I had all of my speakers replaced with Boston Acoustics from my last car but kept the stock Pioneer head unit. The speakers sound great, but it moderate to high volumes it seems the mid to high end is distorting or clipping. It's very annoying.

I asked my installer about it and they said the problem was that the head unit's amp was clipping the output and my speakers were fine.

Is this correct? If it is, than would replacing my head unit or connecting a separate amp help fix the problem? Any recommendations on what I need to buy?

Thanks for your help!

 

I have the exact same problem! I replaced all my speakers with Infinitis and they clip. Anyways, I'll be replacing my headunit in the spring to take care of this annoying problem...

 

I have had the stock radio from RS3.0 hooked up to a set of MB Quarts and have had zero problems like that. The only problem that I did have is that it was not loud so I added a amp.
How high are you playing it when the clipping starts and what does it sound like distortion or crackling the is a chance that the speaker is grounded and this may cause problems their also can be a phase cancling problem!!!!! here is one way to find out., turn the bass up treb down and fade right to left and if there is more bass on one side as you fade there is a phase cancling problem do this for the front right to left and rear right to left after that do front to rear if you hear more bass while fading there is a wire issue!!!!! I dont know if this will help you out but try it might just help to find out if the speakers are wired correctly

 

Good to know I'm not the only one...

I like the stock unit except for this problem... but it annoys me to no end. It looks like I'll need to get a new stereo soon...

Doesn't the RS 3.0 have a better Alpine radio? I'd love to have that in my car :D

I'll try your tips to check for that problem. Usually the problem kicks in when I crank the volume over 45 or so... moderately loud.

 

I have done this in more than just this car but and i did not have any problems but there could also be a power issue if so youll need to ad an amp and if you like the stock stereo you do not need to replace it to add an amp oh also just because you change the radio it does not mean that you will not still have a power issue most radios only put aroud 25 30 watts of CLEAN POWER and sometimes not even that much.

 

an external amp should solve this problem to an extent. The only problem being that the signal for the external amp will be coming from the stock stereo which is clipping which in turn would cause your amp to send a clipped signal as well...

I suggest an aftermarket head unit then an external amplifier..

 

Not really the only reason there could be a clipping in the factory hu is underdriving speakers. if you take a signal and change it fron high out put to low out put is an overdrive to the converter that converting the signal there will be no clipping This will allow you to clean up that weak signal from th hu. There are alot of companys that make coverters just for this project. If using the factory radio that was clipping from underdriving the speakers and adding an amp will still causes this problem them all theese companys that make devices for this aplication would be out alot of money or out of buissnes.

 

There's no such thing as "underdriving" speakers... Putting less wattage to a speaker than it is rated for will do no harm to the speaker at all as long as it's a clean signal.
Less wattage = less volume
Less wattage doesn't = distortion/clipping

 

My stock 06 iPod HU clips output @ 60/63 through a Navone LOC. This is measured with an o'scope.

The HU amp is clipping. Sounds like you need an amp. The BA (and most aftermarket) speaks will need more power to sound their best. The stock HU outputs around 18~20 wrms/ch. That is not nearly enough to achieve the volume/loudness level you want.

BTW, try it with SSP on "neutral", not "feel" or "hear". Those will exaggerate the sound to boost wimpy stock speakers. And see if its set to "xB'.

SciTCGuy is correct "Putting less wattage to a speaker than it is rated for will do no harm to the speaker at all as long as it's a clean signal."

I'll even add that putting more than rated power will do no harm to the speaker as long as it's a clean signal and you are responsible with the volume ****.

 

indeed... RMS wattage is the Thermal power handling of a speaker... Pretty much the only way to reach the thermal limits is with sine wave test tones... so unless you ride around town blaring test tones all day, it's fairly safe to put more than RMS wattage to a speaker as long as you know what the mechanical noise sounds like when a speaker reaches that point.... and have a clean signal...

 

there is a guy on here (and ebay) that sells a plug that will let you run and amp and sub off of the stock h/o. earch for "sub plug"

 

My thoughts would be that the SSP is causing this problem. The radio in the car is designed for the OEM speakers and has processing for them. Changing to a different speaker that has a different response pattern would likely yield different results. My suggestion is to either add a different deck or a DSP defeating processor (ala JL Audio Cleansweep) with an amp. Mark

 

^^^ agreed!!

 

he beat me to it. Car makers are finding out that its cheaper to add a DSP function to the radio then it is to actually put in good speakers. The radio is equalizing the output for some cheap ___ paper cone one way speakers and you go and repalce them with something good and it doesnt sound right.

Its either that or your BA speakers are 2 ohm and trying to pull too much on the radio

 

There's some good info in this post but it really boils down to efficiency. The OEM speakers are very efficient, meaning they don't require a lot of power to play loud. The head unit was designed to work with those speakers. Most aftermarket speakers are not as efficient because of the more dense materials used to make the sound more accurate and handle more power. The amplifier built into the OEM head unit can't support your new speakers up to the volume you want.

If you just replace the head unit, you'll probably have some improvement but it will be limited. If you just get an amp, you'll get a lot of improvement in volume but quality will still be lacking. If you get both, you'll notice a huge improvement in volume and sound quality.

 

Thanks for all of your responses!

Yeah, distortion occurs on neutral as well but not as much. However, the volume level of the neutral setting with my BAs is considerably lower than with stock speakers. An amp sounds like a solution... thanks for all of the tech. info!

Yes, I agree this is contributing to the problem. I have looked into such a processor but for the price I'd rather upgrade to an HU with features I want (i.e. iPod integration). Thanks.

Definitely sounds like the problem to me. Well, I think I will invest in a new HU first, see how much improvement I get, and then add an amp if that isn't sufficient. I really don't need to have obnoxiously loud volumes as long as I can crank it up to a moderate volume and not hear the singer clip out

Thanks again, you guys are the best

 

Weird. Not saying you're wrong, but I've always been taught in all the audio classes I had in school, that underpowering a speaker is bad. It's not specifically the act of underpowering it, but the distortion that is caused by doing so.

Shrug.

 

As long as you have a clean signal, lower wattage will only give you less volume.


Think about it like this:

The voltage going into an amp from a head unit is directly relative to the volume of the HU. When there is less input voltage going into an amplifier, there is less wattage coming out of the amplifier.

When you turn the volume down on a HU, the voltage being sent through the interconnects drops, which causes the wattage to drop, which causes the volume to drop. If less wattage was bad for speakers, then turning the volume down on your head unit would be bad for them as well...


When you have an amp and sub in which case the sub can handle more power than the amp can put out, you often times run into trouble because a lot of people will attempt to squeeze every ounce of power from the amp as possible by turning the gain up to the point of having a very clipped signal. Obviously a clipped signal = death and that's where you get a lot of people saying that less power on a speaker than it's rated for is dangerous to the life of the speaker.

 

I guess that's the thing, why I said the distortion is what's causing it. If you underpower a speaker to get a "good" sound level, you'll probably end up turning it way up and end up with that clipping... Which is what's really killing the speaker.

So I guess technically underpowering isn't going to destroy the speaker, but still...

 

I agree with underpowering a speaker will not harm it, as long as the signal is clean. Under powering a speaker with a non-clean signal could damage it. You can start off with an amp, and use the Subplug (probably Subplug 4 which allows you to run a sub amp and a 4-ch amp, the Subplug 2 allows you to add a sub/amp and use factory power for speakers). Turn the bass and treble for the headunit down to 0 or lower. Don't turn up the gain on the amp too much either. That should help improve sound. Adding a better head unit will help, but there are things you can do to get decent sound of the stock head unit. Besides, with the stock head unit, it's a little more stealthy.