Door vibration/speaker distortion on HK system | SwedeSpeed

I spend a lot of time in the car for work and one of the main reasons I drive Volvos is to listen to music in a way that no other cars provide. I have, in all Volvos I have owned, had the premium sound systems with Dolby. I will say that the older Dynaudio systems were far superior to anything out there today but since my only option in the US for a Dynaudio system in a Bugatti I opted, for obvious reasons, to go with the Volvo.

Here is how I set up my system to fix mostly all issues with the rattles, reverberation, and muddled sounds that come from the HK systems in Volvos. It is a touchy system and over time you will need to adjust some setting for you’re own personal sound.

Step 1
Go to the sound menu

Step 2
Make sure that sound stage is set to rear

Step 3
Surround should be turned all the way up. This will need to be adjusted with certain songs but for the most part it sounds great where it is.

Step 4
Center should be turned all the way up. Unlike the Dynaudio systems center that pops if turned up too high the HK has never once had any trouble handling a lot of power.

Step 5
Bass on max

Step 6
Treble does not matter so much as you will adjust this from time to time depending on the song. I usually keep mine right around here:

Step 7
The fader I change frequently for some reason I listen to a variety of music and with the way the system is set up you can really pull out all of the harmonies in a song that you didn’t even know were there but for now just keep it in the center.

Step 8
Balance stays in the middle

Step 9
Set up the EQ as pictured below

Step 10
Make sure volume compensation is turned off. It does not raise the volume when you speed up. It just changes the decibels and causes distortion.

Step 11
With the redesigned door panels the ribs that run through the inside of the pocket vibrate along with anything, and I mean ANYTHING that is in the pocket. It renders them useless if you want to listen to music. However, a piece of block foam from Wal-Mart, cut down to size and in all four door pockets, will solve the problem.

Step 12
Always keep any streaming music (from your cell or pandora) on High Quality. Low quality will kill the sound.

I found that for my old S80 and the new S60I this set-up works well with all types of music even with plenty of base.

VIDEO
The clicking in the video is the volume knob on the car. as you can tell there is no distortion or reverb in the background from the speakers or the door panels. The only quality issue is from the microphone on the phone.
http://vid47.photobucket.com/albums…om/albums/f152/cerullo5/Mobile Uploads/5FE8399A-4176-46B1-82EA-EF34109367FF.mp4

Hope this helps.

EDIT: If you are streaming through your phone make sure the Phone or MP3 players equalizer is set to normal or off