i'm currently out of town right now, but i swapped to the diamond audio D3 components series, and they somehow felt s**ttier than stock speakers... less bass ( anyway to adjust?) lots and lots of high pitched vocal / from tweeter, very clear sounding but just lack of bass.. i don't plan to put an amp or anything in, but is there a way to crank up the bass just a lil more? seems like stock had more bass but less clear on the vocal side...

also seems like the stock speakers i don't have to crank up the volume as high to get the sound out vs after i swapped them, for example

the volume i had on 15(stock) would be somewhere 20~22 now

any help will be cool ,thx

 

Almost all aftermarket speakers are designed to be amped... Generally you shouldn't change out the speakers unless you want to install an amp as well.

 

Basically you have made a bad situation worse....by just swapping out speakers to aftermarket, they are in general more "power hungry' meaning they need more power to work correctly.

So essentially you are starving the good speakers with no power and now you have to turn it up louder! Another problem is as you turn it louder, the cheap stock radio amp will start clipping and start heating up your voicecoil on the speaker and it will blow eventually if you keep pushing it.

Get yourself a nice deck and aftermarket amp for the front speakers.


A good analogy is if you have a slow car and you try putting big wheels/tires on it. Sure it may look bling but now your car will be slower than stock

hope this helps,
rick

 

Like a broken record "YOU NEED A HEADUNIT FIRST"

You are making stock sound louder and the crap signal is just getting clearer.

 

The stock HU is a well known HIGH distortion amp. Gotta get clean power for the speakers to not distort.

 

I was in your shoes about 2 months ago. I had some Infinity Kappas and my friend said, you have to amp those otherwise it'll come out as crap. So I got a line level converter and hooked up a 2X50 soundstream amp to them. They were louder and I could hear music when the top was down. The only reason I didn't want to spring for a deck was because I would lose my dash controls and a DCI was $100 bucks!!! Then luck struck. Someone was selling one complete with harness for $75 shipped. I jumped on that. Now, I've added rear speakers via custom made spod type brackets, a alpine deck, 4X60 soundstream amp and wow. I mean wow. It really sings now. Get a amp and a new deck, it makes hella difference. I can hear clear music with the top down as if the top were up. No distortion at high volumns. It really sounds better. I didn't believe anyone where, but I am a believer now.

 

I would guess you bought "less efficient" speakers than stock. I am putting in Polk DB6500's tomorrow with the stock headunit. I will be surprised if they sound worse as the efficiency is 92db. That is pretty good and should almost certainly be better than the stock units.

After installing my Polk's this morning- I can definitely hear a huge difference in volume, bass and clarity. I will not be changing the headunit. Maybe the headrest tweeters could be upgraded, but that is the only other mod I can see doing.

 

Not sure if you adjusted the crossover.....I don't know what the settings are for the Diamonds, but I'd try and reduce the output to the tweeters. Set the high pass (I think they are dip switches) to -3Db or more. That will tone down the tweets and better balance the output between the tweeter and the mid. You should then be able to turn up the vol and hear more bass.

This should make a big difference based on what you said about "lots and lots" of tweeter output.

 

never thought about that, but big thanks 4 this advice, i'll take a look into it.

 

One other thought - check your polarity. Heck, try reversing the polarity on the mid-basses post-crossover and see what happens. Sometimes altering the phase will result in better sound - it all depends on location and orientation.

Contrary to popular belief, the HU in the S is *not* that bad. Is it a power house? no (Matshushita, AKA Panasonic/Ramsa/Technics) never has been. However, it isn't piss poor either - better than some aftermarket head units on the market.

Now, Diamonds are made to be amped (preferably bi-amped, one pair to the midbass and one pair to the highs), but they shouldn't sound as crappy as you say.

If you are still getting too many highs out of it, try dropping an 8-ohm resistor in-line with the tweeter - this will alter the x-over point but may help cut it down enough that you can live with it... for now