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What are some signs your car needs a new amp?

P

Pollock

Golden Member
I'm not sure if The Garage would be better suited to this question, but the stock speakers on my car are killing me, and I'm not sure how I should go about upgrading them.

I installed a Sony GT300 several months ago, I think correctly. When I turn the volume up high enough, it just sounds too sharp, too harsh, like it's piercing my ear drums. What kind of distortion would be causing this? What speaker upgrades should I go about? Could the stock HK amp be a problem? 😕
 
how is your eq setup?? do you have any treble enhancements on?? if so, try setting your EQ flat or only turn up the lower end frequencies.......my eq in my car is almost totally flat except 100mhz and down and i have no ear fatigue problems and my ears are extremely sensitive to that.........
 
Now, let me first say that I have no clue how to use equalizer settings. But anyway, most of the preset ones just make it sound worse in one way or another, so I leave it off, which I'd imagine means flat.
 
Back in my car audio days I built my own system and besides a few things I did all the work. That being said the one thing I feel was a good thing to spend cash on was having the car tuned using a RTA machine, This will give the tuner a good idea of the slop being produced by the way the system is setup, then they can go from there. They can balance it out to make sure nothing is producing higher levels then what they should be etc. Now granted my system was a pretty high end, but I am glad I had this done cause I did do a car comepetition ONCE and got a 9-10 for overall sound quality.
 
hk amps tend to be warm imho, so it is probably your stock speakers with their "easy to move on the cheap" aluminum/metal tweets.....................try looking for some speakers with silk tweeters......polk and jl come to mind......
 
Originally posted by: Snakexor
hk amps tend to be warm imho, so it is probably your stock speakers with their "easy to move on the cheap" aluminum/metal tweets.....................try looking for some speakers with silk tweeters......polk and jl come to mind......
Click to expand...

If he wants awesome fronts then go with Diamond Audio hex series.
 
How did you hook up the headunit to the stock amp? Most stock amps will not integrate well with aftermarket headunits.
 
Originally posted by: jtvang125
How did you hook up the headunit to the stock amp? Most stock amps will not integrate well with aftermarket headunits.
Click to expand...

I spliced the wiring harness and connected it, and that's pretty much it.

I don't really want to spend a lot of money (and yes, I know, you get what you pay for), I was just curious if there was one thing that would have a good improvement for the value. I was trying to install some 6.5" Pioneers in the kick panels, but alas, I can't get the kick panels to fit back over them. I also wouldn't be interested in taking my door panels off to get at whatever is behind there (tweeters, I think). And my Z3 doesn't even technically have a subwoofer, just some kind of contraption using two 5.25" speakers.
 
If I'm picturing this right, you connected the speaker outputs from the headunit to the harness and from there it goes to the stock amp? If so, then that's probably why you get the harshness when you turn it up. On most factory system the stock headunit sends a low level signal to the amp. what you're doing is sending an already amplified signal (high level) to the amp and the amp is amplifing it again.

If you want to keep your stock amp and your headunit has RCA outputs you can try this. Buy a short pair of RCAs, 1 foot long is fine. Cut it in half. Connect the plugs to the RCA outputs on the headunit. On the cut end cut away the shielding to expose the wiring. Disconnect the speaker wires you connected to the harness and connect these in their place. Just make sure you have the outputs going to their correct speaker (Front L, Front R...ect). Now your headunit is sending a low level signal with less distrotion to the amp so it should improve the SQ quite a bit.
 
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