The front speakers are amped as well. I told the shop I didn't want all the highs/mids to be drowned out by the lows. They set up a perfect mix, as far as I'm concerned. Sounds good with any type of music I've tried so far. I primarily listen to things like Crystal Method when I'm driving it though. The bass is set at 0, the trebble at +2, and the amp gain is only at a 1/4 and it still rocks the car just fine. The only rattling I've heard is the CD cases she keeps in her front doors.

 

I knew there was gonna be one of ya that hates audiobahn. Thing is they make a little switch on real amps that are called BASS control modules. Its a little *** u can spin to increase/decrease bass. And if you cared about sound quality then u would have bought an amp with mucha channels. And if you really cared about quality they make things called crossovers. ya see when those pre-outs come down the line they have signals of Highs and Lows. your amp probably has built in crossovers from which you can tune your amp. if your using a sub on channels 1 and 2 then you'd set the Low pass to high or somewhere and the High pass to OFF which is the lowest setting u can put it on. technically not off. Now if you use all 3 of those ***** on your amp/head unit then you can achieve that perfect sound your looking for with any and all subs / speakers. you have to put some work into it unless u just drop it off at best buy.

You cant have great sound in a car with a mono amp so i know you have to buy a stereo quality amp. and then your headunit also has alittle function in it called the bass setting. if its too much bass for u then take ur sub out the car. dont knock a SUB for doing what its suppose to do. putting out bass. buy kenwood or MA Audio if your going for clarity out of your subs. buy Audiobahn, Kicker competition styles, or Vega's if you want bass.

I can turn my car from a rattle house boomer to a quiet sedan again with the adjusting of my bass boost, bass on my headunit and turning down the gain **** and high/low pass setting. screw around with it or get a professional to tune in ur settings. dont be scared of *****.

 

what you are talking about in your last paragraph, is just turning the bass down, it doesnt have much do with tuning, your just making it so the lower frequency's aren't as loud, anyone can do that by turning the gain way down, or the bass way down on the HU (even if you dont have a seperate pre-out for the woofer)... the fact of the matter is, audiobahn subs are good for ONE thing, and that is hitting really low frequency's, duh they do what they are supposed to do , but thats not what this guy wants, he wants something to add bass to his system, not shake his mirrors loose, audiobahn subs have trouble when it comes to technical bass (fast bass lines I.E. double bass drum, or quick rap beats), thats when the bass starts to sound all nice and blurred together, not very defined... how do i know this you ask? i've installed a lot of audiobahn subs, and been MORE than unhappy with them, as well as the people who bought them... there is a reason audiobahns are always the subs that are on super clearance on the car audio websites, because they dont really put much time into develop of their product, they just slap a huge magnet on it and call it good, which is fine, if your going to be doing a DB drag race or something, but if you actually want clear bass, where the sound wont over-lap itself because the sub can't keep up with the beat, i would highly recomend not going with an audiobahn sub...

personally i think my ibanez bass guitar amp has one of the best sounding woofer's i've ever heard for clarity, its just a single 10" woofer and it easily over powers my friend on drums without even turning it all the way up, and anyone who plays in a band knows the frustration of trying to overplay the drummer ...

 

actually it is tuning. If i crank my bass to full, gain to full, and low pass setting to full on and high full off. Once my volume reaches 20 on my head unit the rest begins to destort and i lose all clarity, and hear that empty bass feeling. Now with it tuned down to my gain on half, low pass full, and bass -8 on my head unit, I can go way into the 40's, have more bass and awsome mids and highs.

As to rock sucking with audiobahns. I love rock music and I play it just fine with my current settings. Korn is the greatest band ever to listen to in my car because they have that heavy bass line. Granted the bass will drowned out the sound if you dont turn it down. The only music my set up doesn't play well is country or classical because i love bass. I have highs and mids and when it gets up too high i want to rip all my 6 x9's outta my doors and rear panel.

 

Yes, it is tuning! The way to get the 'best' out of your system is to:

1. Go get 'bass blockers' for the mids and tweets. Consider getting an active crossover - it lets you set *volumes* not just 'gains' so the sound is evenly balanced throughout the volume range & not just optimized for max volume If you didn't - see next steps.
2. Turn all the gains to lowest setting. Radio to mid position (bass/treble)
3. Set switches on amps for low pass to subs, high pass for doors, etc.
4. Determine the 3/4 point for volume on the radio. This is your 'target' for max volume.
5. Turn the bass gain up until it distorts or your cones are 'popping' and then back off a 'hair'. Note the position and then turn it back down - so you can hear the next step!
6. Do the same for the other amp/s for the door speakers (until the speaker distorts or until you hear the popping/whacking sound of the speaker exceeding its excursion limits
7. Turn all the amp gains to the aforementioned 'max'.
8. Turn down the one that is 'drowning out' the others. Achieve a balance of bass/mid/highs. Try a few different favorite CDs to get it 'just right'.
9. Fine tune the bass and treble with the radio settings.

I hope this helps! Is this a candidate for the 'how-to' section?

 

i didn't say it wasnt tuning, in your post all you mentioned was turning the gain down, which i commented didn't have MUCH to do with tuning, since you are only tweaking one part of the sound... i'm not going to argue anymore on this point lol, i have tons of friends that have competition set up stereos, for every different purpose (clarity, db drag races...) we have installed many audiobahn subs (because they are so cheap) and had the same result every time, sloppy bass when it comes to technical bass lines, you keep saying "my bass is so loud", ya noone is disputing that, but when it comes to technical bass lines they are sub-par, the fact that YOU like your system weighs little to nothing on my opinion, especially considering i have a lot of personal experience with audiobahn subs, and many other subs that are much better... maybe its the only setup you've run so you dont know what clean bass sounds like, or maybe your content with sloppy bass, i dont know, all i know is that audiobahn subs are NOT as good as some other leading brands...

 

werd.

 

IF you two know somuch about audio why don't you come down to Austin and tune mine ? So far I have been extreamly happy with my system, but yesterday the sub amp shut off! I was listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan and had it CRANKED for about 45 min. when it stopped. Other than that song it hasn't happen again!

 

you had the RF subs correct? those are good subs, i've been plenty happy with their performance every time i've installed them... and its not hard to tune a stereo system, sorry if i might have made it seem that way, just adjust the sound controls with a small flathead screw driver until it sounds like you want it to...

and btw, Stevie Ray Vaughan is the **** , i just went to see a local band the other nite and they did a couple SRV cover songs, sweet **** ...

 

Yes he is, We have a little goup here and we all have our flavor savers, I haven't shaved mine sence the first time I heard him in the 95. There still isn't any one out there that can play like he did!