I finally got all 4 of my speakers amped and installed. The gear specs are in my profile. The treble gets awfully harsh on some songs especially when its a section with no bass or I have the boom switched off. How would I go about getting this leveled out without making it sound flat? Im still new to setting up a speaker system properly. Should I start looking into an inline EQ or something like that?

well if you got an eq in your head unit you could just turn it down from there....i used to have a pioneer deh-p5800mp and it had an eq built in...if you dont, the inline eq's work really good (depends on model) and you could fine tune your system better then a head unit eq

I use a trunk mount equalizer. It's 4 channels, 11 bands for front, 11 for the rear. This way I leave my head unit flat, adjust back there so everything is clean and I don't add extra unwanted bass to the subs.

^^^Thats kind of what I was thinking. What brands are good to look into?

Mine's JBL.

Before you go adding more and more sound processing and possibly spending money you don't need to, what head unit are you using?


On the other hand....you have other fingers.

In my family we teach that boys have a God-stick and girls have a Shame Cave. -John Stewart

Pioneer DEH-3900MP.

A couple of things to note: If you are using cdr media and you are burning songs on it from a pc, weather it be a audio cdr or a mp4/mp3 cdr, be sure the volume on the songs isn't too high or it can clip on some frequencies. Also, I know most pioneer models have an EX sound feature on the eq. If it is too high and it sounds scratchy, then try lowering the frequency corresponding to that range. If you are running an amp on the speakers, be careful not to overpower them or they can distort the sound too.

I have a section where I can set the QFactor which is from what Ive gathered is a way to set the peak frequencies for the Low Mid and High and to adjust the width of the bandpass. It doesnt really seem to help. It doesnt really sound like distortion its just like I have all tweeter and little midbass.

are they just installed flat in the door. maybe play around with the angle of the speaker itself before you start adding in processors.


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Ya theyre installed flat. How would I adjust? Take material off of the adapter plate?

Yup.

Ok. If I get time to take them out I will. Thanks all.

No, thank you!

Thank you especially

angled baffle id just move them a bit and listen, see if they sound better or worse.


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So Im still having issues with this. I either have too much mid or too much high I cant get a decent mix. Like if Im listening to a rock song, I get a lot of guitar and little vocal. It kind of just blends into the mid. Im still dicking around with the new head but everything is pretty flat but if I emphasize any of the higher frequencies it gets harsh. Anyone want to give me some more advice on getting this tuned right? I dont feel like Im getting anywhere.

Most aftermarket heads have an option to where you can change the frequency of the levels and the width of the frequency sine (wave) to balance out the sound. I know my old Pioneer PEH-3600 had that as well as my new Kenwood. Mostly what I do is set the eq at something that sounds balanced and fine tune it from there depending on what I am listening to. Depending on what head unit you have you might just have to look and see how to do that. For the normal tuning, I'd keep the mids at or near flat and the highs between flat to upper part but not all the way up (normally -1mid and +4high)

how about deemphasizing the highs

sorry had to.


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Do your crossovers on your components have a selectable tweeter + or - db on them?

Dont have comps Jeff. I dicked around a bit last night and it sounds better. I just need to get the hang of this head I guess.

Cut it around the 7-8khz range a little and see if that helps.

Center banpass freq doesnt go thatlow

Dang I could have swore my old DEH-3800 had the 8khz range, which was the range that helped me with some harsh Memphis tweeters. Been a while though as I've changed head units and run LPG 26NA tweeters, very smooth aluminum tweeter BTW. Your speakers being off axis I would have thought would help the brightness, but on the other hand midrange response from the woofer is going to start falling after 1000hz or so off axis as well leaving a hole. Coaxials may have the tweeters crossed too low (not to mention probably a single capacitor for a 6db rolloff) causing some strain at higher volume.

Dang, no edit for the cheapskates.

Sndsgood suggestion of angling the speakers and cutting the highs would be a great start.