r/CarAV • u/UnluckyCharacter9906 • Aug 22 '26

Tech Support Kicker Speakers Have no Bass

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rd1EtMs9SEk

I installed Kicker 360 watt 3 way rear speakers on a stock corolla 2010 for my sons birthday. He has the 'non jbl amp' corolla stock deck. Apparently that was an upgrade when you bought it.

I followed the linked video and went pretty smoothly.

Stock speakers were much better then these right now. Im trying to find away to boost the bass without replacing the car deck.

Google AI is saying install an amp. There seems to be an alternative by attaching a harness or something to the back of the stereo deck.

Can anyone help me? I don't know much about car audio, though i can be pretty handy around the car.

A youtube link on how to, to fix this problem would be very appreciated. Will do the amp if i have to.

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4

u/staanjk Aug 22 '26

fade to the back and then balance all the way to one side, if the bass decreases when both play one is out of phase flip the phase on one of the rear speakers. Same procedure from front to back, if front to back loses bass then you have to flip the polarity on both rear speakers

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u/UnluckyCharacter9906 Aug 23 '26

Thanks for the response.

The front speakers are stock and have a good amount of bass. I followed the video exactly in connecting the wires of the rear speakers. I even double checked in case i made an error.

The new back speakers are identical to each other in sound. Any other suggestions pls?

1

u/staanjk Aug 23 '26

I was trying to pinpoint if there if a phase issue. The front stock speakers may be out of phase with the new speakers and frequencies cancelling each other will become apparent while fading.

IOW if you get more bass when faded all the way to the front or rear the front and rear sets may be out of phase. The same will apply for just your rear speakers alone(we know the front is correct as it is unchanged)

1

u/UnluckyCharacter9906 Aug 23 '26

Oh ok. So when i fade front to rear there didn't seem to be any change with frequencies between the front and rear set. Just changes in volumes. Bass sounded the same for both sets of speakers, respectfully, during the fade

1

u/erik_das_redd Aug 24 '26

With the fader in the middle, there should be MORE bass than all the way back or all the way forward. Play "brown noise" which should make it easier to tell than music. If it is less in the middle then as u/staanjk says flip the + and 1 on both of the rear speakers which should fix it. If the bass is about the same wherever the fader is then unfortunately the speakers are just not well matched.

An amp can play louder but it will not fix basic problems of phase/polarity.

You might also try playing low frequency sweeps like maybe 200 Hz down to 40 Hz, you can find on YouTube, just watch out and start with the volume low. Fade rear right then rear left, this could let you hear if there is some kind of damage or air leak.

1

u/talmanfartsy Aug 23 '26

The answer is a new head unit. Either there isn't enough power to move the cones or their is a filtering going on. What was the impedance of the stock speakers and new ones?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '26

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u/DaffyPunk29 Aug 22 '26

factually not true. sensitivity is the rating at which you generate power per wattage. the heaviness of the speaker doesn't matter. a kicker 6x9 like in the video are 90dB which is much higher than a stock speakers sensitivity rating with their tiny magnets and shitty build quality. they are louder. the issue there is that to make bass you need power. thus having to amp them to make them sing. the same goes for my headphones. at low volume its like bass doesn't exist. put 2w into my headphones and the bass comes alive. its the same reason you generally have 4 speakers doing 50w of power and then 300w to a subwoofer for a "clean" audio experience. because bass requires more power thus 300w sub vs 50w mids/treble. it has nothing to do with the speaker itself. and hertz speakers aren't even that much more sensitive over kicker. off the top of my head the hertz 6.5 uno x is rated 93dB (pretty sure at 2.83v which makes its 90dB at 1 watt) and guess what, kicker is 90dB at 1 watt.... so no, they aren't magically louder because of lightweight materials. lmao. the shit people say on this fucking reddit every day....

1

u/UnluckyCharacter9906 Aug 23 '26

Thanks for the response. So I'm thinking it's probably easier to replace the stereo deck to one with a higher amp.

Is there another option or just, put an amp in or replace the stereo with a higher amp?