After a few months of chosing the components of my new sound system (eclipse cd8454 and pa5422 with focal speakers 165kp and sub 27kx)their only remained the installation. with a quote that was equal highest I decided to go with the local eclipse dealer who sold me the components. you know pay and get the job done right. "WRONG" On picking the car up it just didnt sound right. The installer states that he had never installed this head unit before(The main reason I went to these people in the first place was because of familualarity with setting this HU up.Being tired at the end of the day I take my car home thinking that i would fine tune it in. some of the problems found which i would like your imput on is 1.the tweeters were found positioned on the dash facining the opposite side roof pillar I have reposition them on the windscreen, what do people consider as optimal 2.The guy talked me out of upgrading my speaker wire from standard in some sections of the car saying it wouldnt make any difference. I have a 98 model car ,some people have said that later cars have reasonable speaker cable.is this true and how much difference will quallity cabling make. 3.The rubber surround from the speaker in the door is in contact with the door paneling This will probably damage after a time, will it not? 4 some of the cabling used to connect the sub ect is two parellel strands with a insulative covering of two different colours(a dull orange and a murky clear to differencite polarities "I guess", but the wire inside are again of different colours one copper and the other a silver colour. this cabling sounds looks like rubbish to me what do you think?. I have had the car about 5 days and buy making adjustments to the hu its starting to sound better (The guy who installed it didnt even Know that speakers run in) any tips on setting it up would be welcome
Personally, I prefer tweeters to be as close to the woofer as possible because the drivers blend together better that way (not as many phase, time issues). It depends on the manufacturer of the speaker, though, I got best results with my Focal Utopias in kick panels, it depends on your taste and the car as well, though. I always upgrade speaker wire, the problem with a lot of factory wire is it is thin, and has many connections (poor ones at that, sometimes even crappy solder points) that can interfere with the current it can carry. I use 16 guage wire on my components, you shouldn't need any more than that. MAKE SURE the speaker is very, very tightly sealed to the door panel. If it is not, cancellation will occur and will cause poor sound quality and possible speaker damage. What guage is the subwoofer cable (if you know)? You can try running E-iSERV for equalizing the sound, removing peaks and dips in the frequency response. Also, make sure the head unit is set to easy mode and NOT pro mode, and make sure the crossovers are set correctly. You could possibly try some time correction for the left/right sides and set the tweeter location. It sounds like someone got lazy with the install. Our shop always consulted the customer before cutting his car because EVERYONE has their preference, we always asked him/her to evaluate mounting points, wire routing, etc. before we did it, we didn't just stick a tweeter anywhere we pleased. This is better for the customer and for us (do it right the first time) because everyone is happy. Maybe you should go back and complain about the install. Can you describe the sound, I mean what's lacking and what's overbearing, perhaps?
The tweeters being directed towards the opposite roof pillars gave me a imprecise reflected sort of sound , the original factory rear speakers (pretty bad) were not faded out with no priority towards the front where the good speakers are.also the timing delays between the tweeters and door speakers was out(their positonal selection was out as well), as was the positional selector for where the driver sits. For the fist few day I didnt like the sound of it, but its starting to sound better now. After playing around with HU settings Im finding that the system sounds better with a minimal amount of equalizer adjustments,a flat response (not dull) how have other people found there eclipse HU
I usually set to a natural setting, I don't set to adjust the sound, I set an equalizer to remove dips and peaks in the frequency response, basically just correcting the acoustic properties of a car. This requires an RTA, or E-iSERV like the 8454 has (I have the 8454, great sound quality). If they've already cut the tweeter holes for your car, I feel sorry for you as it'll take some parts to fix it if you want to move them, personally I prefer the tweeter in a component system to be as close to the woofer as possible for the purpose of blending of acoustics (depends on the set, though), then sometimes (depending on the vehicle I'm installing in) I put an additional set of tweeters up top and attenuate them to raise the soundstage a tad, and add a little detail. The farther the tweeters of a component system are away from you, the more potential for the sound to be out of whack b/c of phase and timing issues, in your case, you'll hear the tweeters before you hear the midwoofer, making you hear more cymbals and high vocals, and taking a lot of warmth and depth from the music. This is common in component systems because the crossover is phase matched for the set, with a set goal in mind for the installation, if you go way out of the limits, the sound will be off. My recommendation to you is to first focus on tightly mounting the midbass to the door panel, use dynamat or similar material to seal it and dampen vibrations. Second, I'd upgrade the wiring because I personally don't like most factory wiring because of the poor connectors and harnesses. Third, consider moving the tweeters to blend the sound better. The problem with the tweeters in their current location is that reflections occur and the phase is probably off, even more so if the woofer is in a very low door location. The fact that you're using time correction to fix it and it helps a little bit is a sign that the timing is indeed off, and needs to be matched better. The time correction will help a little, but not as well as having the tweeter in a proper location. Pillars usually work better with supertweeters and such that are independant of a crossover network, mainly because they compliment the sound of the components instead of being a crucial part of the overall sound. After doing this, you can then readjust and tune the equalizer settings to your liking and I think it'll sound a LOT better. Installation is 90% of how a car sounds, a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.