[thejoninator12]

I don't know if I'd call them crummy filter settings. I think that the EQ that Harman set is really quite nice. I guess let me start by saying I'm no "car audio" pro but I would say that I have a good idea of what music is supposed to sound like. Growing up, my dad was in a band playing guitar and singing. I started playing instruments is middle school band, played drums in my high school marching band, and then helped teach the year after I graduated and have been playing drums in a local blues band ever since high school (15 years). So music has always been a big part of my life. Unfortunately whenever I hear music, I immediately hear stuff that's incorrect.

So for this car I found that the sub bass wasn't high enough, mid bass was good, mid range was good, and the highs at a regular volume (about half to three quarters up) we're ok. But when the volume was turned up almost all the way, which is where I like to listen to it, on the interstate with the windows rolled down, the highs were very harsh and starting to distort. Someone I've learned a lot from, and who I consider a car audio guru, Dean Beyett of 5star car stereo said, most premium factory audio systems (HK, Bose, Etc) are still lacking in the high highs and the low lows. So that's where I started.

I installed a sub first. I used the technic PNP harness and am using a Rockford p300-10 all in one sub and amp. It filled in the low end perfectly. I turned it up slightly under where I wanted it, and then turned the bass up on the stereo. That way it got the sub bass up where I wanted it and mid bass from the under seat speakers up to match and help it blend. It's not delayed with the factory time alignment which bothers me but there's no way around that.

Then I tried the tweeters. Which if you've never heard Morel higher end speakers with some real power you're missing out. They're quite exceptional and very natural sounding. The factory amp is sending a signal with a high pass filter of probably around 200ish hertz and up to the midrange, (I didn't break out the RTA) and then the tweeter taps off the midrange with a capacitor wired in to filter out the rest of the mid range in the signal. So I imagined the tweeter speaker itself had more to do with the quality of sound at those frequencies than the amp.

After replacing them I found what I thought was pretty spot on. The volume of the tweeter is lower for sure. The morel tweeters are much less efficient, meaning it takes more power to get the same level of volume out of them as the HK. But once I turned the treble up on the stereo they really came alive. The volume is there just like the HK's but it's not harsh and distorted at high volume, I'm talking 3 clicks from max. They're very smooth and natural sounding. The other 3 tweeters (1 dash and 2 rear deck) are the same metal ones but they're not on axis with your ears like the door pod ones. I don't imagine they have the same harsh effect since their bouncing around and dying down before they hit your ear.

I think this is the reason you have company's like Bavsound and Audiotec Fischer or Match making speaker replacements claiming it will make a huge difference. Basically every premium system still has pretty shit speakers. Their goal is to make a product of speakers and an amp that work together to make better sound than the base sound system that the majority of people will find pleasing, and make it as cheap as they possibly can.

So in my opinion, a few tweaks can make a dramatic difference and I feel what I did drastically changed the sound for the better.