QuestionG'day,
I have recently bought a car. This is my first car and it has an atrocious sound system in it. I'm quiet a music buff and listen to many different genres. I have been told that different systems are for better genres. I was curious if you had any suggestions on the specifications on what I should buy. I'm looking to buy 4 speakers, head unit, sub woofer and amp. I listen to mostly metal, rock, techno genres if that's any help.
Any help would be greatly appreciated and I thank you for taking time just to read this.
Cheers mate, Steve.
AnswerHi Steve,
Unfortunately, all most people (including me) can give you in these situations is hearsay.
So I'll give you my $0.02.
Metal and rock usually make more use of high notes (distorted guitar pitch harmonics, top hats), and techno would make more use of lower notes (thump, thump, thump), so what you're going to need to do is make sure you get a subwoofer with a good low, CLEAN frequency response (the bigger the cone, generally, the lower the frequency it can hit), as well as good two-way speakers that can cleanly hit higher frequencies, and a cross over or filter caps that will filter out frequencies speakers SHOULDN'T be hitting (no point sending 40Hz notes to a tweeter, and no point sending > 300Hz (you actually probably shouldn't be shipping anything > 80, and certainly not > 120 to your subwoofer anyway) notes to a subwoofer [most amps have low pass filters that'll do this for you.]
If you really like your music, don't go looking for raw wattage and RMS. Go for quality. An entire system that does 400w CLEANLY will always sound better (at least to me) than a 4000w system with buckets of distortion.
Get someone with an SPL meter and a test disc that can play various frequency ranges to test your car to make sure it's hitting a good array of frequencies at the same SPL (~40Hz, 300Hz, 1000Hz, 3000Hz, 10000Hz, 15000Hz [or so, I just made these #s up]), so you're hearing the music the way it was made to be heard.
Pay close attention to the THD level products are listed at for their rated wattage, and stay well below it.
And above all else, research, research, research. Go to stores, listen to speakers, get the ones that hit those high notes accurately and the way you like. Get a subwoofer that cleanly hits the low notes the way you like (I'd suggest a sealed box with some polyester fibre in it for your uses -- not as loud, but very clean and more accurate).
You may also want to invest in some soundproofing products to make your system sound its best, since one of the biggest issues with car stereos and good sound is resonance, rattling panels, and road noise. I'm partial to a product called 'Damplifier', but to each his own (don't buy the cheap stuff, it's awful).
Good luck,
Justin
