Hi, all. I swapped out my Shaker 500 head unit with a Pioneer DEH-9800BT, which has slightly more power than the stock radio. At first, I left the stock speakers in there, and everything sounded good. I used a Crutchfield wiring harness, and it sounded like all of the subs were working.

Then I saw a good deal on some Infinity Kappa 682.7CF speakers... $150 for four! They got great reviews at several web sites. I put those in over the weekend, and now everything sounds awful. I figured I could drop them in and the HU would need a little tweaking for it to sound good, but no matter what I do, it's just a mess. The bass is almost non-existant, and what is there is clappy and loose. The mids and highs sound very tinny. The Pioneer HU is very, very configurable and seems to have settings for everything... high pass filters, low pass filters, bass profiles, etc.

I think part of the problem is that the speakers require the use of crossovers, which are supplied. I don't have a huge amount of experience with crossovers, so I did my best installing them. They each have a red and black input wire, and two sets of outputs (one for the tweeters and one for the main speakers). I connected the crossover's output wires correctly, and not knowing exactly where to tie in the input wires, I connected them to the speaker wires coming from the door. I used some wiring adapters I got at Best Buy, so I wouldn't have to splice into the factory wiring. Everything seemed to be working (I could see the Infinity speaker woofers moving, and the tweeters were obviously working) so I put everything back together.



It sounds like the front doors are not firing properly. I know they're connected to their wiring harnesses correctly. The way I see it, the woofers should have no knowledge of which door speakers are connected, whether they be the stockers or something else with a crossover.

Are the crossovers shooting me in the foot here? Am I missing something in the installation process? Reversed polarity, maybe?

Thanks very much!

 

I remember something about the stock radio not using the normal amount of volts that radios usually require and some kind of additional device is need to even out the ohms, or volts or something. lol, I realize that is very vague, but trying to recall things from my memory sometimes is a feat in itself.

 

Ok, from the sound of your post, it looks like you are tapping into your factory woofer lines for the crossover. Question:

Are you tapping into the lines "between the woofer and the amplifier" or "between the amplifier and the head unit"? Both will affect your system negatively in different ways. Between the woofer and amplifier: The power going to your woofer will be split - and some will go to the woofer and some will go to the crossover. How much goes to each depends on the impedances of both woofer & crossover. Between amplifier and head unit: Your head unit expects to see a specific amount of load. When an amplifier's input is connected to the head unit, it sees the load it's spec'd for and everything is great. When you add another device in there with a relatively low impedance, it's going to mess with the load your head unit sees and will cause problems. You will need a line output converter in both cases, which can tap into your signal without significantly affecting the current flow of the system.

 

I have the crossover connected directly to the factory wiring that used to go to the 6x8 speakers. I didn't mess with the factory subwoofers at all. I circled it in yellow below... sorry, best pic I could find. I plugged a wiring adapter from Best Buy into that connector, and connected the crossover to those wires.



So it sounds like this might be an impedence issue! The speakers and the stereo are all 4 ohms, so I figured it would be OK. Are you saying I need something in-line with the speakers to convert them to 2 ohm, or something else?

Thanks much.

 

Actually, now that I re-read your post, it looks like you are connecting the crossover input to the same wires that are connected to the doorsub. Am I correct? This has the consequence of taking away from some of the door sub power, as mentioned in my previous post. It also will totally not work at all because your door subs are most likely receiving a signal that has been LPF'd.

Your head unit starts out with a great signal with both high freq sounds and low freq sounds. The door sub amps (and/or the HU, depending on how you hooked it up) probably have a Low Pass Filter (LPF) on it. This means only the bass will go through and none of the treble will come through.

Your crossover basically does the same thing. For the woofers you connect to it, it has an LPF that allows only bass to go through. For the tweeters, it has a HPF (High Pass Filter) that allows only treble to go through. However, if you feed it a signal that has already gone through an LPF (bass only signal), the HPF will take out the remainder of the signal, leaving you with a very quiet, odd sounding signal.

If this is what you did, then I recommend plugging the crossover inputs directly into your head unit's speaker outputs. (Probably comes out as RCA's on an aftermarket stereo).

 

Ohh, ok sorry, I misunderstood. So you have the wires that used to connect to the factory 6x8 go directly to the crossover, and then have the crossover go to the tweeter & woofer of the new 6x8? Should work fine in theory... scratch everything else I said, sorry about that, I thought you had it hooked up to the door speaker.

 

Thanks, that's correct. I agree that it should work, since the factory speakers say 4 ohms on them just like the new ones do. I'm stumped.

I'm hoping it's a HU settings issue, but no matter what I mess with, it still sounds awful.

 

Is there any chance you have the crossover's outputs connected backwards? Have you tried connecting the wires going to the tweeter to the woofer instead, and vice versa?

 

The connectors are specially sized, so it's impossible to hook them up incorrectly. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

I just talked to Crutchfield tech support. Sounds like you might be barking up the right tree - that I have the wiring to the crossovers connected backwards. That would produce tinny or just generally crappy sound. Either that or it's underpowered. They tried to sell me an amp just for the Infinitys, which is probably a good idea in the long run, but something I'll put off until I figure this out.

I think I'm going to take the doors off again tonight and see what kind of fun I can have by reversing the crossover's input wires. Any other suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks much.

 

I have the same Infinity Kappa speakers in all 6x8 positions. I originally had them hooked up to an Alpine HU, plus some JL Audio 8" subs running off the stock amps and wiring. It didn't sound as good as I had hoped - it did sound a little flat. I got them for about the same price as you off eBay. I thought at first I had end up with factory seconds, or worse, knockoffs.

Going for broke, thinking/hoping I had impedence issues between 2ohm and 4ohm causing the foul tone, I bought a 5761a (again eBay), and 12 gauge speaker wire. Now it sounds pretty good, good enough for me. I think the combination of a 2ohm stable amp and more power is what these speakers needed. They are some the highest watt rated speakers out there, they want the juice.

Keep in mind they are also made of unconventional cone material - they are going to sound a little harsher than a paper cone. They may need a little breaking in, or your ears getting used to them. They are extremely good fidelity speakers - any tonal deficiencies in your source (i.e. max compressed mp3's) you will hear it a lot more than on a cheaper speaker.

Sounds like you are on the right track with the crutchfield advice. Mess with that and if you still don't like it, sounds like an amp is in your future. Or an exchange for some Infinity Reference's instead. Still a good speaker, but likely a better match up for your application if you don't want an amp.

 

Here, this is what I was trying to think of.......

http://www.mustangforums.com/fb.asp?m=1954000

 

I had Kappas a long time ago. Even with a high--powered head unit, they had no bass. They need a good amp. If everything's hooked up right, you may need an amp.

 

Thanks all. I checked everything yesterday and it's all hooked up correctly. I messed with the audio settings on the HU for about an hour, and got them sounding pretty OK. There was a filter that was on that was causing it to sound AWFUL; with that off it only sounds crappy.

Part of the problem might be that I haven't hooked up the rear speakers yet, so the mismatch between the factory sound in the back and the better sound in the front might be causing my ears to hurt.

I think I'm gonna find me an 80x4 or 100x4 amp for the 6x8s. Can anyone recommend a good online vendor in the $100 price range?

 

I get to quote myself.

Installing the rear speakers definitely helped. I have no idea why it would matter, but running four Infinitys now makes a huge difference and the sound is great. I still plan to throw in an amp, but I'm not in a hurry. Thanks to all that made suggestions.