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I have a set of REF-9630CX 6x9s that a shop installed in my front doors and and they make zero "bass".
I have a hard time believing a 6x9 isn't going to push air. my stock boss system made these things look like a joke.
So I went to the amp (lc-600i) and set the filter much lower and those things MOVE air great but start to distort like crazy. Can that be cured by changing the speaker cross over setting? Or is that not how it works?
Assuming everything is set correctly, you have discovered the tradeoff the between quality and quantity. You can always have more output, but it's not always more useable output.
There might be something else causing your lack of bass. A super simple thing you can do is check polarity. If you unplug one of the speakers, does your bass increase or decrease? If the bass increases with only one speaker playing, then flip the +/- wires when you plug it back in.
There are lots of other possible reasons to have not much bass, but hard to know without more details, pictures, etc.
You also have 6x9 in doors and will suffer from cancellations in the usual places that doors do, so by lowering the crossover you have got a dollop more low bass but you will have a hole in the response
do you have a measurement mic? That’s the minimum with a pc to use it with and room eq wizard
you’ve found the first limitation of doors and midbass
I have zero car audio equipment.
I'm in love with sound but have zero experience when it comes to anything but the basics.
First thing I would do is pull your door panel and check the shop’s install. Unfortunately I’ve seen many shops half-ass or botch an even basic install to the point it sounds worse than stock.
What vehicle is this in? What size speakers were there originally? I replaced an 8x10” with a 6.5” in my Toyota and I could EASILY turn my sub off and be happy with the bass. The “trick” is proper install including a completely sealed baffle/adapter with no air leaks and proper deadening (even a little is better than none).
My door speakers:
Attachment 18039
A picture of what’s in your door might go a long way with helping to diagnose your issues. I’m kind of willing to bet it’s more of an install issue than anything else.
2022 Camaro use to have Bose. I believe the speakers are the same size as stock.
Sorry for the delayed response.
My front 6x9s are sealed with speaker rings and dyna mat, the door is pannel is really well sealed. My rear 6x9s are in the rear deck so they are open air and my mid 6.5s have nothing.
If it wasn't so difficult to get to the 6.5s and rear 6x9s I'd put speaker rings on them too, but it is probably 6hrs of work and my disability prevents me from crawling around in tight awkward positions.
I know it isn't an optiomal set-up, but the stock system hit harder...
Going off your equipment list in your “Balance” thread you have 3 pairs of coaxial speakers. There’s a really good chance the “stock system hit harder” is because you have some cancellations. The hardest thing to get most people to understand is, just because there was a factory speaker doesn’t mean you have to put a new speaker there. A lot of times less speakers will get you better sound… less chances for destructive cancellations. Most people on this forum are SQ people and will always advise to skip the rear speakers and spend that extra money on good front speakers. And we are all really just guessing here without knowing HOW everything is installed as well as crossovers or what, if any, processing is being done. If there are ANY air leaks around the speakers you will have dramatically less bass.
If a shop did the original install I would take it back and tell them your issues and also maybe ask to see how it was all installed.
My bad. The front speakers are actually components.
I decided to take a look at the amp settings (haven't looked at speaker amp settings in about 20yrs) ... It seems like a large part of the "bass" issue is that they had the hpf well above 100.i brought it down to 70 and that seems to have made a large difference. Still not exactly what I'm looking for, but it no longer sounds like my car is full of 2.5 inch tweeters.
That HPF makes sense. 100Hz seems a bit high for a 6x9 but most shops set things like that to keep Average Joe from blowing things up when they get frisky with the volume knob. 70 is probably a lot more realistic as long as you’re aware of what distortion sounds like and can limit their “abuse”. Even a 6x9 midbass is no replacement for a dedicated subwoofer. I’m not familiar with the newer GM Bose setup but it’s very possible that either the front or rear speakers were subwoofers and you replaced them with midbasses.
Even if your front speakers are components you still have 6 mid/midbasses & 6 tweeters in a small space & most of them behind you. It’s just my opinion, so please take it as such, but that’s too much. My car has a pair each of tweeters, mids, midbasses up front and a single sub. The more speakers you put into a contained area the more risk you have of cancellations on top of normal nulls that may naturally be occurring in the car.
If you’re happy overall with the sound, minus the previously mentioned lack of bass, you’ll need a sub or 2. If you already have subs then my guess is you could use a good DSP. With the proper tuning you can get a trunk mounted sub to sound like it’s coming from the dash.
You are pretty much right about all those assumptions or the stock setup.
Current:
KICKER 47KSC6504 6.5 Inch passenger pannel
REF-9632IX 6x9- rear deck
audio dynamics 6x9 components front door
Rockford fosgate 500x1d (2 10s)
Rockford Fosgate Prime R2-2X10
AudioControl LC-6.1200
The 6x9s were set closer to 150 than 100, bringing them down to 70 made a night and day difference.
Thank you everyone for your help!
For my taste my system now sounds perfect for heavy bass music!
Just need figure out if there is anything to do to get it a little more to my liking for hard rock.