Choosing the Best Car Audio System

Choosing the Best Car Audio System

The basic components of a high-quality car stereo system are an AM/FM tuner, a CD player, an amplifier (optional but recommended) and great speakers.

Rule: No auto audio can equal the performance of fine home equipment. The car compartment is small, besieged with engine and traffic noises, and surrounded with competing electrical signals. And all of this in a moving environment. A welter of technical and personal choices dictate the final package.

Stereo Car Audio

General guidelines: Shop around. Car audio components are often discounted. Check mail-order houses and the Internet for the best buys.

Essential: Deal with reputable businesses and buy name brands. Make sure you can exchange or return components in case they prove incompatible or do not fit into the car. Remember each unit must be installed and may require custom mounting accessories. Keep personal tastes in mind. Rock and country music fans usually prefer stronger bass ranges. Classical music requires good mid and treble.

How to allocate your spending: 40% to 50% for tuner/tape player, 25% to 30% for amplifier, 25% to 30% for speakers (unlike home gear, for which half the recommended expenditure may go for speakers alone).

General recommendations: Components are a better deal than manufacturer-installed original sound equipment. Good manufacturer-installed gear can cost ,000, a price that will usually bring you far better sound if spent on components. Try to find a dealer that has set up a sound room to hear and compare different systems.

New-car buyer strategy: Buyers planning to purchase components should insist on a delete-option clause, eliminating the installed radio cost.

In-dash versus under-dash components. Under-dash components are easily installed.

Overriding disadvantage: A thief can slip out the under-dash gear as easily as an ashtray. Choose in-dash tuner/CD players unless you want to stow the components in the trunk each time you leave the car. (If you still prefer an under-dash system, Sony components are top-notch ones.)

Amplifiers: Most auto-sound packages benefit from amplifiers that strengthen bass and high-treble tones.

Problems: Amplifiers are bulky and often must be installed under a seat or in the trunk. Unless your tuner has a bypass circuit permitting you to plug into the preamplifier, your costly amplifier will only boost the distorted output of the built-in amplifier.

Smart buying: Look for amplifiers measuring power in watts (w) per channel in terms of distortion (THD). Goal: About five watts per channel at 1 % distortion or less. To get this, the amplifier may require 50 watts per channel because few operate at better than 10% efficiency in a car.

Bi-amplifiers: They offer separate power boosts for bass and treble ranges. Bi-amplification may be called for when separate bass and treble speakers are installed.

Speakers: Speakers must be compatible with amplifiers. Their power capacity should be slightly higher than amplifier. Example: Get 60w speakers for a 50w /ch amplifier. One way to be sure of speaker/amplifier compatibility is to purchase them as a package.

Stereo sound requires at least two speakers. Many enthusiasts choose four. Non-directional bass speakers are best placed in the factory cutouts in the rear window shelf. Next best placement: In rear doors. Treble speakers can be mounted in front door panels or under dash.

Installation: Unless you are highly skilled electronics hobbyist, have the auto-sound system professionally installed. Allow 0 to 0 for installation, and get a satisfaction guaranteed agreement.

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Car Stereo Systems - Choosing the Perfect Quality!

Car Stereo Systems - Choosing the Perfect Quality!

Pimp my ride has been in common in trend nowadays. Likewise, it is opportunities indeed for car lovers to get cheap or even spend less in upgrading their beloved cars. Nowadays, most of the car manufacturers find ways just to achieve a great look on the car, especially in the systems. And these involve an upgrade in the car stereo systems for a better quality output of your favorite music.

In customizing the car, one of the most to look at is the car stereo and audio systems. As the trend today involves music, there are many ways that had been found out just to achieve that exemplary and good stereo system for a exemplary result. Though it involves some fortune for it but the price is worth it.

Stereo Car Audio

When we said customizing your own car, it generally involves changing or upgrading your car stereo systems though it has been installed by some car manufacturers yet having just a simple audio is not enough. Equipping it for a good system incorporated with some special features has been in known nowadays. Although customizing involves sophisticated ways still many car lovers prefer to spend even more just for their beloved cars.

Likewise, you to take careful considerations when making some installation deals. Most of all make it sure that you set your foot into a reliable and credible shop.

There are many upgrading styles in customizing the car stereo systems. This involves some features like having a navigation and wireless Bluetooth capability which gives a boost in the system. Moreover, new components are also a great in need when customizing your car inside or even out. You have to make sure the type of entertainment features you would like your car to have. Begin with the most important that you prefer and likely to have down to the least.

Getting a more sophisticated upgrade, you might decide for some speakers, amplifiers, DVD receivers, video screen. Alternatively, you might as well want to install a new navigation system, wireless Bluetooth for hands free use of cell phone, etc.

There are many ways to start upgrading your beloved cars. However, whatever styles you will choose, you will not regret it. And for some upgrade, it is more likely great to begin with your stereo system.

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Tips On Choosing A Car Audio System

Tips On Choosing A Car Audio System

Car audio has moved a long way from the old standard AM/FM Radio/Tape Deck combo. Today, in-vehicle multimedia systems include DVD video, television and navigation systems with local hotspot news. Common to all systems is the sound quality.

The quality of sound in a car audio system depends upon a number of factors - the type and quality of the media player system, the type of speakers used, the acoustics of the vehicle and interference from other devices.

Stereo Car Audio

Type and Quality of Media Player System

Before we look at the different types of in-vehicle media players it pays to have a basic understanding of audio quality. When deciding what type of audio system to install, and also when comparing one make and model to another, there are two key specifications to consider:

Signal-to-noise ratio [SNR] - a measure of signal strength compared to background noise in the signal or equipment. Measured in decibels. The higher the dB, the better. A car CD player has an SNR of 90 or 100 dB.

Frequency response [FR] - a measure of how much of the audio spectrum, from bass to treble, gets reproduced. It's measured as a range in Hertz, and the wider the range, the better. Look for a CD player with a range of at least 10-20k Hz.

An FM radio, cassette player, and CD player all have different measurements for these specs. To help understand these two specifications, let's compare a car tape cassette player and a car CD player.

Cassette player has an SNR of 50-70 dB. This is much lower than a CD player, so the sound quality degrades at each end of the spectrum. The FR is around 30-18k Hz for a cassette player, so does not contribute as much to sound quality as the SNR.

That's why overall, a car CD player gives a much better sound than a cassette tape player.

Media players in vehicles today are either radio tuner, CD player/changer, or Digital Audio player.

CD Players & Changers

There are a number of options when it comes to playing CD's in a vehicle:

An in-dash CD Player - often combined with radio tuner, WMA/MP3 player An in-dash CD Receiver - with a multiple CD cassette / changer located elsewhere in the vehicle Connect a portable CD player to an existing in-dash audio unit using either a cable and adapter or a bluetooth wireless connection.

When choosing a car CD player the first two things to consider are:

Will it physically fit into the vehicle? Will it integrate cosmetically with the dash and other electronics?

Most decks have standardized form factors; so fit most cars, but there are exceptions, so make sure that the deck is suited for your car. You are usually pretty safe is the car stereo is made for the same market as the source of your car:

Cosmetic integration is a little more complex, but in many cases easily resolved through customisation features. For instance, many decks allow you to change the faceplates and color of the display.

Digital Audio Car Systems

With most home audio systems and portable players giving crisp quality sound using digital audio, we are no longer satisfied with the flat, bland analog sound from older car audio systems.

If you normally store your digital music files on CD, a compatible stereo or changer is a good option. Up to 10 hours of music [250 songs] can be stored on a single disc and allows use of random shuffling and repeat options. This disadvantage is ease of use, having to load and unload from cassettes located in the boot or under seats, and the limited file formats that your stereo can play back.

So now you have the media player selected, what about the speaker system.

Car Speaker System

The speaker system can be thought of in two parts: the channel amplifier and the physical speaker units.

Car amplifiers power the speakers in your car stereo system to provide crisp sound quality at high volumes. Each speaker requires one channel of amplification. This means a 4-channel amplifier, will support four speakers.

And choice of speakers is not limited either. With a range of options for your basic stereo speakers [2-channel], you can supplement the high note quality using a tweeter and the low bass notes with a sub-woofer. This gives you a standard 4-channel sound system that will rival your home audio system.

Adding to a basic car stereo option typically involves adding subwoofers, amplifiers and crossovers to tailor the output sound to personal tastes.

This does not mean the result is the boorish, obnoxious bass boom boxing that invades the entire neighbourhood. A subwoofer adds quality and purity to music.

For details of specifications on each part of your system, see Go-Reviews.com - Car Electronics Section

The main factors in selecting car speakers are:

Design or Speaker Type Technical Specifications Fitting & Mounting

Speaker design is about the combination of sound drivers for midrange, subwoofer and tweeter. Depending upon the combination, the set is known as a two-way, three-way or four-way speaker system.

Car speaker specifications are similar to home audio speakers; the main difference in technical specification to compensate for the lower power outputs of car stereo receivers.

The speaker technical specifications include sensitivity, frequency response, signal to noise ratio, power handling and impedance. We will look at these specification in more detail in subsequent articles.

The fittings and mountings are selected depending upon where you choose to position the speakers. Car audio speakers are either: top mounted or bottom mounted. Clearance depth is most important when installing new speakers in a non-factory speaker location. So check all of your components carefully before purchase.

With such a range of combinations available the Internet provides a valuable resource in car electronics reviews. Sites like Go-Reviews.com seek out reviews and consolidate the recommendations to give you a quick reference buying guide.

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