scratchy speakers

so i have these brand new speakers that weren't cheap either and i installed them and they're all scratchy. i checked the connections and made sure everything was tight. what makes a speaker scratchy/static-y?? i installed them myself (maybe that's what the problem is :banghead:)

so i have these brand new speakers that weren't cheap either and i installed them and they're all scratchy. i checked the connections and made sure everything was tight. what makes a speaker scratchy/static-y?? i installed them myself (maybe that's what the problem is :banghead:)


do you have an amp powering them?

nope

nope

are they only scratchy when you have the car on? or when you are drving?

so far i've only tested them while parked.

so far i've only tested them while parked.


If they are scratchy while you're parked and you have checked all the speaker connections, I would try the actual harness itself. See if the wires are ok there. Also, the ground to the CD player itself, and if you are using the factory ground wire, make your own to the chassis somewhere. And if that doesn't work, check the actual ground wire going in to the harness, my friend had the same thing happening and the ground wire in the harness itself was really loose and crappy.

And if that doesn't work, try putting your car in reverse, drive down the street for about 10 minuets, find the nearest cliff, lake, or pole, and have at it.

the ground wire. i'll check that tomorrow when there's daylight. thanks!

if that doesnt work, the lake is only a couple blocks away!

Take one of your scratchy speakers out and power it up with a source other than your car. If it still sounds scratchy, the speaker is blown or damaged. Are they new, used, display models? How did your factory speakers sound before putting the new ones in?

the factory speakers sucked but they weren't scratchy, they mainly just sounded sorta like they were underwater and far away...

these are brand spanking new alpine speakers. i'd have to go look at exactly what kind they are but i got them from car toys. i thought alpine was supposed to be a good brand. how much are *decent* speakers anyway?

i got coax 6.5 alpine R's for my rears last year for 229.99 canadian, retail was 299.99. those speakers kick ass.

my fronts are older coax 6.5 alpine S's, not exactly sure what year they are, but they are cheaper than the R's and were improved last year, so they sound really good too.

im a big fan of alpine. quality stuff. theres no way that they would sound bad if they arent blown.

i just picked up a 12" sub last night too (that thing pounds like a mofo). i wouldnt keep going with that brand if it was "scratchy" sounding!

how much did you pay for yours?

i thought they were good! i paid about $180 for mine on sale so, i'm gonna have to figure out what's wrong with them...

yea, i'd take em back to the place if you cant get em figured out. no sense in ruining some innocent alpine audio when you drive your car into the lake :naughty:

push on the cone and see if u hear any scratching, if u do, there blown

Is your radio the problem?

Alpines are good... even bottom of the line. I have 2 6.5" two-way Alpines up front and sometimes in heavy rain, water drips through the door grills on to them and they still sound great with thin ass wires connected by tape. I bet either your stereo is the culprit or the ground like quiXilver said... GL

make sure the WIRES are intight inside the connectors as if they are lose it will "crackle"

I've been waiting for someone to suggest this, but no one has yet, so I will. I'm willing to bet that if you ran new speaker wires from the cd player to the speakers it would solve your problem.

When I installed the system in my Civic I ran all new speaker wires to all of the various speakers just to be on the safe side. Yeah it's a pain in the ass, but the results are worth it.

i had no problems with mine, i just hooked up the wires that came with the speakers to the stock ones. i dont really feel like tearing apart my panels to change up the wires. do you think getting some new wires would improve the sound quality enough that it would be noticeable?

im going to be having one of my friends do the wiring for my sub and amp in a month or two, so i was thinking of possibly changing them then.. but only if its actually gonna make a difference.

The way I see it, there's two ways to do anything; the right way, and the get-me-by way.

You also have to kinda look to the future. I mean, I run all my speakers in the car off of my amps. No speakers are being powered strictly from the cd player. If you plan on running amps sometime in the future, it's that much easier to run the speaker wires now.

And yes, there will be an improvement in sound - you may or may not notice it. Honestly, how much sense does it make to spend a bunch of $$$ on a nice cd player and nice speakers, only to use 14 year old speaker wires to connect everything?

It really doesn't make much difference off of the CD player... off an amplifier, now, that's a different story...

89si, why do you have to wait to wire in a sub and amp? That is probably the easiest kind of electrical wiring to do. Positive wire from amplifier to battery with a fuse holder close to the battery. Negative wire from amplifier to the chassis via bolt and washer). Remote wire from amplifier to power antennae wire of head unit. RCA/low jacks from low output of head unit to low input on amplifier. Speaker wire from output of amplifier to sub. Done.