no bass from new speakers

[sephiroth]

so both of my front speakers are blown and I decide why not upgrade them instead of replacing them with more stock ones? So I grab some custom 6x8" pioneer 240W 3-ways and figure it'll be an easy drop in, well... I get both of them hooked up and there is absolutely no bass comming out of the speakers at all. In order for the new pioneers to start to match what was comming out of the stock speakers bass wise I have to crank the bass on my head unit to the max (with it being relatively low compared to the stock speakers sound) so I thought it might be just bad speakers, I got back and exchange them for new ones, same problem. I have a alpine headunit that has a built in 54W per speaker amp, and the pioneers are only 50W norm, I've tried dis-connecting the rear speakers, and running fresh wire (before I was using just the stock wiring system) directly to the head unit, but nothing solved the problem. Anyone have an idea what it is? specificly it's an alpine CA-9856 headunit.

 

[1sty]

2 things:
1. the speakers are out of polarity, swap the + and - wires on one of the speakers. To see if this is the problem, fade the head unit all the way to the front, then balance left to right. If the bass increases as your balance away from center, then its the polarity.
2. Aftermarket speakers are typicly built to be powered by an amplifier so they are much heavy and hence harder to move. This menas you need an aftermarket amp to get the same level of bass. ALso, keep the comparison realistic. The new speakers will have WAY better highs then the factory so if you have the mids in relations to highs as a benchmark for your listening test then the new speakers may be putting out the exact same level as the stockers, but your not noticing it as much now that there is a whole lot more music to listen to.

The 240W on the box...means absolutely nothing other then that the speaker is marketed toward those that dont know much about speakers.
Before doing anything, I highly suggest you go listen to some speakers in a sound room to compare them before purchasing. Each pair of speakers will sound very different.

 

[sephiroth]

I switched the polarity of the speakers and got the same issue, before choosing the pioneers I had listened to what else was avaliable at bestbuy/circuit city, mostly containing JBL,Apline, their in-house brands, JVC and sony, I choose pioneers mostly because I thought they had the best Bass output (which is what I like), and because their norm W rattings were within the range of my head unit's onboard amp cappability(infact, they had a switch board that let me select my head unit to run with the pioneers). They certinally sounded much different in the store then they do in my car (obvisouly, they had much more bass) and I've seen these things move far more in my car when I have to crank the bass and volume to equal my stock speakers then they did in store.

when I ment that there's no bass comming out of them, it also seems like they just don't sound as powerfull, mabye that's a better way of explaining it, since there's no bass, I have to crank the power up higher in order for it to sound of equal level in terms of volume to the stock speakers. Am I making any sense?

 

[bigcc63]

Maybe The Speakers Have A Built In Passover, Hence No Bass From Speakers............

 

[1sty]

In that case I would toss the stockers back in and be sure that it is not your head unit.

Can you link to what speakers you actualy bought?

 

[jeg0024]

Id perfer to not have bass comming out of my door speakers anyways, too much distortion. The best setting I use on my radio is with all the bass taken out of the door speakers and leaving that job up to the two 10's in my trunk. With no bass in the doors you are able to crank it up much louder than you would with bass comming out of them. I am still using my stock speakers, and really haven't heard many people complain about them, maybe you would be able to pick up a set of stockers on here somewhere for cheap. Maybe it wasnt your stockers that blew, maybe something else is messed up? Did you try your new spekers in place of the rears and see if it was the same result?

 

[chuyler1]

I have said this before numerous times.

The stock speakers are very efficient and produce the most amount of bass that the factory head unit's amp will produce. If you upgrade to an aftermarket speaker, they will all be less efficient but will improve sound quality. You will lose bass but gain quality. If you want to maintain the level of bass you had before, consider upgrading the head unit to something that puts out more than 3-5w or add an external amp.

 

[ProtoType5]

Do you have foam baffles on the speakers???

I had some Pioneers with sealed baffles behind them and it totally eliminated the bass....I cut a hole in the baffle and bass was back...Just a long shot suggestion...

 

[burnoutboy5050]

yeah i had the same problem. bout new pioneers, jus to even out my system ( i have 6x9 in the back) and they sounded so crappy i returned them and put the stocks back in. the pioneer 6x9's sound amazing thou.

 

[1sty]

I have to pick on your post here a bit
This would only be true of smaller speakers like a 4" or simply a crappy speakers. Even a stock speaker can handle lower bass, you just need to protect it from teh really low crap. Things like MP3s and Ipods make that distortion far worse by the way.
Most component speakers I have ever owned will go down to 70 hz very comfortably and everything under that is sub bas, not bass. This requires using a proper crossover and an amplifier.

Also if you are refering to bass as in meaning the bass adjustment on the radio then you have a host of issues there. The bass adjustment on any head unit is simply a single band that is being raised and lower, everything above and below it still exists and is being passed. That raising and lowering is for all outputs meaning you are removing that bass from the subwoofer as well and loosing alot of ouput.
If I was to RTA your car and it is set up in the manner you described we would likely see a very large hole in the response.

Id perfer to not have bass comming out of my door speakers anyways, too much distortion. The best setting I use on my radio is with all the bass taken out of the door speakers and leaving that job up to the two 10's in my trunk. With no bass in the doors you are able to crank it up much louder than you would with bass comming out of them. I am still using my stock speakers, and really haven't heard many people complain about them, maybe you would be able to pick up a set of stockers on here somewhere for cheap. Maybe it wasnt your stockers that blew, maybe something else is messed up? Did you try your new spekers in place of the rears and see if it was the same result?