What's wrong with my "system"?
 

Stock HU
1 Alpine MRP-F250 (40W x 4)
4 Pioneer TS-A1681R (6-1/2"/6-3/4" 4-Way)
1 Infinity BassLink

I'm sure none of the audiophiles here would even consider any of the products listed, but nonetheless this is what I have.

My problem is that when the bass is set to +5 and volume is 5 (and above), the SQ turns to **** as the rear doors begin to distort.
Also, the Basslink begins sound like crap unless I change the balance on the HU full R or L. Only then do I get a decent amount of bass.
Do I have wiring problems, or this the price I pay for being cheap?
:sadpace:

Donno about the Max, but some stock head units converted to high level outs sound like crap.

Could be lack of power, gains, crossovers, or phasing. Turn the bass on the head unit down. About what x/o points are your speaks set at (prob on your amps). play with phasing (switch which wire is going to positive and negative of all your speakers, one at a time) and see ifyou can get it to sound better....or....if not...maybe upgrade.

what do you mean by volume 5? is that half way up. Remeber not every hu is the same when you spitting out those numbers.

It sounds like speakers are out of phase and/or your gains on the basslink are too high . Check all of your speaker wiring make sure positive is going to positive and negative is going to negative.

Disagree here. It doesn't necessarily matter if neg is going to positive or negative inherantly. Whichever sounds right is most important. I believe this is called the difference between mechanical phase and relative phase. Anyway, I've never had a system sound it's best with all the speakers in phase. After setting preliminary crossover points to ensure the speakers are playing safe frequencies, phasing is the FIRST step in tuning.

when I said out of phase I'm talking completely out of phase (180 degrees) like if you connect the positive speaker wire to negative terminal on the left speaker and negative speaker wire to the positive terminal on the left speaker. And connect the positive to positive and negative to negative on the right side. I'm not talking about serious audiophiles where you actually have phase settings because this is obviously no little 5 or 6 degree tweak. The person basically said their system sounds like crap not that it was just a little bit off. Or maybe I should've used the terminology reversed polarity, but I'd tried to keep this as simple as possible. Most people just call it out of phase.

K, thats fine. I'm just not seeing the difference, but thats cool.

You need some HPF's on the interior speakers, and some gain adjustment on the basslink.

I thought it was pretty clear: stock HU on an '02 SE.:scratch:

That may be the case - I hope I haven't caused any damage.:tard:

Sorry, I'm not familiar with stock hu's. I usually take them out of the vehicle immediately. I don't even remember the functionality of a 97 se's stock hu.

Volume goes up to about 30.

It sounds it me that one of the inputs to your basslink is reversed. This would couse you to have little or no bass with the ballance set in the middle but would add bass when faded to the left or right. I am not sure how you have the basslink wired to the stock HU. Let me know and I will see if I can help you get to the bottom of this better.....if you have not already.

As for speaker phase, I dont think it the case here but like Stevei said (and no one seemed to understand) in most cases a car will sound overall better just by playing with speaker phase. What I am talking about here is simply revising the polatiry of the speaker wires coming out of the amp. This is not rock science, no fancy processor.....but simple taking the positive and negitive speaker lead and reversing them on the amp. I think you would be amazed at how much better a car can sound when you have found the right combo for your car. Start by swapping the passenger side front first. I think this one simple step will help any car. When I did not have a fancy processor to make exact adjustments I competed with my front pasenger side door out of phase. Worked like a champ.

Also, hooking up any normal speaker with not harm it one bit so dont be scared.....try it.

Rick

Thanks for the explanations - I'll give it shot.