honda civic 94 speaker problem

[gavincha]

hi, newbie problem here

i'm looking for some advice/info on a stereo system if possible. i
recently purchased a sony mp3 head unit, and speakers. 2 sets of 5.25
inch , and 1 pair of 6x9 inch. my problem is that with my car - a 94
civic saloon, the 6x9s dont fit in the rear panel, so i had to replace
these with a 5.25 pair. as a result, i'm getting little or no bass
from the whole setup. at the moment its only a 4 speaker setup - no
panels for speakers on the rear doors.

i'm just trying to find out if there's any way to use the 6x9s or
whether i need a woofer and amp to get any bass? would the 6x9s make
that much of a difference? other people i know who have factory
installed systems have way more bass - is this just due to speaker
size??

any help would be appreciated

cheers,

[gavincha]

..
> hi, newbie problem here
>
> i'm looking for some advice/info on a stereo system if possible. i
> recently purchased a sony mp3 head unit, and speakers. 2 sets of 5.25
> inch , and 1 pair of 6x9 inch. my problem is that with my car - a 94
> civic saloon, the 6x9s dont fit in the rear panel, so i had to replace
> these with a 5.25 pair. as a result, i'm getting little or no bass
> from the whole setup. at the moment its only a 4 speaker setup - no
> panels for speakers on the rear doors.
>
> i'm just trying to find out if there's any way to use the 6x9s or
> whether i need a woofer and amp to get any bass? would the 6x9s make
> that much of a difference? other people i know who have factory
> installed systems have way more bass - is this just due to speaker
> size??
>
> any help would be appreciated
>
> cheers,

[gavincha]

thanks for that.

finally put the 6x9s in and..........no difference. friend of mine
recently added a a pair of ubl speakers to his rear panel, and the
bass is impressive - without any amp.
they only cost about $80/90 - same as my 6x9s - so whats the
difference? if they are woofers - surely they need an amp? they're
only 7" in size.

the speakers i have seem to just top out when given any volume at all.

surely the sony speakers i've bought are better quality than factory
installed ones?
i'd settle for factory sound at this stage - i presumed buying
seperates would make the sound better rather than worse. i'm losing
the plot at the moment!

i really can't afford the amp and woofer right now..........




> I would say in your case it probably has to do with efficiency. The factory
> speakers are designed to be very efficient because the stock deck doesn't
> put out much power. If you are using aftermarket speakers, but trying to run
> them from a deck, you may not have enough power available to get a balanced
> sound from them (lots of highs, little bit of mid, but nothing low).
>
> If you can afford it, you will probably be much happier with a 4 channel amp
> (2 channels run the front speakers, the other 2 bridge and run a sub) and
> put a cap on the rear speakers running off the deck to use them for rear
> fill.

[james w]

Your new speakers probably need more power.

"gavincha" > wrote in message
om...
> thanks for that.
>
> finally put the 6x9s in and..........no difference. friend of mine
> recently added a a pair of ubl speakers to his rear panel, and the
> bass is impressive - without any amp.
> they only cost about $80/90 - same as my 6x9s - so whats the
> difference? if they are woofers - surely they need an amp? they're
> only 7" in size.
>
> the speakers i have seem to just top out when given any volume at all.
>
> surely the sony speakers i've bought are better quality than factory
> installed ones?
> i'd settle for factory sound at this stage - i presumed buying
> seperates would make the sound better rather than worse. i'm losing
> the plot at the moment!
>
> i really can't afford the amp and woofer right now..........
>
>
>
>
> > I would say in your case it probably has to do with efficiency. The
factory
> > speakers are designed to be very efficient because the stock deck
doesn't
> > put out much power. If you are using aftermarket speakers, but trying to
run
> > them from a deck, you may not have enough power available to get a
balanced
> > sound from them (lots of highs, little bit of mid, but nothing low).
> >
> > If you can afford it, you will probably be much happier with a 4 channel
amp
> > (2 channels run the front speakers, the other 2 bridge and run a sub)
and
> > put a cap on the rear speakers running off the deck to use them for rear
> > fill.

[Daniel Snooks]

gavincha wrote
> thanks for that.
>
> finally put the 6x9s in and..........no difference. friend of mine
recently added a a pair of ubl speakers to his rear panel, and the bass is
impressive - without any amp. they only cost about $80/90 - same as my
6x9s - so whats the difference?

The speakers themselves, the factory deck, and probably the car as well.

> if they are woofers - surely they need an amp?

Not necessarily, some smaller woofers are designed to handle very low power
applications. The more efficient the speaker, the less power it requires
(rule of thumb)

> they're only 7" in size.
>
> the speakers i have seem to just top out when given any volume at all.

Are you certain that you have wired the speakers in phase with each other
and with the front speakers?

> surely the sony speakers i've bought are better quality than factory
installed ones?

Not necessarily, but it most likely is not an issue of quality. I would
suggest the problem is that they are a poor match for running off of the
factory deck.

> i'd settle for factory sound at this stage - i presumed buying
> seperates would make the sound better rather than worse. i'm losing
> the plot at the moment!
>
> i really can't afford the amp and woofer right now..........

Most people know how that feels :)

What about getting an amp off Ebay, and running the Sony's with it? Skip the
sub for now, until you can afford to install it.

--
Regards,
Dan Snooks

[gavincha]

> Are you certain that you have wired the speakers in phase with each other
> and with the front speakers?


to be honest - i'm not too clued in on wiring. (or anything else
apparently!) i simply connected the new sony head unit to the existing
din connector - rather than rewire the whole system - this may have
been a bad decision?


I would
> suggest the problem is that they are a poor match for running off of the
> factory deck.

i replaced the factory deck with a sony unit 50wx4, and 4 spanking new
sony speakers, so a matching problem surely cant exist?

if the new speakers are over-vibrating and topping out, is that not a
case of too much power getting to them.......or is it the wrong kind
of power?



feel free to slap me if any of these sounds like forrest gump
questions.
gonna bring it to my friendly mechanic/stereo guy to check the wiring
etc, and see what can be done. been looking into the amp and sub
option just in case - any suggestions welcome...

cheers

[Daniel Snooks]

gavincha wrote
> > Are you certain that you have wired the speakers in phase with each
other
> > and with the front speakers?
>
>
> to be honest - i'm not too clued in on wiring. (or anything else
> apparently!) i simply connected the new sony head unit to the existing
> din connector - rather than rewire the whole system - this may have
> been a bad decision?

Not at all, that's the easiest way to do it. In my new Cavalier, the car was
delivered from the factory with the front left speaker wired out of phase !
I still can't believe it, although I am sure it is an isolated incident.

> I would
> > suggest the problem is that they are a poor match for running off of the
> > factory deck.
>
> i replaced the factory deck with a sony unit 50wx4, and 4 spanking new
> sony speakers, so a matching problem surely cant exist?

Never mind me, I probably didn't catch the beginning of this thread, and did
not realize you had an aftermarket deck.

> if the new speakers are over-vibrating and topping out, is that not a
> case of too much power getting to them.......or is it the wrong kind
> of power?

The deck should not be able to overpower the speakers. Turning the deck up
to very high volume would cause it to send distorted signals to the
speakers, and they would sound horrible, but that should only happen up past
about 3/4 volume.
I suppose it is possible that your expectations were too high as far as how
much better the sony equipment would sound, but without being there it is
hard to say how good it should sound.

> feel free to slap me if any of these sounds like forrest gump
> questions.

Never, questions are more important then answers sometimes.

> gonna bring it to my friendly mechanic/stereo guy to check the wiring
> etc, and see what can be done. been looking into the amp and sub
> option just in case - any suggestions welcome...


--
Regards,
Dan Snooks

[Paul Vina]

>
> Not at all, that's the easiest way to do it. In my new Cavalier, the car
was
> delivered from the factory with the front left speaker wired out of phase
!
> I still can't believe it, although I am sure it is an isolated incident.


It was probably done that way on purpose. Every car I've ever done has
needed to have at least 1 speaker wired out of phase electrically to be in
phase acoustically.


Paul Vina

[Daniel Snooks]

Paul Vina wrote
> It was probably done that way on purpose. Every car I've ever done has
> needed to have at least 1 speaker wired out of phase electrically to be in
> phase acoustically.

I wish that were so in my case Paul. The speaker appears to have been wired
in phase electrically, and was out of phase acoustically. When I installed
the aftermarket deck, I used a metra wiring harness and swapped the speakers
leads on that speaker, problem solved. Now I need to convince the wife to
let me buy a nice set of components for the doors, and another amp to run
them :-)

Why do you suppose the speakers need to be wired out of phase to sound
right? Speaker placement?
Thanks for the info, I never knew that.

--
Regards,
Dan Snooks