure out what might be wrong and was hoping people had some advice.

To start with, here's my list of components:

Pioneer z130BT
PAC interface module with RAP relay and chimes module
CDT CL-650FG 6.5" components
JL Audio stealthbox/10W1v2
Arc Audio mini 4channel amp
Boyo VTL-425 backup camera
Axxess steering wheel control interface
BXT II sound deadening
Ensolite insulation


I should be clear that I am not very picky when it comes to audio, so I'm not expecting some world-beating SQ system. So when I say this sounds bad, you can be confident that it sounds AWFUL. I'm not even sure how to describe it. The sound is really messy and imprecise. It just sounds like a giant jumble of noise all compressed together. I can't even begin to judge the mid-range or anything because the overall sound is so messy.

My first thought is the CDT components. CDT was not my first choice. I had intended to use Diamond D662S components, but they don't seem to be available anymore. The place I originally planned to purchase them recommended these CDTs instead and said they'd sell them to me for the same price as the Diamonds, even though it was $50 less than their normal price. I can't even find the exact model I bought on CDT's website, so I'm wondering if I got suckered into buying some super low quality junk.

The second thing I'm wondering is if it could be the amp. Arc seems to have a great reputation around here. The gain on the front speakers is very nearly all the way down. I have the rear channel bridged to my JL Stealthbox, and once I bumped the rear channel gain up to about halfway it seems to play pretty well. The little fan on the amp makes a HORRIBLE racket though. Loud enough that I can hear it over the road noise of the car if the volume is down. So maybe the amp is bad? I'll be honest, I bought it from a non-authorized dealer, so it doesn't have a factory warranty. I'm going to replace the fan myself, but could this be evidence of other problems int he amp?

The only other thing I can think of is that I have a bad ground that is causing the amp to clip. Does my description sound like clipping? I grounded the amp to a stud on the frame rail next to the passenger side cubby. I spent some time with a multimeter testing to make sure it was a good ground and it seemed fine.

Does this sound like something is wrong with my setup, or is this just bad equipment?

I don't have a problem replacing the speakers with something better, but I don't really know what to pick. I know I prefer a warmer sound. I generally don't like anything with the kind of aggressive tweeter that MB Quartz tend to use. I'm looking at the following:

Boston Acoustics SR60 or Pro60SE (not sure)
JL C3 or C5 (heard JL's tend to be bright)
Focal 165VB (heard Focal's tend to be bright/aggressive)
Polk MM6501 (not sure)
Infinity Kappa (heard these are harsh)
Alpine SPX-17REF (not sure)

Can anyone give me some advice on which direction I should take?

 

Something like this is really hard to diagnose over the internet, particularly without actually hearing the sound. From your description, I would put my money on the wiring rather than the components (although it COULD be an amp or how you've connected it). I would check all of my connections throughout the system to ensure the following:

1) No high-voltage running perpendicular to low voltage. That can REALLY distort sound.
2) You haven't inadvertently crossed positive and negative.
3) Your grounds are solid, clean, etc.
4) Your wiring isn't thin or loose at the connection points.

Once you've given the entire wiring/connection scheme a once-over, if you determine that they're all good, take your amp down to a competent car audio shop and have them look at it and plug it into a demo system in a similar configuration to what you're doing in your car. The fact that you purchased from a non-authorized dealer isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, but when you're having problems, it points to where you might want to look. The excessive fan time might just mean that the high-voltage wiring is wrong and getting the amp too hot for some reason but it also may indicate a failed/failing amp.

 

Thanks for the tips.

1) I'm not exactly sure what you mean. is 12V considered high voltage? Either way, here's how I ran the wiring:

All speaker runs are 12ga. The front speakers are run along the drivers side of the car, down the hump, along the door sill, then they split above the pedals to go to the doors. The passenger side door runs across the car behind the stereo.

RCAs run down the drivers side of the tunnel, over to the door sill, then along the speaker wires down the drivers side of the trunk.

Camera wire and remote wire run down the passenger side of the tunnel, then over to the door sill, up over the hump and down the passenger side of the trunk around to the amp.

12V battery line runs through the firewall grommet, down the passenger side door sill and runs up over the hump to the amp with the camera wire and the remote wire.

2) Incorrect phase was the first thing I thought of. I tried reversing it on one side, but it just made things even worse.

3) Head unit is grounded through the harness, amp is grounded to a stud on the frame rail. I'll double check that everything is tight and secure.

4) Power and ground are 8 gauge with large ring terminals crimped on to the battery end and frame end of the ground. The amp takes bare stripped wire. Speaker wires are bare at the amp and crossover and use crimped on female connectors at the woofers.

Testing the amp is a good idea. My roommate has a system in his RX7, maybe I'll try putting my amp in his car and seeing how things sound.

 

You dont say where you bought them, maybe you did get taken and were sold cheap knockoffs. There are many places that sell counterfeits.

I have JL C5-650's in my car. They are certainly not 'bright' IMO, and dont recall hearing anyone else calling them so either. They have a very smooth silk tweeter and I think they sound great. Try to give them a listen if you can if you decide to swap out the fronts.

 

Hmm, sounds like you've done some work to sort this out.

High voltage just means any wiring that carries power (e.g. power cable to battery) while low voltage just carries signal (e.g. speaker wire). It sounds like your wire run locations are good, again, it could be some power transmission is crossing signal transmission at some early stage (check near the amp) and distorting sound.

If that isn't it, get the amp tested.

One other issue that MAY be causing it, but I doubt it, is how the sub is connected to the amp in that bridge configuration. Again, a shop could look and tell you very quickly whether this is an issue or not.

 

I have the C5-650s in my car too and they sound AMAZING, very silky and clean. If you end up chasing it down to the components and have to replace, I would definitely recommend them

 

i would start by first turning all equalization off and bass boost ******** etc on the radio. turn the filters off and bass boost off at your amp. set hpf and lpf both at 80hz on headunit and go from there. where is tweeter attenuation at on ur spekaers

 

Some good advice, but my approach to troubleshooting would first be to identify what sound is bad. When you say "jumble of noise all compresed together" tha could be actual noise introduced into the system (possibly caused by the items Rob has described) or could just be problems with the output of the components (which could be influenced by pentavolvos items).

With the volume on the head unit turned down, is there excess noise in the system? Whining, thumping, etc? If so, check on the things rob's mentioned. If not, listen to the individual drivers themselves. Is the sound coming from the woofer limited to just low frequencies? Is it clean sound? How about the mids? Tweeter? If each one sounds okay on it's own (put your ear next to each speaker, or disconnect the speaker wire going to the other drivers. If each speaker is only putting out the correct sounds, your crossovers are probably not the culprit. Then you can look at overall system tuning, or possibly wiring of individual speakers within the system.

If you can narrow it down, it may be easier to point you in the right direction.

BTW- unless you have some faulty gear, there isn't any piece of equipment that should be making it sound awful.

 

An update from tonight:

I pulled the amp out and hooked it up in my roommate's RX7. He has a set of older Focals and a JL W3 sub. Everything sounded pretty good until the Arc amp ran out of power at higher volume levels. That wasn't too surprising though, since he normally uses a Kenwood 4x150 amp to run everything. I'm pretty confident that other than the noisy fan, the amp is fine.

As a followup to some of the other ideas posted. I've tried the system with pretty much every setting available to me. From completely flat with no EQ or bass boost or anything, to all the modifying features turned on. It sounds just awful with the EQ off, adjusting a few things makes it a little better, but it sounds more like it's just hiding the worst of it. I get the feeling I'm just polishing a turd.

Tweeter attenuation is at 0db. The crossovers have a + or - 3db option, though that doesn't seem like it matters. The tweeters seem to sound alright, if anything it is the woofers that are causing the problem.

With no audio playing the system is absolutely silent. No noise or hiss or whine or anything (other than the buzzing of the stupid fan in the amp). Putting my head up close to each speaker shows that they are all working, they just don't sound good. The woofers appear to be ...woofing, the tweeters are tweeting. I had my roommate hop in and listen to it and he agrees that something is bad, and that there isn't any definition to the sound. We used the Tron Legacy soundtrack as a test and the bulk of the quieter stuff in the background is barely audible. I'd swear that there was some stupid DSP mode turned on, but the headunit doesn't even have such a thing.

Anyway, I'm thinking it must be the components since I have no reason to fault the Avic unit and the amp seems fine. I think I may bite the bullet and buy a set of JL C5's.

 

Hey - didn't realize you were in Redmond. I'd be happy to take a listen and see if I could help. Only problem is I threw out my back, so not sure if I'll be up to running around the next day or two.

You might check to see if you have a phase problem. Left to right phasing is easy - turn the balance all to one side and then the other. See if it sounds okay on just each side. That would let you know.

 

try moving the balance from full left to full right and then back to center. if the sound is better in left or right but bad in the middle you have a speaker out of phase.

 

Back when I was younger and first getting into stereos, I loved my CDT components. Then I really took an objective look and.... Now I can't stand listening to them. They are muddy, the tweeters distort like crazy. Forget electric guitar, it just sounds like "mess." (I had the HD set.)

Like you said - everything jumbled together. Sort of like someone is holding the cone in place while you're trying to play your music.

However, CDT in my experience has excellent customer service. If you bought from an authorized CDT internet dealer, I'd try checking with CDT.


I wouldn't recommend focal to someone that wants warm/soft. They are more like cold/clear. But if you've heard them and like them... there you go.


Also, EQ is best used to lower, not to raise. Raising the eq you'll quickly find yourself into clipping/distortion/etc depending on the EQ. Use it to tame the harsh frequencies down. (In this car, usually 3khz is a problem.)

 

Just make sure that you get them from a reputable shop where you'll be able to return them if it turns out that wasn't the problem. Killer components though, IMO

 

Yes! This is EXACTLY what it sounds like! I'm glad to hear someone else had the same experience as me. Sounds like a better set of components is what I need to be looking at.

To others with suggestions on phase, that was one of the first things I looked at, but the speakers sound "bad" all by themselves. Just for kicks I tried flipping the phase on one side anyway and it made it even worse with the typical out-of-phase symptom of no bass.

WAwatchnut - I appreciate the offer, I may take you up on that if swapping the speakers still doesn't get me anywhere. Hope the back feels better soon.

 

I have some older CDT stuff in my Firehawk and I think it sounds rather good.

* Pioneer Premier DEH-P880PRS Head Unit
* CDT Audio Eurosport ES 620 Components
* CDT Audio 10LP Image Enhancement Kit
* CDT Audio M6 mid bass drivers
* CDT Audio HD1020 10" sub
* Custom Passenger Side Fiberglass 10" Stealthbox
* Elemental Designs Nine.1 on my sub (~1000 watts into 2ohms)
* Avionixx 600.4 Powering my front components (getting ~125watts each) and midbass fill (getting ~125watts each)

 

I have no experience with CDT speakers but from what you've written, it sounds like all your wiring is hooked up properly. I had a similar problem in my 05 coupe. My problem was the ARC audio amp. It just didn't sound very good. Maybe try a different amp. See if you're friend will let you hook up his Kenwood. I'm running JL slash amps now and they sound a whole lot better.

 

i will also vouch for the JL amps. i have had quite a few over the years and while i can say i have never had a "bad" sounding amp the JL amos have a lot of technology built into them with serious car audio buffs and installer friendly in mind. for the sixe of the XD amps you get a Lot of bang for your buck! do not let the size or the advertised watts fool you. many amos rate their wattage on bogus stats. trust me when i tell you that 50-75 watts per channel is well more than you will ever use! JL ratings are very conservitive

 

This is pretty much the plan. I'll swap the speakers out and see how everything sounds. If it still isn't any good I'll try using a different amp. Unfortunately my roommate's kenwood is dead right now and at the electronics shop for repair, so it may take a bit.

I don't mind swapping the speakers too much as they were pretty cheap to start with, but it'd be a bummer if the Arc amp winds up being no good. Those things aren't cheap. I guess it would just reinforce my usual strategy of sticking with brands that have served me well in the past. That'd mean replacing it with a Fosgate or a JL amp.

 

I'd generally put ARC amps on a shelf above the JL, and much higher than Fosgate (Okay, maybe I'd put Fosgate in the basement under the Christmas decorations...)

If the ARC Audio amp sounds off - it's very likely a defect. That fan issue you mentioned is very unusual. I can't hear the fans on my arc amp unless the car is off and the stereo is muted. (and the amp rack is open...) Even though you bought it grey-market, they would likely still be willing to repair it for a nominal fee.

I haven't heard of counterfeit arc amps circulating, but there are many counterfeits of other brands (the obvious example being the number of fake Focals running around.)

 

If you are going to buy another amp, I would suggest a jl slash series or a soundstream reference. I have not heard the soundstream reference personally but I've heard very good reviews. I was gonna buy the ref920 or jl 500/5 and ended up with the jl. There are other brands that are good, but I would only buy a class A/B amp. I would only buy class D for a sub amp. The class A/B amps just sound better.