I've been modding my audio system lately, piece by piece. I recently installed a pioneer h/u and it sounds amazing. I don't know how I lived with the oem radio for as long as I did, should have changed it sooner. That headunit was the start of a sickness, however....

Since then, i have tried about 6 different pairs of speakers in the quest for audio perfection. Brand new pioneers,older pioneers, kickers, oem...etc. I've switched the back speakers for the front about a million times and have spent hours with my equalizer configurations. Just when I think I've got it perfect, I play a different song and I think "that doesn't sound right ...." Which sets me on hunt again for the perfect medium.

At the moment, I feel like I should have not tasted that greener grass, and kept the oem crap radio with its distortion and rattles. At least then I was content with mediocrity.

I listen to rock and metal with a little bit of country thrown in. Some songs sound more amazing than I think possible, but then some sound to me like s****.

SO...does any body have any suggestions on speakers that sound great with everything?? My kickers had no bass whatsoever. The pioneers I have now, put out so much bass that it rattles every mirror, window crank and window in my whole truck at half volume.

Sorry this was more a rant then an actual question. But to the pros out there, any suggestions?? Is there an audio-tweekers support group???.lol

 

Ill just throw my .02 out there. I have the OEM mach H/U and its 'ok' sound quality is way better than my old OEM stocky, but i have to crank the volume to 3/4 to 7/8 to get it loud.

as for speakers I have pioneers up front (and theyre maybe a 7/10 on the scale. very clear and very clean but 5/10 on bass) but I have kenwoods in the back door and (for speakers) they pound. I would honestly rate 9/10. bass is well beyond what i expected. and they too are very clean

and I burn CD's still with iTunes. I find that the 'acoustic' equalizer sounds good with just about every genre of music from dubstep, country, rock, techy, little bit of grunge, heavier instrumental rap...its all sounds good. select all songs on CD > get info > audio boost up to 75% > acoustic equalizer > burn

 

Best speakers I have owned are Infinity Kappa 682.9cf 5"x7" coaxial speakers. They sound great even with the OEM headunit.

 

i go with the more bass. it makes everything else sound good. haha but i have 2 12in subs. and i believe its about to rattle my windows off their tracks.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I'm actually loving the bass in the pioneers, even with the kind of music I listen to. It makes everything sound much fuller. But then I put another group in, and sometimes it sounds muffled. Though, the new pioneers made in vietnam sound worse then the older ones I have that are made in china.? Look the same, both two way 6x8s 180 watts. So go figure on that one.

I'll try those infinity 5x7s if I can get a good price on them. Why not? I already have a collection going, if they don't work out I can put them in the closet with the rest of my speaker graveyard. Has anyone ever hooked up six coaxials in their ranger before? Maybe hook my spares up in the back to shoot between the seats.

Rangerrunner, I'm still stuck in the 90's as well. I probably have at least 30lbs of cds in my truck. I'll try burning with a different eq as well see if that levels things out or something.

With the time burning habit of trying to tweak my system, and the new rattles from my door panels, idk if it was worth it to get a new h/u! I don't even have an amp or sub in yet....

 

If you really do buy the Infinity speakers I mentioned and you don't like them I'll buy them from you.

 

I'm actually looking at them right now. They got good reviews on amazon. Has that dangling crossover box caused you any problems catching on windows and such? I also see that they are 2 ohms...I wonder if pioneer h/u would have problems with that

 

I saw the title of this thread and thought someone is admiting they are a junkie.

 

I could stand a little more bass, but death metal + lots of bass = headache.

 

u need to look into components, spend some money on a good set and u will be happy.

components are 100% better than coaxils

 

X's 2 on the Infinity Kappas, I'm running 6x8 components and a set of 6x8 3-ways and love both of them... I was trying to figure out which one I wanted to run where and the components are in the front with the others in the rear... had to modify the mounting in the rear to get them to fit properly... I used some industrial velcro on the cross over and and just stuck mine to the magnet and no issues with the windows...

 

30lbs of cds lol aint nothing. idk what mine are in weight but I honestly might have 200+ shiny coasters in my dorm and back home

 

CD's are still nice to have laying around, but I can't get my subs moving with most music on CD's.

 

The problem is that your eq curve is not "flat" (Preferably following the Flecher-Munson loudness curve). No I'm not talking about the "flat preset" your Headunit has. you have peaks and or dips in the response. this is the main cause of your discontent. The idea behind equalizers is to smooth out and flatten the frequency response of the speaker. a RTA measurement setup will give you a visual graph of your frequency response and help you make informed eq changes.
I wouldn't go that far until you have a good foundation.
"tuning" starts with the basics of decent well installed speakers, proper crossover settings, proper acoustic phase, decent clean power, quality source material. Do not use questionable quality mp3s as source material for tuning.

Best resource for you is diyma.com lots of great mobile audio info

 

200 lbs, thats a massive cd collection lol. I probably would have close to that, if didn't keep scratching them up. Good thing is though, once they are wasted, they make excellent pistol targets at about 30 yrds.....
RangOh: thanks for the link to that website, I could spend hours on that site. This is my first time modding an audio system in a car and I can see I have alot to learn. In the mean time, I think I found the satisfactory medium with the pioneer speakers and the 6800 h/u. It needed a bit more treble, and I found my subwoofer settings was at 63hz. I cranked it up to 80hz and 99% of the music sounds alot better. It used to sound muffled but it punishes these 6x8s now. Now if only if I could get the window crank to stop playing along to my tunes....