OT: Modding a car stereo

[nirvanas silence]

My car stereo is seriously lacking bass around 60hz.  I've been doing everything I can with upgrades, getting new speakers, etc., but its just not working.  How hard would it be, just increase a few caps.  I just want some tips from anyone that has tried it before.  I have a junk Kenwood deck to work on first.  Any ideas? Thanks!!

[Travis]

Have you tried Bass Shakers to make up the bottom end?
http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=3

I have some in a sofa; incredible fun.  It shouldn't be any more difficult to hook them up to your front car seats.

[Fret Wire]

Alot of the recievers now have an adjustable bass cut-off. If yours does check to make sure it's not set to high. The idea is so the reciever's amp doesn't produce any more bass than the speakers can reproduce. You set it to match the bottom of your speaker response. This way the amp doesn't lose headroom on bass notes the speaker can't handle, and the speaker doesnt put out any mud. It will still try to reproduce bass it can't handle. With this, the amp gains back some head room, and the speaker puts out tighter, more defined bass. With lower priced speakers, it's better to cut off bass 20hz above their min. rating. My old Kenwood tape deck was adj. from 40hz - 120hz bass cut-off. My CD/MP3 is from 60hz - 120hz. Most all external amps have always had the same feature. It helps the amp and the speakers work more efficiently. They used to sell over priced caps called Bass Blockers for that, until the recievers started coming with the adj. cutoff.

If you don't have a separate amp, it would probably disappoint you to increase the bass response of the unit. It will suck all the headroom out, and the bass won't be better, just muddier. If you can't go bigger on the speakers, try matching your bass cut off with your speakers lower response. It doesnt seem it, but when you change the cut off of your amp's bass response from say 40hz, and raise it to say 80hz, your ears will hear more well defined bass.

Other than adding an amp, you can't do much to get killer bass with just a reciever's integral amp.

[AllyP]

anyone ever make their own car amp? it cant be that much more complicated than a practice amp..... :?:

[Mark Hammer]

Um, guess what?  You probably can't hear 60hz inside your car.  You can sure hear it OUTSIDE your car (as can the rest of the neighbourhood!), but the wavelength is too long for it to be audibly expressed in a space as confined as a vehicle, unless we're talking stretch limo.

Think of it this way.  Find someone holding one end of a skipping rope, with the other end tied to a door handle.  Now ask the person to flick their wrist and wiggle the skipping rope.  If you stand back far enough, you'll see that a small wiggle at the wrist translates into large movements of the rope at its middle.

Now, get really close to their hand.  No, closer.  No, I mean REALLY close so that you can see a bit of the rope but mostly their hand.  Now, can you actually SEE the rope move up and down when you're that close to its point of origin?  No, you can't, not much, unless the person is simply pointing the rope handle up then down.  The person seated in a small to mid-sized vehicle is facing that exact scenario in terms of very low frequencies with respect to in-car listening.  The wavelengths of upper bass and higher frequencies are sufficiently short that air pressure movement within the vehicle results in those frequencies being audible.  But once you get into subwoofer terrain you either have to make it your goal to irritate people outside your car with the sorts of power levels that will make things marginally audible *inside* the car, get a bigger car, or acknowledge that you won't get the sort of thump on your chest that significantly smaller systems are capable of delivering in your listening room (which will likely/hopefully be several times larger than the inside of your car).

[aaronkessman]

good point mark.

[nirvanas silence]

Thanks, thats what I figuered.  Well I am replacing my 4x6" dash speakers with 6.5" door panel speakers.  I figuere that should help me a bit.  I just scored a BBE sonic maximizer too!