How to choose speakers for your car – expert advice

Auto and Moto

Nowadays more and more people prefer to enjoy their favorite tracks in their own car. What could be better than turning on your favorite Metallica album and rushing along the night highway with a breeze? However, in order to get the most out of your music listening experience, you need high-quality car acoustics. And the speech here is not only about the 'head' – a car radio that plays tracks from different media, the speakers installed in the car play no less important. And if everything is in order in premium cars, budget cars cannot boast of high-quality sound. You can put up with this drawback, or you can pick up, buy and install high-quality acoustics with your own hands, while getting an excellent sound for very modest money!

speakers for cars

Top manufacturers

Currently, in the world of car acoustics, there are many manufacturers that produce high-quality acoustics, the sound of which will satisfy the needs of even the most demanding music lover. Many of these brands are engaged in the production of various acoustic equipment designed for use in other areas of our life, and car acoustics is just one of their areas of activity. In general, when choosing speakers for your car, you should pay attention to the products of the following brands:

  1. Sharp

  2. Pioneer

  3. JBL

  4. Kenwood

  5. Alpine

  6. Bang & olufssen

The assortment of each of the above companies includes a huge number of different speaker models designed for use in certain conditions. It is for this reason that, before giving preference to a particular model, you should study user reviews on the Internet, as well as familiarize yourself with the speaker configurations of those users who have already installed such speakers in their car.

Selection options. What to look for when choosing speakers for your car?

You should not think that to get high-quality sound it is enough to go to the store and buy the first available, certainly the most powerful and loud speakers. The sound obtained as a result of such manipulation will resemble the hiss of the polyphony of an old Nokia, and there is no point in talking about high-quality reproduction, details, highlighting instruments and other subtleties. There are many more criteria to pay attention to when choosing car acoustics.

Acoustics type

Acoustics type

Depending on this parameter, there are two main types of speaker systems.

  1. Coaxial acoustics is a multi-frequency system where each speaker is able to reproduce low, mid and high frequencies simultaneously. The resulting sound turns out to be quite solid and legible, however, of course, there is no need to talk about the concert quality of reproduction. Among the many advantages of such acoustics, there is also a very democratic price;

  2. People who prefer instrumental music, classical music and all kinds of rock and metal music should prefer component acoustics. This option assumes separate connection and location of the speakers through different channels and in different places of the car, which makes the sound much brighter, more natural and rich. The disadvantages of such a system can be considered, perhaps, the laboriousness of the installation, a large number of speakers and high cost as a result;

Speaker bandwidth

This term refers to the width of the range and the number of speakers used to decompose music into specific frequencies. The simplest option is a single-way system, which uses speakers that can reproduce the entire range of sounds. The higher the bandwidth of the speaker system, the higher the quality, intelligibility and acoustic component of the music. So, the highest quality four-way systems have up to 15-20 speakers that can reproduce the entire frequency range. As a 'reward' for such a high-quality sound, the music lover receives the high cost of such acoustics;

Speaker size

speaker size

Without going into the acoustic characteristics of the speakers, the general relationship is as follows: the larger the diagonal of the speaker cone, the better it reproduces low sound frequencies. Conversely, small speakers – tweeters are almost always used to reproduce high frequencies, allowing a great variety of sound quality. For those who care about the frequency range and the overall musical picture, you should 'build' a system consisting of at least six speakers, two of which will have a diameter of 17-18 centimeters and are designed for low frequencies, two – 10-12 centimeters and be mid-range , the two remaining speakers will have a diagonal of 3-5 centimeters and will be used to reproduce high frequency sound.

frequency range

Any sound is a combination of waves of a certain frequency, and for this reason, the higher the frequency range of the speaker system, the higher quality and 'pure' sound the user will receive as a result. The unspoken acoustic standard of all modern manufacturers is the range from 27 to 37,000 Hz, speakers capable of reproducing this frequency range are able to provide the best sound quality. Of course, the higher the frequency range of certain speakers, the higher their cost.

Operating and peak power of the speakers

The first parameter denotes the power that the speakers are capable of delivering over a long period of time without sound distortion and the likelihood of speaker damage. Peak power is the maximum possible sound level that the speakers are able to deliver for a short period of time. Both of these parameters can be strikingly different from each other, and the higher they are, the louder and more saturated sound the system can produce. However, when choosing acoustics for this parameter, pay attention to the output power of the channels of your radio tape recorder – if the power of the speakers turns out to be higher than that which the radio tape recorder can produce, your new speakers will work 'idle' and require the introduction of an audio amplifier into the system.

It should also be remembered how important the materials used in the manufacture of speakers are. Silk membranes, the use of precious metals in the manufacture of conductors, powerful neodymium magnets and other 'secret' techniques can maximize the sound quality, but it also leads to a significant increase in the cost of acoustics. However, this circumstance does not stop music lovers, who know that you have to pay serious money for high-quality sound.

!

In the next article we will reveal all the secrets of choosing the right rear view camera.

Car audio selection video


Attention! This material is the subjective opinion of the authors of the project and is not a purchase guide.

Rate article
An online magazine about style, fashion, etiquette, lifestyle, and about choosing the best products and services.
Add a comment