All of my past cars have had an external amplifier for the stock audio system... I was wondering if the tC has on as well... I installed my Alpine CDA 9835 today and it sounds 100X better then the stock HU did... But it starts to distort at medium-high volume levels... Not very high but it distorts around what would have been 50 on the stock unit . I know that the Infinity system that my RIP Intrepid had distorted at higher levels with an aftermarket HU installed, but when the Amp was bypassed it sounded much better... Anyone have an Idea? And with the Aftermarket HU installed the stock VSE sub sounds 100X better as well...

 

its the stock paper speakers that are causing distortion.

 

New HU+stock speakers=poopie

 

i thought the stock speakers were at least a decent pioneer speaker. Am i wrong?

 

They are made by Pioneer, but certainly not decent.

 

actually, decent would be a perfect word for them....their made of some poly type material instead of the normal paper.....a little more rigidity there....but they can definitely use an upgrading to an aftermarket component system...

 

they are strill garbage, i would never leave them in my car.

 

Well if you hooked up an amp to your stock speakers instead of using your 9835 it would sound 100X better than it does now.

It's not the speakers it's the power source. HU power always sucks.

Edit - I'm not saying the speakers are good by any means just trying to tell you where the problem is as you described it. The same would hold true if you had some $300 MB Quarts running off your HU.

 

No sir, headunit power is going to be around 12 watts rms no matter if it's stock or aftermarket. The distortion is coming from the headunit clipping the signal. You're getting harmonic distortion. Keep the unit volume down adn you'll be fine, that or tune the eq on the unit flat. You can't turn the bass boost on/up, don't turn the treble up, the bass up, andy of that, leave it flat, and turn the loud **** off.

 

Ok, I have from my previous car, a Kenwood Excelon X650D 5 channel amp... Im going to use that for everything... I need replacement speakers... I know that the fronts are 6 1/2 and the rears are 5 1/4... what are the tweerters in the front? What do you all sugest for the best sound?

 

I forgot to ask, after installing the Alpine... the door is hard to open and close...ideas?

 

yeah

 

anyone?

 

I bought a 9855 which is pretty much the same headunit. I had the same problems you are having now. The setup I have is a Alpine 9855, a 250 watt crap amp, a cap, 2 JL 10w1v2, and stock speakers.

I figure everyone is going to get a little bit different of an end result but I also see you are running almost the same setup as me.

At default levels the stock speakers would start to go nuts on me at about volume level 17. So I adjusted several settings.

1. The crossover was most definately the biggest thing. It'll be a little different for everyone, but I pretty much set the slopes for the subs to the steepest slope, so it wouldn't get anything more then sub bass. The front and rear were adjusted to a medium to steep slope for anything lower then a midrange. (I know I am being vague but your settings are going to differ then mine cause of the music we listen too as well as our taste in highs, mids, and lows.

2. I adjusted the equalizer, once again this must be done to your tastes.

3. Some people say it doesn't matter but time correction made a huge difference to me. My brother and I were able to set it up so that the sound stage was set near the dash instead of being somewhere near my crotch. Like I said most people would disagree with adjusting the time correction, but once again everyones' set up is going to be a little different.

I have about 4-6 settings for my crossover and equalizer depending on the music. The time correction I have two settings for and I don't mess with it much cause it gets to be a pain adjusting it and then sloutching back into my normal driving position. . .javascript:emoticon('')

Now it only distorts when I get to volume level 20+. But by then I start to go deaf from the highs and I don't really want to go louder then 18 cause then the bass makes the car rattle so much I think it's going to fall apart.

There are several other options that are note worthy. . .

1. Media expander. I couldn't go one day without some major bass, Media expander setting 2 or 3. Yours may very. Also turning on the media expander is a good thing too.

2. Subw setting. You can set the headunit to adjust the bass to adjust with the volume or just be bassy no matter what volume you have on.

3. Illumination, originally I wanted to get the Pioneer 8mp for the breakdancing guy, Yeah I know I'm a chump what can I say. My brother swore to me he'd kick my **** if I got it for that reason, so I got the alpine, I usually just leave the blackout setting on, with either the amber, blue, or red buttons.

4. Go to alpine.com and sign up for ipersonalize. It's nice to have your headunit adjustable settings on a computer instead of dealing with the buttons. I'm still getting used to the glide touch thing.

Hopefully This has been some help. If there is one thing that you must do is read the manual. The headunit you bought is a great one, but unfortunately if you're not a rocket scientist reading the manual might prove helpful.

 

Don't tune with your headunit. Never, ever tune with your headunit. You want to tune with the amp's *****, that's what they're there for.

 

Im sorry i just wanted to ask you something...why do you have a cap??

 

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with that one.

There's no way to run a fully active set up w/ an amp...and often times the x-over in an amp isn't of the highest quality. I'd rather have an amp w/ no internal x-over taking up space and completely control it w/ my HU.

My Eclipse 8443 is fully customizable w/ variable slopes, infinitely better than 99% of amplifiers.

Plus, amps aren't the most reliable for getting exact settings on them. How often do SQ competitors exclusively use their amps for setting x-overs?

 

I never can advocate tuning sub bass with the headunit. I always tune with the gain **** on that one (after setting everything else). I never turn loud on, or turn the bass up, or the sub controls up. The only HU iI've ever even tweaked any frequencies in my personal setups is in the vehicle I just sold. Pioneer DEX-P( with the DEQ-P9. That's an awesome unit. Of course I also had a PPI deq-230 as well. Everything was pretty much tuned flat, with minor tweaks here and there.

BTW, my eD catalogue finally came in. Thanks bro. I might order some things out of it to test out versus some other products I've used in the past, primarily, the eu-650's versus the adire kodas. Test it versus something else in it's price point.

 

It was a gift. I don't return/sell gifts. Anyway my parents dont know jack about car stereos, and some fool at best buy or circuit city probably sold it to them. Come to think of it, my parents being as conservative as they are got me something cool, useless but cool. I know there is no reason to have a cap in my car. I hope that clears things up a little.

 

Right on, good to hear they're finally getting in people's hands...and that I did everything right for the post office ;) SCI_TC_GUY told me he got his today as well

And as far as gains go...yes...absolutely is that an amp only kinda thing...bass boost anything like that makes me sick ;) And gains set w/ an O-scope of course ;)

I only use the HU to set up x-overs so that everything sounds good...if the amps have good enough ones, I'd use them...but I don't know of any that aren't a bit on the pricey side.