Where are you located?

 

North Carolina

 

How does it sound if you just turn off the rear amp/channels? Get rid of the distractions and competing sources and see if you enjoy the Morels on their own.

I run Morel Titanium drivers (two way, hand made crossovers) with their large format silk dome tweeters in my C6 and love their voice. I dare say my tweeters are a bit bright right now and I will probably revise the crossover to allow me to bi-amp the front stage to put less power to the tweeters. With a good 6" mid like the Morel, I doubt you'd really need a dedicated midbass and 3-way setup in front.

 

I've done that a couple of times now. The Morel's (at least the Maximo's) are just not as good as I had hoped. They sound pretty dull, almost like my old Alpine Type-R's from back in the day. In fact, I have a few times turn the Morel's off and just run the 5.25" Focals, and they sound clearly better/cleaner. Obviously less mid-bass...but still a much better listening experience. Right now, all signs are pointing to ditching the Morel's and going with a better setup.

 

Speakers are like mattresses. Testing them out in the showroom does very little. You never really know how good they are until you get to spend many long hours with them. Speakers that you think sound better or good at first, can become very irritating and fatiguing after a few hours. Like mattresses, they might feel great in the showroom and your convinced "this is the one". But after 8 hours of sleeping on it, you wake up and your back is shot.

 

Also Ronin, I see you have a Pioneer 8200nex. Your displeasure with your system thus far sounds very similar to my own thread about my system. I also have the Pioneer 8200 and went through extreme lengths trying to get the tuning and the sound just right. It's sad to say, but I don't think the sound quality of the recent Pioneers is up to par with some of the other brands and may be what is causing some of your issues. When I first installed my Pioneer I still had the Bose, and in that situation the Pioneer was a big improvement. But when I went to an entire system with new amps and speakers, my expectations went up and that's when my problems started. I think the Pioneer, compared to other brands, would benefit from a DSP the most. I've contemplated going with a DSP to get the tuning right or even another head unit but as of yet I haven't. I have gone with a better amp and speakers which have helped and cured some of my issues. But the Pioneer remains and is probably the weak point in my system.

 

I'm actually really glad you said that. I've noticed that some of my older Eclipse head units were night and day superior to EVERY other HU I've run in my other setups. In fact I STILL run the Eclipse AVN-5510 in my truck...that I took out of my Cobra. It has 50W RMS outputs compared to 18W for the Pioneer. And with just a single 700W 5 channel amp with good speakers, sounds SO MUCH better than my vette setup.

It's a tough call to either spend $1K on a good 3-way setup versus seeing how good I can get the current setup to sound with a quality DSP. They would both cost about the same. The down side to the DSP is the install...I never planned on one, so I would literally have to reconfigure my entire wire plan and rewire the whole thing. To the contrary, I could replace current speakers/crossovers and just install a remote tweeter. Decisions decisions.

 

I agree. I had the 7200 in my system and I tried everything to get the sound I was looking for as I loved everything about the head unit, yet I just couldn't get it to sound right. The midrange was a mess, highs were slightly brash and the overall sound just wasn't right. I swapped it out with a new alpine and it completely changed the sound.

 

Yeah, I would LOVE to install my Eclipse, but the nav setup on it is really antiquated and since Eclipse is out of business, you can't get map discs any more. The Pioneer is easily the most versatile head unit I've used with a TON of features. They just forget to put in power. EDIT: And to make matters worse, I'm getting an intermittent subwoofer outage. I thought it was my amp going into thermal protection, but was able to confirm it isn't, and now I think it's the RCA out on the back of the HU. The RCA jack is built into the HU and not an external like the others, so no way to tape the connector in place. Even the TIGHTEST RCA's can still vibrate loose. Major oversight by Pioneer IMO. I may just start looking for a new HU now.

Details on your HU? Do you run a DSP? Sacrifice any features in the switch?

 

02, I remember reading your thread about switching out from the Pioneer to the Alpine and being skeptical about your thoughts. I had great luck with some Pioneers in the early 90's and had sampled some Kenwoods at that time that sounded like ****. So I was partial to Pioneer when searching for a head unit. I also thought I couldn't go wrong going with the top of the line model. At first I was thrilled with it when I still had the Bose system in place. Big improvement, and that's why I don't argue against it for that type of application. But in the search for high end sound, it has been a constant source of aggravation as far as sound quality and tuning.

 

I switched to an Alpine INE-W960. I didn't like the the wiring harness on the 7200 either. The wires were a narrower gauge and it seemed just skimpy or lower quality. I do not run a DSP yet, just use the crossovers and parametric EQ built in the HU. I definitely sacrificed some features going to the Alpine, but it is also a $500 head unit that provides full nav/gps albeit a slightly smaller screen. I am all about the sound though. I have heard a good DSP can clean up the Pioneer quite a bit but the Alpine sounded wonderful right out of the box with very little tweaking, night and day difference that I instantly recognized without the DSP. Once I got the Xovers tweaked, parametric EQ dialed and the time alignment done it sounded awesome. If you are an Apple guy it controls an Iphone, Ipod or the like really well, too.

I have RF fanatic components front and rear, with two RF high end Power series amps, one 4 channel, other 2 channel bridged mono powering 2 Hertz 10's in rear corner enclosures. My thing is, it all starts with the HU and I want something that sounds good to begin with and not have to alter with DSP to get to sound good. I would like DSP to improve on already great sound, not as a necessity to clean up bad sound.

 

Hey Torch, are you running a DSP?

I'm really torn right now about the best way forward. JL makes a reasonable DSP (TWK-8 is under $400) but you can go all the way into the thousands for the bigger brands like Focal, Audison, Mosconi, etc. I'm trying to get a warm n fuzzy feeling about buying a DSP instead of a new HU...or 3 way components...which all will require undoing parts of a complete install. Not looking forward to that. The prices we pay for quality tune-age.

 

No, not yet at least. My car hasn't been getting driven much after being parked all winter, but it will probably start bothering me again soon as I start driving it more, and then it will get me thinking about solutions as I begin to get annoyed. Besides replacing the head unit with another brand, adding a DSP is the logical step. Funny part is, other people will tell me it sounds great the way it is and to stop messing with it, but I know it's not right or the quality that I'm looking for, so it just drives me nuts.

 

Hey Guys(crashing the thread), I just got an Optima Red Top battery. I don't notice any difference. But it has a three year warranty. I am looking at a Mechman Alternator next, 240 AMP model. But what sucks, is the previous owner put on a 25% underdrive pulley. So 240A might become 180A. Thoughts?

 

Crash threads much? But seriously, it's a "big 3" upgrade. Always worthwhile.

 

I think that's why in a lot of applications, the difference isn't noticed as either the user doesn't hear the difference or the rest of the system isn't good enough for that difference to be heard. The other could be that some may prefer that sound. To my well trained ear, I could never get it right. And I still can't wait to add a good DSP to improve the sound of my Alpine. That will be on my next round of mods. My suggestion is if you just can't get the right sound from the Pioneer, DO NOT change the rest of your system. If you have confidence in the quality of the existing system, try a different head unit whether it be a Kenwood or an Alpine. I had the majority of my system beforehand with the exception of the subs and knew what it sounded like (albeit in a different vehicle before) with an older Alpine HU, CVA-1004 I think, it was one with the motorized fold out screen. Anyway, it sounded bad *** with that head unit. Upon trying the Pioneer, it sounded night and day different to me. I swapped it out with the Alpine and on first power up without even tweaking any settings it sounded better. My suspicion is the Dig to Analog converters in the Alpine are better.

 

Trying to research DSP's to try and find one that is user friendly for a newbie and cost effective can make your head spin. It might be easier to just go to another head unit brand. I was reading this article from carstereochick.

http://www.carstereochick.com/2018/0...alpine-review/

Towards the bottom she discusses the units with the best sound quality and mentions Kenwood and Alpine as being superior to other brands.

As far as DSP's on a budget, I saw the JL Audio TwK 88. It goes for about $430, but still so many questions about what the end result would be.

 

Helix DSP.2 and Alpine iLX-207, DSP and Radio, is what I run.

 

I have read a lot of good things about the Helix DSP's and the DSP.2. With me, one of the problems with DSP's is that it will temp me to go active and get rid of my crossovers which then means I am re-doing my whole system again.

To Ronin, I didn't mean to hi-jack your thread. I am curious to see how this plays out for you. Keep us posted as you go.

 

My Alpine was mentioned in that article. Active is where it is at, for me. The Helix can be bought on ebay from Italy for $500, instead of $800 retail in the US.