2006 lancer sportback (ls),

The stock system actually sounded alright, and it had enough bass for me, but I wanted a better deck with mp3, ipod etc.

So I ended up being convinced that if I replaced the deck, I might as well replace the 4 stock speakers as well, I figured what the hell, and went for it, even getting an amp on top of it all.

So, the speakers are infinity reference 6012i. With a Pioneer "premier" deck and a Pioneer Amp. The guy who installed it had a hell of a time getting the back speakers changed, took the entire interior apart to get in there.

When I got in and turned it on, it sounded crystal clear, but there was absolutely ZERO bass, way less than what the stock system originally had. I turned on the "loudness" function, and got decent bass from doing that, but as soon as I did that, one of the rear speakers started buzzing like crazy because the increased depth of it meant that the speaker was touching the plastic grill of the interior panel.

So then guy who installed it said that you should never use the "loudness" function because it "only adds distortion". He said that for the same reason I should not use the "Bass Booster" function. As long as I don't use either of those functions and don't turn the bass up, the speaker in the back doesn't seem to rattle against the grill. But now there is seriously no bass at all, you can't even hear the bass line in a lot of the songs.

The installer said that the only way for me to get bass is to add another amp and a subwoofer, he said that aftermarket speakers are designed with that in mind. I kind of suspect that he just wanted to avoid getting back into those rear speakers because of the amount of work it was to get at them....

I would have expected that aftermarket speakers and an amp should at the very least be able to give me as much bass as the stock system had? Is this wrong? It kind of seems like now I have to set up the deck settings to produce no bass just to avoid the speaker rattle in the back.

Should I just accept that the only way to hear a bass line in a song is to install another amp and a sub, or should I look for a different speaker for the back that isn't as deep, so that I can use all the functions of the deck, such as bass boost or loudness.

Is it right that an amp and aftermarket speakers should end up being able to give me way less bass than the stock system did?

 

First off, the dude who did your install is full of poop. Loud option and bass boost can ALWAYS be used, and whenever I do an install, the LOUD option is the first thing that I turn on. There is some truth to his statment that aftermarket speakers perform best when coupled with a subwoofer, but there should be at least as much if not more bottom end, especially with those Infinities, as what you had with your stock speakers. Check to see if he turned on your High Pass Filter on the deck and on the amp. If he did, turn that off and that should get you a little more bottom end. HPF's aren't really used unless you're running a sub, in which case it cuts out all the low end frequencies to the door and deck speakers and lets the sub handle them. Your installer is a moron if he thinks that speaker depth is what's causing the cone surround to hit the speaker cover. It's CONE EXCURSION, that causes that. Depth is only concerned with the size of the magnet, spyder, voice coil, etc (basically everything underneath the mounting surface) and is only used when looking at mounting area (i.e. mounting depth in a door, deck, whatever). And if the cone is flexing that far, there's a crap load of power going to it and the amp needs to be turned down a bit.