Got a question for all you stereo guys. Hopefully you can give me some guidance

I recently installed an Alpine CDA-9815. My problem is I'm having alot of trouble getting it tuned correctly. It is mainly the crossover and the "bass imaging" that is giving me trouble. I simply cant get it to sound correct, its either waaaay to much bass or not nearly enough. Ive literally sat in the truck for over an hour trying to get it right .

Im not looking for anyone to hold my hand through the whole process, just some tips on where im possibly going wrong.

the alpine site wont let me link directly to the unit but you can see it by going to http://www.alpine-usa.com
>products>caraudio>headunits>cdplayers>cda-9815
or
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-9Rudigp...p?i=500CDA9815

thanks for any help you can give me
Jeff

 

While I can't actually help you solve your issue, maybe try looking through this forum.

http://www.caraudioforum.com

It looks like a pretty comprehensive forum and someone there might be able to help you.

BTW, how do you like the Alpine? How well does it play MP3? Does it display the full Artist, Album, Song info? ID tag version 2.0? Sorry for all the questions, but I am very interested in getting an MP3 player for my new truck. I have way too many cds and playing them while driving has become too much of a hassle. Thanks.

 

Thanks, Ill give that forum a look.

As to the unit, other than the fact that it is very confusing to tune (to me at least ) I like it alot.

It plays all my mp3's, is set up for XM, reads the mp3 tags displaying artist and song title, and looks really good.

One issue I did have with the mp3's, however, was that I had to purchase a new CD burner program in order for them to play well on the unit. This was not an issue with the unit itself, just inferior software I was using to burn the CD's. You would probably run into that with any headunit.

While this unit is/was one of the most top-of-the-line models Alpine made, they've recently released a whole new line. Im not sure if you can even get this series anymore.

Jeff



(any other suggestions on the tuning????)

 

I'm not sure how many amps you're using, but here's the method that has always worked for me. On each of the amps, turn the gain almost all the way down (all the amps I've owned have had recessed ***** for this which require a small regular screwdriver). Next, turn up the main system volume control (either the head unit, or on my system, the eq) almost to its maximum setting. I adjust the main speakers (front) first, turning up the gain as high as it can go without clipping. Next, the rears, and I usually back those off from the clipping level a bit more since they are typically for fill. Do the subwoofer amp last, and set the gain where it seems to achieve the best balance with the main speakers. I normally use the manufacturer's specifications for the main speakers to choose the crossover point for the subwoofer. They will typically list a rated frequency response, for example 50 hz to 20 khz. Keeping in mind that the level tends to "roll off" a bit at the bottom of that rating, choose a subwoofer crossover point higher than that. Hope this helps a bit.

 

Bass imaging.......Are you sure everything is in phase? Go back thru your connections and make sure you have a common connection scheme, + on the amp to + on the speaker, - on amp to - on speaker. One mis- connection will throw the imaging off to one side and give you dismal bass performance.

 

commatoze - I checked all the connections and they seem OK. I dont think the bass imaging is the problem though. Bass seems to hit fine, just a little to much is all.

jfpointer - At the moment, I only have a mono-channel amp for my subs. I still have the stock speakers for now . I did try adjusting the settings as you said and did seem to help some. Something still seems not quite right, I think I may have changed some of the equalizer settings without knowing it, gonna try playing with that next.....

Thanks for the replys guys.
Jeff