Put in new Pioneer 6 1/2's...now it sounds worse

DuckhunterInTN · February 16, 2002

Our local Radio Shack is going out of business so I was able to get a pair of decent pioneers for cost. I installed one of them in my door and it didn't have nearly the bass that the factory speaker used to. I matched correct wires and everything, per color codes. I don't know what the deal is. I am using the factory radio. I assumed that no matter what the newer speakers would sound better than the stockers. I asked the radio shack guy if maybe I didn't have enough power with my stock radio and he said that that shouldn't be the problem. Whats the deal???

LarryE · February 16, 2002

I think your expecting alot more out of the aftermarket mids than they are going to give you without an amp.. to get a perfect sound of of any aftermarket speakers I don't care what they brand you need alot more power than the factory head unit would ever be able to give you.

DuckhunterInTN · February 16, 2002

I'm not expecting a perfect sound out of the new aftermarket speakers...but I did expect them to sound better than the factory speakers. I thought that was a reasonable expectation, right??

Import Hater · February 16, 2002

Is the speaker you put in a coaxial or triaxial? The factory setup is a component design in the front door, so wattage kinda gets split already, plus you have a speaker that probably needs more wattage since it's a speaker within speaker (coaxial) type, which most aftermarkets usually are. I haven't seen the wiring for it, but if there is some kind of crossover between the tweeter and midbass, try taking the straight channel feed for your Pioneer and take the factory tweeter off line. Make sense?

I could be talking out of my ass on this one, but it's an educated guess.

Rob

Firetiger(MN) · February 16, 2002

If you still have the factory head unit, I wouldn't expect much from the Pioneers or any other aftermarket speaker. Although Pioneer wouldn't be my choice for speaker, clean power from a high power head unit or amplifier goes a long ways. I replaced my factory unit with an Alpine and the factory speakers really sound good. I consider that the first step in upgrading the sound system. High quality speakers will be my next addition. I wouldn't give up on the Pioneers just yet.

DuckhunterInTN · February 17, 2002

Yeah, I wasn't planning on adding anything to this truck but I just happened to find these really cheap so I picked em up. My main question STILL hasn't been answered, though...even with my stock head unit these Pioneers should still sound better than the stock speakers, right????

LarryE · February 17, 2002

not without power.. aftermarket mids are not going to sound any better without power to them, factory speakers are made cheap and made to run off of virtually no power at all.

SteveSierra · February 18, 2002

I actually like the Pioneers I have. They are 3 way 6 3/4 model 1767's in the front, Infinity 462.3 in rear, JL Audio 10w3-2 sub and an older Kenwood 50x4 amp. The front speakers take 2 channels, and the sub takes 2 channels.

The rear door speakers are just run off of the Pioneer DEH77 HU to fill in space. I put the sub in a homemade MDF box under the rear seat on the left.

The key with AM speakers is to get plenty of power to them, but don't overpower them.

My setup is fine for me. I listen to metal/hard rock and what I have really pumps out the bass, both out of the sub(obviously) and the Pioneers in the front doors.

Steve

NeXuS1 · February 19, 2002

probably ultra low end stuff if it came from radio shack, so that would be one cause. maybe out of phase? or just some defective speakers. all sorts of causes to crappy sounding speakers.

mnstrmdnss · February 20, 2002

it sounds like they are defective, or out of phase. i put some 4x6 pioneers in my dash i got from best buy, and they are running off the delco, and sound amazing, the clarity is awsome for running on a factory headunit. double check the wires, cause most likley the might be backwards.

sierra1 · February 23, 2002

Try switching just one wire on one speaker and see if it helps, if they areout of phase, it will suddenly have much more bass.

But the stock H/U is sooo bad, it probably won't help much, and besides, the stock front speakers are not that bad anyway, the backs are horrible. Try turning the backs off, and see if it doesn't sound better!

DuckhunterInTN · February 25, 2002

Thanks for all of the suggestions, guys. I haven't had a chance to mess with it again. Hopefully (but I doubt it) I got the wires crossed. I had the a pioneer in one door and the stock speaker in the other. It wasn't required to have both of the pioneers installed for it to sound correctly, was it??

scooter70 · February 25, 2002

Duckhunter: I'll back you up on this one.... I noticed the same thing when I replaced the factory speakers..... less bass. I attributed it to the low power of the factory head unit like someone already said). I haven't got around to replacing the HU yet, so I'm dealing with no bass for the time being. Other than the lack of bass, the mids and highs are better than what came out with the stockers.

Markeaux · February 26, 2002

I would think the lack of bass compared to the stock speakers is due to the new speaker's design - ie, it is just not designed to go down very low. I replaced my 01 Tahoe LT's speakers with 6.5" Cerwin Vega 6002's (100/pr from Crutchfield) and the sound improvement was (and still is) awesome *with the oem head*!

I chose these because it's specs showed it went down pretty low whereas many other same-size speaks cutoff much higher - this was a first time to choose speaks on specs alone and yes it was a big chance, but it paid off. Speaker/driver design is a very important factor in the resultant sound.

NeXuS1 · February 27, 2002

most component sets wont put put tons of bass, when they were designed the they probably figured that if your buying them you probably have/or will have some subs to cover the low end. where as stock thats all you have so they will play more of the range. also depends on the crossovers too, they could be blocking a lot of the low end.