first off please understand that i have no knowledge whatsoever about car audio. i recently purchased and had installed 4 alpine sps600 6 1/2" speakers and a kenwood kdc-mps438u head unit in my car. they were cheap so i figured what the hell. the kenwood receiver has a 22W rms output and a 50W peak output and the alpine speakers have a 2-80W rms power range and 240W peak power handling. again i have no idea what that info means but a friend of mine suggested i include it in the post. also i didnt know it at the time of the install but the car had a original to the car subwoofer which is still installed. at mid volumes the stereo system sounds fine when playing a cd or listening to the radio but if i raise the volume too much there is a great deal of distortion and the sound is horrible. my question is, do i need an amplifier and a new subwoofer? will that help with the horrible distortion. and if i do need either items do i need top of the line stuff or will budget subs or amps do the job? thnx for your responses.
You need a better than midway stereo. You probably have near the bottom of the line. Once you get the stereo installed you can descide if you want a better sub woffer. Your friend was correct the more information you can provide the better. However, it was not necessary in this case. Your amp will distort and eventually die by playing it too loud. It may also break your speakers because heavy distortion breaks everything. Yes, you need a more powerful stereo to power your less efficent speakers. They need more power than your old crappy speakers. You will need somthing at LEAST twice as big (50W rms). While you are at it get one that plays HD radio and has a MP3 CD player with text display. That will allow you to hear what you were hoping to hear. It is no good to have good speakers then have a player that will not deliver quality. Standard issue car sterios often really suck. Mine did. When I swapped out my sterio I couldn't believe what I was missing. In fact you might think you died and went to heaven! If you have an mp3 player make sure your player will support your mp3 player. At that quality level, they usually do not put mp3 CD players in garbage, they all support external devices and are usually at least 50 W RMS. Some use an aux port others use a direct connection. If you do not have an MP3 player or are planning to change brands, go with the Aux port. That will support anything. With mp3 CD players, ipod support is not a huge deal. Still they are handy. That way you can hear your friens's music of that mp3 device. Mp3 CDs hold about 10 hrs of music. Once you figure out how to use that feature that is about all you will play. It displays what is playing for mp3 CDs, HD radio and mp3 devices with a direct connect. Direct connect is better because you get the text and can control the mp3 player from the CD player but is more of a pain in the ass to install and it is another device you need to pay for. I never installed mine since the CD function is so wonderful. I am in my car about 10 hrs a week. I can put a disk in put it on random play and I hear very few repetes in a week. When I hear too many I swap out CDs. The CD holds .7 G of tunes so a few contain as many tunes as a modest mp3 player. I have about 30 CDs in the car, so I have more tunes than a filled 20 G ipod. I don't have to play the same CD but about twice a year. I am always hearing fresh music. What is cheap? I have a good player but still have crappy speakers. I have been needing new speakers but do not want to spend a great deal of money. My old CD player died so I was forced into buying a new one. I can hear a quality difference with my garbage speakers but I really what to experiance the full quality of the good system.
First, What make, model of car? Did it have a 'premium' sound system in it factory? Most cars that have a factory sub has a "amp" (I use that term loosely in a factory system) Who did the install? They might not of by-passed the amp or feed it with the proper converter. A amp will give you better sound by delivering 'true' wattage, I googled that model number for Kenwood, best I could come up with was KDC-MP438U, I think the s was a typo, it is a middle of the road piece. Plays MP3, WMA and AAC. It should serve for what you need, it has USB (for a I-pod with a Kenwood cable) and 3 sets of rca outs. but I would look at the install. When someone complains of what you describe that's the first thing I look for. Also what do you consider loud? Are you trying to play bass through speakers not designed for it? **Been installing professionally for 15 years and a 5 time winner of IASCA pro & expert classes**
I concur with our car sterio expert. I did not realize you had just bought a new player. I did not understand what you ment by a head unit. We sometimes have wacky car stereo probelems in the forum and could use an expert. This is mostly a software forum or at least that is where the expertise is. We had a guy that did his own electrical work to fix a window problem but his work was so shoddy he could not hear his stereo because of the arcing. He did not want to take it to a qualified person. I wonder if his car has burned up yet.
