Crazy distortion with new speakers. Will an amp solve this?

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G-Ride990

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I have a non-alpine 8.4 setup and just installed four Kicker 46CSC6934 in the doors and two Kicker 46CSC354 with 4ohm resistors in the dash. Speakers are running off the 8.4 for now.

My amps and subs are supposed to be delivered tomorrow so I will be swapping these over to a Kicker 44KXA400.4 this weekend hopefully.

I am concerned that the distortion will remain though. If I crank the stereo up to about 22-25 the speakers sound like complete garbage.

Also, do speakers need time to break in like subs do?

So far these speakers are a huge improvement over stock but I was hoping I could get some move volume out of them.
 

Graygoose

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Your deck is running out of power.
Are you bi-amping the 400.4?


You will get more volume with power....real power. Not HU power.
 
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G-Ride990

G-Ride990

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Your deck is running out of power.
Are you bi-amping the 400.4?


You will get more volume with power....real power. Not HU power.

I figured this was the problem.

I am going the run the KXA on the door speakers and leave the dash speakers running off the headunit. Thats the plan anyways. I am still undecided on if I want to run the KEY180.4 I have it sitting in the garage right now.

What do you think I should do for this? The only part of the system I am pretty sure about is the subs.
 

Graygoose

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You could use the KEY as a preamp, then go to the 400.4, then you have the time alignment, etc.

But the 400.4 on all four doors will help too if you co that way.
I plan to eventually keep my KEY, then do a CXA360.4 on QSC6934s, in front doors, then do a custom box with two 46L710Ts off a CXA12001.
 
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G-Ride990

G-Ride990

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I am trying to wrap my head around getting the KEY to work with the KXA. When I get the amps installed I will probably give Kicker a call like you suggested previously.

A six channel amp would make this a whole lot easier I think.

But what if I do it this way...

LC7I > 180.4 inputs: 180.4 rear channel outputs > KXA inputs: KXA outputs > door speakers: 180.4 > front output > dash speakers

If I run all four door speakers through the 180.4 rear channel input that could allow me to run the dash speakers off the KEY and then all four door speakers off the KXA.

Do you think the KEY DSP can adjust for this correctly? I will loose the ability to fade sound to the rear though.



Your system should freaking rock! Can't wait to see that. I am expecting to upgrade speakers at some point down the road myself. This stuff adds up really quick though so I kind of had to chill out for now lol.

KXA800.1 running two CVRs in my fox box is on its way. Hopefully I don't regret that decision as I was going to be running CVXs with the CXA1200.1 previously. But I wanted matching KXA amps so I had to downgrade the woofers a bit.
 
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PowrRam

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I have a non-alpine 8.4 setup and just installed four Kicker 46CSC6934 in the doors and two Kicker 46CSC354 with 4ohm resistors in the dash. Speakers are running off the 8.4 for now.

My amps and subs are supposed to be delivered tomorrow so I will be swapping these over to a Kicker 44KXA400.4 this weekend hopefully.

I am concerned that the distortion will remain though. If I crank the stereo up to about 22-25 the speakers sound like complete garbage.

Interesting. My stock 6 speaker system started to sound like crap at about 22-25 volume setting. I replaced the dash speakers with Polk 3.5's, did the 4 ohm resistors, and put Pioneer 6X9's in the front doors. Now I can crank it up to about 28-30 before it starts to distort to a level I don't want to listen anymore. It's plenty loud at a setting of 30 (YMMV, of course).
 
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G-Ride990

G-Ride990

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Interesting. My stock 6 speaker system started to sound like crap at about 22-25 volume setting. I replaced the dash speakers with Polk 3.5's, did the 4 ohm resistors, and put Pioneer 6X9's in the front doors. Now I can crank it up to about 28-30 before it starts to distort to a level I don't want to listen anymore. It's plenty loud at a setting of 30 (YMMV, of course).

My stock system also sounded horrible around those volume settings. I was hoping that a better speaker would allow for more room before distortion but I think Graygoose is right. Need more power!!

I actually did the 4ohm resistors because of your thread. I think it was yours anyways.

I was really thrilled when I first started the system up and listed to some bassy tunes. But the moment I put on some Testament I had to turn the stereo way down. It seemed like the highend pushed it right into distortion pretty quick.
 

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I think they way you mention complicates it, if you use the KEY as just a preamp, it will pass the signal right into the KXA, they can take speaker level in and has 12v turn-on.
But of you want, you can also just use deck for dash, run KXA from speaker level, or get a KISLOC and do RCA's.
If you wanted serious power, a KXMA800.8 and bridge front four and rear four to doors.
Your in Tempe, a good place to go for any help, go see Chase or James at Quality Car Stereo in Gilbert. Those guys turn out awesome rides.
 
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G-Ride990

G-Ride990

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I think they way you mention complicates it, if you use the KEY as just a preamp, it will pass the signal right into the KXA, they can take speaker level in and has 12v turn-on.
But of you want, you can also just use deck for dash, run KXA from speaker level, or get a KISLOC and do RCA's.
If you wanted serious power, a KXMA800.8 and bridge front four and rear four to doors.
Your in Tempe, a good place to go for any help, go see Chase or James at Quality Car Stereo in Gilbert. Those guys turn out awesome rides.


The Key is only 4 channels though and I want to run 6 channels amp'd and through the DSP. So I would have to choose which 4 channels go through the DSP.

Easy way for sure just use speaker level inputs for all the channels. Which is what I am planning on doing at this moment. Doing some reading here it seems like the LC2i or LC7 helps with the bass roll off from our stock system so I wanted to run all of my inputs from the LC unit. I could skip those all together though too if you think that won't be an issue.

Thanks for the info for some local guys! I will have to swing by, looks like they do some awesome stuff from their website.
 

PowrRam

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My stock system also sounded horrible around those volume settings. I was hoping that a better speaker would allow for more room before distortion but I think Graygoose is right. Need more power!!

I actually did the 4ohm resistors because of your thread. I think it was yours anyways.

I was really thrilled when I first started the system up and listed to some bassy tunes. But the moment I put on some Testament I had to turn the stereo way down. It seemed like the highend pushed it right into distortion pretty quick.

You might want to take a look at the recording levels of various artists. There is a tendency nowadays to overdrive the recording of songs so they play louder on phones and bluetooth devices. I've purchased some songs and albums from Google Music and ran them through the "plot spectrum" function on Audacity software and they are extremely overdriven. So much so that I had to adjust them downwards. I've got all my ripped music set to the same (not overdriven) output levels. This could be why mine sound better at the higher volume settings.

Audacity is a free audio editing software program. Very feature rich.

Loudness Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
 

Graygoose

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True, or run KEY dash front door, use 2 channel for rear doors, or HU if you care less about rear passengers LOL


and there are some weird stuff happening on the factory tuning on these.
 

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can'tIMG_4348.jpg IMG_4359.jpg IMG_4401.jpg IMG_4415.jpg

Just throwing in my 2cents here. Now just saying I know I went to the extreme but this only cost me around $200 and my stock speaker, that I was hell bent on replacing, might just end up staying (maybe...ok, probably not). Can't even begin to describe what a difference this has made. The Black is 80 mil Noico and the silver is 50 mil Kilzmat. In the doors I used Silver 80 mil Noico and 50 mil Kilzmat. I did the roof too, just no picture. Its as quiet as a Lexus and the sound quality is AMAZING!

IMG_4528.jpg
 
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G-Ride990

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True, or run KEY dash front door, use 2 channel for rear doors, or HU if you care less about rear passengers LOL


and there are some weird stuff happening on the factory tuning on these.

I am curious how the seat will feel when I get the 2 12's rocking under it. Might be annoying enough that no one will want to ride back there anyways hahaha

Thanks for the help Graygoose! This is all making sense to me now so here's the plan...

KEY powering the dash.

KEY going into the KXA Amp 1 for front door signal

KXA alone on rear doors.

So when I let the KEY do its auto DSP thing I will just turn off the rear speakers.
 
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G-Ride990

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can'tView attachment 177293 View attachment 177294 View attachment 177295 View attachment 177296

Just throwing in my 2cents here. Now just saying I know I went to the extreme but this only cost me around $200 and my stock speaker, that I was hell bent on replacing, might just end up staying (maybe...ok, probably not). Can't even begin to describe what a difference this has made. The Black is 80 mil Noico and the silver is 50 mil Kilzmat. In the doors I used Silver 80 mil Noico and 50 mil Kilzmat. I did the roof too, just no picture. Its as quiet as a Lexus and the sound quality is AMAZING!

View attachment 177297

Hell yes that looks awesome! I ordered 3 boxes of this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0751CBXBT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and installed it on both the plastic door panels and inside of the door skins yesterday when I did the speaker install. I also ran wires for the speakers while I was in there.

I think I will need more the floor though. I haven't started on any of that because I need to make new spacers for my rear seats to accomodate the fox box. I don't want to use the MDF spacers that it came with.

First impression after doing the doors alone is night and day! I actually have tire noise now though so hopefully when I do the floor and roof that will go away. (never noticed tire noise before) I will take some pics this weekend for sure. I didn't take any yesterday because I decided to start doing this install at 3pm when it was 114 degrees outside... Not fun haha.
 

kp4243

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Hell yes that looks awesome! I ordered 3 boxes of this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0751CBXBT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and installed it on both the plastic door panels and inside of the door skins yesterday when I did the speaker install. I also ran wires for the speakers while I was in there.

I think I will need more the floor though. I haven't started on any of that because I need to make new spacers for my rear seats to accomodate the fox box. I don't want to use the MDF spacers that it came with.

First impression after doing the doors alone is night and day! I actually have tire noise now though so hopefully when I do the floor and roof that will go away. (never noticed tire noise before) I will take some pics this weekend for sure. I didn't take any yesterday because I decided to start doing this install at 3pm when it was 114 degrees outside... Not fun haha.

I didn't put anything on the plastic door panels, just inside on all the metal. Now my bass is so pronounced, I can hear anything that I happen to leave laying in my door's cup holder rattling.
 
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G-Ride990

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I didn't put anything on the plastic door panels, just inside on all the metal. Now my bass is so pronounced, I can hear anything that I happen to leave laying in my door's cup holder rattling.

My door panels seemed to rattle a little bit at times. Glad to say that this fixed it completely though. And my side mirrors seem a lot more stable as well.

Only issue I had was when I removed the trim piece above the door panel on the back doors I lost two of the clips inside of the door. No matter what I did I couldn't find them. Hopefully they don't start rattling inside of there.
 

kp4243

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My door panels seemed to rattle a little bit at times. Glad to say that this fixed it completely though. And my side mirrors seem a lot more stable as well.

Only issue I had was when I removed the trim piece above the door panel on the back doors I lost two of the clips inside of the door. No matter what I did I couldn't find them. Hopefully they don't start rattling inside of there.

If you roll up the window and open the little plastic door you should be ale to find them. There is no where for them to go and truthfully the door panels aren't that hard to take off once you know how they work and are assembled.
 

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Care to expand on this? Subwoofers sound noticeably different when the spiders have had time to flex vs right out of the box.

Turn them on then turn them up, no such thing as breaking them in. If anything they should be better new the material has had no breakdown. God I must be getting old that everything has to be babied before you can actually use it.
 
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