Okay, so here is the background story. I just traded in my 2005 Chevy Cavalier, which I had installed a Pioneer DEH-P5200HD in it (http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/CD-Receivers/DEH-P5200HD). I used the factory speakers and everything sounded wonderful! When I had a JVC stereo put into it previously, everything sounded awful no matter how much I fine tuned the audio settings. I just purchased a 2012 Subaru Forester Limited model and to my surprise, it has one of those backing up cameras installed right into the stereo. I also had them install a subwoofer and tweeter as part of their accessory options to choose from. I was hoping to put my previous stereo into my new Forester, but I would greatly devalue the car because I would lose the ability to use that camera. Even with the tweeter and subwoofer, and no matter how much I fine tune the audio settings, it still just sounds...ok. I don't really know how to describe it....in some songs the treble is too high and tinny sounding, sometimes it's muffled, sometimes the bass is too high, in other songs it's too low (this is without changing the audio setting between songs). But overall, every song seems to lack cohesiveness....as if the bass is doing it's own thing and the treble is doing another and not really coming together into a song. My old stereo used to make me feel like I was completely enveloped in the music and everything was perfectly balanced. I told a friend about this and she recommended that I look into higher end speakers. However with my previous car, I used the factory speakers and only changing the stereo is what made the difference in terms of how nice everything sounded. So my question is, should I actually look into higher end speakers, or will that be a waste of money if my stereo is only going to put out a kind of crummy sound, no matter which speakers I install? I seriously know next to nothing about car audio, so please be kind in your responses.
Are you listening to different radio station v.s cd's? Reason I ask is some songs broadcasted use compression, which makes the music louder but reduces quality.Also cd will always sound different than a radio station.
Sorry I should have clarified...I pretty much exclusively listen to my ipod in the car. My old stereo has an ipod jack built into the face of it. My new car has an ipod jack built into the center console. Once I get a CD, I rip it right into iTunes so I can just put it on my ipod because I hate messing around with opening/closing the cases while I'm driving. I think I figured out why the volume levels keep changing. I turned the SVC "off" and that seems to have cleared it up. However the sound is still really crummy. It still lacks that "cohesiveness" that I described earlier and sounds overall kind of dampened and muffled. I bought some 3-way Pioneer speakers (a pair in the front and a pair for the back) last night and get them installed next week. But I'm still worried that the factory stereo is so crummy that no speakers will make things crystal clear.
I think my response got deleted? So if there's a double post I apologize. Sorry I should have clarified....I pretty much exclusively listen to my iPod in the car. My old Pioneer stereo in my Chevy had an iPod jack built into the face of it and my new car has a jack built into the center console. I hate messing with opening/closing CD cases while I'm driving, so once I get a CD I rip it into iTunes and put it on my iPod. I think I figured out why the volume keep changing. I turned the SVC into the "off" position and that seems to have fixed it. But the overall sound is still really crummy. It still lacks that "cohesiveness" that I described earlier. I made my boyfriend listen to it last night and he agreed that it sounded pretty terrible but couldn't really describe what exactly it was except how I kind of described it in my previous post. One thing he noted was that only certain frequencies in certain ranges seemed to be amplified inappropriately. For example, I had Subaru put in a subwoofer, and now it just sounds like the bass goes "thump thump" but you can't really tell what the bass melody actually is. The same goes for the treble and mid range. I bought two pairs of Pioneer 3-way speakers (TS-A1674R), one for the front and one for the back, last night. I get them installed next Thursday. But I'm still worried that my factory receiver might make everything sound terrible regardless of what kind of speakers I put in. And getting rid of the receiver isn't really an option since I'll lose the ability to use that stupid back up camera they installed into it and greatly devalue the car. What are your guys' thoughts?
