legacycentral bbs

I upgraded to an aftermarket cd player and dual 10in subs and amp in my 92 legacy sport. The issue i am having is that the stock speakers seem to cut out at moderate volume when bass hits even with the bass turned all the way down. Are they just that bad of speakers or are there in line bass blockers installed stock in these cars?

"Bass blockers" only block the low frequency below some pre-determined frequency depending on the "bass blockers" themselves. They would not affect the overall sound output or volume from the speakers. It sounds like a bad ground to the deck to me. What brand is it? Do you have a good chassis ground going from the battery? It shouldn't matter, but where is the amp grounded and how?

The headunit is wired thru the factory wiring and the amp is grounded to the chassis in the trunk. The subs do not cut out when hard bass hits, just the factory speakers

When you get a big bass hit, it lowers your voltage for a moment. Your speakers dont have enough power right after. You're going to kill your charging system if you keep running that, I did it to my legacy when I first got it.

You need a better alternator, a better battery, and possibly a capacitor on your amp.

Once you do all that Splinter listed, you might just put a couple of capacitors inline on the front stock speakers, or they'll be toasted as well from the bass. Let your sub handle the bass.

The altenator is a 90amp, the battery is less than 1 1/2 yrs old and i have done the big 3 conversion as well

I went to a 160 amp alternator.

90 amps is nothing. Your car will draw 50-70 odd amps, a 500 watt stereo will draw 40-50 amps.

but my issue is, i dont have it turned up that high. Bass turned all the way down for the front speakers. The amp is only a 450watt max, 100 watt x2 rms. I had this setup in my old Bmw with a 70amp altenator with no issue. I was planning on upgrading my stock 6.5 speakers all the way around, just was curious if they put anything inline that would cause that so i would know if i would need to rewire

No, its a wire with a couple connectors in it from the stereo to the speakers.

no electronics

How are you running signal to your amp? RCA's or a LOC (Line output converter) off your speakers? Does it cut out when you disconnect power to the sub amp? Perhaps your speaker wiring is messed up. A short somewhere or too low impedence on the internal deck amp?

Use a multimeter to monitor your system voltage when your hitting bass. Determine how much of a voltage drop your actually getting. I would think the sub amp would cut out before your deck if it was a voltage drop issue. I ran a JBL1200.1 1x1200w RMS and a 4x175w RMS amps on my old integra w/ <80amp stock alt for nearly two years with only minor light dimming/voltage drop issues to be expected with that much power draw. Never had problems with the alt, put out 14.4v when i sold it.
Personaly i feel caps are a waste of money unless you already have upgraded your alt and wirring and your running crazy power.

The amp is run off rca. I have no light diming when bass hits. I have turned the pass filter on the amp so i am getting full range sound thru my subs and they do not cut out with hard bass, bu my other speakers do. I think i am going to just break down and rewire my whole stereo system and stop using the factory wiring.

Could be that your factory speakers are so shot that when the bass hits the vibration is actually making the speaker dead short for a moment. How do the surrounds look on them? could be that they are bad.

I'd lean towards what Mike says.

Our electrical systems are not as weak as everyone makes them out to be.

I dont find mine to be weak at all. I did the Big Three upgrade and now have no issues with light dimming and my car starts up smoother

Legacy777 wrote:I'd lean towards what Mike says.

Our electrical systems are not as weak as everyone makes them out to be.

Well my relatively meagar stereo system killed off an almost new battery and subsequently my alternator.

What is the Big Three upgrade?

Use 4awg or larger in line with OE wires:

Alt+ to Bat+ (w/ fuse i hope)
Block to Bat
Chassis to Bat
and some do the Bat to starter (w/ fuse obviously)

Splinter wrote:

Legacy777 wrote:I'd lean towards what Mike says.

Our electrical systems are not as weak as everyone makes them out to be.

Well my relatively meagar stereo system killed off an almost new battery and subsequently my alternator.

Define meager, and how you had everything wired up.

I ran a pretty decent system on stock alternator and normal battery for several years before upgrading to a yellow top....and then it was another several years before upgrading the alternator.

The chances are your alternator was on the downward slope of its life, and the stereo system accelerated its demise.

I've never had to upgrade an alternator in my life on any car. I had in my 1987 gl wagon display car from my business 3 soundstream refference 500 amps. each putting out 500 watts and they were actually loaded down to 1ohm to do so. I just had to use a second battery and two 1farrad caps. We are talking about a 1500 watts system drawing 150 amps pottentially running on a 65 (I think) amp alt. What I'm saying here folks is that on a stereo system that large you use the second batt to add life support to the cars battery and the caps are the crucial element that absorb the heavy bass (ie heavy draw) moments.

Anyway, like I said before this has nothing to do with this guys current problem. (no pun intended).