No bass and low volume on radio

[tkell]

The sound from my 2003 Vibe stereo has really deteriorated. No bass response and not much volume. Has a shrill sound to it. I have replaced the amp under the seat and the stereo with used units that were supposed to be good. Installed a secondary ground wire to the stereo, tried different speakers but they don’t sound any better. Cleaned plug connectors on the stereo, amplifier and speakers. Are there other connectors that could be bad? Anyone have other ideas?

[epcIII]

Have you tried the old HU with the new amp?

[tkell]

Thanks for the quick reply. I have tried the old and new radio with the new amp. The only combination I have not tried is the new radio with the old amp. So far, all results have been the same low quality sound with almost no sound out of the back even with fade set all the way to the back. I am done working on it tonight but I can try the new radio with the old amp tommorrow. Thanks for the suggestion.

[epcIII]

Hmmm... have you searched through the Audio, Electronics, Electrical ( http://forums.genvibe.com/zeroforum?id=7) threads? Someone else might have had the same problem.You might also want to read through this thread:http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=19021Good luck, wish I could be more helpful.

[tkell]

I have been searching and found several people have had a similar problem but no responses on how to correct it. Thanks for the tip on the 2 ohm speakers from the thread you suggested. I took one of the speakers out but some of the markings were unreadable so I did not know it was 2 ohm. I am sure I tested with a 6 or 8 ohm speaker so that may explain why my test speakers did not work. Perhaps my speakers are the problem. I found this thread http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=785 where a person upgraded speakers so I will see if I can find out what he used. Not sure if he kept the same HU or not. Thanks for your suggetions.

[markdb]

what was your solution to this problem? I have same issues

[keithvibe]

usually what happens with aftermarket radios is that the amp turn on wire/or power ant wire from the aftermarket HU usually isn't enough to turn the factory amp on for very long and usually will burn out something on the inside of the radio causing the low/no bass issue you are seeing. You will need to add in a relay to help boost the power to the amp so that you don't burn out the new aftermarket HU

[blacklab]

I am having the same exact problem with my wife's vibe. It's an '03 with the amplifier under the passenger seat, and every component is factory original. Recently it has no bass, and it sounds like its coming from a pair of 80's walk man headphones cranked all the way up. I've checked what i think are the ground, power, and remote on the amplifier itself, and all seem to be good. Is it possible that the amplifier is bad? Would prefer not to put aftermarket radio/amp/speakers in it or spend a lot of money, as we are going to give it to her father soon. Any thoughts?MP

[tkell]

Unfornately, I have not found a solution other than taking it to an audio shop and having them tear it apart. I have to believe it is something in the wiring. I have changed HU, amp and speakers and added a ground to the HU and nothing has helped. I don't know how to trouble-shoot the wiring and I don't want to tear the car apart looking for a bad wire or connection.I hope someone finds a solution. Looks like there are many of us out there with the same issue.

[blacklab]

I think that I may have fixed my problem with the low volume and no bass and I was also having a problem with the sound completely cutting out at times....This is probably not the correct way to do this, but it seemed to work. I had noticed the one of the pins on the amplifier under the seat was discolored due to arching. I SLIGHTLY bent all the pins to make better contact with the harness. On the shorter wide harness I bent the top pins down and the bottom pins up. On the longer narrower harness I bent the contacts inside the harness closer to the pins. I also got one speaker that wasn't working back too. Like i said I don't know if this would be the fix for every one, and its probably not even proper but it worked for me.MP

[mkarps]

No bass in back here but fronts have normal full range sound.