Why does my car audio sound bad?

Question

Ok, the problem i have in my car is the treble, it sounds really bad, especially at higher volumes, but this isn't always the case with certain songs. I have Infinity Reference speakers in the front, and Infinity Kappa's in the back. They are attached to a PPI 4240 amp. I checked and rechecked the phase of all the speakers and they are fine. I have an Alpine CDA-7894 deck. I used to have Infinity Perfect 6.1's in the front, but I thought they might be bad so I replaced them with the one's I have now thinking it would sound better because they are the EXACT same one's my friend has and his car sounds awesome. He doesn't even have an amp! It sounds like the higher end treble gets a garbled the more cymbals there are in the song, also some singing sounds garbled as well. What I mean by garbled is that it actually hurts your ears at a lower volume than it should, it just sounds kinda like static I guess. Is my deck too old? It's like 8 yrs old now, or is it something else?? Thanks.

Answer 1

You may be oversaturating the tweeters.  If the speaker crossover (not the amp) has a treble attenuator setting, try dropping it to -3dB.

Answer 2

Goto your cd player audio setting and customize your equalizer.. Set the bass all the way down, in the negatives if the cd player does it. Set the SLA up to 2 or 3. Turn treble up to 5 or 6. Now start your car, pop the trunk, play one of the songs that has bad sound. Turn the volume up to your listening level. Now adjust your crossover frequency on the amp, I usually have it set at 0dB, in your case though it might help.  Other than that tweak the gain so the power output to your subs are satisfactory...

Answer 3

You may wanna check you wiring. Sounds like a noise problem. Make sure your RCA cables arent near your power cables to your amp.  This will cause the problem you say you are getting.  Never run the rca cables with the power cables. if you have to cross them make sure they are perpendicular and only once. The further apart these wires are from each other the less noise you will hear...