this question is geared towards those who are familiar with Alpine products, and in-depth car stereo system knowledge in generalcar: 2007 toyota corolla CEI just had an audio installation done through best buy (i have a best buy-only credit card and had no other financial means of paying for products + installation elsewhere. i would have much rather gone through crutchfield, believe me). right off the bat, the audio sounded worse than with my factory head unit and speakers.here is what i got installed:Alpine CDA-105 head unitAlpine SPS-600 6" speakersAlpine SPS-609 6"x9" speakersthe problem I noticed is that it just doesn't sound as "full" as my factory speakers. it sounds somewhat tin-like, i guess you could say. i'm not looking for big bass, but i expect sounds below the mid-range to have some bass-y quality to them. it seems only the kick drums have any real noticeable bass. highs are almost too good, but again the mid-range seems to suffer. the overall clarity is great but like i said, it just doesn't have that "fullness" feel to the audio. i have tried messing with the bass and treble settings and such but i can't seem to remedy the problem. there specific sound settings i have tried tweaking and that doesn't seem to help much either. i don't really know what these settings target specifically, but here they are:- bass center frequency (60 Hz, 80 Hz, 100 Hz, 200 Hz)- bass bandwitdh (1, 2, 3, 4) - treble center frequency (10.0 kHz, 12.5 kHz, 15.0 kHz, 17.5 kHz)- high-pass filter frequency (off, 60 Hz, 80 Hz, 100 Hz)what would be an ideal setting given these values, plus a bass and treble setting of -7 to +7?i'm shooting for a sound that has a good solid mix of highs , mids, and lows with that "full" sound i was describing above.i'm assuming the "loudness" feature (on/off) is mostly for listening at low volumes. i tend to listen to louder volumes.also, the dimmer control - the settings are "auto" and "manual".. the owner's manual states "set the dimmer control to auto to decrease the illumination brightness of the unit with the head lights of the vehicle on. this mode is useful if you feel the unit's backlighting is too bright at night." strangely enough, setting it to "manual" makes the backlighting dimmer at night. that doesn't make sense to me. when it's set to "auto", shouldn't the illumination match the illumination of my IP? i keep my IP lights set to dim.is there a different brand of speakers that will work better for my situation?so hopefully someone will have some answers to my problems. i really want to believe it's a matter of settings, and NOT that my factory system was actually better than this new set-up i got. after all, this head unit is part of the Crutchfield signature line and that was one of the influencing factors when i bought it.thank you in advance!-steve
I believe the main problem is what you already suspect. Not enough amp for the speakers. I know the specs say it will put out 50 watts peak, but that is just not gonna happen. Always go with RMS, in this case, certified at 18 watts. You need a good 4 channel amp to go between the head and the speakers. I would stick with Alpine. THEN play with the tone settings, but still don't expect alot of bass without a dedicated bass driver. (subwoofer)
This will do nicely. Forget about the 50 watts RMS per channel. It does quite a bit more. Impressive for the price.
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_500MRPF300/Alpine-MRP-F300.html?search=alpine+amps&ssi=0
An amp would definitely help, but there are some other things going on as well, I think ...
(Sorry I just now found this thread ...)
Member GeneBalt had very similar comments about a 2007 Camry - basically, I think you are working against the poor acoustics of the Toyota (which the factory system was likely tailored to minimize) and the semi-limited (parametric bass and treble) tone controls of most Alpines - which can give really good sound, but often requires a lot of tweaking to get there.
I would try to adjust the audio as best you can before you give up and add an amp.
i don't really know what these settings target specifically, but here they are: Think of an old-time graphic Equalizer.- bass center frequency (60 Hz, 80 Hz, 100 Hz, 200 Hz) The frequency that the bass "slider" adjusts - listen to some test tones (download link in thread) if you want to get a feel for what the numbers mean.- bass bandwitdh (1, 2, 3, 4) How "wide" the frequency slider is - how many adjacent frequencies more with it.- treble center frequency (10.0 kHz, 12.5 kHz, 15.0 kHz, 17.5 kHz) Same thing as bass center, but for the highs- high-pass filter frequency (off, 60 Hz, 80 Hz, 100 Hz) You can limit the bass going to your main speakers if you had a sub. Without a sub I wouldn't set this higher than 60 or 80 - you could experiment - especially if you can set the rear 6x9's lower. You might be able to play it louder and cleaner with some HPF added.
what would be an ideal setting given these values, plus a bass and treble setting of -7 to +7?i'm shooting for a sound that has a good solid mix of highs , mids, and lows with that "full" sound i was describing above.
It is really going to vary depending on the sound you are after and the type of music you listen to - Alpine's IMPRINT processor attempts to do this, but some people aren't happy with it either and it won't work with your radio. If you can't get it right, it might be worth taking it to a friend that knows audio or a shop and letting them adjust it for you. (I was in the marching band in high school and one of my bandmates would instantly complain about and adjust the bass and treble (all there was 25 years ago) and it sounded great, but I could never match it myself.
i'm assuming the "loudness" feature (on/off) is mostly for listening at low volumes. i tend to listen to louder volumes.
Loudness contour is design to boost the bass and highs that our ears tend to attenuate at low volumes. That doesn't mean it can't be engaged at high volumes, but it can lead to clipping/distortion, so you are better off using the tone controls.
also, the dimmer control - the settings are "auto" and "manual".. the owner's manual states "set the dimmer control to auto to decrease the illumination brightness of the unit with the head lights of the vehicle on. this mode is useful if you feel the unit's backlighting is too bright at night." strangely enough, setting it to "manual" makes the backlighting dimmer at night. that doesn't make sense to me. when it's set to "auto", shouldn't the illumination match the illumination of my IP? i keep my IP lights set to dim.
The dimmer term is confusing. Aftermarket Head Units (HU's) will not be affected by the IP lights dimmer. With the dimmer engaged, the radio should be brighter with the headlights off and dimmer with the parking or headlights on - regardless of IP dimmer position or time of day. With the dimmer on manual - the radio should not dim.
If your radio is dim all the time in manual and gets brighter when the headlights/parking lights are turned on, it is possible that your car is set up where the headlight switch supplies a ground rather than a 12V supply signal. There are inverter relay circuits that can correct this, but I wouldn't worry about it unless it really bothers you.
is there a different brand of speakers that will work better for my situation?
Speaker selection is really subjective. Infinity tends to have really good highs - Pioneer tends to have pretty good bass. Overall, I tend to like JL Audio, but you probably won't find them at BB.
Hope This Helps!!!
2002 Ford Focus Sony CDX-GT410u Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Stock speakers, no amp, no subs
Wow.
This system should slap your factory system.
The only thing I can think of is that the speakers were wired out of phase.
Any thoughts Tiger?
yeah i figured the same thing.. shoulda been AT LEAST as good as my factory system, on steroids. the total package including installation came to around $700, plus $100 off for speakers and head unit of the same brand.could it possibly have something to do with the RMS being 80 and 85 watts for the speakers?even taking that into account, shouldn't it still sound really good without having an amplifier, despite the RMS value?i saw another post on these forums from a person who recommended going with the infinity reference line of speakers with the CDA-105 instead of the alpine S-type, simply because no amplifier was involved. thoughts on this, as well?sorry if anything i'm asking is obvious.. i'm not a car stereo buff.. not yet anyway-steve
I am going to defer to TigerHeli here because I am just not that familiar with this HU/speaker combo. My inclination would be that the combo you have would kick the snot out of your factory system.
Whaddaya say Tiger?
thank you guys for the help, and especially to tiger for the in-depth reply. i decided to go with an amp after all. i just don't think it's possible to make it work otherwise.
i went into this thinking a new set of decent speaker and a head unit plus installation would run me maybe under $500, and now everything is going to cost around $1000 in the end.
as far as best buy goes, i went back and spoke to a manager, explaining how i wasn't given necessary information regarding the need for an amp with my setup and the drawbacks / dangers of underpowered speakers and he sold me the alpine amp mentioned above "at cost", which meant about $100 off. i'm getting this thing installed at 2pm today, so i'll let you all know how it goes. from everything i've read about these speakers and amplifier, i'm expecting nothing short of great sound.. so hopefully my expectation will be met
The thing I'm a bit nervous about was GeneBalt had an amp in his system, and still was unsatisfied.
The other thing is - if you still aren't happy with the sound after the amp install, voice your concerns to the manager at Best Buy and see what they can do with the EQ settings to get everything better.
Let us know how it works out.
well it sounds pretty good actually. the guy who installed the amp doesn't have a lot of familiarity with alpine's head unit settings. i dunno if the other guy does, but he mentioned having a pioneer head unit in his car before. i THINK my head unit is tweaked to a good degree, but maybe i'll have to poke around on an alpine-based forum and get some ideas. but overall it sounds pretty good and clear i think. bass gets a slightly muddy around volume level 22-24. my bass is set at +2, 80hz, and a bass bandwidth of 2. dunno if this is a hardware limitation or what. overall, the amp helped make it sound like it should. the only other thing i'm wondering, besides the bass values versus volume setting, is whether or not i should leave the Power IC on or off.
another 2 quick questions i just thought of.. so my set-up looks like this:
CDA-105 (head)SPS-600 (6.5)SPS-609 (6x9)MRP-F300 (amp)
where should i go from there? i don't have the means to pay for anything extra now, but i'm asking for future reference :-Dand since my amp puts out 50W RMS per speaker, would it be ok to set the "Power IC" setting to "off" on my head unit and still safely drive my speakers with only the power from the amp? the reason i ask is because it was mentioned that this amp likely puts out more than the 50Wx4 that it states.
The Power IC controls whether the internal HU amplifier is used or not. (If you were going to run another set of speakers off the HU without running them off the internal amp, you would want the Power IC set to on.)
Since all your speakers are externally amplified, it would make sense and give slightly better sound to turn it off.
The Power IC setting has no effect on the power delivered by the amp.
Your amp is a bit under the power recommendation for your speakers. That is no problem, but be aware that if you set the amp gain really high, you could damage the speakers.
Pioneer and Alpine have very different tone controls.
I'm guessing the muddy bass is from the 6.5's or resonance in the door panels - you could try setting the HPF higher on the 6.5's and lower on the 6x9's (probably from the amp, but you could set it from the HU - it is recommended not to set it both places).
Your next step would probably either be sound-deadening or adding a subwoofer - although you could look into Satellite radio or Bluetooth - it's really just a question of what you want to improve next.
Anyone else have suggestions?
i notice that turning the Power IC off drops the volume of the sound coming from the speakers. i guess i was wondering if it would be correct to say that, with the power IC on, the RMS delivered to each speaker would be 18 + 50. judging by what you just mentioned, the speakers are getting 50 each regardless of whether the power IC is on or off. true? and if that is true, why would it sound louder with the power IC on?
yeah, i was thinking about that when i bought the amp. but user GLH recommended it, so i trusted that i couldn't go wrong buying that particular one, especially since nobody disagreed with this recommendation. hopefully this is true.i have not looked at the amp gain on my amp yet but i will check it out later. i also plan on using the guidelines for setting amp gain as described in the amp FAQ on this website.
I'm guessing the muddy bass is from the 6.5's or resonance in the door panels - you could try setting the HPF higher on the 6.5's and lower o the 6x9's (probably from the amp, but you could set it from the HU - it is recommended not to set it both places).
the HPF is able to be set from the HU but it is universal in that it can't set the front and back speakers separately. i dunno about the amp but again i'll check it out when i look at the amp later.
basically want to improve something about the system itself, and not interested in satellite radio or bluetooth. i was thinking about possibly getting a sub. originally i thought i'd never get a sub because i'm not interested in big booming bass, but i've read that a sub is good for simply giving a good bass sound in general and improving the sound coming from the regular speakers by taking the stress of bass out of them. sound dampening is a definite possibility. that is likely to be my next move... -sigh- if only i was rich...
i didn't realize how expensive all this stuff would turn out to be, especially when taking into consideration future improvements like adding a sub or dynamat or maybe a larger amp.. etc etc... man, how do some of you people afford it? lol
solarplexus:judging by what you just mentioned, the speakers are getting 50 each regardless of whether the power IC is on or off. true? and if that is true, why would it sound louder with the power IC on?
My understanding was it was 50W regardless. I don't have an answer for why it is louder with the IC on. I can take a guess. With the IC on, the signal probably passes through the internal amp before going to the pre-amps, so the pre-amp voltage is higher. With the IC off, a cleaner but lower voltage signal goes through the pre-amps, but you can compensate for that with the gain (input sensitivity) on the amp.
solarplexus:yeah, i was thinking about that when i bought the amp. but user GLH recommended it, so i trusted that i couldn't go wrong buying that particular one, especially since nobody disagreed with this recommendation. hopefully this is true.
You want to be about 70% at least of RMS (which I think you are), but it's more critical for subs than mains. My main point was not to think you can max (lower numbers) out the gain since the RMS is low.
solarplexus:i have not looked at the amp gain on my amp yet but i will check it out later. i also plan on using the guidelines for setting amp gain as described in the amp FAQ on this website.
See this thread also.
solarplexus:the HPF is able to be set from the HU but it is universal in that it can't set the front and back speakers separately. i dunno about the amp but again i'll check it out when i look at the amp later.
Since you have different size front and rear speakers, you probably want different HPF settings - especially without a sub. The amp WILL have separate front and rear settings, so I would use it to set the HPF.
Subs definitely help on system upgrades, but I've never thought the cost and complication was worth it - although I might try an underseat sub if money weren't an object.
For sound deadening - Dynamat plain is not great, Dynamat XL is good - there are comparable and less expensive alternatives to both, but I can't post links to them here.
The amp is not too small for the speakers in any way. The ugly truth is, you may never be satisfied with your bass without a subwoofer. Set the headunit on full range. (not high or low pass) Use the highpass settings on the amp and set the frequencies for the front and rear seperately, as TeliHeli suggests. I have no doubt the 6.5" speakers will sound better with the bass level set on '0' (on the headunit) and highpass set at 150 hz. Set the rear speakers on 100 hz. Reset the gains on the amp, correctly. When you get a sub and amp, you can reset the highpass freqs and set the sub lowpass to same, then reset the gains again.
Good luck.