I seem to have a dilemma with my 2006 Cruiser with factory head unit and navigation system that I'm hoping can be solved fairly simply. Recently my front passenger speaker blew (or de-foamed/tore...whatever the proper terminology is?), so I come do my research and learn that the speakers are 2 ohm and found plenty of speaker recommendations on Mud. My goal was to keep it simple but nice, and my plan was only to replace all the door speakers and hope to have a decent improvement in sound quality.
Existing setup prior to speaker damage:
I call up Crutchfield and they get me setup with:
I start by replacing the busted front passenger speaker so I can get a good comparison to the functional stock speakers still in place. The sound was lackluster to say the least, and I felt like there was no bass or depth to the speaker at all. Just sounded kinda flat and nothing but high frequency in comparison to the stock so I start to doubt I did everything correctly. Please be aware that I'm not looking for a booming bass or anything of the sort, but the sound just seemed very unbalanced toward the highs and almost no bass at all. I switched the sound back and forth from right to left and the difference was night and day between the stock vs. the new Kappas with the Kappas losing the comparison by far. I switch the polarity of the wires thinking I may have goofed, but either way sounded flat and bad. At this point I decide I'll let the pros handle it and bring it to a local car audio shop to get an opinion and do the install. They complete the install of remaining speakers and tell me they say they sound good so I'm excited to try them. Immediate impression on my end was that they just seemed lacking and there wasn't the same balance to the speakers as my previous stock. This goes for music via the iPod interface and the stock CD changer as well.
I had a 5 hour road trip the following weekend that I was trying to get this accomplished for so it gave me some good time to test out the speakers. The entire trip I felt like I had the volume at a reasonable level, as in I wasn't listening at extremely loud levels but my ears felt as if the music was extremely loud and once we arrived at our destination I felt like I'd been in a loud concert for several hours and my ears needed to recover to be able to hear normally again. The best way I can explain it is that I felt like I was struggling to hear the sound even though it felt loud so at this point I'm quite disheartened because it's way worse than where I started.
At this point I'm kind of stuck on what to do, so I return to the car audio shop, and they recommend getting a signal processor and amp and this should allow fine tuning of the signals from the factory head unit and amplification should be able to get the best sound to the speakers and better utilize their capabilities. Makes sense to me, so they recommend:
I drive off and as I'm driving I hear quite the hum of ?interference/white noise?, and things just still don't sound like the amazing sound I would expect from nice new (decent quality?) speakers and a $700 signal processor/?amp?. I return and they turn down the volume on the processor's volume knob, and I need to turn my Cruiser volume way louder than before just to hear anything. Now after more time passing, I've tinkered and tinkered with the processor settings and it just doesn't sound that great.
Now I'm more confused and lost than before all this mess started. All I want is nice sound, nothing too loud or too crazy in a fairly simple stock-like package...please help!!! Please let me know what other details may help!
Existing setup prior to speaker damage:
- Factory head unit + navigation + CD/DVD changer
- USA-Spec PA15-TOY iPod interface (connects to back of head-unit and simulates a CD changer for a direct iPod interface) (Link on USA-Spec)
I call up Crutchfield and they get me setup with:
- Front: Infinity Kappas 60csx components 6 1/2" 2.5 ohm impedance (Link on Crutchfield)
- Rear: Infinity Kappas 62ix 6 1/2" 2.5 ohm impedance (Link on Crutchfield)
- Both have "high efficiency" so we're thinking they should mesh well with with the factory system (I'm by no means a car audio expert, so a lot of the terminology and speaker numbers aren't quite clear to me).
I start by replacing the busted front passenger speaker so I can get a good comparison to the functional stock speakers still in place. The sound was lackluster to say the least, and I felt like there was no bass or depth to the speaker at all. Just sounded kinda flat and nothing but high frequency in comparison to the stock so I start to doubt I did everything correctly. Please be aware that I'm not looking for a booming bass or anything of the sort, but the sound just seemed very unbalanced toward the highs and almost no bass at all. I switched the sound back and forth from right to left and the difference was night and day between the stock vs. the new Kappas with the Kappas losing the comparison by far. I switch the polarity of the wires thinking I may have goofed, but either way sounded flat and bad. At this point I decide I'll let the pros handle it and bring it to a local car audio shop to get an opinion and do the install. They complete the install of remaining speakers and tell me they say they sound good so I'm excited to try them. Immediate impression on my end was that they just seemed lacking and there wasn't the same balance to the speakers as my previous stock. This goes for music via the iPod interface and the stock CD changer as well.
I had a 5 hour road trip the following weekend that I was trying to get this accomplished for so it gave me some good time to test out the speakers. The entire trip I felt like I had the volume at a reasonable level, as in I wasn't listening at extremely loud levels but my ears felt as if the music was extremely loud and once we arrived at our destination I felt like I'd been in a loud concert for several hours and my ears needed to recover to be able to hear normally again. The best way I can explain it is that I felt like I was struggling to hear the sound even though it felt loud so at this point I'm quite disheartened because it's way worse than where I started.
At this point I'm kind of stuck on what to do, so I return to the car audio shop, and they recommend getting a signal processor and amp and this should allow fine tuning of the signals from the factory head unit and amplification should be able to get the best sound to the speakers and better utilize their capabilities. Makes sense to me, so they recommend:
- Alpine PXE-0850S (Link on Alpine site)
- They told me this unit has a digital signal processor built-in to an amp? Like I said before, not a car audio expert, so amps and the like are still quite foreign to me...
- In hindsight, I'm realizing as I link this that I'm not even sure if this is an amp or just a signal processor???
I drive off and as I'm driving I hear quite the hum of ?interference/white noise?, and things just still don't sound like the amazing sound I would expect from nice new (decent quality?) speakers and a $700 signal processor/?amp?. I return and they turn down the volume on the processor's volume knob, and I need to turn my Cruiser volume way louder than before just to hear anything. Now after more time passing, I've tinkered and tinkered with the processor settings and it just doesn't sound that great.
Now I'm more confused and lost than before all this mess started. All I want is nice sound, nothing too loud or too crazy in a fairly simple stock-like package...please help!!! Please let me know what other details may help!
Last edited: