Improving Your Sound Quality
Loud is easy, but good is hard. Swapping out an anonymous factory amp for a top-shelf brand name is a good start to improving your sound quality. It will certainly make it louder, but what about making it better?
Challenges to Great Car Audio
Unlike the controlled environment of a home theater, the interior of a moving car is replete is obstacles that make audio sound rough.
- Speaker Positioning – default speaker positioning isn’t necessarily the best placement for your specific vehicle.
- Reflective Surfaces – glass windows, thick seats, and even your passengers themselves bounce around and reflect the sound.
- Road Noise – even luxury vehicles suffer from tire hum, engine whine, wind, exhaust, and assorted rattles.
- Car Material – fiberglass, metal, and plastic don’t combine to make the best quality sound experience.
Fix #1: High Quality Premium Speakers
The best place to start is with quality aftermarket speakers. Yes, they cost a few more bucks, but nothing makes music come alive like the right speakers. And aftermarket speakers are just simply made better than factory ones.
What separates regular factory speakers from high quality ones?
- Premium Materials – Look for materials like ex-beryllium, Kevlar, carbon fiber, and multi-laminate for smoother frequency response.
- Lower Distortion – Xmax identifies how far a speaker can move with minimum distortion. Higher Xmas = lower distortion.
- Advanced Construction – You want bigger voice coils, stronger magnets, and wider rubber surrounds for sustained high output.
Talk with one of our Sales Pros to find the best speaker match for the sound you’re looking for and for what will fit your ride! Check out our speakers HERE!
Fix #2: Sound Dampening
Want to make $99 sale speakers sound like $500 premiums? Want to boost bass and enrich mid-tones without turning up the volume?
Dampening reduces road noise, muffles rattling car parts, and improves overall audio fidelity. Installed inside door panels, under seats, below the carpet, inside the roof liner, even under the hood, sound dampening is the unseen, hidden hero behind the best sounding systems.
Fix #3: System Design, Equalizers, & DSPs
- System Design – Every vehicle layout is unique, making speaker placement and angling critical. Poor design leads to a psychotic mix of highs, lows, and variations in volume.
- Equalizers – think you got this covered because your stereo has bas and treble control? Yeah, this isn’t that. Add-on equalizers provide multiple points for adjusting frequency response and varying widths of each EQ band, so you can really zero in on precise sound.
- Digital Sound Processors (DSP) – These help eliminate frequency response peaks and increase bass response, and some even include a microphone for analyzing car’s acoustics. Add a DSP to your system and treat yourself to the ultimate upgrade.
Additional Tips for Better Sound
- Download and stream higher quality, less compressed music files.
- Add an amplifier instead of relying on your stereo’s built-in amplification.
- Don’t max out your EQ settings; nothing ever sounds good maxed out.
- Let speakers be speakers; add a subwoofer for cleaner, more resonate bass.
- Add a capacitor; most car electrical systems aren’t equipped for high-end sound.
- And of course…use a professional (like us!) when it comes to the installation.