well...i have this problem. i have in my ride right now a pioneer cd player 6400, pioneer 5 inch speaker in the doors and pioneer 6x9's in the trunk. the speakers all cost over a hundred. ok, so i have a kicker solo baric L7 in my trunk in a bandpass enclosure being run by a kicker 400.1 amplifier. you get the idea... well ive tweaked and tweaked but i cant find out why when i put my volume real high, say 56, the speakers all distort. i thought it might be wrong wiring, but ive tried all setups. i thought it might be too much bass on the reciever, but all the bass options are turned to the negative numbers. so i dont get it. well i have a bass boost controller and whenever it distorts i lower the bass and all of a sudden the speakers dont distort. what gives ?????????? i need help

 

my bad, i have a L5 subwoofer 12"

 

Why dont you make sure that your positive wires are going to positive terminals on the speakers and negative to negative next, are you running an amp to those components ? What kind of head unit are you using and check the gain on your amp this controlls how much your head unit is putting out if it is up too high it will distort

 

ok, first things first. about the polarity on the speakers, there is not + or - so i cant tell, but i connected them and put it loud to hear for distortion, so i connected them to the best of my ability. the head unit is a pioneer 6400. there is no amp to the components, and i even lowered the gain on the amp to the sub, but the sub could handle the whole 400 watts. i dunno what the problem is. think im gonna have some techs look at it.

 

56 is freakin HIGH man...thats why its distorting. i believe it only goes to 60. when i had all my system in i couldn't go about 40 cuz it was just gettin way too loud. (156.7 db to be exact). seems to me like your settings are very off. your headunit can only put out quality sound till a certain point then it will just distort and make crappy sound.

if you don't want any bass going through your regular speakers then you need to get bass blockers. but then all your mid bass will be sacrificed also. you just have to learn (or go to a place) to have your setting adjusted. gains on amplifiers should NEVER be turned up all the way...they are just supposed to be matched to the output signal of the headunit. if you turn the gain up too high your amp will clip and either distort really bad or blow your speakers.


also..having the gain not up all the way doesn't mean your not going to get all 400 watts. hence the "clipping" you'll get if you turn the gain up all the way.

you can only get so much quality sound out of certain speakers...obviously either your settings are REALLY off or you are just not satisified with the performance of your speakers...get more speakers so then you'll only have to put lets say...20 watts to each instead of 40 watts...then it will be louder and sound much cleaner.

 

i hear ya. well i tweaked the head unit all the way, so i know its not that. for some reason i feel like the sub has something to do with the regular speakers because it only distorts when the bass boost controller is all the way up. i thought it was two separate components. well im gonna take it to the shop

 

what is your speaker rms???
how do you run your ground??
56 is very very high..you might already push it to it's max already..

 

take it to a shop pay them to tune your system but dont i repeat dont ask the people working there about your problem because they wont care and youll just bother them just book an appointment and have it looked at by professional installers.
Sorry to be an *** but i deal with this all day and it gets bothersome just pay an installer thats there job...
btw did you get it all pro installed or was it a diy because if you paid to have it done they should have tuned it for you,,,

 

well i changed the speakers around the car, but the amp, HU, and sub were installed pro.

 

Wait I have a question. You said that you tried all wiring setups, meaning you thought you mixed up the positive and negative terminals? I thought that a speaker wouldn't work if these were mixed up?

Your problem - take it to a pro like Mod1Fy suggested, that would be your best bet. But I would also like to know what is the RMS of your interior speakers? I have infinity's in my car and when I have my HU going it does get distorted once I reach about 3/4 volume, but with the gains off on my HU my speakers never distort. Just go over your connections once more, did you use proper connectors?

 

yup, sure did. the speakers will work if you got the polarity mixed up , but it will distort real bad after a certain volume. im just gonna take it to the pros.

 

there's no need to take it to a "pro"
everyone is so against trying stuff yourself. so called "pro"s may not know as much as you think. and it's just a waste of time.

it sounds like you just aren't happy with your system. trying to push it at near max power is almost always going to distort. there is a sharp falloff for any component, headunit, amp, sub, speakers, when you start to reach max power. when it gets to a certain point, distortion enters the mix. this is inevitable. you have to realize that when a manufacturer specifies 400W or something, it might not always mean a CLEAN 400W.

this is the proper way to tune your system:
first turn off any and all bass enhancements. put all your EQ levels at flat. now find a CD with a good representation of the music you listen to most frequently. turn your head up to about 75%. now if you hear distortion, back the amp's gain down until you stop hearing it. if you don't hear distortion, start raising the gain until you hear it, then back off slightly.
now you can start tweaking the EQ and bass enhancements. but remember that each positive gain in frequency comes at a cost of distortion, but different frequencies may have different levels of detectable distortion. so start turning your EQ up or down, and adjust your amp gain level as needed.
what you should have now is a system that when you turn it up to 75%, it is as loud as it's gonna be without distortion for most songs. the reason you leave about 25% headroom is when some recordings are at lower levels, you don't want them to peak as early.

me personally, my headunit goes up to 50, but if i put it over 37 (for most songs) i start to detect distortion. if at this level it isn't loud enough for your taste, you need to upgrade.

if you had your + and - mixed up, something would probably be out of phase, and you would hear a very muted signal, and probably no bass since it is non-directional.

it's definitely more useful for you to learn how to properly tune by yourself, because eveyrone has different tastes, and the way a "pro" might tune it may not be the same as you want it to be.