Might have slightly blown a speaker…and ranting

I think I might have “slightly” blown my rear left door speaker. Yes I need to lower the bass quite a bit I keep forgetting that I need to stop making up for not having any subwoofers in my truck yet. The speaker makes a noise like it simply cannot handle the bass…hard to describe very slight rattle when the bass notes hit not too obnoxious but it is there…Although when I lower the volume just a little bit it sounds perfect…the rattling completely disappears. So yes I’m pushing the bass levels down.
The reason I am not stressing out is because that speaker is only like $45.00 so it’s not the end of the World but again it sounds perfect with a little less bass or when I turn the volume a little lower because I have really been cranking this thing loud the last few days.

I also want to mention this only happens when using a song off of a thumb stick…I sware I get a little more oomph when using a thumb stick compared to wired Apple CarPlay. This last 2 weeks I have really been playing these speakers half volume and sometimes 3 quarter volume where this unit really hits loud and hard…perfect for a metal head like me.

I just started using a USB Thumb Drive and this only started this evening about an hour after driving around with my music pushed up pretty high never full volume though.
I have an

$280 Alpine ilx-W650 Digital Multimedia Receiver with CarPlay and Android Auto Compatibility

Alpine ilx-W650 with the

$214 KTA-450 4-Channel Power Pack Amplifier with Dynamic Peak Power 45W RMS x 4, at 2 Or 4 Ohms

KTA-450 Amp with Infinity Reference 9630cx Components in the front with supplied tweeter…and Reference 6532ex in the rear doors of my GEN 2 Toyota Tacoma Access Cab.
I really don’t think it is slightly blown but somewhere in the eq’ing I need to bring some bass down a bit…I can even adjust the individual 9 band Hz levels as well as simply adjusting eq bands levels…pretty awesome to me this Head Unit has all of this and I really need to start getting used to knowing how to properly eq. This is my very first Audio upgrade ever coming from an ‘05 stock non jbl system which was junk!

Im still learning how to adjust crossovers and I’m understanding it a bit better now…pretty nice how I can have the same sound no matter where the volume is.
I tried some flac files on a thumb stick and I hear no difference. My Father swares he does hear a difference but I do not.

Maybe the program I downloaded to convert cd to flac is bogus…I may try converting a disc to flac using the Windows Media Player that pops up when I load a CD in my external CD player as there is a FLAC option to burn a song to FLAC right onto the USB Thumb Drive…this is right on Windows Media Player itself.

Crutchfield told me that I without a doubt even with a mid level upgrade I should definitely hear a huge increase in sound when comparing a FLAC file vs mp3 and m4a formatted songs on USB…but I’m pretty sure iTunes is using a “lossless” version which is similar but still not as good as FLAC I have been told.
Honestly the sound off both Apple CarPlay and especially a regular m4a or even MP3 file off my thumb stick both sounds very good to me.
Bluetooth sounds very decent as well ever since I upgraded the firmware. I still prefer Apple CarPlay over this though.

I noticed there is a “FLAC LEVEL COMPRESSION” that goes from 1 to 8 and I chose 5 as that is the default option and I read on google 5 is the most common people use and apparantly it does not really matter which level you choose as the sound will be the same…but I could be wrong.

Im still enjoying all of this really and God I want my subwoofers in my truck now!!! I have to wait until next Month when I get paid again or heck…I may just throw everything on PayPal credit. I have before it helps out a lot because I will be paying someone to make me a sealed cabinet and will have an audio center do the 2 10” JLW3 4ohm speaker install as well as the amp and completely sound deadening the whole truck basically…under seats…the doors (which I may do myself if they want to charge extra for them)…and of course all around the back by the subwoofers of my beloved GEN 2 Tacoma Access Cab.

Sorry for the somewhat long rant…again hopefully the speaker is okay as again as soon as I bring the bass down or slightly lower the volume (from 27 to 24) that small amount…the speaker sounds perfect.

To sum it up…does it sound like I may have blown a speaker and should I be able to hear the difference in FLAC files with my current setup?
Thanks in advance.

 

It sounds more like a vibration that is aggravated by specific frequencies/volume, like the speaker wire inside the door or the door panel itself.

Regarding FLAC, it’s just more accurate, especially in the mid bass and crisp, but depending on what you are used to it could just sound less satisfying because a lot of MP3 files are warmer for whatever reason. Most people don’t initially hear the minute details you can get with FLAC, but a lot of other things factor in, especially the quality of your system and tune.

 

Actually that’s almost what it sounds like…like it is vibrating but only during certain low frequency hard hitting notes. …but now I’m thinking the speaker is hitting up against the access cab door’s original speaker hole mount.

On my 2005 Tacoma the Access doors have a prefabricated round Mount where there is a round hole where the stock speakers used to sit inside of. With the upgraded Infinity 6532ex speakers there is approximately only about a little under a 1/4 inch gap from that round mount to the speaker…maybe even less than that once the door is all the way closed.
Easy fix…pull the access cab doors out and get a dremel or and small saw and cut that lip off.

Yes the upgrade I did is extremely awesome…but so far head unit, amp, all 4 door speakers and 2 tweeters…only about $1000.00 so not the most expensive upgrade…but I’ll be happy with this for a long time. Next time I upgrade I’ll probably try much more expensive speakers like Focal or there are so many other options. For right now I am happy and it met my budget as I still need to throw in some subwoofers…I’m thinking about putting two JL W3 10” subs with a JL JD1000/1 amp.
Not very expensive subs but I think these would perfectly match what I currently have and not blow away my door speakers.
I will probably reach out to “Marv” to see if he can make me a box for these subs.

FLAC my Father hears the difference but I do not…just noticed on my thumb drive that I have both FLAC files and m4a files not MP3’s so maybe that is why I’m not hearing much of a difference…it is my understanding that m4a files have tighter compression that gives off tighter compression than MP3’s…these came off of my iTunes library (not the FLAC files but the m4a files which I believe is Apple’s newer lossless version)…even m4a files sound better than wired Apple CarPlay though but not by much…although wired Apple CarPlay sounds pretty damn good as well….maybe it is all in my head because both put a smile on my face.
Maybe I’ll hear a difference if I load an mp3 next to the FLAC version of a song off a CD…I may notice a difference then. I’ll try it out…
Thanks.

 

Not all CDs are the same in quality.

The TELARC label produces verrrrry high quality CDs. Mostly classical recordings, but they have a disc, "Time Warp," that has a bunch of movie themes, from Star Wars, Star Trek, Superman, Battlestar Galactica... Dynamic range 3 stories high...a noise floor you would eat off of. This is my go to disc when listening to new equipment.

I listened to this disc on a friend's system. We were smelling shellac burning off of the voice coils. a/d/s 300cc. Needless to say he was pissed.

Gotta luv a CD that comes with a warning...