[pj94z]

I am in the USA.

About a year ago, I had a local shop install a kenwood amp + 12" sub in the trunk to my factory stereo (non hk, no logic 7)

Since the addition of the sub, i noticed the car speakers barely hit any mids.
So, songs are mostly bass n treble, very weak mids.
But, it sounds pretty good to me....so i left it alone.

Until....I recently listened to a 2013 factory nissan stereo and was blown away at how much better it sounded than my setup - it was mostly the presence of mids in songs which made me realize i have been missing out on mids this whole time!!

So, how can I get the mids back in my music ?

Can i just upgrade the speakers inside the car ?
Note: i would prefer the cheapest method, so i want to avoid getting a AF Head unit or adding another amp.

Any ideas ?

[nelson29]

Change the oem underseat woofers. Get a pair of 8" Rainbow or Jehnert midbass.

[pj94z]

Originally Posted by nelson29

Change the oem underseat woofers. Get a pair of 8" Rainbow or Jehnert midbass.

I am happy with the bass from my 12" alpine in the trunk.

I am unhappy with the mids not being very noticeable/loud.

Why would changing the underseat subwoofer ADD mids to my music?

The sub is only for low freq , am I wrong ?

[blacknbean]

probably its just you lower quality base speakers that cant keep up with your sub. what I would do is turn off the sub. you can turn the gain all the way down and then tune the stereo with the sub off. play around with the eq and bass options till it sounds better. then slowly turn up the gain to match the rest of the system. mostly likely though your subs will always overpower your base stereo.

[pj94z]

Originally Posted by blacknbean

probably its just you lower quality base speakers that cant keep up with your sub. what I would do is turn off the sub. you can turn the gain all the way down and then tune the stereo with the sub off. play around with the eq and bass options till it sounds better. then slowly turn up the gain to match the rest of the system. mostly likely though your subs will always overpower your base stereo.

I ended up buying a JBL MS-2 and a Sandisk Sansa clip mp3 player.

While I didn't like the JBL MS-2 , I did like the mp3 player. I am returning the JBL MS2 and will just use the mp3 player aux to my HU.

To my surprise, the little mp3 player comes with a built-in EQ which has a custom option - so, i put the gain on my sub to 10% and spent about 30 mins adjusting the EQ on loud.

The result is great...the music sounds much better than before, but still not hearing the midBass - I know this is due to the poor quality 4" components...however, I can live with that, since overall, the sound is much better with the tweaked EQ.

[ctuna]

Both the stock speakers and amp are weak
Replace the OEM hi fi amp , if that's what you have, with a Jl xd600/6(the oem amp is the weakest link)
use a Technic harness. Replace the front door and under seat speakers next
with the ones commonly listed in this thread.
(Replacing the speakers alone won't get you far you may even go backwards the amp is really weak)

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=641323


Too many people believe a sub is the solution for all problems. The sub is for 50 hz down(all true subs are) the under seats are for up to around 200 hz and a little higher if you use Jehnerts.

The under seats carry midbass and lower midrange and there location also means they are more effective in generating all but the lowest frequency. Finding a 4 inch that will extend far enough to bridge the gap to the under seats requires money. The Morels seem to be the best at it.

MusicarNW can sell you proven systems that work in this
car but there not cheap. There are no dead cheap solutions.

By the way where in the US are you located?

[kaigoss69]

My guess is you're talking about mid-bass which normally is generated by the underseat woofers. If no sound is coming from there then the shop disconnected the woofers instead of just tapping the speaker wires.

[pj94z]

Originally Posted by kaigoss69

My guess is you're talking about mid-bass which normally is generated by the underseat woofers. If no sound is coming from there then the shop disconnected the woofers instead of just tapping the speaker wires.

the underseat woofers work.

what im referring to is mids and midbass...the range of freqencies that are X, as follows:

bass < x < treble

the problem with the hifi 676 system is that it was not designed properly to provide a good range of X frequencies (mid range). This is due to the small 4" component speakers, which are incapable of reproducing midrange frequencies which are commonly heard on most new car stereos ( which use 5-6" speakers)

[ctuna]

The laws of physics must be obeyed

You said
"Can i just upgrade the speakers inside the car ?
Note: i would prefer the cheapest method, so i want to avoid getting a AF Head unit or adding another amp."

Well the amp is weak and the speakers are cheap.
If you don't want to change the amp and upgrade the speakers
you can't get from crappy sound to what you want.

What you describe are all known faults of this system
the solutions are well documented.

[taibanl]

Originally Posted by pj94z

the underseat woofers work.

what im referring to is mids and midbass...the range of freqencies that are X, as follows:

bass < x < treble

the problem with the hifi 676 system is that it was not designed properly to provide a good range of X frequencies (mid range). This is due to the small 4" component speakers, which are incapable of reproducing midrange frequencies which are commonly heard on most new car stereos ( which use 5-6" speakers)

The HiFi 8" underseat and the 4" midrange are certainly adequate to provide a flat frequency response above about 45-50hz. Quality may be lacking but you should not have a hole. the underseats play up to about 200hz on the oem amp and the 4" are more than capable of playing that low at a reasonable volume.

the 8"/4" combo is a far superior platform than a 6.5 (assuming decent speakers...Hifi do lack there). The 8" takes care of the midbass while the 4" does not beam in the upper midrange where a 6.5 would.

[kaigoss69]

^^^ Yep, that about sums it up.