CAR AUDIO People, what to look for when looking at speakers

[Viking 0]

Someone told me the wider the frequency response range the better the speaker period. what other things should i look at?

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[yardhippie 0]

really depend on what range of speaker are you wantin? tweeter, midrange or sub? or just an all around speaker?
the wider the range isnt really true (from what I know) I have friends that are really good at that stuff to point me in the right direction.
I usually keeps some 10s or 12s in the back, w/ some good mids in the doors, and small tweets up high (like by my sun visors).

Crutchfield has a great online web site. try there and read up. Im sure ya can find most of what your looking for.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[ripper0289 0]

When you go in to see which ones you like, take a cd of acoustic music. See what the acoustic music sounds like. Any company can throw wattage numbers at you, good speakers will sound clear through most of the volume range. And if the salesman won't let you put your cd in for a test drive, consider another audio dealer.

[Viking 0]

6 1/2 in the front doors and 5x7's in the rear. no subs no tweaters

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[fasterfaller 0]

Some good brands , Polk , Boston accoustics , m b quart , JL audio peerless , seas . Quality is everything .

[n23x 0]

This question is really budget oriented, more than anything else. If you are intending to just run speakers off of your headunit (versus amped signal), I'd recommend finding some nice coax speakers or possibly some component sets (separate tweeter/midrange). The components will have better sound, but tend to cost more. For optimum sound quality, it would be more prefferable to split up the frequency range (usually 4 groups), tweeter, high-mid, low-mid, bass. The reasoning behind this is that the smaller the frequency range the speaker has to cover, the crisper/clearer the sound. The drawback? More complicated crossover of each speakers frequency (getting it to sound right) and cost. Assuming we're just looking for replacement speakers here, I'd have to suggest a component set in front (tweeter and 5.25"mid/6.5" mid) and maybe some nice coaxial speakers (tweeter and midrange speaker-in-one) for the back. Probably a pretty cheap investment, and noticably better sound quality, without costing an arm and a leg. Though truth be told, it's probably better spent on jump tickets

.jim

"Don't touch my fucking Easter eggs, I'll be back monday." ~JTFC

[darkvapor 0]

I don't think frequency response is so important in a car audio system. Most audio you will be playing in the car will not utilize a wide frequency band. If you plan on using an MP3 player, then that generally has a narrow frequency band as well. A key point to MP3 compression is removing frequencies that aren't very important to the overall quality of the sound. Fidelity is important, but not to the point of looking at frequency response curves. Radio frequencies and most digital signals really don't utilize the full range of human hearing (technically about 20hz to 20kHz).

The reason I say fidelity doesn't matter in a car is because you have so many other factors. Road noise, speaker location, physical and acoustical interactions with the car, and just a whole bunch of other factors that make getting the highest fidelity speaker rather unimportant.

I think it also depends on whether you drive a 1995 Honda Civic or a 2004 BMW 745.. get the best value, not the best fidelity.

When I upgraded the system in my Jeep GC, I had a friend at best buy hook me up with a discount. Never pay retail. The markup is horrific. For speakers, I liked the Pioneer TS-A1680R's that I got. I got a slightly different model (180watt version) in the front speakers. However, one is a 3-way, the other a 2-way speaker. It has secondary and even tertiary voice coils built into the speakers. This gives you a much better reproduction, since, effectively, you have tweeters as well.

I think the other biggest factor in improving the sound quality is the use of an amplifier. Adding an amplifier really complicates an installation, but the clarity and power is just unbelievable. I used to use the head unit to power the speakers, and after about 1/3 power, you could hear distortion. After about 1/2 power, the distortion would become overwhelming. With the amplifier that I am using now, at about 1/6th power, it is as loud as I can stand, and the clarity is excellent.

[Muenkel 0]

Quote

CAR AUDIO People, what to look for when looking at speakers

Wires.

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Chris

[Viking 0]

smartass lol

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[nebula 0]

I got a kenwood KDC 5019 SIRIUS ready, 2 pionners 6x9" 300W 4 ways mounted in the back (Left/Right) and a infinity subroofer 10" (in the middle back) -
I have a 450SL which has only 2 seats so my speakers and sub are in the back.
I like the sound and the most important for me was to be able to have a great sound while driving without the top. That system ROCKS!
Budget wise that is a great CD/radio/sound system (as long as you install it yourself) cost you no more than $510 tax included. ( I am sure that it is cheaper now)

Although I am a girl and doesn't have lots of tech knowledge on this stuff, I truly believe that a sub is necessary, not matter what.

Just my 2 cents and happy to share my stuff too ! I spent so many hours/days installing that system. Not only I saved money but learn something which makes me happy !
so long and good luck

PS : Siri (symbol) is a good investment too, but long term (not a swing, not a short term but a 5 years long term ones..) if you are into investing well trust this one and get into it. But buy when time is right ...... just being cool tonight and giving out my trading tips !!!! :)

[dterrick 0]

What car?

What exhaust system? (nosiy = get a bigger amp and fegattaboudit)

I run an Alpine and Cerwin stuff in my Civic Si - the front stage predates my ownership of the car (as well as the 'rice boyz stereo styling' school so prevalent today )

If you have room for a sub, all you need to do is NOT send anything below about 80 Hz to your fronts. Then, deck power (as long as it's GOOD deck power) is fine. Crossover capability is NB -whether you do it in a higher end head unit (a la Alpine) or via a feed into a crossover just depends on your space and patience for fiddling. Audio is much like photography - some can get beautiful results out of a Pentax K-1000 and 2 lenses and some need $10k worth of automatic crap to do it for them.

PM me for some lower dollar ideas - save a few jump tix. It is most often not, I repeat NOT, about the 'wattage' or 'frequency response' ... marketing people can make spec sheets look good to 90% of all people. Be among the 10% who understnads and appreciates good sound, not just good marketing!

For Jazz and classical: MB quart, Infinity Kappa, Bostons. For Rock: Cerwins(a bit harsh) or JBL. All around: decent grade Alpines. Remember the sub and the equalizer will make or break the image.

Dave

Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

[Viking 0]

I drive a 94 Ford Escort Station Wagon with the tape deck w/o amp. Stock exhaust lol like i'm gonna put a thermal exhaust on this POS!! maybe when i get my Protege' 5 and a turbo kit for it but thats a LOOOONG way off.

I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

[hipgnosis 0]

I'd suggest just going with a reasonably powered head unit (Sony CDX-MP40 MP3 capable works well for me), a couple of decent fronts 4" and some 6x9"s in the rear.

I put something exactly like that in my beater pickup and while it doesn't approach the clarity of my home theater it's pefect for the road, plus the volume from the head unit is more than enough to drive the speakers way past a comfortable listening level.

www.bestbuy.com has a nifty little utility in their car stereo section which will tell you what speakers will fit in your car. That's an excellent place to start.

Then just go to a store and actually give the speakers a listen. It'll at least let you eliminate some of the speakers that sound 'weird' to you.

Incidentally, on behalf of all those hitching a ride with you from Phoenix airport to Eloy I thank you for pre-planning our entertainment needs. After you get this done you can start planning out the in-drive meals you'll be serving us

Bill

[Fast 0]

Its all about budget.

If you have a crappy head unit, and don't intend on replacing it at any time in the future it doesn't matter what speakers you buy.

Crap in = crap out.

If you have a decent head unit, or plan on replacing it in the future then you need to consider what you feel is a reasonable price to spend on 4 speakers and pick up a matching set. Things to consider are the type of music you listen to, and what general acoustic prefrences you have. I find that if you want to learn a lot about car audio, start by going to a shop that specializes in it, in fact, hit up a couple. Ask questions and don't commit to anything, you don't want to buy from a specialty shop because they charge too much most of the time, but they are great to learn from.

As it sounds you want a nice 4 speaker set up. You can go anywhere from 4 single cone speakers all the way to fully seperate component speakers. The place that I go when I want to ask questions laser aims every speaker in the car for the perfect audio image, thats what I would call overkill in this situation.

The most common setup is a 2 range speaker up front, and a 3 range in the back. That means your front speaker size will be termined to fit your door/dash and there will be a tweeter in the center, that is flush. The rear 6 x 9 will have a large cone and 2 embeded tweeters. For most practices thats all you need.

If you want to spend more then buying the same standard 6x9s for the rear, but buying a seperated component system for up front will make a big difference. The reason being that you lose a lot of the high range sound comming from speakers that are in doors. The audio gets absorbed/over-ran before it really has a chance to get up to your ears for you to hear. The mid range and lower range sound carrys better. So having a very small tweeter that you mount near the dash will let you hear the highs much better, but this comes at a cost.

I personally, when I got my truck, left the stock speakers in the door, and back... upgraded the headunit to a CD player, and added two 10" speakers with two amps (Both run at low wattage, as to not over power or under power the speakers). Why? To suit my audio prefrences. I like to have a full range sound. At home my stereo speakers are really old pioneers that have a 12" main speaker, and are full range, so I needed that in my vehicle so it sounded the same. Its really all about how you like to hear music. I don't listen to rap or anything like that, and my truck is no bass pounding machine, its just high quality.


As for any particular brand, all I can say is go listen to stuff and see what sounds right to you. Play a few different CDs that you listen to all the time.

The only stuff I would stay away from is the cheapy walmart brand type of stuff. I never much liked kenwood or jvc, but some people I know have had ok stuff from them.


Also, to answer your initial question, thats not true. Speakers all have differnet purposes. A speaker with a wide response range is good (to some extent) if all you want is a simple one speaker setup, if you have more than one, then each speaker can preform its own task. In cars most frequently you have the lower frequecy sound coming from the speakers in the back deck because there has to be some distance between you and the speaker or it won't sound right. Highs don't need that distance. The other thing is, when your sitting in your vehicle, if you close your eyes the sound should seem like its centered at the winshield, like your watching a preformance on a stage.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka