danieldl

Hi!

I have a little problem setting up everything. Here is my setup:

Toyota Yaris with stock speakers
JVC KD-R400 headunit
Alpine PDX-1.1000
Kicker S12L7 vented
1 farad cap
knukonceptz klx gauge 4

Okay, here is my problem. On the amp, I have a 0.1-1v / 1-8v switch. My headunit is supposed to output 2.5v. Actually, the switch is set to the first setting (< 1v) on the amp. If I set it to the second setting (> 1v), my 100W 10" sub in my old 92' Golf suddently becomes twice as loud as my 1000W RMS powered subwoofer in my '09 car. That's why I left it at the wrong voltage setting. Is it dangerous or anything? My last Type-R have been playing more than one year at that setting without any hassle.

But I know why my sub becomes so shy. On my headunit, the subwoofer is at max volume (which is 8 on a 0 to 8 level). However, the bass is at -6 (on a -6 to +6 level). Why? Because my stock speakers which aren't amplified or anything start to sound !/"%$?/% if I don't leave the bass at -6 whenever I start to raise up a little bit the volume.

Even at -6, when the volume is maxed out at 50, I'm hearing some bass distortion coming from the speakers. Actually, it's a really big bottleneck as I cannot get the full potential of my sub because of it (gain is set to 2/3 by the way, no smell and playing great since I got it a few weeks ago).

What should I do? I don't want to spend much more money. I could change my stock speakers but as far as I know, it would still distort the bass even with really good speakers. Am I wrong? The JVC headunit is supposed to output 20W RMS (instead of 13) to the speakers, don't know if it could be an issue (with the stock headunit, the max volume output on the speakers was so low that my iPhone speakers were almost playing louder).

I've heard of crossover; would it fix my problem? I must get rid of the bass going to the speakers; or I must find a way to avoid that distortion (and no, I'm really not planning to put an amp on that, it would cost another electrical upgrade, 4 speakers and then the amp plus all the time for the wiring).

I can change the headunit maybe, but I like this one because of the color changing option (then it can fit perfectly my Yaris orange-dash color).

Any ideas?

Thank you in advance.

The Wizard

iTrader: (2)

Does your head unit not have a high pass crossover built it? I thought that most recent head units came with high pass and a low pass filter. If it does try setting it at about 100hz and it should cut most of the problem bass from your fronts. You could adjust up or down from there to find the sweet spot for your speakers. How many sets of RCA outs does your deck provide? This should give you an indication whether or not it has crossover functions.

The Wizard

iTrader: (2)

I just googled your head unit and no such luck on the high pass filter. Get yourself a pair of 370uf (or there abouts) capacitors and wire them in series with each front speaker. They should filter out the bass below 100hz.

danieldl

So it would allow me to raise up the bass on my EQ headunit? What about the voltage setting on the amp? Is it actually dangerous for the subwoofer and/or for the amp?

I still may look at an Alpine headunit, I see they're starting to ship some units with color changing too and I guess I wouldn't have this problem with a better quality (or higher priced) headunit.

danieldl

By the way, there is some bass options on my actual headunit. On the EQ for the bass, I have the settings which I've tried playing with. The first one goes from Q0.5 to Q2.0 (default Q1.25, I don't know what it is and what it means, but it doesn't make any noticeable difference in the sound). The second one is a 80 to 200 Hz frequency (default 80 Hz, shouldn't it be the low pass filter you're talking about?). It makes a difference on the sound, at 200 Hz the speakers are a little bit less distorting but it's still distorting, not to say that the subwoofer isn't playing as loud at this setting (on the amp, I have the subsonic filter set to 30 Hz and the low pass filter set to 140 Hz). Finaly, there is a third setting which is the volume (+6 to -6, default 0).