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ok so the story goes...

i recently bought 4 coaxial jbl speakers to replace my standard door speakers, which is fine. The problem is when i turn the volume reasonably loud the bass is making them distort, which is weird as the head unit i'm using powered my much higher powereed 6x9's in my last car...and I only have the front 2 speakers connected at the moment

so anyway, i'm not sure whether to get a sub amp+sub and turn the bass down on my coaxials... or get a 4 channel amp and amp my sub and rear coaxials then fade the to rear...or what...

i don't have much to spend so can't go all out and get like sub amp+sub and 4 channel amp for co-axials...

would like some advise and product recommendations please...

First of all, check the settings of your radio, for instance my Pioneer has a LOUd-function, which can be turned off, and the radio then gives 4x27Watss instead of 4x50 Watts

And if you can't change your radio settings, getting an amp could be a way to regulate the frequenties to your speakers, so you can filter out some of the low ones, so that your speakers won't distort the bass.

but checking your radio settings will do fine at first

Either that or check that the bass isn't up on the headunit, sounds silly I know but.

na its not the settings on the headunit, if im listening to music quite loud i have to have the bass setting totally negative... and if i put it on the xplod equalizer setting...well it doesn't enjoy that at all

Your headunit is sony then?? This is one source of your problem as unless you spend top money on a sony they distort at high volumes a lot more than say Alpine or Blaupunkt for the same money

As for bass, i would go with a sub+amp setup and sound stage properly (treble front, bass rear) as normal speakers are never going to match the bass capabilites on a proper sub/amp combo.. even if you dont want a lot of bass it means you can turn the bass right down.. and hence get more volume out of your speakers before they blow/distort without completly sacrificing you bass line

Me and MM both have a sub+box for sale.. both of which are decent enough

Amp wise you could multichannel and amp everything to get even more volume or just get a mono block and amp your sub

yea its sony, cost about £250.

It powered my 300w 6x9s no hassle but is struggling with my 16.5" coaxials, its really weird.

yea the sub+sub amp idea is probably the best and cheapest. What will I need to get in the way or wiring if i'm doing that?

Buy mine mate and you'll get a 600w RMS dual 4ohm 12" sub (wired to 2 ohm) in box, 400w RMS @ 2ohm Mono Amp, and 4awg wiring, should be enough to go through a Polo, it was in a 106 before and fit ok, that's 4 guage power and earth wire and 12 guage speaker wire, not forgetting an 80amp fuse as well I have one gold plated ring terminal for sure, but they're not expensive. It was metered at 133.4db but is capable of about 140db, it was only used for a few months then I got the Polo.

Click this for a video It did flex more once I got a different CD but I didn't get to video it, shook the roof, rear wiper, front wipers a little bit, and obviously the mirrors, it's a great sub, but it has to go to make way for a bigger 12".

hehe looks impressive, but i'm not looking to spend near that amount

How much you got to spend?

i'm wanting to spend around £150 tops. I'm not an ice fan, just want a bit of bass

My sub box and wire is up for £100 and it will do everything you want it to.. you should be able to get an amp for £50 but you could always spend as extra 50 and get the 900W RMS sony mono block i use from cel-direct.com which does the job properly

loud wrote:i'm wanting to spend around £150 tops. I'm not an ice fan, just want a bit of bass

Yeah, you'd need about twice that for mine afraid.

JarnoVWPolo6N wrote:First of all, check the settings of your radio, for instance my Pioneer has a LOUd-function, which can be turned off, and the radio then gives 4x27Watss instead of 4x50 Watts

And if you can't change your radio settings, getting an amp could be a way to regulate the frequenties to your speakers, so you can filter out some of the low ones, so that your speakers won't distort the bass.

but checking your radio settings will do fine at first

Thats a complete load of rubbish.

The "loud" function does nothing of the sort on any head unit.

first of all there is not a single head unit on the market that does anything over 4x32 true RMS watts. anything labelled as "4x50watts" or "4x60watts" is measured in peak power and therefore the figures are totally meaningless.

secondly- the loud function on a head unit does not have anything to do with the overall power output of a head unit- the "LOUD" feature is designed to compensate for high amounts of road noise (e.g. cobbled roads, motorway driving etc). It does this by boosting certain frequencies by a given amount on the low end of the volume scale. However the amount of compensation done by this function goes DOWN exponentially as you turn the volume UP on the stereo. so by the time you get to (say) 2/3rds volume which would probably the maximum point that a lot of people listen to their stereos at (beyond this the signal often starts to "clip") the LOUD function has little or no effect on the signal being put out.


moving back on topic for a minute- the reason that your 6x9's would have sounded "alright" to you is that firstly they are behind you- sound is never heard properly from behind which is one reason you wouldnt pick up any imperfections. second- more cone area and possibly a higher sensitivity would mean for a given lower volume they would give more output (whether or not this is clean power or not is debateable)

Chances are you are simply hearing the 6.5" versions more because they are where they should be- in front of you!!! To acheive a proper sound stage you need speakers in front- NOT behind. 6x9s? load of pants- wouldnt touch them with a ten foot barge pole.

My suggestion would be to buy a four channel amp and a sub and build the box yourself with the correct parameters for the given sub itself. use the two front channels for the front speakers, bridge the two rear channels on the sub.

take your time- sound deaden and get it installed PROPERLY. should be worth it.