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The "perfect" car audio system, doesn't always have to be the most expensive one. In fact, it's simply one that meets your needs and includes all the stuff you want - or, can afford to want. There are a few basic facets you need to consider when it comes to your car audio system because it includes a few basic components. First off you should consider the source - this is essentially the most important part of the car audio unit. You need to first get a good head unit from a manufacture - this doesn't necessarily HAVE to be a top brand name that everyone knows about.One of the first things you need to do is decide what type of system you want. Do you want one that can reproduce your music so that it sounds like you're at a live concert? Or do you want a system that can simply blast out a bunch of bass? Maybe you want a system that can do both. By starting with a goal in mind, you can save yourself from potentially wasting money on components or wasting time on designs and installations that don't fit your overall objectives. I’ve put together suggestions on how to improve the sound in your vehicle, with some tips for simple factory systems and some ideas for more sophisticated setups. Don’t live with bad sound — even the simplest improvements to your system can yield great results. -Replace your car’s speakers You can replace your car speakers with your own setup and that too without anybody’s help. There’s no need to spend a large amount of money on replacing or installing your car speakers anymore. Installing or replacing speakers is not too difficult a task. Initially when you are new to the concept, you may find it a tad bit confusing. Once you do it on your own, you won’t find any difficulty henceforth. In order to accomplish the task, you need to select a few tools. You also need to determine the setup as per your preference. In most cases, speakers are just about the last thing a manufacturer thinks about when building your car. Factory systems have improved in the last few years, but many so-called “premium” systems still use relatively inexpensive amps and speakers that don’t deliver top-notch sound. You can make a big difference in your system’s sound quality by installing a nice set of speakers. You’ll hear tighter bass and more overall clarity, and you’ll most likely notice little details in familiar songs that you’ve never caught before. Replacement speakers give you maximum bang for your buck, so they’re a good first step on the road to better sound. One of the surest signs is muddy sound because most OEM car stereo systems ship with “full range” speakers that aren’t really up to snuff when they’re brand new. When you consider the fact that factory car speakers usually don’t have the same build quality as aftermarket units, it’s easy to see how sound quality can degrade so quickly. It's also remarkably easy to replace car speakers if you're just dropping in new 2-way or 3-way units if you use a size guide. Your factory speakers should also be on the chopping block if you’re building a new sound system. It’s highly unlikely that the original equipment speakers in your car or truck will be up to the task of working with a premium head unit and amp, so leaving them in place will severely hamstring your new dream system. If you want the most out of your custom car stereo system, your best bet is to replace the “full range” factory speakers with high quality component speakers. If you want to squeeze the best possible sound out of your factory sound system, and you don’t have an enormous budget, the speakers are a great place to start. Most OEM systems use “full range” speakers, which means each speaker has a single driver that’s responsible for producing high, medium, and low tones. If you replace car speakers that fall into the "full range" category with 2-way or 3-way speakers that have multiple drivers, the difference in sound quality can be remarkable. Premium aftermarket speakers also tend to be engineered better and constructed from higher quality materials than factory speakers. Most factory speakers use surrounds that are made out of foam and paper, which deteriorates over time. When the surrounds wear out, the sound quality drops significantly. High quality aftermarket speakers tend to use rubber surrounds that last longer and facilitate the delivery of higher quality bass. The cones in aftermarket units are often made from denser materials as well. That’s another one of the reasons a high quality aftermarket speaker will typically have better bass reproduction than a similarly sized factory speaker. Replacing your factory speakers won’t make up for a low-powered head unit or amp, which is why many audiophiles choose to design a new system from scratch. In that case, it’s even more vital to replace low quality factory speakers with superior aftermarket units. In the same way that 2-way and 3-way speakers provide better sound than “full range” speakers, component speakers are even better at reproducing high highs and low lows. Since you can hand pick a head unit and amp to match your speaker configuration, this type of setup will allow you to blow other car audio systems away. Replacing factory car speakers with real woofers and tweeters is more complicated than just dropping in some 2-way or 3-way speakers, but it allows you to design a real soundstage that’s perfect for your car. - Add an amplifier The purpose of a car audio amplifier is to take a low level signal from the source unit (head unit, radio, etc.) and change it into a high level signal for driving the loudspeakers. Amplifiers range in power from about twenty watts per channel to over one thousand watts per channel. The price range can be anywhere from fifty dollars to several thousand dollars depending on features, power output and quality. An amplifier may have as little as one channel of output to as many as eight channels at the time of this writing. The most common amplifiers are two and four channel models although mono subwoofer amplifiers are also very popular, especially the class D type. You may be saying “My factory stereo puts out 200 watts, and that’s plenty of power.” But there’s a huge difference between 50 watts peak power per channel produced by your car stereo and 50 watts RMS from an outboard amplifier. A separate amplifier will provide more clean power than any car stereo, and that’ll make a night-and-day difference in sound quality. Your system will sound better, whether you listen to Mahler at a conversational level or Megadeth turned up to 11. An amplifier is essential to getting great sound in your car. When shopping for an amplifier consider that all power ratings are not created equal. Some of the low-quality brands will exaggerate or outright lie about the power output of their amplifiers (see this article). This is a good reason to stick with the well known manufacturers. The only true measure of an amplifier's power is its continuous power rating or R.M.S. rating. R.M.S. is an acronym for root mean square and refers to the amplifiers average power output. An even better method is the CEA 2006 standard but not all amplifiers adhere to this testing method. Basically the test is performed at 14.4 volts with a four ohm impedance load. The entire audible frequency range, 20-20kHz is tested with a distortion level of 1% T.H.D. Please give your amplifiers fat, fat, fat wires. the fattest you can afford. they dont have to be fancy or name brand just fat, like a garden hose!!! 1/0 or 00 gauge, or your amplifiers will be weak, or make wierd sounds. Most of the time amplifiers are "overrated" by companies to sell more, they give you the "flame rating" this is the peak power at the moment it bursts into flames! Technically, to get the flame rating the factory intentionally kills an amplifier by testing it with a special machine and then connecting the + and - speaker outputs directly to each other without a speaker in between(a direct short circuit).This causes the amp to max death output for maybe 0.001 to 0.01 seconds, and presto... this is the flame rating.Some companies "underate" to let you know it easily pushes clean power,and to keep a high quality reputation. Some well known underaters are: JL Audio, Kenwood, MMats, Alpine, and of course Rockford Fosgate with there 1/2 suitcase size amplifiers rated at 100 watts R.M.S., actually more like 10 times that. Different Amplifiers have different combinations of amperes and voltage for a specific power output. Say you have amplifier brand (X), it is 1600 watts RMS, you or somebody tests it at 80 volts at 20 amperes output. Now amplifier brand (Z) puts out 40 volts at 40 amperes for the same 1600 watts of power. Amplifier (z) is called a "high current" amplifier and is usually of higher quality, and 99 percent of the time cost lots of money. amplifier (z) is awesome for low bass frequencies and low ohm loudspeaker loads (like 1 ohm), and are usually monoblock subwoofer only amplifiers, but sometimes can be 2 channel. amplifier (z) will be very weak power in the mids and highs usually above 60 hertz, but terrifing high power output below 60 hertz! Oppositely amplifier (x) will play lots of power no matter what frequency your playing. and if it very strong like over 70 volts it probably will make your speaker hit harder because at resonance a speaker is about 4 to 8 times higher in ohms. so you wired your speakers to 1 ohm on a meter, when you play the resonant frequency you will probably be really at 8 ohms!!! and that 1 ohm monoblock is going to be weak! while the type x amp= type (ab) will be hitting hard and furious. these are also those old school amps that look like long surfboards. - Add a signal processor or an equalizer Signal processors, or digital signal processors (DSPs), are the final stage in fine-tuning the sound in your automobile. The term covers a variety of components--by definition, digitally affecting the sound to alter it from the input signal. Signal processors can refer to an equalizer/crossover unit, a surround sound decoder, speaker steering (allowing you to turn on and/or off specific speakers) and delays for the speakers, sometimes referred to as digital time alignment. An add-on equalizer might be just what you need to finally make your car audio system live up to its full potential. An equalizer lets you finely adjust the sound that gets fed to your speakers, allowing you to compensate for deficiencies in the frequency response of a speaker or an audible shortcoming in a component. Equalization also lets you attempt to control a car interior's typically troublesome acoustics. In very basic terms, equalization boosts or cuts certain ranges of frequencies from an audio signal--a very sophisticated tone control, with more than just bass and treble adjustments. Stand-alone crossover units remain in the realm of high-end audio gear. While a few amplifiers do some sort of crossover-type frequency division, there are times when an audiophile wants and needs an external crossover unit. It's easy to see why--an external crossover unit usually offers the ability to fine-tune adjustments in a way no amplifier or head unit can. A car interior presents some serious problems when it comes to sound quality. Glass and plastic surfaces reflect sound like crazy, while carpet, seat covers, and other absorbent materials soak it up. Add poorly-placed speakers to the mix, and you’ll find significant peaks in frequency response in most car interiors. These peaks make your music boomy in the bass or shrill in the upper frequencies, causing “ear fatigue.” Most car receivers give you treble, midrange, and bass controls — useful for global fixes but not for zeroing in on problem areas. You’ll need a sophisticated equalizer to kill these peaks, whether it’s built into your receiver or in a processor that you mount in your dash or near your amplifiers. An outboard equalizer gives you multiple points for adjusting frequency response, so you can iron out the peaks in your system. A parametric equalizer allows you to vary the centerpoint and width of each EQ band, so you can really zero in on a problem area. Sound processors can help you eliminate frequency response peaks and increase bass response, and some even include a microphone for analyzing your car’s acoustics The equalizer is a sophisticated tone control for the system, adjusting many different low, mid and high frequencies. Equalizers come in many forms including dash and trunk mount units with either graphic, parametric, or quasi-parametric processing. The most common type of unit is the graphic, in-dash variety. Usually half the height (half-DIN) of a source unit, this type is the most easily adjustable and therefore the most often misused. An equalizer should really only be set once to overcome the acoustic problems of the car and then adjusted only periodically when tuning the system. This is why trunk mount units are used in car audio competition more often than the in-dash variety. When using an equalizer do not overdue the boost on a frequency. If possible try to cut a frequency rather than boosting another. Over-equalizing a system can cause damage to the components, especially the speakers. - Subwoofer make your sound better Upgrade your amplifier. Subwoofers require power to operate and every sub will have wattage recommendations. If you want to boost your sound, you will need to pick an amp that can output at your sub's highest wattage range to ensure you get full-force bass. Change your equalizer settings. Turn up the bass and use the fade function to push more of the audio towards the rear of the car. This leaves the high and mid-ranges up front while the sub does the heavy lifting. Buy a new set of speakers for your car. Do not expect a sub to be a one-stop method for fixing audio quality. Subwoofers help with your bass output but cannot mask low quality stock speakers. Build or buy an enclosure for the subwoofer. Enclosure design is just as important as the sub itself, with a well-shaped enclosure sharpening your woofer's sound and boosting its output. Install sound deadening material around exposed metal on your car's interior. In addition to reducing the amount of exterior noise you pick up, this material helps control nasty rattles caused by powerful subs. Install a separate sub amp that does not provide power to any other speakers. This ensures your sub receives as much power as possible. Another amp should power your other speakers. Add a crossover unit to your music system. A crossover splits different frequencies and directs them to different parts of the system; the crossover routes low frequencies to the sub and the mids and highs to your main amp. This relieves the main amp and speakers of the low frequencies, allowing them to work more efficiently. Generally, a smaller speaker gives clearer highs and bigger speakers give deeper lows. Midrange speakers come in 2 way (plays high and low) and 3 way (plays highs mids and lows). Obviously, the more sounds a speaker can play, the better it will sound. It's important to remember that sub woofers will demand the most power out of your amps - more power should go to your sub woofers than the compounded power to your other speakers. Obviously for ALL these components you are going to need a powerful power supply cord as a fundamental part of any car audio system. Most of the time you can get away with a 12V DC, if you find that the car audio company you bought from includes a lower Voltage - you simply need to buy a different DC plug for your system. - Use a Sound Meter If you are serious about car stereo sound, use, borrow, or buy a sound level meter. A sound meter can save you lots of money. The reason for a meter is because once you have your system done, it may take a big increase in amplifier power to see a slight 1 to 3 db increase in sound pressure level. think how much money it will take to double the number of amplifiers you have! Much cheaper to buy a sound meter and re-tune and design your system better, noticing what changes in design makes your db level go higher with the use of a sound meter. unless you have a lot of expireince you may not percieve this correctly. Futhermore, usually system changes cause resonant frequency changes. This is important because, the human body does not accurately rate sound pressure level. Especially at different frequencies. I have had many people incorrectly guess the sound pressure level of a relatively low 138 db into thinking it was 150 db, because it was at very low 24 hz, instead of the usual 45 to 65 hz. Similarly, a recent system I worked on was essentially flat down to 20 hz at 152 db, everybody was "sure" it was "at least 160db", the meter proved thier guessing was wrong. The "perfect" car audio system, doesn't always have to be the most expensive one. In fact, it's simply one that meets your needs and includes all the stuff you want - or, can afford to want. There are a few basic facets you need to consider when it comes to your car audio system because it includes a few basic components. First off you should consider the source - this is essentially the most important part of the car audio unit. You need to first get a good head unit from a manufacture - this doesn't necessarily HAVE to be a top brand name that everyone knows about.One of the first things you need to do is decide what type of system you want. Do you want one that can reproduce your music so that it sounds like you're at a live concert? Or do you want a system that can simply blast out a bunch of bass? Maybe you want a system that can do both. By starting with a goal in mind, you can save yourself from potentially wasting money on components or wasting time on designs and installations that don't fit your overall objectives. I’ve put together suggestions on how to improve the sound in your vehicle, with some tips for simple factory systems and some ideas for more sophisticated setups. Don’t live with bad sound — even the simplest improvements to your system can yield great results. -Replace your car’s speakers You can replace your car speakers with your own setup and that too without anybody’s help. There’s no need to spend a large amount of money on replacing or installing your car speakers anymore. Installing or replacing speakers is not too difficult a task. Initially when you are new to the concept, you may find it a tad bit confusing. Once you do it on your own, you won’t find any difficulty henceforth. In order to accomplish the task, you need to select a few tools. You also need to determine the setup as per your preference. In most cases, speakers are just about the last thing a manufacturer thinks about when building your car. Factory systems have improved in the last few years, but many so-called “premium” systems still use relatively inexpensive amps and speakers that don’t deliver top-notch sound. You can make a big difference in your system’s sound quality by installing a nice set of speakers. You’ll hear tighter bass and more overall clarity, and you’ll most likely notice little details in familiar songs that you’ve never caught before. Replacement speakers give you maximum bang for your buck, so they’re a good first step on the road to better sound. One of the surest signs is muddy sound because most OEM car stereo systems ship with “full range” speakers that aren’t really up to snuff when they’re brand new. When you consider the fact that factory car speakers usually don’t have the same build quality as aftermarket units, it’s easy to see how sound quality can degrade so quickly. It's also remarkably easy to replace car speakers if you're just dropping in new 2-way or 3-way units if you use a size guide. Your factory speakers should also be on the chopping block if you’re building a new sound system. It’s highly unlikely that the original equipment speakers in your car or truck will be up to the task of working with a premium head unit and amp, so leaving them in place will severely hamstring your new dream system. If you want the most out of your custom car stereo system, your best bet is to replace the “full range” factory speakers with high quality component speakers. If you want to squeeze the best possible sound out of your factory sound system, and you don’t have an enormous budget, the speakers are a great place to start. Most OEM systems use “full range” speakers, which means each speaker has a single driver that’s responsible for producing high, medium, and low tones. If you replace car speakers that fall into the "full range" category with 2-way or 3-way speakers that have multiple drivers, the difference in sound quality can be remarkable. Premium aftermarket speakers also tend to be engineered better and constructed from higher quality materials than factory speakers. Most factory speakers use surrounds that are made out of foam and paper, which deteriorates over time. When the surrounds wear out, the sound quality drops significantly. High quality aftermarket speakers tend to use rubber surrounds that last longer and facilitate the delivery of higher quality bass. The cones in aftermarket units are often made from denser materials as well. That’s another one of the reasons a high quality aftermarket speaker will typically have better bass reproduction than a similarly sized factory speaker. Replacing your factory speakers won’t make up for a low-powered head unit or amp, which is why many audiophiles choose to design a new system from scratch. In that case, it’s even more vital to replace low quality factory speakers with superior aftermarket units. In the same way that 2-way and 3-way speakers provide better sound than “full range” speakers, component speakers are even better at reproducing high highs and low lows. Since you can hand pick a head unit and amp to match your speaker configuration, this type of setup will allow you to blow other car audio systems away. Replacing factory car speakers with real woofers and tweeters is more complicated than just dropping in some 2-way or 3-way speakers, but it allows you to design a real sound stage that’s perfect for your car. - Add an amplifier The purpose of a car audio amplifier is to take a low level signal from the source unit (head unit, radio, etc.) and change it into a high level signal for driving the loudspeakers. Amplifiers range in power from about twenty watts per channel to over one thousand watts per channel. The price range can be anywhere from fifty dollars to several thousand dollars depending on features, power output and quality. An amplifier may have as little as one channel of output to as many as eight channels at the time of this writing. The most common amplifiers are two and four channel models although mono subwoofer amplifiers are also very popular, especially the class D type. You may be saying “My factory stereo puts out 200 watts, and that’s plenty of power.” But there’s a huge difference between 50 watts peak power per channel produced by your car stereo and 50 watts RMS from an outboard amplifier. A separate amplifier will provide more clean power than any car stereo, and that will make a night-and-day difference in sound quality. Your system will sound better, whether you listen to Mahler at a conversational level or Megadeth turned up to 11. An amplifier is essential to getting great sound in your car. When shopping for an amplifier consider that all power ratings are not created equal. Some of the low-quality brands will exaggerate or outright lie about the power output of their amplifiers (see this article). This is a good reason to stick with the well known manufacturers. The only true measure of an amplifier's power is its continuous power rating or R.M.S. rating. R.M.S. is an acronym for root mean square and refers to the amplifiers average power output. An even better method is the CEA 2006 standard but not all amplifiers adhere to this testing method. Basically the test is performed at 14.4 volts with a four ohm impedance load. The entire audible frequency range, 20-20kHz is tested with a distortion level of 1% T.H.D. Please give your amplifiers fat, fat, fat wires. the fattest you can afford. they don't have to be fancy or name brand just fat, like a garden hose!!! 1/0 or 00 gauge, or your amplifiers will be weak, or make weird sounds. Most of the time amplifiers are "overrated" by companies to sell more, they give you the "flame rating" this is the peak power at the moment it bursts into flames! Technically, to get the flame rating the factory intentionally kills an amplifier by testing it with a special machine and then connecting the + and - speaker outputs directly to each other without a speaker in between(a direct short circuit). This causes the amp to max death output for maybe 0.001 to 0.01 seconds, and presto... this is the flame rating.Some companies "underate" to let you know it easily pushes clean power,and to keep a high quality reputation. Some well known underrates are: JL Audio, Kenwood, MMats, Alpine, and of course Rockford Fosgate with there 1/2 suitcase size amplifiers rated at 100 watts R.M.S., actually more like 10 times that. Different Amplifiers have different combinations of amperes and voltage for a specific power output. Say you have amplifier brand (X), it is 1600 watts RMS, you or somebody tests it at 80 volts at 20 amperes output. Now amplifier brand (Z) puts out 40 volts at 40 amperes for the same 1600 watts of power. Amplifier (z) is called a "high current" amplifier and is usually of higher quality, and 99 percent of the time cost lots of money. amplifier (z) is awesome for low bass frequencies and low ohm loudspeaker loads (like 1 ohm), and are usually mono block subwoofer only amplifiers, but sometimes can be 2 channel. amplifier (z) will be very weak power in the mids and highs usually above 60 hertz, but terrifying high power output below 60 hertz! Oppositely amplifier (x) will play lots of power no matter what frequency your playing. and if it very strong like over 70 volts it probably will make your speaker hit harder because at resonance a speaker is about 4 to 8 times higher in ohms. so you wired your speakers to 1 ohm on a meter, when you play the resonant frequency you will probably be really at 8 ohms!!! and that 1 ohm monoblock is going to be weak! while the type x amp= type (ab) will be hitting hard and furious. these are also those old school amps that look like long surfboards. - Add a signal processor or an equalizer Signal processors, or digital signal processors (DSPs), are the final stage in fine-tuning the sound in your automobile. The term covers a variety of components--by definition, digitally affecting the sound to alter it from the input signal. Signal processors can refer to an equalizer/crossover unit, a surround sound decoder, speaker steering (allowing you to turn on and/or off specific speakers) and delays for the speakers, sometimes referred to as digital time alignment. An add-on equalizer might be just what you need to finally make your car audio system live up to its full potential. An equalizer lets you finely adjust the sound that gets fed to your speakers, allowing you to compensate for deficiencies in the frequency response of a speaker or an audible shortcoming in a component. Equalization also lets you attempt to control a car interior's typically troublesome acoustics. In very basic terms, equalization boosts or cuts certain ranges of frequencies from an audio signal--a very sophisticated tone control, with more than just bass and treble adjustments. Stand-alone crossover units remain in the realm of high-end audio gear. While a few amplifiers do some sort of crossover-type frequency division, there are times when an audiophile wants and needs an external crossover unit. It's easy to see why--an external crossover unit usually offers the ability to fine-tune adjustments in a way no amplifier or head unit can. A car interior presents some serious problems when it comes to sound quality. Glass and plastic surfaces reflect sound like crazy, while carpet, seat covers, and other absorbent materials soak it up. Add poorly-placed speakers to the mix, and you’ll find significant peaks in frequency response in most car interiors. These peaks make your music boomy in the bass or shrill in the upper frequencies, causing “ear fatigue.” Most car receivers give you treble, midrange, and bass controls — useful for global fixes but not for zeroing in on problem areas. You’ll need a sophisticated equalizer to kill these peaks, whether it’s built into your receiver or in a processor that you mount in your dash or near your amplifiers. An outboard equalizer gives you multiple points for adjusting frequency response, so you can iron out the peaks in your system. A parametric equalizer allows you to vary the center point and width of each EQ band, so you can really zero in on a problem area. Sound processors can help you eliminate frequency response peaks and increase bass response, and some even include a microphone for analyzing your car’s acoustics The equalizer is a sophisticated tone control for the system, adjusting many different low, mid and high frequencies. Equalizers come in many forms including dash and trunk mount units with either graphic, parametric, or quasi-parametric processing. The most common type of unit is the graphic, in-dash variety. Usually half the height (half-DIN) of a source unit, this type is the most easily adjustable and therefore the most often misused. An equalizer should really only be set once to overcome the acoustic problems of the car and then adjusted only periodically when tuning the system. This is why trunk mount units are used in car audio competition more often than the in-dash variety. When using an equalizer do not overdue the boost on a frequency. If possible try to cut a frequency rather than boosting another. Over-equalizing a system can cause damage to the components, especially the speakers. - Subwoofer make your sound better Upgrade your amplifier. Subwoofers require power to operate and every sub will have wattage recommendations. If you want to boost your sound, you will need to pick an amp that can output at your sub's highest wattage range to ensure you get full-force bass. Change your equalizer settings. Turn up the bass and use the fade function to push more of the audio towards the rear of the car. This leaves the high and mid-ranges up front while the sub does the heavy lifting. Buy a new set of speakers for your car. Do not expect a sub to be a one-stop method for fixing audio quality. Subwoofers help with your bass output but cannot mask low quality stock speakers. Build or buy an enclosure for the subwoofer. Enclosure design is just as important as the sub itself, with a well-shaped enclosure sharpening your woofer's sound and boosting its output. Install sound deadening material around exposed metal on your car's interior. In addition to reducing the amount of exterior noise you pick up, this material helps control nasty rattles caused by powerful subs. Install a separate sub amp that does not provide power to any other speakers. This ensures your sub receives as much power as possible. Another amp should power your other speakers. Add a crossover unit to your music system. A crossover splits different frequencies and directs them to different parts of the system; the crossover routes low frequencies to the sub and the mids and highs to your main amp. This relieves the main amp and speakers of the low frequencies, allowing them to work more efficiently. Generally, a smaller speaker gives clearer highs and bigger speakers give deeper lows. Mid range speakers come in 2 way (plays high and low) and 3 way (plays highs mids and lows). Obviously, the more sounds a speaker can play, the better it will sound. It's important to remember that sub woofers will demand the most power out of your amps - more power should go to your sub woofers than the compounded power to your other speakers. Obviously for ALL these components you are going to need a powerful power supply cord as a fundamental part of any car audio system. Most of the time you can get away with a 12V DC, if you find that the car audio company you bought from includes a lower Voltage - you simply need to buy a different DC plug for your system. - Use a Sound Meter If you are serious about car stereo sound, use, borrow, or buy a sound level meter. A sound meter can save you lots of money. The reason for a meter is because once you have your system done, it may take a big increase in amplifier power to see a slight 1 to 3 db increase in sound pressure level. think how much money it will take to double the number of amplifiers you have! Much cheaper to buy a sound meter and re-tune and design your system better, noticing what changes in design makes your db level go higher with the use of a sound meter. Unless you have a lot of experience you may not perceive this correctly. Furthermore, usually system changes cause resonant frequency changes. This is important because, the human body does not accurately rate sound pressure level. Especially at different frequencies. I have had many people incorrectly guess the sound pressure level of a relatively low 138 db into thinking it was 150 db, because it was at very low 24 Hz, instead of the usual 45 to 65 Hz. Similarly, a recent system I worked on was essentially flat down to 20 Hz at 152 db, everybody was "sure" it was "at least 160db", the meter proved their guessing was wrong. If your system is using a ported box, a sound meter will let you see how much slight changes in the length or size of your ports can make a big difference in your sound pressure level. - Get an Epicenter Bass Generator Get an Epicenter Bass Generator, they are amazing and make music sound much better. They make massive subharmonic bass, but the added benefit is that it makes the high frequency sound more clearer and crisper. Later you can upgrade to one of our Epicenter frequency chips for 2 octaves deeper, truly disturbing low, low bass! that super deep bass. Whats superdeep? below 25hz, why? If you got a system that has flat response to 10 Hz your getting basically 2 more octaves of music. It sounds way better and hits and vibrates you and your car much much harder. Because everything can play down to 30 hz pretty easily. Trying to get the bass below 25 Hz is not easy. First you need a deck like a pioneer that has no subsonic 20hz cutoff filters. Alpine have 20 Hz filters so you wont get superdeep out of them. Next you need an pre amp equalizer that has a 20 hz or at least a 30 hz adjuster,this is after your deck but before the epicenter or bass processor. Then you need an epicenter or bass processor. With a bass chip or a modified soundstream BX12 like we sell so you can get the ultra bass frequencies. You need superspeakers and a superamp, and probably a superbig box tuned to 18hz. - Your crossover can really improve the sound of your system Many in-dash receivers now include frequency filters that will work with your preamp and speaker outputs. If you’ve got a sub, use the high-pass filter to remove the low bass from your car’s full-range speakers. You’ll get more clean volume out of them, particularly if you’re driving them with the receiver’s built-in power. Or maybe your sub sounds really strong, but the bass sounds like it’s coming from behind you. Experiment with raising or lowering the crossover point on your low-pass filter, and you’ll be able to bring the bass up forward with the rest of the music. Many amplifiers feature subsonic filters that remove super-low bass below the range of human hearing. Go ahead and turn it on — your amp and sub will run cleaner without that subsonic sludge. Also, the compression you use to create your music files can cause a low-frequency sputtering sound in your subs. Your subsonic filter can remove or minimize this noise. - Use high-quality cables for your amplifiers Electricity’s like running water. You wouldn’t run a garden hose from your well to your house, because not enough water would get through to keep up with demand. That’s why you don’t want to use cheap, undersized power cable to get power to your amplifiers — the amp will be starved for power when you start pushing up the volume control. Good power cable allows current to flow freely so your amp gets the juice it needs during peak demand. High-quality patch cables promote better signal flow from your receiver to your amps, so you hear a more focused, detailed sound. And good patch cables will also reject noise caused by your car’s electrical system. Don’t believe it? Ask any guitar player about the importance of good cables. - Using your head Are you sure you want to install a system that costs twice as much as your car? Do you really want to rip out the back seat to install subwoofers? Is it wise to fill up the trunk of the car with amplifiers so that you can't even carry a bag of groceries? It's easy to get carried away when planning, shopping for, and installing a car audio system. Try to keep a level head when putting together your system, taking into account how you use your car, how long you plan to keep it, how much you've budgeted, and other such considerations. Too many people make poor choices and regret it afterward. - Using your ears A car audio system is a very personal thing — for your ears only. Although you may get advice from others on which components to buy, how they should be installed, and how the system should be tuned, you should be the ultimate authority on the subject. After all, you're the one spending the money on a car audio system. It's your car and they are your ears: They'll tell you what kind of sound is best. - Cranking it up When shopping for car audio equipment, don't be afraid to play music at loud volumes to get a sense of how a speaker or subwoofer performs. Most components are made to play music at loud volume and perform their best when cranked up. Same thing goes for after you get the stuff installed in your car. Don't hesitate to crank it up from time to time. - Turning it down Of course, there's a limit to how much you want to crank it up. A little distortion is inevitable, but a lot can damage components, particularly speakers. When you hear distortion or a problem with a component, turn it down. And when you're driving through a quiet neighborhood, turn it down. You also want to be careful not to crank it so loud that you don't hear sirens from emergency vehicles. And you don't want to play your system so loud that it damages your ears — otherwise you won't be enjoying music for years to come. - Security 1. Don't leave valuables visible to people walking by especially C.D.'s or IPod's, put them in the trunk or at least hide them under the seat. 2. Get an alarm for your car 3. Don't BOOM LOUDLY near your own house!(your telling criminals to come and visit you later, when your sleeping!) 4. Stop bragging and shut your mouth! So your system is 150+db, shove a cookie in your mouth and shut up(nobody cares... besides let the sound meter do the talking for you). 5. You should know if the type of people in the area your parking at are criminals, drug abusers, or just desperate(especially those crystal meth heads). Alarm or not they can and will break your window in 5 seconds for a $2 music C.D. left visible on the front seat, so they can trade it to get high, and cost you a couple of hundred dollars to fix the window-even if they don't want to take anything else! A lot of people really like putting their own systems together. Firstly, it allows you to really learn ALL you can about a car. How it's made, how it works, how to install stuff, it's like one giant puzzle. Second off, there is a lot of pride in installing your own car audio components. It's just a nice boost of confidence, it doesn't matter if you are installing mobile video or car audio, I can guarantee that if you do it on your own you are going to feel much better about the situation and the time and money you spent on it! Please visit our website for more information about Do-It-Yourself Car Audio: http://diycaraudio.weebly.com/ Thanks : http://www.ecoustics.com/articles/car-audio-tips-maximum-sound http://www.caraudiohelp.com/car_audio_signal_processors/car_audio_signal_processors.htm http://www.automotto.com/how-replace-car-speakers.html http://www.articlesbase.com/automotive-articles/the-beginners-guide-on-how-to-build-the-perfect-car-audio-system-1625026.html http://reviews.ebay.com/Car-Signal-Processor-Buying-Guide?ugid=10000000004617508 http://www.ehow.com/how_4807329_subwoofer-sound-better.html http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/steps-to-great-caraudio-sound.html http://www.wikihow.com/Upgrade-Your-Car%27s-Sound-System http://www.makeitlouder.com/carstereo.html http://cartech.about.com/od/Car-Audio/a/Why-Replace-Car-Speakers.htm
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