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Loudness control is set on, fiddling with the balance and fade controls so that each corner can be heard on its own shows no difference between each corner...
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It's a common complaint with most factory-fitted audio. To get good bass, you need to shift air, and that means you need decent sized speakers and some form of enclosure to provide some degree of damping for the cone. Most car speakers are small paper cones - cheap and cheerful.
My Accord came with this type fitted, and the bass was almost non-existant. I eventually replaced the rears with a pair of 6x9" 3-way speakers, using the boot as the enclosure. Bass is now there in abundance.
With an estate, you're severely limited as to what you can do. The first thing is to look at the major manufacturers (Sony, Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood etc.) and see if there any any suitable replacements which will fit without too much trouble. Failing that, I'd speak to a specialist car audio dealer.
Andy
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John,
You're going to need a trip to the dealers so you can take your dance [;-)] music and try their cars. I have no experience of this model but would be amazed if the stereo should be that poor. Over the last 15 years the standard fit units have become quite good.
Another point is that any vehicle I've used with the stereo bass up as far as +6 out of of 9 or 10 will have terrible speaker distortion and a horrible thickened sound. If you can set it like this with the loudness button in as well, and without the speakers going bzzz bzzz bzzz, it must be pretty flat as standard.
Is this lack of bass the same on all sources...radio/Tape/CD ?
David W
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fiddling with the balance and fade controls so that each corner can be heard on its own shows no difference between each corner...
Listening to each speaker separately by isolating the others in turn will not confirm that they have been wired incorrectly.
If the system is a factory fit then theoretically it should be wired correctly - however in the real world it could very well be a Friday afternoon assembly.
Try to gain access to the rear of each speaker and make sure that all the red/white/green whatever colours are wired the same way to each speaker. This would also apply to the rear of the head unit.
You could also go to a Main Renault dealer and compare with another Laguna of similar spec. (prob the easiest thing to do first)
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Thanks all for your comments!
Dealer said he compared my car to another in garage, no difference. (I've subsequently found and listened to another, also the same). He agreed that whilst it sounded ok at rest, it was poor once moving.
He said he would check the wiring next time...
CD/tuner/CD autochanger are all the same - I suspect it's due to poor speakers and mountings, as suggested.
Continuing with experimenting, with full base, a tune with a strong, clear base signal (probably digital) and the volume turned right up, it sounded good on the motorway, but the blood from my ears made a mess on my shoulders, so it's back to Radio4....
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There's two problems.. First of all, the bass control on most radio/cd headunits boots at around 100Hz, so it just increases the muddiness of the sound. On the other hand, small speakers do not take too kindly to having sub bass levels (50Hz and below) boosted as the cones are likely to leave their surroundings! My dad had a top music system upgrade specified when ordering his vw golf some 13 yrs ago, they upgraded the radio/cassette but left the awful tweeter size factory speakers installed. The result, no matter how much you cranked up the bass it sounded tinny and brash.
There are a number of solutions to your problem, one of which is actually quite cheap and worth trying.. its only useful for cd playback though. If you can play cdr's on your system, consider writing them using some of the latest writing software which enables you to digitially enhance the audio tracks during recording. You can experiment by increasing some of the lower bass frequencies (carefully!) and see if improves playback. It wont transform the system, but if you try reducing some of the top mid-range end and boosting the lowest and top frequencies, you might end up with something better.
Another option if its bass your after is to plonk a subwoofer in the back of the car. You can easily remove it when you need the space, and some of them dont need separate amplifiers. A bass tube will give you a single resonating frequency bass whilst a box, usually bigger, will give a broader more natural bass. By reducing the bass on the existing speakers, you should be able to blend the enhanced low end of the sub quite easily. A few of the active units can even connect to head units without preamp outputs.
As for upgrading the existing speakers, how's the mid range, presence and top end? If its fine then keep them and go for the sub bass option. If they are poor in all areas, consider factory size replacements from a third party, unless you want to modify the enclosures.
How is the position of the speakers? Most modern cars now have separate tweeters and bass/mid range units mounted in the doors which add good presence. Although I have the factory speakers in my Omega GLS, I found that slightly increasing the rear door volume improved the soundstage and imaging quite strongly.
Another point worth thinking about is phase, as mentioned earlier. If one speaker is pushing and the other pulling, the movement of air will not be as great as if both work in unison. Saying this, the design of cars and speakers in doors means that often the speakers actually face each other, so not sure how this affects the bass! It depends I suppose how low in the doors they are, and the height of the transmission housing. If the speakers are high up, you will also lose some bass. Best place is to get them lower down.
Regards
Simon
SVPworld
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Just to add to Simons post, there are subwoofers available now that are designed to sit in the spare wheel or wheel cavity(if in the boot obviously), so they do not take up a great deal, if any, boot space.
Secondly, if you do install some bass-enhancing equipment it may be worth while to fit some in line filters to your other speakers to cut off the bass which makes them distort. Many top quality stereos have this feature built into them already but I have not seen it before on a factory fit headunit.
May be worth a look in any case,
HTH,
Mark.
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I really don`t know if the audio system is the same, but I`ve got a brand new Laguna 1.9dci on the drive outside, and the sound system in it is fine.
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