I recently had an encounter with a fire-hydrant and had to have the left quarterpanel and front air-bags replaced . Just got the car back from the shop and while it's mechanically in good shape, there's something wrong with the stereo, and the guys at the shop seemed stumped, so I need some help pin-pointing the issue.

Symptoms:
In point source modes (Mini H/K, Electronic, ...): Sound image seems biased to the front, can't achieve usual "immersive feel" even with fading image toward rear (never had to use fade before)

In dispersive modes, e.g., Spatial: Balance is better overall, but still biased toward the front.

In all modes: Bass seems exaggerated in the front speakers and diminished in the rear speakers. "AM talk" format, that normally sounds good in instrumental mode, now has too much bass (with bass and treble centered), as if it were in Mini H/K mode. And finally, the Driver mode is reversed, when "on" the sound image is centered on the stick-shift, when "off" the sound image is centered on the driver! (but always the bias to the front).

I'm guessing that I'm only getting one of the dual drivers inputs to the rear speakers, but I'm at a loss to explain the extra bass and reversed driver image in the front.

During the repair, the body shop accessed the left quarterpanel, so they could have affected the left rear, dual driver, speaker. They sent the car to the dealer for the new air-bags, so that tells me the connections on the boost amp could have been affected, and finally since the Harmon Kardon processor is in the right rear, it should not have been affected at all. I'm leaning toward the problem being at the boost amp, but is it really possible to mess up the connections to get these symptoms, or do I have a bad amp?

Any ideas would be appreciated

 

if yr car is an 02-06 MC/MCS (or 05-08 cabrio), which carried the H-K, this inquiry needs to go in the 1st gen nav and audio subforum. 2nd gen cars, unfortunately, do not carry the H-K.

 

Thread moved to 1st Gen Nav & Audio forum.

 

In my original thread, I stated "AM Talk" format usually sounds better in Instrumental mode (it does), but I meant to say "FM Talk" because of the typical bass boost on FM stations, the effect is more pronounced, but Instrumental mode alone will not make FM talk tolerable.....but it did before. I also discovered that my Driver is NOT crossed, apparently I was. So, I'm still experiencing exaggerated bass in the front and diminished bass to the rear. I stopped by the dealer, they're pretty sure they didn't go anywhere near radio wiring....and mechanic indicated that while the H/K and stock rear speakers "look different" there's nothing that suggests there is a dual coil in the rear speakers....they admitted that the H/K system is a bit of an enigma to them as well, but that "everyone says it sounds great." Not a lot of help there!