Guys,
I just finished installing my new setup. I've got nearly 50ft of rammat in the doors, tight as a drum, a pair of Deflex pads behind the speakers and a layer of pvc foam on the outside skin, but the mids sound like they're in a tunnel.

Mids are Image Dynamics CX62 (basically) and tweets Seas Prestige Alum. I'm running a JL 500/5 active with RCAs tapped off the Bose harness. There's brutal sibilance, but I can live with that until I get my eq, but the hollow sound I don't get. I broke in the mids for over 30 hours in the house and never heard the hollow, but in the doors it's brutal. Using a 3/4" MDF spacer to decouple, tight all around. Never had this effect before. Appreciate your thoughts and sorry for the long post.

 

how did you break them in? did you have then in an enclosure? have you tried tuing the amp/deck

 

I broke them in at 4ohm free air on my home stereo playing digital music stations. gave em a fair amount of juice as time went on. They seriously pound in the 80-500Hz range, but the vocals sound thin and echoed as well as strong sibilance on Sss and Tss. I've tried crossing them everywhere from 1.6-3.8khz, no change in tonality. I thought maybe it was a phasing thing, but I rechecked.

Thinking about pulling a Kappa Perfect out of the other car to test. Not a fun proposition, but my ideas are running thin.

 

Check the resistance on the tweeters. Because it sounds to me as though they're blown.

 

Only broke in the mids, didn't run the tweets until they were in the car. My receiver outputs 4 or 8 ohm selectable so no worries there. Tweets sound nice, real bright and airy. Bit hard to tame without an eq, but we'll fix that. The tweets are connected to the rear channel of the 500/5 bandpassed. Only 25w, but plenty power. I have a few other RCA cables laying around. I'll see if possibly it's the cables. They're multishielded, lots thicker than the twisted pair, but who knows.

 

Well, something odd is going on. Got in the car to drive to the store and everything was fantastic, underwater sound was gone. Not sure why, but wasn't complaining. Just got in the car a few min ago and when the pass door was opened, sound changed and wen't back to terrible. The connections are well-soldered in the doors, no chance of coming loose.

 

You didn't say what head unit you are running but I'll bet it's the original Blowse unit. My stock system has this same problem. I have to turn the volume up past 20 just once when I turn the car on and all that goes away. Don't know why, but I won't get full sound until I do that. Works every time, but it's a PITA.

 

Holy crap, you're a genius. I didn't have the car on, just acc to show the wife. I'm going to test it out myself and yes, BOSE hu with rca taps on the factory harness.

 

It's funny, I disconnected the battery once and it the problem went away for a couple of weeks then came back.

 

I wonder how pervasive the problem is. Do you have a grounding kit? I'll test the theory tomorrow morning.

 

I started a thread on this once a while back and several people chimed in about the same problem. I don't think most people have a "discerning" ear that can tell the difference, my wife can't.

 

Maybe mine is worse, but it's absolutely terrible when it occurs. Frustration had me just about at the edge. I wonder it there's a permanent solution besides dropping the bose, which is likely to happen for me someday.

 

Tsk Tsk tsk... Wasting such nice tweets on ID Mid Bass....

 

25 Watts? Sounds Low to me. I'm running a Zapco DC Reference 650.6 4 channels bridged sending 180 Watts each to my SEAS LOTUS Reference 6.5 & 100 Watts to each 1" tweeter.

 

Don't be hatin on the IDs. They're ID OEM mids, not exactly CX62. An evolution that didn't hit the mainstream. I doubted that 25w would be enough, but I trusted the pros and it's really quite good. It'll do until the amp gets replaced when I go 3-way fronts someday