Funky tweeter issue?

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Let me start by saying I am not a car audio guy. I have a very conventional looking Kenwood head unit that I only installed for its iPod/ iPhone capabilities. Its about 5 years old and isn't Bluetooth.

I have been listening to more streamed music lately (with the Apple sync cable) my dash tweeters sound horrible. They have a slight pop every once in a while. I only have the issue if I am streaming music though.. The radio or CD's don't cause any issues. I don't listen to anything loud either and the bass isn't turned up.

Is it the tweeters (or perhaps speakers) or the streamed music?
Is it bad on the tweeters to allow the to occasionally "pop" while listening to streamed music?
 
It's the audio source, streamed music is usually heavily compressed to save on data usage and eliminate buffering stops. My guess is during decompression your iphone is having a hiccup converting the output which is causing the pop.
 
It might be because of the radio. The stock radio is designed to push certain frequencies from music to different speakers. For example, it's going to push high notes to the tweeters and low notes to the door speakers. It's not going to send bass to the tweeters. When you installed an aftermarket radio, it's wired to send bass, mids, and treble to all speakers, even tweeters. This likely blew the tweeters.

I had the same thing in my car, aftermarket stereo and it sounded terrible. I put the original one back in and it sounded amazing (until I blew the door speakers lol). With my car (I've got VW's Monsoon Stereo System) it sends the voice and high notes to the 2 speakers on the dash and 2 tweeters. It sends only bass and almost no voice at all to the door speakers and the rear speakers get a mix of voice and bass.

Now I need to buy 2-$165 speakers for the doors.
 
It's the crossover network that divides the bass,midrange,and treble to the low,mid,and high frequency drivers. You might need to put a crossover behind your tweeters (unless they're piezo drivers which don't require one).
 
You could try loading some of the songs that are on your phone to a flash drive in mp3 format and see if the problem persists. If mp3 sounds ok then it could either be an incompatibility problem between the phone and radio or it might be the music function of the phone needs to be updated. Aftermarket decks nowadays are very compatible with most all storage devices. Since the Kenwood is 5 years old now you might get a lot better sound with a newer deck that has better streaming audio. It should not hurt the teeeter to pop or crackle once in a while but if the problem happens a lot it could damage the inline capacitor crossover for the tweeter.
 
Originally Posted By: ironman_gq
It's the audio source, streamed music is usually heavily compressed to save on data usage and eliminate buffering stops. My guess is during decompression your iphone is having a hiccup converting the output which is causing the pop.


word.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
It might be because of the radio. The stock radio is designed to push certain frequencies from music to different speakers. For example, it's going to push high notes to the tweeters and low notes to the door speakers. It's not going to send bass to the tweeters. When you installed an aftermarket radio, it's wired to send bass, mids, and treble to all speakers, even tweeters. This likely blew the tweeters.

I had the same thing in my car, aftermarket stereo and it sounded terrible. I put the original one back in and it sounded amazing (until I blew the door speakers lol). With my car (I've got VW's Monsoon Stereo System) it sends the voice and high notes to the 2 speakers on the dash and 2 tweeters. It sends only bass and almost no voice at all to the door speakers and the rear speakers get a mix of voice and bass.

Now I need to buy 2-$165 speakers for the doors.
So there are no highs in the material the tweeters do OK with?
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: HerrStig
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
It might be because of the radio. The stock radio is designed to push certain frequencies from music to different speakers. For example, it's going to push high notes to the tweeters and low notes to the door speakers. It's not going to send bass to the tweeters. When you installed an aftermarket radio, it's wired to send bass, mids, and treble to all speakers, even tweeters. This likely blew the tweeters.

I had the same thing in my car, aftermarket stereo and it sounded terrible. I put the original one back in and it sounded amazing (until I blew the door speakers lol). With my car (I've got VW's Monsoon Stereo System) it sends the voice and high notes to the 2 speakers on the dash and 2 tweeters. It sends only bass and almost no voice at all to the door speakers and the rear speakers get a mix of voice and bass.

Now I need to buy 2-$165 speakers for the doors.
So there are no highs in the material the tweeters do OK with?
What?
 
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
It's the crossover network that divides the bass,midrange,and treble to the low,mid,and high frequency drivers. You might need to put a crossover behind your tweeters (unless they're piezo drivers which don't require one).


Or bass blockers
 
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