I have a Kenwood DVD/LCD flipout receiver (50wX4) and focal speakers front and back.
I was using deck power to run the focal speakers (6.5" 2-way coxial & 6.5" components) and they sounded pretty good running off deck power. I'd thought I would add 4ch amp to get even better highs/mids/bass, so I added a Kenwood 4x60W RMS amp, and I find that besides having more volume capability, the mids and highs did not sound any better then with deck power which is fine, but the bass is quite abit worse running off this amp then off deck power with the same settings and tunning? Playing at the same volume level and settings, bass was much deeper, cleaner and louder running off deck power, but when running off the amp, the bass sounded flat,dull, and sounded softer and worse compared with deck power?

Whats going on? ANy ideas? (Please note it was installed by pro-installer... it was tuned, and I tried tuning myself... no better)

 

to be honest im not much of a kenwood fan. the hu is decent-ok and the amps to me are not so great.. perhaps you just have a cheese-e amp

 

Sounds to me like the speakers are out of phase when wired to the amp, try this, fade to the front, balance all the way to the left or right and then back to the middle, if the bass response seams better when it's all the way left or right then when in the middle, it's wired "out of phase" one side is wired pos. (+) output to pos. speaker term. and neg. (-) output to neg. speaker term. and the other side is wired pos. (+) output to neg. speaker term. and neg. (-) output to pos. speaker term.

Try the same in the rear, fade to the rear and balance left or right and back to the middle.

You can also just switch one set of connections on the amp, for the front or rear, it does not matter is you switch the left or right.

Another thing you can do is disconnect the speakers at the amp, and use a batt. to "pop" the speakers, a good 1.5V will work a 9V works better, if you touch the speaker wires to the batt. term. the speaker will "pop" if the pos. (+) speaker lead is on the batt. pos. term. and the neg. (-) speaker lead is on the batt. neg. term. the speaker cone will "pop" out, if you have the speaker leads backwards on the batt. the speaker cone will "pop" in, [or as we say in the trade they will suck ]

It does not matter how you hook the speaker leads up to the amp as long as THEY ARE ALL THE SAME, all the pos. speaker leads to the pos. (+) outputs of the amp and all the neg. speaker leads to the neg. (-) outputs of the amp, [in phase] or the other way around, it is, [out of phase] when a left and right ch. are wired differently and it has a direct effect on bass response 94

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fcm &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> Sounds to me like the speakers are out of phase </TD></TR></TABLE>
ding ding ding!

 

Well, I had the installer double check and verify that the leads were in phase between the speakers and amp. Seems all is fine with the connections. Had him also check the tuning on the amp and deck. Output quality of the Kenwood (4x60W RMS) amp (entry level amp) as far as the low end bass is concerned still seemed flatter and duller compared to running of deck power. The output power, mids and highs were fine on the amp. So I had him swap the amp with a Clarion amp (4x50w RMS...also entry level) and the same result. The sales person could not explain it either, and he is assuming that the cutoffs on the amp must be higher then what is on the deck which is why I seem to be getting abit deeper bass from my satellite speakers. Anyone know of any brand of amps which retain a lower cutoff as my deck would have?

 

does the amp not have a low pass frequency control on it?

 

It has Hi & lo pass frequency. It is set on Full range as it is set the same on my deck.

 

oh yeah, duh you running full, so low pass frequency controls probably wont affect it.

my guess is that yes the amp frequency cutoff is higher than the HU.

may want to invest in a better HU

i know that my pioneer has frequency controls for the L M and H

L from 40 80 100 and i think 150 M from 200 to 1k and H from 3k to 12K

it really allows you to do some fine tuning

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by artofwar &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It has Hi & lo pass frequency. It is set on Full range as it is set the same on my deck.</TD></TR></TABLE>If it is set for full range, there is no "low cut off", full range means full range, [no upper or lower cut offs], also 2 differant amps doing the same thing, tells me there is a wiring issue with the speakers.

I will assume that when speakers where running off HU power they used the stock speaker wire, when the amp was added how were the speakers wired?

The other possibility is that the power or ground or both for the amp are N/G, or the RCA interconnect is bad.

What kind of wiring was used to wire the amp, how was the amp grounded, what kind of fuse is on the amp power cable ?

There is no reason for the speakers, [bass response] to sound worse after installing an amp with more power then the HUs internal amp, unless there is a problem with the amp or it's install or the connection of the speakers to that amp. 94

 

THere was some difference between the clarion and Kenwood amp. The clarion seem abit smoother and had abit more low end bass compared with the Kenwood. But still compared with deck power (from low to moderate volumes, the bass response was far superior. I had an amp kit with 4 gauge wirew ith inline fuse to the battery. Seemed like pretty high quality and it cost me about $60 for it.

Asked the store again who said he spoke with 4 other "contacts" he knows and according to those contacts, they all said "If you push more watt, you'll lose bass PERIOD..." and "not much you CAN do unless you get a subwoofer"?


Modified by artofwar at 9:04 PM 12/6/2005

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by artofwar &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Asked the store again who said he spoke with 4 other "contacts" he knows and according to those contacts, they all said "If you push more watt, you'll lose bass PERIOD..." and "not much you CAN do unless you get a subwoofer"?</TD></TR></TABLE> Now that is just bullshit, it sounds like they just don't want to deal with it. 94