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Aftermarket Speakers Issue

W

Wisconnie

New member
Hello, I recently installed some 6x9 Kicker speakers in the back of my car and they just don't sound good, like its almost below the stock quality. Someone mentioned that hooking them up to an amp would make a difference, someone else said that they have to be enclosed in order to sound like they should. Paying $75 for below stock quality doesn't make sense to me. Any input?! :th_scratchhead:

Thanks
 


It is very possible that is the case. When I had polk's in the back of my car the audio was very biased towards the high frequencies with the components up front and the polk 3 ways in the back.

What I did was I just clipped the wire going to the tweeters and left the portion feeding the woofer in it's place. I was only using the rear speakers to fill in the low notes so it worked for my purpose.
 
How much power do your new speakers handle RMS and peak? They may need significantly more power than the stock did to put out the same volume and this is causing your problem.
 
1) Check the speaker efficiencies. Doubling the power to a speaker provides a 3db increase in sound pressure. So a speaker with a 89 efficiency vs a 92db efficiency is going to sound a lot quieter. A 10 db increase sounds twice as loud.

2) Make sure they speakers are correctly mounted. The top of the speaker pushes out vibrations + , but as the speaker moves out, it also creates an equal negative sound wave off the bottom. These two sound waves can cancel one another out at certain frequencies.

3) Use the fader and balance to isolate each speaker and see how each sounds by itself.

4) Make sure you have the + and - connected correctly. If you have them reversed on one speaker, the sound waves can cancel one another out.

5) Check the speaker covers aren't smothering the sound, or touching the speaker.
 
Funny I just did installed the same Kicker speakers in my '08 recently. First time I put them in wrong, they sounded way too quiet. I had to put them in exactly the way the original speakers were, with the plastic housing above the metal body panel, and the speaker mounted on the top edge of the housing. Now they sound better than the OEM speakers, especially the highs and lows. But for cheap OEM speakers the original were not too bad, that's why the difference did not blow me away.
 


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