Auto Sound Systems, Speakers, And You - The Holistic approach

When building or upgrading an auto sound system, the first thing most citizen look into are the speakers. While speakers do play a very large role in the uncut sound of your system, there are many other things that must be taken into notice if you are going to avoid "over-speakering". It's not significant with contemporary technology and enclosures to take your whole trunk up with giant subwoofers to get that bone shakin' bass you want.

The Head Unit
Good sound starts at the source. And in the case of auto sound systems, this source is the head unit. This is the Cd player in your dash that verily provides the signals that the rest of your theory amplifies and plays back. You can have the best speakers and amps in the world, but if you pair that with a cheap head unit with a lousy Dac, your sound will be lousy. In fact, with good speakers and amps, any shortcomings in your head unit will come to be glaringly obvious; the speakers will faithfully reproduce all things fed to them, along with the hiss caused by a cheap Dac and op amps.

In Dash Double Din

The Amplifiers
Again, the best way to get killer sound is to start at the source and work your way to the output. After you have a good ability head unit that makes a clean audio signal, you need ability amplifiers to take this signal and push it still clean to your speakers. Cheap amps will often introduce noise into your signal, either through lousy signal to noise ratios, or ground loop/alternator whine caused by poor internal or external grounds. Again, with good, speakers, any problems with your amplifiers will be very audible as your killer speakers faithfully reproduce every bit of the signal the amps contribute - along with any noise.

The Speakers
And finally, you should reconsider the speakers themselves. The biggest two things to remember are ability makes a huge difference, and bigger is not always better. If you listen to a lot of music with extremely fast bass hits, like techno, using 15" subwoofers will make your bass line muddy and indistinct. For this type of music, 10" or 12" is the largest subwoofer you want to push. If you listen to rap or other music with extremely low frequency and rhythmic bass hits, a 15" may be what you want. In all cases, mounting the speakers in a properly tuned bandpass enclosure will ensure the best ability sound.

The Speaker Enclosure
The sound you get out of the exact same speaker/amp composition will be very dissimilar depending on the enclosure you put it in. A uncomplicated sealed enclosure will contribute a fairly neutral, flat response over the frequency curve of your speaker. A properly tuned bandpass enclosure can either help make up for a deficient area in your response curve, or amplify the frequencies you verily want to add punch to.

While speakers are often the first thing considered when building an auto sound system, they verily should be near the last on your list. Only after you have a ability head unit and amplifiers to drive them should you worry about your speakers. Even tantalizing your current speakers into dissimilar types of enclosures can make an big distinction in your sound quality.

Auto Sound Systems, Speakers, And You - The Holistic approach