Showcasing the Best in the Mobile Enhancement Industry
It seems like everything to do with car audio installations has something to do with managing voltages. For starters, your electrical system needs to produce enough voltage to keep your radio and amplifier going. And amplifiers need to increase the voltage to drive speakers. When adding an amplifier to a factory-installed audio system, your installer will need to measure the Read more
A digital signal processor, or at the very least some type of equalizer, is pretty much a requirement when it comes to creating a car audio system that will have realistic tonal balance. There are dozens of methods to configure and tune these processors, and each has benefits and drawbacks. What seems to be an ongoing issue is the need to have someone with the proper training Read more
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
