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10 Posts
Hi All,
I finished the painstaking process of upgrading the stock audio in my '10 3i Touring (non-bose), and I did not get the improvement I was hoping for.
Symptoms are as follows:
All these problems appear at moderate to high volumes (28+ head unit volume), and are not as bad at lower volumes. Bass plays clean up to about 38 volume with +4 bass; that's plenty of punch for my taste.
Audio upgrade was installed with the following items:
Some additional notes:
TLDR;
I'm hoping that someone can lend their experience with their audio upgrade. Have you had success with using the stock HU or PAC converter with upgraded speakers? Has anyone noticed a different in sound quality after replacing their HU, but keeping everything else the same (amp, speakers wires etc.)? What kind of HU did you use, and would you recommend it?
I finished the painstaking process of upgrading the stock audio in my '10 3i Touring (non-bose), and I did not get the improvement I was hoping for.
Symptoms are as follows:
- Highs sound incredibly harsh/piercing at moderate volumes
- Vocals with S's and T's sound like they are clipping/distorting
- Mids are sludgy and very indistinct. It's hard to tell they're even there.
- Low bass (from sub) sounds great as long as it's not cranked
- Light hissing/static noise comes from the tweeters when no music is playing (volume of the noise increases and decreases relative to the head unit's volume, and disappears when volume is turned to zero). The noise also disappears if I unplug the RCA cables from the amp, so this leads me to believe that the amp is providing clean power to the speakers and my issue lies in the audio.
- Virtually no headlight-dimming or other symptoms of voltage drops. Problem is persistent whether or not the subwoofer is plugged in. This also leads me to believe that the power is fine.
Audio upgrade was installed with the following items:
- Kenwood XR400-4 Amp
- Rockford Fosgate R1X10 10" Sealed Subwoofer
- Infinity Kappa 60.11 Component (front speakers)
- 4-Gauge battery/ground cables (solid ground connection to sanded bare metal under the rear seat bolt), 14-gauge speaker wire
- I didn't see an immediate need to upgrade the stock head unit, so I purchased the PAC AOEM-MAZ2 converter and got to work.
- Audio source is Google Play music streaming @ high quality
- Audio device is Samsung Galaxy S7 over bluetooth (AUX input produces similar issues)
- I EQ'd out some of the high-end harshness by taking the 5k-8k ranges by one or two notches. This makes it playable at higher volumes, but it just isolates the issues with the mids even more.
- The Kappa component crossover has a +3db button for the tweeters, but this button is turned off on both sides
I'm hoping that someone can lend their experience with their audio upgrade. Have you had success with using the stock HU or PAC converter with upgraded speakers? Has anyone noticed a different in sound quality after replacing their HU, but keeping everything else the same (amp, speakers wires etc.)? What kind of HU did you use, and would you recommend it?