Showcasing the Best in the Mobile Enhancement Industry
As much fun as it is to test and audition high-end car audio products, we all know that a massive amount of business happens with more affordable products. Rockford Fosgate sent up one of their R2-1200X1 Prime Series 1,200-watt monoblock amplifiers for us to check out. This amplifier isn’t bottom-of-the-barrel inexpensive, and once you’re done reading this, you’ll understand Read more
We’re back with our third article in the BestCarAudio.com series about understanding subwoofer quality. This time, we have a 10-inch Clarion Signature Series SSW1001 subwoofer from around 2006 or 2007. There’s a bit of a back story about this driver, so get comfy.I worked at Clarion Canada Inc. from 2004 to 2017. During that time, I had roles in technical support, product Read more
We’re back again with the next subwoofer in our series about understanding subwoofer quality. That pawn shop woofer from the last article was a great starting point for evaluating woofer quality. The bass heads who think 6.5-inch PA speakers can play down to 80 Hz could learn a lot from it and the Understanding Speaker Quality article on the Skar FSX65-4 midrange. We are going Read more
Our first subject in this series of articles about understanding subwoofer quality is a low-cost 10-inch driver from a local electronics parts store. This manufacturer markets this transducer as a “full range” speaker that “looks and sounds great” and not a subwoofer. We’ll start by measuring the Thiele/Small parameters of the driver, then break it in to see if things change Read more
If we could send just one message to car audio enthusiasts, it would be to stop talking about wattage ratings. These numbers are irrelevant and often misleading in the context of quality, performance and value. Leave the reference to watts out if you want to sound intelligent when discussing car audio upgrades. What Are Watts? The SI Unit watt is used to measure power. One Read more
Has the touchscreen of your car radio started to look hazy? Is it more than five years old? We were staring at the display in one of our employees’ vehicles and realized it looked horrible. We started wondering if it might be possible to repair or rejuvenate the screen. Let’s see what we came up with. Car Radio Touchscreen Technology The most popular interface for multimedia Read more
Let’s take a look at amplifier, speaker and subwoofer quality. This time, it won’t be a series of lab measurements that evaluate distortion, frequency response or power. It won’t even include listening evaluations or comments on shiny products.Many years ago, Rockford Fosgate ran a magazine advertisement showing a picture of a Punch 75 HD amplifier and Bruce. Bruce is Read more
Last year, we published a series of articles that compared several 6.5-inch woofers. Those articles were intended to show the linearity and distortion differences between entry-level products and those with features that improve performance and sound quality. The results were exactly as we expected: The better drivers played louder with less distortion. We figured it was about Read more
How much does it cost to install a car audio amplifier? What a great question! How many channels does the amplifier have? What kind of speakers are being powered by the amp? What source unit are you using? How difficult is it to run power wiring to the battery? As you can see, there’s no “one size fits all” answer to this question. Let’s discuss the bare necessities and the Read more
