[fly_fish_colorado]

I just bought a 2018 Outback Premium, replaced all the speakers and installed an amp and 10" subwoofer. I was horrified to discover (after the install, naturally) that as I turn the volume up, the head unit is turning the bass and sub down. It seems they've engineered around their shitty stock speakers.

Is there anything I can do, outside of replacing the head unit, to remedy this? I had my "redelivery" this weekend and the dealership was all shrugs.

 

[phishfood]

Actually it's not engineered around the shitty stock speakers, it's engineered around the shitty human ears and brain.

This is why receivers have that "loudness" button.

It compensates for the human characteristic of being more sensitive to midrange (human voices) where the brain perceives bass at lower volumes less clearly than at louder volumes.

It's a function of brain/ear interaction. At lower volumes humans perceive bass as being quieter than it is.

So that's why bass is boosted at lower volumes, and decreases relative to midrange and highs at higher volumes.

 

[phishfood]

Here's the wikipedia article on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher–Munson_curves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour

 

[phishfood]

It may be possible to compensate for this by adjusting your input sensitivity on the amps to modify where on the volume scale your "really loud" is ..

for example, and reversible if the other direction applies to you, rather than say making it so 1 is super quiet, and 38 is really loud on with your volume knob/input sensitivity settings, try cranking up sensitivity so rather than needing to crank to 38 to get to "really loud" you only have to crank to 28