Audio lack of bass with aftermarket sub

gatorcivic

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I recently installed a dual 10" ported sub in my car with the stock head unit and it sounds great. I used a passive line out converter to get the signal to rca cables. When playing through Bluetooth and my phone (Iphone Xs) is at max volume and the car is at a volume level of2 0 everything sounds amazing, plenty of bass. However if my phone is 70% volume and the car is at 30 the overall loudness is the same, but there is absolutely no bass at all. It is not a huge deal because I know to just keep my phone audio at 100% and everything is fine. Is this what people talk about when they say the car damps down the bass at higher levels to protect the speakers. Would an active LC2I solve this problem?
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Hajidub

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RCA out to what? You didn’t list an amp.
 

BrandonSmith

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the stock head unit reduces bass as you crank up the volume. The lower the head unit volume, the more bass you have. So keep the phone volume at max so your head unit volume can be lower. This is also a good reason to set your amp gains with the head unit volume at 75% of maximum (ie 30).
 

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Our stock head units have Bass Roll off so after a certain point the bass does not increase when the volume does, setting gains wont really help and yes an AudioControl LC2i with ACCUBASS will help.

Do you have the 7 inche touch screen? if so you can get hondahack and get android viper4android to get rid of the bass roll off
 

BrandonSmith

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Do you have the 7 inche touch screen? if so you can get hondahack and get android viper4android to get rid of the bass roll off
Note for anyone that cares: Does not work with CarPlay
 


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gatorcivic

gatorcivic

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Our stock head units have Bass Roll off so after a certain point the bass does not increase when the volume does, setting gains wont really help and yes an AudioControl LC2i with ACCUBASS will help.

Do you have the 7 inche touch screen? if so you can get hondahack and get android viper4android to get rid of the bass roll off
I have the stock 5" non-touch screen on the hatchback sport. Thanks for the replies everyone. I assumed it was something like a factory setting with a bass roll off but I just wanted to be sure there wasnt something wrong.
 

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If you mean this one... it's not a *bad* sounding unit. It's just weak. I had hoped to be able to keep it and all the steering wheel controls when I bought my LX. The factory speakers would max out before the HU. But when I upgraded the speakers; the radio was clipping before I got to my desired listening level. So I needed more power. I never noticed any kind of active curves or Honda Processor Shenanigans with this unit. But it's certainly possible, IMO, that the thing was clipping or it had reached its limit at higher volumes. Certainly the bass requires more power to push. Maybe that was what you noticed.

BTW... I was using USB sticks and CD-Rs; nothing over the air.

My advice would be to find out the upper limit of the head unit. In my experience; somewhere around 50%-70% is where it begins to drop off. I would expect any clipping or 'protection' to begin there. I believe it's a good measure to fade everything to the fronts and note the volume level where the factory amp begins to level off. That's your max. Going beyond that may cause attenuation and distortion in other areas.

Alternately... make sure your sub is getting enough juice. It would make sense that, as you send more signal to it, it requires more power. If it's just not available; the sub may begin to drop off.

Best of luck.

Honda Civic 10th gen Audio lack of bass with aftermarket sub radio.JPG
 

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Just use a multimeter to measure voltage at your sub and move the volume on the headunit up. If the voltage flattens out, you know the signal is dropping off. It's also a good way to know if you're near your peak for the sub. Use this table to know where your limit is:
Honda Civic 10th gen Audio lack of bass with aftermarket sub 1607953287849
 

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you will need an amp and sub if you want to us the audiocontrol lc2i
the lc2i is an active line out put converter it is not an amp and it cannot power anything
Will that work without an additional amp for the sub?
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