i bought and recently installed new infinity kappas (in my sig). Heres a product link: http://www.sounddomain.com/sku/INFKAPPA4625CFP

I was playing a song and it came to a loud part, i had the volume up kinda loud, but not anywhere close to max, and it overloaded the front speakers, they made crackling sound and distorting sound majorly that it hurt to hear it. How is it possible that with my headunit alone which is rated at 52x4 watts max, that i overlaoded my 4x6s which has a RMS of 60watts and 180watts max? Did i get a crappy batch of speakers? or have they not had enough time to "break-in"? I was hoping that i could amp these in the future....

please help.....i spent a pretty penny for the speakers


(and if it helps, the song was "Until the day i die" by Story of the Year)

Normally I don't respond to threads with nondescript titles, but since this is an electrical engineering question, I'll grace this one with an answer.

That crackling and distortion that you hear is not a function of the speakers being overloaded, but rather, your amplifier being overloaded. Most head units claim somewhat optimistic power ratings, and usually it'* tough to believe true output of more 20 watts out of a head unit'* amplifiers. There just simply isn't enough space to house the power electronics or provide the cooling needed to accommodate more powerful amplifiers in a little head unit (and then shove a tuner and CD player in there with the mix).

Sound power as a function of electrical power is logarithmic. That is, to double the volume (this translates to a 3dB increase in SPL), you need ten times the amount of electrical power to drive the amplifier. Thus, let'* assume your head unit'* rating is actually accurate (which seems a bit on the high side to me, but let'* just go with it for now), and you're playing the song kinda loud, using up all 52 watts to get clean sound. Then along comes this louder passage that, say, is twice as loud as the previous part of the song. In order to produce that amount of volume, the amplifier needs to drive 520 watts. Considering the amount dynamic range in music, that louder passage could be more than just twice as loud - it could be three or four times louder than the rest of the song (thus translating to 5200 and 52,000 watts if you were listening to the "quietest" passages with all 52 watts of power - obviously impractical). Since your speakers are so small, they could be receiving a lot of bass from the music that they cannot reproduce, thus you're not only sapping a lot of juice from your head unit (that you can't hear, and hence don't think is playing very loud), you could also be driving the small cone into distortion since it wasn't meant to play deep bass.

So the short answer is: go ahead and get those amps - your speakers actually could use them. Also take note that driving your current head unit into distortion (underpowering the speakers) is just as bad, or worse, than driving them too loud. Good luck, and next time, do us a favor and write a more descriptive title, k?

Thanks for the response, your explanation makes sense.


and sorry about the post title, i was mad and in a haste...I'll work on that

also try turning ur treble and bass down a little, that might help

what kind of cd player are you using? I know that with Some of the higher end Pioneers (and maybe other units I"m not sure) they allow you to reduce bass on the front speakers and reserve them for mid and highs, while sending the bass/lows to the rear speakers... It not only saves your front speakers but also gives you much better sound.

Too much bass, the amp is clipping because you're underpowering them. Also the speaker mounts/doors aren't the best mounting surface (IE not rigid).

Im using the Clarion DXZ 835MP, ill look in my manual to see what i can find about reducing the bass up front. It does say it has "Built-in Low Pass Crossovers (off/50Hz/80Hz/120Hz)" what ever that means...?

And yes i agree the speakers are not rigidly attached to the car like they should be.

Low pass or high pass filter? If it'* low pass, it'* for the subwoofer output, and sends only signals lower then that frequency out. If it'* high pass, it'll be on the speaker line levels, and send out only higher then the cutoff (Highpass= highs pass thru)

Definately only a low pass only, my freind and i looked at the stat sheet online for it and no other filter....this headunit is turning out to be more dissappointing as time goes on.

Just on general principals, should i build some custom brackets (i have a selection rigid metal to choose from) so that its rigidly attaced to the metal rear deck of the car? Would that help with sound? or bring some unwanted rattles?

Thanks in advance.

I find that the subs are making my rear speakers sound horrid. They're pushing air into the speakers badly. I plan on purchasing some of these baffles here....

http://www.crutchfield.com/*-907wIWf...&avf=N&search=

I'm planning on installing them in the rear for now, and i plan to make an "exoskeleton" or something. So they create a sealed box for the 6x9'*.

For stock speakers would 3-3/4" deep ones be better then the 5" ones? Anyone think there'* enough room for 5"?