Hi,,
Recently I bought 4 used speakers to replace the oem stuff in my 94 Jetta.

In the front door panels, I put in a pair of Rockford Fosgate FRC4306 speakers .

In the rear doors I put in a set of Infinity Reference 6002i speakers.

I also bypassed front oem tweeters as well as the rear door oem tweeters.

These 4 speakers are run off the head unit 50 Watts X 4.(Panasonic)

Well, once I wired everything up...the sound did not really impress me. The highs are ok but the midbass response seems to be weaker than from the factory speakers .

Overall I am not impressed with the sound...I am using factory wiring..like I said oem tweeters are bypassed, however maybe there is another issue with my wiring job?


I would imagine that the new speaker will have susperior sound reproduction compared to the oem stuff.....well they dont


What do you guys think about this,,,were my expectiations too high?

pic of speakers:

 

Well, I"ll be working on my 93 vw jetta this spring and I intend to put 6' in the doors maybe 2 ways and definately some new tweet's in the dash as well as new speakers in the back doors.
If I was you I would replace the wireing and possibly go with an external amp.
Remember that you don't want too much bass in your doors, I think your front should be your stage and just get a sub to fill up the car with some kick.
Hope that helps.
p.s. if you need an amp let me know i have many some very resonably priced.

 

Thanks for the reply...

I also have a 10" infinity sub in the trunk however I feel like i do not have any midrange bass.

Also my deck has max vol. of 40 and when I crank up the stereo to about 30 out of 40 the speakers start to distort.

Would an external amp really help out the speakers with the midbass issue?

 

speackers out of phase?

 

Being the newbie that I am, I heard the term out of phase, however I don't know what would cause it..
Like i said I had to bypass the orig. tweeters and maybe that screwed up something..


Ok.. i did some searching..

When a speaker is out of phase, would it mean that some speakers in the car are connected wrong ie: some are connected backward + with - etc.??

I am 99% positive that all wires are matched up the +tive with the +tive and -gative with teh -gative.


In front, I bypassed tweeter by connecting its +tive with +tive so that all signal goes to the doors. In in my era of VW if the tweeter is disconnected, no sound will go to the door speaker,

 

I would check your polarity again, ie make sure all the + and - are correct. You can sometimes determine if it is wonky by first fading forward, then play something with decent bass and balance from side to side. If the bass is weak when the balance centered and stronger when off to either side then one of those two speakers is out of polarity. Then fade all the way to the back and try those two side to side.

Also, I would put the Infinities in the front and the RFs in the rear to utilize the swivel tweets on the Infinities.

 

I did the balance trick Left Centre Right and the bass is pretty much the same, weak

Umm, what about the speaker itself...would it be possible for the speakrs to loose bass because of the enlosure that they are in? In my case the doors?


Should I put some kind of insulation around the back of the speakers in order to contain its sound wave??? or is this




On another hand, perhaps the speakers are underpowered?

THe infitys call for 60W RMS
The Rockfords call for 50W RMS


Now, my deck (Panasonic CQ-C1300U) puts out 200W thats 50W x 4 Channels and that is Peak Power Correct?


So 50 W Peak x 0.707 = 35.35 Watts RMS ,

Therefore it seems like my deck is putting out 35.35 Watts RMS per channel ............. is my calculation right?

Based on the data above, the speaker should be getting ok power right?

 

^ Try, at most, half that power.

I've had cars with deck power provide what I considered decent midbass though. The most important thing is to make sure your speakers are well sealed from front to back, ie no gaps around the edge and nicely sealed to the door.

 

Yeah, I found linke on website with my deck, saying it puts out 25W RMS x 4

Well, the speakrs are sitting tight against the mounting surface, but should I put some insulation in the door, behind the door card, around the magnet to insulate the sound? .


Thanks for your suggestions..

 

OEM speakers tend to have a generous lower mid-bass, it covers up the fact that there is a lack of low bass. And you replaced that with two drivers that don't have a rich midbass but lots of detail and HF energy. I have a question and that is how do male voices sound now rich and full (FM DJ like they probably did with the OEM speakers) or do they sound natural, or are they thin and nasal?

Assuming you don't have an air leak around the drivers (you checked but try putting in a gasket material to stop leakage), and assuming there isn't a phase reversal (I know you checked but if you reverse it does it get better or worse), and assuming the used drivers are not over used...

Well does turning up the bass tone control help? That control typically turns up the midbass as much as the bass... (sounds like a lame thing to ask but EQ is part of most tonal solutions). Polyfill/ insulation behind the speaker should have minimal affect on midbass (but it could tone down the uppermid energy which is probably the real issue). If it is a true lower midbass issue a little dynamat/ brown bread/ b-quiet on the skin of the door should help a little.