RAQ Radio Imaging

[AlphaWolf]

Just spent about 3 hours last night putting in the OEM dashboard speakers (thx SlayerDarkCross) and a RAQ radio in my 08 LX. Car sounds much better, nice to see the Satellite songs now, the biggest pain in the neck was the wiring, did not find it easy to do the parallel wiring behind the dash as the wires are so tight.

Noticed that the RAQ seems so much louder, especially from the passenger side of the car, that dashboard tweeter over there is loud. Shouldn't the tweeter near my body sound louder? I actually had to adjust the balance to skew towards the drivers side. It kinda annoys me and I wonder if something is wrong.

Anyone noticed this when they upgraded or when driving a Touring model with the RAQ? Trying to figure out if this is normal or something with the wiring is causing the driver's side to be quieter.

Not looking forward to taking apart the dash again, hoping I was done.

[chris15]

When I put my Polk components in, I tested them, sounded great, put all my panels back on, drove around the block and the second I turned the speakers up, I noticed that the left tweeter was extremely, extremely quiet, giving me a very odd mix of sound. I, like you did, adjusted my balance to compensate until the next day when I could pull everything apart again.

My problem was that I had soldered my new speakers in, and one of the grounds on the tweeter had let go as I was installing it, but because the space was so limited inside the hole for the tweeter, the ground wire was still rubbing on the connector, so I was getting sound but nothing good.

Unfortunately in your case, you're probably going to have to pull it all apart again, and check all of your connections.. :/

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by chris15

...
Unfortunately in your case, you're probably going to have to pull it all apart again, and check all of your connections.. :/

That is what I thought, as it does not sound right, wish I caught that in the garage. You gave me the idea of checking the speakers first, so maybe I just need to pull the dash top tonight

The thought of going back to my wiring mess behind the stereo was making me crazy. Hopefully all of my connections are tight back there. Having the RAQ and the tweeters in place makes all of the effort worthwhile.

[chris15]

It's pretty unlikely that the problem lies at the back of your headunit, but if you look around and all your speaker connections are fine, could possibly be a bad connection to your headunit, or something's wrong with the tweeter itself.

Let us know how it turns out.

[AlphaWolf]

Issue turned out to be with the wiring behind the radio, took everything apart and rewired it from scratch. I also found I reversed the positive/negative on one of the tweeters. Now I am an expert on stereo wiring for the Cruiser, I may have to rent myself out on the weekends

It is short of amazing what the RAQ and the missing tweeters do to the sound when you are used to the base setup.