Car Stereo System and Its Installation

Car Stereo System and Its Installation

You might have an excellent audio system at your home on which you listen to and enjoy your favorite music. But the stereo system in your car does not give your ears the same pleasure as the system present at your home. What if you get the same quality of sound from your car stereo system? Yes it's possible. Just follow some simple steps properly that are required for its installation in your car and transform its sound system from a tiny radio into a splendid bass- boosting music machine.

The first and the foremost thing that can actually give superb quality experience of sound even in your car is the selection of a good system. Along with a it, the accessories that are required should also complement the system in its performance. So the first point comes of how to select it.

Stereo Car Audio

A wide variety of car stereo systems manufactured by different brands like Pioneer, Sony, Samsung, iPod, etc. are available in the market. But first of all decide your budget limit and once you have done that, then select from a wide range of systems that fall into your budget limit. Look out for a car stereo system that along with having high decibels (dB) number provides other exciting features too. Some of the brands offer it; which can support various file formats like wav, Mpeg files, mp3 files etc. Moreover some system even have the USB port with which you can connect your iPod or pen drive and listen to your favorite track stored in them, instead of carrying a CD folder with you every time.

The accessories also play a very vital role in boosting up the performance of your system. So the accessories should be selected very carefully from a wide range that is available in the market.

Once you have selected a suitable system along with other accessories for your car, the next thing is its proper installation. For installing the stereo system in your car, you can take the help of the technical expert present at the store from where you bought it. Some stores offers free installation as an after sale service while others charge the fee for the same. You can install the system in your car all by yourself as it is not that difficult as it ought to look. For installing the stereo system in your car, you can take the help from the guidelines provided by the manual that come along with it.

While beginning the process of its installation, make sure that your fitting is right. Care should be taken while purchasing the stereo system that the slots must fit the new stereo. Follow the steps mentioned in the manual carefully to make sure that the wires are connected in a right fashion. Once you have followed the steps carefully and made necessary arrangements accordingly, then slide your system in the slot provided to test it. Power it and put the music on to see whether the system along with the accessories is working properly. If you get back the sound quality that you wanted then it will ensure that you have installed it in your car properly.

So make your friends drool for the sound emancipating from the stereo system of your car by selecting a good one and moreover installing it properly.

Tags : Stereo car audio

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Beginner's Guide to Car Audio Installation - DIY

Beginner's Guide to Car Audio Installation - DIY

Speaker Positioning

Speaker installation is very critical for performance. Whether you spent 00 or ,000 on a set of speakers, if they are not properly installed, they would not sound as they should. Even though it may seem that the best position for most speakers are in the stock housing's that came with the car e.g. on the door panel near your feet, this is just not so. You would see why such positions are still used however along with alternative solutions such as center channels for 5.1 dolby, LCD screen, in-dash DVD players. There are many factors that need to be considered in placing the speakers in the correct position.

Stereo Car Audio

Distance

The first thing to consider is distance. If the left speaker is only a couple feet away from your ears, while the right speaker is several feet away from you, then the sound will arrive at different times giving you poor sound. Since the left speaker is closer, it sounds louder. The best solution is to figure out a location where the difference between the distance of the right speaker to your ears and left speaker (also known as path length difference), are minimal. This is where kick panels become the preferred location.

Multiple Speaker Placement

If you have a system with two or more speakers per side, you need to try out different locations to obtain the best possible sound in your car. If you have a 2-way system with a tweeter and sub per side. The subs are mounted in the stock location at the bottom of the door. The tweeters are mounted high up on the front corner of the door panel. From the driver's seat, you can see that there are 4 speakers all aimed towards different orientations and all at a different distance to your ears. This interaction of sound waves at different frequencies arriving at your ears at different times seldom sounds good. The best thing to do is to position the woofer and tweeter on each side as close as possible to each other. This is also why kick panels are used so much these days. Professional installers do use some tricks such as inverting the tweeters' polarity when mounted for example on top of the dash while the woofers are low. Achieving good sound with unconventional mounting schemes is very, very hard and is only achieved after plenty of time has been spent trying different configurations.

Aiming

Our ears can distinguish the direction of sound more easily at higher frequencies. This means that aiming the mids, and most importantly, tweeters towards your ears play a critical role in sound imaging. Midbases are not so critical, but should be also aimed towards the listener's ears if possible. To figure out the best aiming angle involves many hours -even days- of work. To start, try to aim the speakers towards the center of the car. Play around with different angles until you obtain the best sounding position. Subwoofers should be mounted up front for best sound. Since this is not possible in most cars, mounting subs in the back is not such a bad thing, since most people can't distinguish where bass comes from. If you have good midbases going down to 60 Hz or less and subs picking up the signal below 60 Hz, then the bass will seem to come from the front.

Enclosures

Subwoofers need a properly designed enclosure to give top performance. Midbases and mids also do sound much better if they are installed in enclosures. The best sounding and easier to build enclosure type for midbases and mids is sealed.

Mounting Speakers

If you are using speakers that fit into the stock location, make sure there are no spaces or holes. Sometimes building a wood or fiberglass baffle helps reduce holes and gives you much better sound. Always be careful when using power tools around speakers. Holes in speakers usually are not covered by the warranty. For unconventional speaker locations, sometimes metal has to be cut. If you have the resources, plasma cutters and pneumatics tools work great. For most of us that do not have these tools, a pair of metal snips (left and right cut) will do the job.

Take your time to plan your system and dont just buy brand and product for the sake of popularity. Sometimes the simplest system is the most effective.

See Also : Stereo car audio

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