Sub-par sound quality.
 

Hey I made an account just to try and get some advice on fixing the sound quality of my newly installed system. I have a 99 civic sir and just put in 2 6.5" alpine coaxial r-type door speakers and similar alpine 6x9" rear ones. Also put in a kenwood kdc-x896 HU. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to the sound quality and even though it is definitely better its not great. At first I was getting overpowering highs so I disconnected the stock tweeters which helped that but the sound quality is still crap despite messing with the equalizer. Please toss me some advice I am getting pretty frustrated.
:russian:

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

It might be because you are under powering your speakers. Your hu is rated at 22W RMS and your speakers are 100W RMS. That's way to low. Those speakers are meant to be driven with an amp, not just a hu alone.

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

Yeah I get that but I'm not playing music at ridiculously high levels. I shouldn't NEED an amp to get decent sound quality if I'm not cranking it? It is almost as if the front speakers are directing their sound into the floor, even with the fader set to Front-2 I can only hear the back ones unless I lean down. Maybe I'm spoiled because I have been listening to Monster Turbine Gold headphones for the last year.

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

You do need an amp if your underpowering your speakers. It would be better if you blasted the music because it would be closer to the speakers RMS value. Underpowering speakers will make them sound distorted, just like if they are overpowered. Matching RMS is important.

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

You would have been better off with the type E or S with just a head unit. And I hate saying that because the Type R and higher are the only decent speakers Alpine makes. Those front speakers have a sensitivity rating of 88 dB which is really low. It requires a lot more power to get any volume from them. Your rears have a rating of 90dB so require less power to get more volume. That's why you need to use the fader. Even a small amp would make a huge difference in sound quality. Even just a 2 channel on the front and your deck power for the rears.

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

The original post is quite old, but I'll add this for anyone who reads this far: The first claim was that the highs were overpowering. I would check to ensure the speaker wire polarity is correct all around. If you have a woofer that is wired backward, it's going to move in the opposite direction than the others which means it makes sound waves in the opposite phase than the others. The result is that the low frequencies tend to be reduced or canceled, resulting in low bass or too much high.

You can test this by connecting a 1.5 volt, AA battery to the speaker. Connect the battery one way, and see which way the woofer moves. Then connect the battery the other way, and see the woofer move other way. Here is the proof that polarity matters.

I don't buy the arguments about mismatched watts between the speakers and head unit. There is no reason a 5 watt amplifier can't drive a speaker capable of accepting 100 watts. For normal listening volumes, you don't need a whole lot of watts anyhow. I would bet that the problem is elsewhere, not due to the lack of an external amplifier.

As someone mentioned, speaker sensitivity, measured in db (decibels), is important: a 3 or 6 db increase can results in a doubling of the volume, depending on which information you read. If you have one set of speakers with an 88 db sensitivity and the other set is 92 db, resulting in a 4 db difference, you have quite a mismatch in perceived volume to the ear.

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

This varies greatly depending on the speaker. I run Boston Pro 6.5" speakers and they are virtually worthless when powered by a stock head unit, or even an after market head unit. They require a considerable amount of power to get clean sound. Because they have a low sensitivity, they require the head unit to be turned up to a high level, which is where the distortion begins.

The Type Rs that the OP installed are in a similar situation. While they may sound OK with an after market, they will sound like crap with a stock head unit. It just doesn't have enough clean power to drive the speakers correctly.

And the reason he had over powering highs was because he was running 2 sets of mis-matched tweeter in the front. The stock tweeters in the sail panel and the tweeters in the coax speakers. You will almost never get good sound with that configuration.

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

Headphones have built in filters and presets, they will sound different no matter what... Did you really pay over $300 for earbuds? Are they worth it?

Make sure your speakers are IN PHASE, that can make it sound tinny or lacking depth.

A normal head unit should power those speakers fine and sound quality should be fine too.

Re: Sub-par sound quality.
 

You may not buy it but that doesn't mean it's not true. 5W is not going to be able to drive the magnet of a 100W speaker. Yes you will get sound but the speaker will not like it and it won't sound good. Impedance comes into play also.