kenwood xceleron

[sntnsupermen131]

i have a pair of 4x6 kenwood excelerons and they distort when the bass hits
they have a power handling of 2-25 watts and i have a jvc headunit that puts out 45x4 which is probably close to 20x4 right?
so why are they distorting?
here are the specs:
PBO (polyphenylenebenzobisoxazole)
advanced fiber woofer with butyl rubber surround 1" PEI (polyetherimide) film balanced dome tweeter
sensitivity 90 dB
frequency response 40-32,000 Hz
recommended power range 2-25 watts RMS
peak power handling 100 watts
2-year warranty
-Cody

[PoweredByDodge]

first i'll rant -- then i'll answer the quesiton.... KW Excelon highs are pretty nice... the old purple ones that you could bi-amp were tight as hell... the new silver/grey jobbers are pretty snazzy too but not as nifty as the purple guys.

ok... now... you're getting distortion for 1 or both of these reasons.

1- power hanlding is only 25 watts. true, a 45 x 4 head unit will do "about" 20-ish rms... so its not really going to push them too hard, but what you need to realize is that 20 "deck" watts are not the same as 20 "amp" watts... 20 watts off a deck tends to be less "full bodied" as well as more riddled with junk and distortion. so you could be getting this "distortion" from a) the deck power... or b) the low RMS of the speakers.

2- crossover -- you never mentioned whether you have those 4 x 6's crossed over at all... keep in mind if you are running them free air (not in a TINY ASS sealed solid air tight box) like most of the free world, then you will need to cross them over somewhere between probably 90 and 120 hertz for best overall sound/performance. If your deck does not have an "internal programmable" crossover, you can do a search on google for "crossover and capacitor" and you'll find several sites that will tell you how to determine what size capacitor (tiny tiny little ones) you'll need to place directly in series with the positive terminal of the speaker to cut the bass out at a certain frequency... you can do 1st or 2nd order, but for simplicity i'd say do 1st order and aim for 110... at 6 db per octave (the slope you get with a simple 1st order crossover - just one cap in series) it should be about as effective for your application as a 12db/octave 90-100 hertz. least that's my guess.

Note-- this 2nd "problem" is probably the one that's giving you all that distortion when the bass hits -- figure out what size caps you need and then go to radioshack... you can get the little buggers (all that you'll need) for like 5 bucks probably less even... that's the cheapest solution... if its not that, then you can try to look at the speakers themselves or the deck itself... but why not hack at the 5 dollar fix before the 50 - 100 dollar one.

g'luck :)

[sntnsupermen131]

another words get bass blockers?
-Cody

[PoweredByDodge]

well ya.. but most bass blockers are junk.

they come at 70 / 90 or 150 hertz usually, and the poor slope and crappy caps they use are by no means worth the 20 dollars per pair that you spend on a set of them.

you can get a better "bass blocker" by making it yourself and choosing youself the frequency you want to cut off at. if you want a cutoff at 100 or 120 but the only ones you can buy are 70 and 150, then you're S.O.L. besides the fact that i hate giving somebody 20 bucks for what can be had at the local radio snack for 5.