Bass in the Place

[nikgallagher]

A question to all the audio crew out there (didn't want to just name you Mark!):

I think that one or more of my door speakers might be shot, cos they distort a bit at reasonable levels of volume and bass. Will probably change these, but on holding the door release catch and the speaker grills some of the general rattle disappears. Is there a way of isolating these using silicon or something?
Also, on the standard SC-801, is there a good position to have the 3 sliders at for optimum listening pleasure?

[M44K TS]

First off, i would try some form of sound deadening, if it is the grilles then as you say try some silicon, if it's the doors that rattle, whip off the door cards and firstly check for any obvious rattling and maybe buy some form of sound deadening such as dynamat.

If the voice coils are shot in the speakers and they are distorting with moderate volume and bass, i would try and upgrade if i were you but spend money wisley, go for a high end make such as Focal or Rainbow. If you can get a hold of some Focal Access 13cm speakers (usually go for pretty good money on ebay) then replace the OE crap with them, they will sound better.)

Don't just go to Halfords and pica a set of cheapies, althouh the price may be tempting, your ears won't thank you for it. Also when looking at speakers, bear in mind that the OE head unit (if it's the premium one - SC-801) kicks out between 15-20 watts per channel, always choose a speaker that has an input power of more than that, that way there will be less chance of them deteriorating quickly.

As for the SC-801, i have found that if you set the fader to centre, it will enhance the bass, a bit hard to explain, but if you have it faded all the way to the back, and adjust bass, treble accordingly, when you slide the fader back to the centre, it will not only increase the volume, but also the bass aswell.

I have mine set for 3/4 full of bass, just over centre for treble and fader is in the middle along with the balance.

Be careful when experimenting with these settings and try not to take the volume over 1/2 as there is a good chance that you'll blow the voice coils

any questions, just ask and i'll do my best to answer

[vt5]

Im not an audio boy really but the standard OE speakers in mine now sound great. (BTW Volvo use Alpines as standard).

They used to sound ££££e and distort with the standard Volvo large head unit. I replaced the head with a kenwood single cd and the OE speakers came to life. Now with a nice little bass set up in the back it kicks ass.

Remember how an old walkman sounded when you plugged in those small external speakers you could buy? its not always the lack of handling ability of the speakers that causes distortion, often its the source of the sound not giving out enough clear power....im sure there is an audio saying for what thats called...."DIN" ?

Food for thought.....i know i found replacing the head unit the answer. :)

[After_Shock]

The problem with distortion is it can come from anywhere in the system, the speakers not being able to handle the power or the bass, the amplifier not actually giving out enough power for the speakers, or just really cheap crap connections and speaker cables.

I never actually changed anything on the hi-fi in the Volvo as I knew it had an amp in the boot so couldnt be bothered to start re-wiring everything, but every car I have had in the past when I have changed the head unit the standard speakers have sounded much better than before. Obviously then change the speakers to something decent and the quality goes up again.

The problem with speakers is its down to what you like the sound of, theirs nothing universally appealable, personally I think the new Rockford range is excellent after many years of them being crap, if you dont want to spend that much go with the lightning range as their the same company. Whatever you do just dont put Sony speakers in as they really are bad!

[nikgallagher]

The problem with distortion is it can come from anywhere in the system, the speakers not being able to handle the power or the bass, the amplifier not actually giving out enough power for the speakers, or just really cheap crap connections and speaker cables.


Did Volvo not match the components together very well in the first place then?

[nikgallagher]

Thanks for all the help guys. I shall investigate over le weekend.

[mulletboy2]

A couple of comments...

I thought that the SC801 was 7WRMS per channel? Sure I read that somewhere. Most aftermarket ones will come in at around 15-20W

There's no point in upgrading the OE speakers if you don't have an external amp in the system. OE speakers tend to be quite sensitive (moreso than most aftermarket ones anyway), which means they play louder with less power. Replace them and don't add an amp, and you'll drive the headunit to clip at an even lower volume, thus potentially blowing your new speakers even quieter than the OE ones (if that's what you've done)

I agree with the points on sound deadening/silicone. Expanding foam is also a god send in some cases... although it's a bit messy (and don't, whatever you do, get it on your skin).

Nik - most headunits will clip, unless they really are top of the range ones. I'd say that most of the time, it's the headunit at fault rather than the speakers - if the speakers were fed 15 clean WRMS, they shouldn't really have too much problem... although a bass blocker of some sort might be helpful too.

vt5 - the reason replacing the headunit worked would be the higher built in amplifier output :)

HTH

Mark

[Mrsmopp]

Mark - whats HTH mean????

x

[mulletboy2]

Sorry - as for the sliders, I find that this works:

Bass to middle, or very slightly above middle.
Treble down to 1/3ish
Fader slightly to the front

Reason this works: Too much boost on any control and you'll introduce clip, so in general, it is better to cut all frequencies on an EQ by 1 "notch" than boost another one by one "notch". In our case, we only have 2 controls to worry about, so leave the bass around centre, and knock that treble down until it sounds right.

As for the fader - the speakers at the rear are bassier, but don't use this control to make the bass the levels you want - use this control to ensure you have a fuller sound (they will drop lower than the fronts, and also rear speakers add some ambience).. add too much rear sound at it messes up the sound altogether, and don't forget that to add more bass, we're cutting the treble, and turning up the headunit level.

One more trick - if you don't care what it sounds like on the passenger side, and let's face it, who does?, fade the balance over to the left a little. If you have a well recorded CD (Michael Jackson/Dire Straits/Eagles/etc..) you should find that the lead vocal is above the centre of your dash, not slightly to the driver's right hand side, where it is by default.

Dave850R has seen this change alter how his car sounds, so I'm sure he'll comment on it if you ask nicely :)

HTH

Mark

[mulletboy2]

Mark - whats HTH mean????

x
Hope this helps :)

[Mrsmopp]

I knew that :slap: LOL

x

[After_Shock]

A couple of comments...

There's no point in upgrading the OE speakers if you don't have an external amp in the system. OE speakers tend to be quite sensitive (moreso than most aftermarket ones anyway), which means they play louder with less power. Replace them and don't add an amp, and you'll drive the headunit to clip at an even lower volume, thus potentially blowing your new speakers even quieter than the OE ones (if that's what you've done)

Mark

I have got to disagree with that about not upgrading the speakers without an amp in the system. The OE speakers in alot of cases yes are more sensitive thats mainly due to the fact that they dont reach into any lower mid or higher bass frequencies where most aftermarket ones do, they may play louder with less power but theirs a reason for that as they dont do as much of the sound range and also they need to as the OE Head units dont have anywhere near as much power as aftermarket ones.

If you replace the head unit with anything half decent £250 + you will have enough power to run most modest aftermarket speakers without the worry of loosing volume on the speakers or damaging the speakers by making the head unit start to clip.

If you are not interested in replacing the standard head unit then of course take care when matching new speakers to it, its easy enough to get aftermarket ones that are also easy enough to drive and wont damage the head unit but still gain some of the quality thats missing from the OE speakers.

[mulletboy2]

If you are not interested in replacing the standard head unit then of course take care when matching new speakers to it, its easy enough to get aftermarket ones that are also easy enough to drive and wont damage the head unit but still gain some of the quality thats missing from the OE speakers.
Agreed - you can find aftermarket speakers with high efficiency, but they're quite uncommon in highstreet shops. The cheaper Alpine/Kenwood/Pioneer ones won't be far off the OE speakers for volume produced for a given input power, but then, they won't sound much better (if atall) anyway.

Focals and the like like a fair bit more power than a stock headunit can give out. Also, focals are a pain to install well, and WILL sound bad in the stock locations. They need careful installation or else they can be too bright, and that means different locations, and/or a decent EQ. Ofcourse, that's only a rule of thumb.

Care must be taken when choosing speakers with specific mounting positions/aiming in mind (e.g stock) anyway, as not all speakers are suitable for all positions.

If you know what you're doing, then you can certainly find efficient, good sounding aftermarket speakers.. but most people don't, and are more likely to blow up their new speakers than get a significant improvement.

I find that in general, more of an overall improvement can be made by adding a 50-100WRMS per channel amp than upgrading the speakers without the amp.

Cheers

Mark

[edit] And be it a £250+ or a £100+ headunit, the output from the internal amp is likely to differ very little. Although they might claim a jump from 40W to 60W per channel... even if that's 15-20W, it's not a huge amount... infact, I doubt that most people could hear the difference.

[BrightonBreezy]

Mind if I jump into this thread with a question of my own for the audio buffs?
I'm in the process of restoring my '01 phase2 V70 that's come directly from the police. The p2 cars are full of electrickery and each one has a set of software loaded in the factory to activate the options on that particular car. I got hold of a HU-603 head unit but it turns out that the police cars don't actually have any software loaded to drive the standard audio head units. I could get Volvo to reprogram it but it's going to be cheaper to just buy an aftermarket head unit and fit that.
Aftermarket units seem to be a standard letter-box size which is clearly much smaller than the hole it has to go into. Are there any neat solutions to this? For example, is there a sort of replacement slide-in tray available somewhere into which an aftermarket unit could be fitted?

thanks,
Robb

[After_Shock]

With head units as with any amp its how well the power supplies back the amp up, two head units may have a rating of 15watts each one say being a blaupunkt which generally are quite bad and has bad power supplies back it up the other being say a Pioneer or JVC which have very good power supplies they will power speakers much easier and more controllably even though they still only have the 15watts.

Adding an amp is the ideal situation and thats what I do however it depends on budget and how much work you want to put in as theirs alot of wiring to add an amp into the system.

As always its a case of matching things up correctly however as you say its not always easy to do. Decent gains in quality can be had changing the speakers from the OE but leaving the OE head unit in, much better gains can be had changing the head unit and speakers and excellent gains can be had by adding an amp in.

In the Volvo I didnt change any as I prefered to have the window down listening to the turbo howl through the exhaust!

[After_Shock]

Im sure ive seen the adaptor plates for Volvo dashes so you can add a single din head unit in, if your near a Halfrauds ask in their as they normally have them or can get any that are out.

You could get a nice s££££y double din head unit though, be a bit different!

[mulletboy2]

The adapters must be available, as Pedro has one :)

As for the power supplies - well, damping factor ofcourse comes into it... but 15 clean watts is 15 clean watts for the purpose of this conversation. I'd be surprised if I could notice a small difference in damping factor.

Go for whichever upgrade path you like.. just don't cry if you swap headunit and speakers, ignore the amp, and end up with a blown set of speakers. If you know what you're doing, you won't anyway... :)

We've also completely ignored headroom on the amplifiers, which is another aspect that determines how good the system sounds, and on stock headunits, there's no headroom. With dynamics of up to 20dB on a CD recording - imagine you're listenning at 1/3 of the headunit's maximum clean output (say 5WRMS). For a 20dB transient, you need roughly 500WRMS to reproduce the transient. That's not gonna come from a 15WRMS OR 20WRMS headunit ;)

[BrightonBreezy]

I found this article on modifying the audio system in a phase2 V70. Although this guy has taken it to a much higher level than I was planning.
http://www.swedespeed.com/news/publish/Features/printer_147.html

[After_Shock]

Their are many factors that will come into it, quality of components in the head unit, quality of the laser, quality and resistance in the speaker cables etc etc.

Head room is an important factor and yes on 15watts its always going to be rather limited, however with the correct speakers matched up you can always get the results your after and turn it up within reason. A good stopping point is half way around or up on the volume control as the amp can start to run pure current then which will knack the speakers extremely easily. However some head units are available with a bit more power but then again cost comes into it!

The power supplies and capacitors actually make a surprising difference to both quality, volume and also what speakers you can use. From my experience in home hi-fi and home cinema applications amplifiers rated as having the same power output say 50watts per channel, but the ones with the much larger power supplies and capacitors built in go much further on volume and in many cases the quality of the sound. Similar to getting a decent Earth on a car compared to a crap one makes a big difference and the same with pc power supplies to an extent, more power easier to run more powerfull internals.