How to increase speaker bass?

After building and installing a car audio system, you turn it on for the first time. The subwoofer bass performance doesn’t impress you either. You don’t know how to increase speaker bass. It lacks mid-bass. Unfortunately, our speakers don’t provide us with as much punch as we expect. When you’re in this position, it’s not a good feeling.

In this article, we’re going to talk about some mistakes that often lead to poor bass performance. Also, we will also provide you with some bonus tips on how to add more bass once you have made sure that none of those mistakes has been committed.

Installing a car audio system correctly will allow us to really feel the music, not just listen to it. 

Issues with wiring:

We need to pay special attention when we finish our installation. Making the connection between the wires and the actual speakers. In this case, it is important to double-check and make sure that similar speakers have the same polarity.

Bass Problem for Terminal Wiring

Therefore, we will have our 6.5-inch speakers in front providing our mid-bass. Those two 6.5-inch speakers will need positive and negative wires attached to the positive and negative terminals, respectively.

The same applies to our subwoofers. When we have multiple subwoofers, we need to ensure that they are also wired correctly. When you have one speaker that goes out and the other one comes in the speakers, then this happens.

Solve Polarity Wiring to increase speaker bass:

As they will not be compressing air and building upon it, they are not going to produce acoustic energy. You may have poor bass performance even though you know for sure that you have connected the right wires to the speakers’ terminals. Another thing you have to ensure is that wherever the signal comes from is also polarized correctly.

You installed a line output converter and connected it to the rear speakers of the vehicle. If you were to use a line output converter, you would want to make sure that the positive wires went to the positive leads rather than the reverse. A polarity problem could arise otherwise. 

Factory wiring problem:

Consider checking the speaker terminals. You’ve checked your wiring on something like a line output converter and you know they’re correct. And you know it’s correct. There’s still, one more thing that could be wrong the speaker may be wired incorrectly from the factory.

Apparently, this happens quite often when the ground and positive terminals on the speakers are simply labeled incorrectly. So ultimately the best way to really check polarity you can use a polarity test tool. Simply hold the device close to your speakers and it will fire off a series of pulses.

What you can do is you can use this little device to check all your different speakers and make sure that they are all wired correctly. 

A common example setup that we can use for a car audio system is something, where we had a subwoofer playing frequencies. Let’s say 20Hz all the way up to 80Hz. And then from 80Hz, we hand it off to a 6.5-inch component. Issues with phase can arise in that handoff transition. From the subwoofer to the speaker. This is because the subwoofer and the speaker will be located in different locations within your vehicle.

Both the subwoofer and the speaker are playing 80Hz. Our goal is to be at a listening position. Those waves work together, not that they work against each other. And when we cancel each other out so there are a couple of quick solutions to see.

Phase Issues:

If you’re having phase issues one of the first and easiest solutions is to actually flip the polarity on the subwoofer. Or on your speakers generally. It’s going to be easier to just flip it on the subwoofer. Because a lot of subwoofer amplifiers have what they call a phase switch. Where you can flip it 180 degrees out of phase.

Having every wired in the correct polarity but it’s only important for speakers. In other words, the subwoofer and the speakers don’t necessarily have to be wired in the same polarity. It’s okay to have them in different polarities. Because it might help correct your phase issues.

When you switch the subwoofer 180 degrees out of phase it might correct the issues. That you’re experiencing with lack of the base.

Move the Subwoofer to increase the speaker bass

Before you permanently install a subwoofer, you can move it around the vehicle. You need to test phase cancellation in order to be sure there are no issues. The best solution is to use a digital signal processor that can delay the front speakers.

So that the sound is closest to you at the subwoofer. When that finally arrives you can delay the front speakers. Deliver that sound from them at the same time. This functionality of a digital signal processor is called time alignment. And ultimately it’s going to be the best solution for you.

But a DSP can be expensive so it might be easier to try flipping the polarity on the subwoofer. Or moving the subwoofer box around.

Subwoofer enclosure type and construction:

Along with the installation of speakers in your car, you also get a sealed subwoofer box. The bass isn’t quite as satisfying as you’d like. In terms of another type of subwoofer box, a ported subwoofer box will usually have more output. However, it’s important to keep in mind that every subwoofer has its own set of characteristics.

As a result, it will respond and play music differently. Two different 10-inch subwoofers get placed in a ported subwoofer that’s one cubic foot and tuned to 32Hz.

Frequency Response Rate:

Each of these two subwoofers will have a different sound. Because of this, we should consider the frequency response of the subwoofer before we build and install our subwoofer box. In addition, considering the volume is very important for our base performance.

It is required for a subwoofer. You should not install a large subwoofer in a space that is far too small for it. In that case, the subwoofer will not perform to its full potential.

Also Read: Best car speakers for bass

Subwoofer not Sealed well:

I always see problems with subwoofer boxes that aren’t well sealed. In the case of ported subwoofer enclosures as well, air should be able to come into and out of them only through pores. When it’s a sealed box, it shouldn’t be possible to get into or out of it at all.

During the construction phase, it’s crucial to make sure. You cut everything very straight and accurately. In the event that they are not, you will want to use plenty of caulk to seal up the box as you build it. Corners on all sides.

Properly Braced:

You need to make sure that your box is braced properly. Imagine you have a very powerful subwoofer in a box that is easily compressible and flexible. In that case, all that acoustic energy will be wasted. Therefore, you’re losing out on output to alleviate this problem. Having braces is a good idea.

Save Acoustic Energy:

Another important thing to verify is more on the installation side of subwoofer boxes. They need to be completely secured within the vehicle. By securely mounting the box to the vehicle, the box becomes more durable. Moreover, it makes sure that you do not lose any of that acoustic energy. Thus, more output will be generated. It is important that we also consider our installation now that you can get good mid-bass.

Add Foam Rings for bass

Foam rings are also a nice addition. The rings help to bridge the gap so that all sounds are directed through the hole within your door panel. That’s important if the sound bounces around inside the door panel. This can actually cancel out a lot of your mid-bass performance.

Poor system design:

When we select all the different components for our car audio, it is extremely important that we match each component properly. Your amplifier’s output power and watts RMS should closely match that of the subwoofer that you’re buying. The subwoofer we’re using is super beefy and strong. You won’t be able to drive that subwoofer to its full potential if you’re only using a moderately powered amp.

It’s actually going to be difficult to move this big beefy subwoofer with the amplifier. Due to this, your subwoofer is going to provide less performance than if it were matched.

An amplifier has much more powerful than what the subwoofer can handle. Although, you’re going to be able to power the subwoofer to its full potential. You’re leaving opportunity within your amplifier.

You could have had more output something else often gets ignored is you have to remember that it takes power. To make power you can’t buy a 10,000-watt RMS amplifier and install it into a little car. For something like a Honda Civic without upgrading the electrical system, it’s important to have a big enough power plant within your system. And in this case, that’s the alternator.

We want to look into something like an upgraded aftermarket alternator. If we’re going to be using a huge amplifier we also want to make sure that our power delivery system, and the wires are also upgraded in order to handle this increased power.

Add cone area to increase speaker bass

There are a couple of other ways that we can add bass. If you’re just not impressed with what we have covered in this article. Well in my opinion one of the most efficient ways to add more bass is to add more cone area.

If you have a 10-inch subwoofer and it’s just not performing what you would hope then, you have the room to potentially add a second 10-inch subwoofer. Well, that’s going to be more cone area.

So you’re going to have more bass. As long as you have more room and you can also power that second speaker you’re going to have more bass now.

There is only enough room for 1/10 of what you could do. You need to find more excursions. Subwoofers and speakers move with excursion: how far in and out they go. In case we get an upgraded subwoofer that’s still 10 inches, but with a larger excursion. Then we’re going to get more bass.

We’re also likely to have more power handling within the subwoofer when we upgrade it. The bass can be made stronger by providing it with more power.

Final Thoughts:

We have come to an end with you. Hope that you have found a way to increase the speaker bass of your car audio system. Although these points may seem monotonous to you, they are vital for your car audio system to perform effectively.