hi guys, so here's what i have for my car deck: alpine cda 9855 front/back speakers: utopias/ access amp: two 'entry-level' JL amps subwoofer: JL 10W7 that's about it.. so i just got it installed and i'm still really unhappy with the sound; i don't know if it's because of the bit rate at which i download my music or maybe the tweeters aren't positioned the way i want them. i suggested moving them up higher but the guys said the music would be in my face and i would get annoyed eventually the main problem is that the background seems really muffled; the guys at the shop says that my sub is a sub that wants to be heard before it is seen; it's just loud (it drags), not CRISP, which is how i want it exactly someone else suggested i spend some money on the nakamichi cd700 to replace my deck (said makes a huge difference)and my question is, which switch would be better? and if you say sub, which sub exactly? i have a pair of Bose speaker/sub for my computer and i absolutely love it; the bass is so 'musical' - unfortunately they don't sell separate audio parts for car (so if you know any sub that mimics something like it please suggest) anyway opinions desperately needed; thanks
Well I'm no pro, but I would say the head Unit would be the least of your worries. Try a bought CD and not a burned one as burned cd's are usually really low on the sound quality dept.
How is the sub set up? is it a custom buit box, or a prefab one? If you want Crisp bass a sealed sub enclosure will be more "punchy" and "crisp" than a ported, unless it is a ported box that is tuned to perfection.
From what I hear on this site the JL lines of subs have amazing Sound Quality...so check the bos, and the amp that the sub is running off of make sure the gauges are set correctly and all that.......
alpine and jl is the highest quality stuff you can find so that definitely is not ur prob....
"nakamichi" is mess compared to alpine.....
i think its just that your system isnt configured properly,i dont know if those guys @ the shop are qualified or what but maybe you should let someone else check your stuff out to make sure....
You don't want a Nakamichi CD-700. It's unreliable at best. Nice unit otherwise, but it really doesn't have anything to offer you past the Alpine you have.
What it really sounds like is they didn't set the system up correctly. You could probably afford to drop the crossover freq. on the W7 along with those Utopias, what are they set at now? You could probably also afford to level match the system better since very few people actually set gain correctly.
As far as the tweeter, where did they put it? Focal tweeters don't have the best top octave extension due to their off-axis performance, a lot of times they can benefit from either an on-axis install or a *well implemented* (<-that's critical) A pillar install.
BTW, I highly recommend against MP3s, WMAs, anything along those lines. You'll get horrible SQ out of those formats regardless of how well your system is set up. The better the system, the worse MP3s sound because they bring out all the flaws in the recording. The biggest difference that people notice between MP3s and CD Audio is the treble extension (sparkle, detail, whatever you want to call it).
Hmm Jonathan that confuses me, makes me want to look into it more..
I have, in my personal experience, noticed that MP3/WMA CD's actually sound better (especially more bass) than when I burn the same exact MP3's to a normal CD. I think that most burning software has a little bit of loss when it converts MP3 back to WAV.
The bass signal strength is especially noticeable for me because my HU doesn't have subwoofer preouts, and some songs bump way harder than others (even when the two songs bump equally hard on a buddy's system). So I am always looking for the best quality CD's I can get. I've also noticed that when I rip a CD at 256 kbps MP3, then burn to MP3 Data CD, it sounds just as loud/clear as when I play the actual CD.
I always thought that MP3 CD's were great sounding, I'll have to compare them again...
Gloria, you do have a nice setup. I wouldn't change anything till you get it installed properly. You should be getting clean, chrisp SQ. As for MP3/WMA, Jonathan is correct. You get less SQ compared to the real CD. If you do need MP3, change the bit rate to 190 or higher. For best SQ, use 320 bit rate. The files will be much larger, but still less than the original CD.
you probably need to qualize your system.... you may have your Hi's. Lows, Mids, Ect.. if you have a 7 band than it would be better... but check all of that.. check your gains on your amps and your boosts and all that good stuff...
"I have, in my personal experience, noticed that MP3/WMA CD's actually sound better (especially more bass) than when I burn the same exact MP3's to a normal CD. I think that most burning software has a little bit of loss when it converts MP3 back to WAV. "
Yeah, not a lot of difference when you're converting from MP3 to CD Audio since the signal has already been compressed and lost information. I was referring to CD Audio in the form of a store bought CD, compared to making an MP3 from that CD. Any time you compress to MP3 or WMA, you're losing information that was on the original CD.
"they bring out all the flaws in the recording." Can you elaborate?
Say you have a poor recording with a lot of distortion, recording flaws (pops, hisses, static, etc.), narrowed dynamic range, you'll notice these flaws more with a better speaker because they are naturally more detailed and clean. Due to that they are better able to bring out subtleties in the music, and flaws come right along with that. If you were to put that through a stock whizzer cone speaker, you wouldn't notice these flaws as much due to the inability of the speaker to produce them, especially when referring to flaws in the upper treble region.
Yeah I would take your car and get it checked out else where...or get as much detail as you can on how your set up it and where your dials are on your amp, people can give you some pointers
Lewass, mp3 is a lossy compression at a ration of 6:1 to 12:1, so you get compressed dynamic range and loss of signal quality. A way to demonstrate this is to take an original audio CD, and rip a track to MP3. Then take that MP3 and expand it back into a WAV/CDA file. Take that and re-compress it into an MP3 again. Do this about 5 or 6 times, then play the resulting mp3, and compare it to the original audio track.
Every time you compress, expand, and re-compress the track, you're losing more of the original data. Eventually it becomes more and more obvious until it's highly audible.
I can hardly even use MP3/WMA file dics in my system. It's like going from CD to radio in terms of signal quality.
said you have entry level amps try geting bigger amps that might solve your problem right there and also alpine decks tend to have low voltage in them meaning low quality just make sure your deck is 5V range for best quality it would make a hige difference
GW, gotcha. Just as most of the mp3's you download are shoddy quality because they have been shared hundreds of times. Have you ever gotten into a buddy's car and then heard them play the most horrible quality copy of _______ song you have ever heard? I HATE that sh!t. Haha
I love having multiple CD's on one MP3 CD, so I rip all my music to 256 kbps, then burn to MP3 CD. I notice that the quality is indistinguishable from the real CD (But I know I could tell the difference if I had more amplification and better speakers)
This is one thing I'm confused on and maybe I just remember wrong, but when I go to burn those ripped 256kbps mp3's to a normal music CD, (which means another conversion), they seem to really lose a noticeable amount of bass. So maybe I just noticed this loss of quality more because I was expecting it, or is there really more of a loss from the second time you convert (mp3 back to regular wav cd) than from the first time you convert (original cd to 256k mp3).
Also, how do you feel about "lossless" WMA, and have you been able to get it to play on your HU? I tried a lossless WMA cd, the file sizes were huge (from ~400kbps to ~700kbps), and when I put it in my HU, it wouldn't play any of the lossless songs but would play the regular songs that I put at the end of the cd.