I recently finished installing a pretty good stereo in my car. It's no competition setup, but seriously, who has that kind of money? Anyway, I'm having trouble with the bass response of the whole thing. I don't have one of those super-awesome Audiocontrol trunk-mount EQ's (yet), but it sounds pretty good to me. Most of the time. With "modern" recordings.

The thing is that on some cd's the bass sounds "muddy". I don't know how else to describe it. It's like a pphthtbbthppthbthppth sound. The effect only seems to occur on the original (early 90's) copy of Judas Priest's British Steel, when the kick drums come in (I think). This cd has a RG value of -3.63 dB, and is not brutally loud, normally. So what I'm wondering is if this is a result of less-than-ideal mastering on the cd, or just my stereo system in desperate need of an equalizer. It's sort of like the kick drum sounds are all compressed or something. And I know I'm not playing the stereo all clippy, so it's not the amplifiers doing it. The vocals, with those high notes, come out loud and clear, and sound great btw.

Secondly, if it is an issue with the recording, is there a way to make it sound decent? Someday I want to get an Audiocontrol Epicenter unit, which claims to "restore the bass effect" by inferring what the bass should sound like based on the midrange and higher frequencies present in the recording. When I can afford it. I wish I knew more about audio hardware and was an audiophile, but I'm not. But I do know when something sounds bad.

There's a 10" subwoofer in there, with dual voice coils and about 500W continuous going to it. But I almost never use all that headroom.

Thanks in advance for any input.