Adding an amp to Carver

[sully]

I've got the carver set up and I feel the low end of the system is very lacking, top to mid sounds ok but even though I've played around a lot with the DSP, when I get one frequency range sounding right, another drops out. I had the Bose set up in my old TT and that was a cracking sounding stereo, this Carver set up in my opinion is pretty crap for a hi end option.

I've searched and read through the numerous topics on here about upgrading speakers. The way I understand it, having the Carver set up makes upgrading near on impossible, so I've ditched that plan... also some days I don't even listen to the radio, so I'm not on some crazy mission to chav up my car, all I want is to have something close, bass wise, as I had in the TT. So I'm considering just adding an amp and sub to try and give the stereo some decent guts. So has anyone with the Carver set up done this and any advice on what's needed to tap into the feed from the head unit would be great.......

Cheers

 

[Wondermike]

Hmmm it already has an amp and two subs, is everything working ok? I have the hifi system and although I'm no expert it sounds great to my ears.

 

[easty027]

i have the carver set up and its a million times better than the BOSE system in my old TT ! However i think the Harmon Kardon system in my wifes Cooper S is also amazing and still better than the BOSE system.

is yours working correctly?

 

[un1eash]

I like my audio and the Bose system in my old 350Z was :thumbsdown: and the Harmon system in my mates E46 M3 Conv was also :thumbsdown:

 

[hawkeye00021]

The carver system uses fiber optic connectors somewhere that makes adding certain things a pain (sorry I don't have more details)... all I did to upgrade my sound was add a new head unit and amp, try that before getting new subs... you will be amazed.

 

[sully]

Thanks for the replies..

i have the carver set up and its a million times better than the BOSE system in my old TT ! However i think the Harmon Kardon system in my wifes Cooper S is also amazing and still better than the BOSE system.


is yours working correctly?

Hmm, you saying that is making me worried now that something isn;t working correctly...

I listen to a wide range of music from rock / country / pop all the way through to drum and bass and dubstep etc and this style of music is the main problem
On the bass line on a song for example, some notes in the bassline will be picked up well by the speakers and other notes in the bassline will be almost non existant.... it seems to be all low down rumble but bass further up the frequency range drop out.... I've tried numerous attempts at fiddling with the DSP settings .....

 

[DavidH]

I have the Carver amp and was disappointed with the sub-woofer response from day one. I replaced the sub-woofers themselves with JL Audio 6W0-4 sub-woofers and had a 300 watt Coustics Amp added to drive them. I have a small knob under the dash to adjust the output (some tracks need more, some less but I rarely push them more than 50% of max).

Bottom line - you can vastly improve the low frequency response from the carver amp and keep the the original amp and head unit.

 

[sully]

Interesting. Where did you tap in to feed the amp?....

also is it ok for the carver amp to be on with the subwoofer speakers disconnected, if that is what you've done? I was always lead to believe it's bad to run an amp without speakers connected?

Thanks