Showcasing the Best in the Mobile Enhancement Industry
Another scrolling session on Reddit is complete, and it gave me an idea for an article that might help explain a common question. When people shop for amplifiers, they often see the terms “RMS” and “peak” regarding power ratings. What do these terms mean, and are they an accurate way to quantify how car audio products will perform? Let’s find out! Power Measurements in Direct Read more
Imagine a science experiment that calls for a chemical solution to be heated to precisely 130 degrees for five minutes. Would a scientist guess at the temperature or stick their finger in the beaker, or would they use a calibrated thermometer to measure exactly when to apply more heat? Likewise, would they use a clock or stopwatch or count to 300 Mississippi to know when the Read more
Day after day, I read posts on Facebook and Reddit about do-it-yourselfers trying to set their car audio subwoofer amplifiers so that they don’t make full power. The typical description goes something like: “I have a 700-watt amp and a 500-watt sub, so I set the gain so the amp so it will only produce 31.6 volts.” There’s usually something extra like “the radio was set to ¾" Read more
The first two upgrades I made when I purchased my 2015 Hyundai Genesis sedan were to have the windows tinted and a remote car starter installed. If you want to know how well the window tint project went, read this post. On the remote starter side, everything went pretty well. I had an iDatastart HC-Series starter installed and added the AutoConnect telematics interface from my Read more
A while back we published an article that looked at the issue of intermodulation distortion from coincident coaxial speakers. As the woofer cone moves forward and rearward from its rest position, it acts as moving waveguide for the tweeter. While the phenomenon is measurable, there are other considerations in a coincident speaker design that offer dramatic performance benefits Read more
Whether it’s Black Friday, Christmas, Back to School or just a regular sale, many car stereo shops around the country offer subwoofer system upgrade packages that let you add bass to your stereo at an affordable price. These packages typically include a 200-300 watt amplifier, a single subwoofer, an enclosure and an installation kit. We’ve noticed a trend in the choice of Read more
A while back we published an article that discussed why aiming speakers in a properly designed car audio system was futile. As usual, we received a good deal of feedback about the piece. The comments ranged from the typical “that’s not how it works” to more scientific discussions about how even minor changes in placement had significant effects on imaging and soundstage Read more
If you ask anyone who’s had a remote starter or car alarm, they’ve likely heard of holding the remote to their chin to improve range. That’s right: With many of the classic key fobs, touching the remote to your chin while pressing the button can increase the signal strength and allow you to unlock, disarm or start the vehicle.Because new car starter remotes use different Read more
Remote car starters have been around for decades to make it easy for you to start warming up or cooling off your vehicle without having to go outside. We started with relatively simple remotely controlled relays that mimic the function of the key cylinder the steering column. Now, modern vehicles require many of those connections, plus the need to interface with the computer Read more
