common audio problem with Monsson system?

systems

Pretty well describes the unit in my 2002 Golf. No matter how far down I turn the mid and upper freqs it still sounds shrill and tinny. In fact the controls seem to have little effect at some of the peaky audio frequencies. 120 watts of boom-boom is useless if the mids and highs sound so bad.

They must have used a "jury" of dudes who liked BOOM BOOM CRASH CRASH "music" and shouted vocals rather than more traditional bowed string instruments and ordinary horns.

That's MY take, YMMV

There's no richness/fullness to the sound on the more basic systems either - the radio/tape deck (6 speaker) in our 12 year old Volvo sounds better then the radio/tape/CD in my Golf (1999.5), and it's suppose to be the "premium" setup (8 speakers)... The audio in current Audi's sounds great tho, I think VW should just go with whoever Audi is using for speakers and headunits.... The radio in my dad's Golf CL (2003) is even worse then mine - lacks a lot of power, hardly any bass... tho the midrange is fuller it doesn't have any warmth to it... There are proper controls for low,mid,high on his where mine only has low/high (tho his radio looks basically the same, both are single DIN).... I found that by tweaking the sound rearward +2 turning the bass to

+5 and the trebel to +8 you can get it to sound decent.... Try something similar with your monsoon systems'.

It is the same thing in my Jetta. The sound in the radio is just bad and not very detailed. As you say bass sounds good, but that's it. And listening to CDs is MUCH better than listening to the radio.

I changed mine to a Blaupunkt Lausanne, that I have. It sounds great, much much better than the Monsoon radio. But unfortunately I can't use my CD-changer in the trunk :-(

It is sad that VW puts a shitty radio like this in the car, and I don't even think there is another VW-radio alternative. You can buy the phatnoise system for VW, but you have to live with the blurry sound from the Monsoon amplifier.

Best,

Carsten

Actually, I didn't mention it but that is the only way (besides the eq) I was able to balance the sound. I suppose it is because the highs from the rear don't make it to the front.

Yea, that's why i was on the fence. The Phatbox system is a GREAT idea but I just couldn't see pushing all my music through the factory system. With the (limited) EQ built into my Nomad MP3 player, it sounds pretty darned good now. Kinda sad but at least I have ALOT of audio that sounds fairly decent now.

Too bad. I LOVE the Passat (I never knew you could cruise at 100 MPH and not really realize it!) but the stereo tained my otherwise perfect car.

Have you all not heard about these Monsoon units being mis-wired from the factory? VW had some harness wires swapped around wrong. The thread was on the Vortex a few years ago. maybe this is what you all are suffering from?

Here's the thread:

The excitement starts around pages 3 and 4 of the thread.

did some more digging in the thread and this is the VW TSB:

If your dealier is anything like mine, they won't be familiar with the TSB however :( (and they're one of the more helpful VW dealers I've dealt with...) My '02 had that problem and I had to tell them the fix...

nate

Doesn't surprise me. Hopefully people will just print that out and take it w/them.

Probably... Audio is a weird science anyways, and in cars its even more difficult to understand.

My wiring looks right. All the black wires are only on one side of the connector. And I have no problems with my Blaupunkt radio (I would if the wiring was wrong).

My guess is that something is wrong with the wiring inside the radio. Maybe VW found this error and changed the wiring in the car to fit the wrong wiring inside (maybe thousands) of radios. Then these later got mixed up with some radios with the correct wiring?

Well, just an idea. Anyway my Monsoon radio still sounds like sh** . Maybe it won't if I swap the wiring so it is wired incorrectly (in my car!!)

/Carsten

I tried to swap the LF wires. No big change, maybe a bit better with reversed polarity, but I am not sure. Still much much worse sound compared to my cheap Blaupunkt Lausanne radio.

I suggest everyone to buy a better radio like I did.

/Carsten