I'm a 29 year old audiophile with a decent home rig. I put $3,000 into a hi-end stereo in my BMW 535 with great successand absolutely NO REGRETS. I used info I learned from reading Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, and Bound For Sound magazines, coupled with LOTS of listening to car audio components, talking to better dealers in my area, talking to car audio competitors who compete in the sound quality (not SPL) contests, and listening to hi end home systems to use as a reference for imaging, soundstaging depth, transparency and air, midrange neutrality, frequency extension etc. I approached car stereo with the same set of expectations as I would while assembling a home system. I firmly believe that you achieve excellent results in car audio by applying lessons learned from home audio such as controling vibrations and RFI, damping resonant frequencies in the car, bracing/constrained layer damping of speaker baffles and cabinets etc. I find I listen to music more often in my car while driving because there are less distractions than when I am at home. I can listen at the volume I want and to the type of music I want without bothering anyone. I find myself taking the long way to my destinations, just so I can listen to one more track! In my system I used Infinity Beta series speakers with Infinity designed passive crossovers (only available from select Infinity dealers), Precision Power 6 channel amp (50watts x 5 plus 150w x 1), Sony ES head unit and 10 disc CD changer, all Wireworld Orbit cables ($400 worth of wire, shielded and normally used in home systems), and a 1 farad capacitor to provide extra juice to the amp for peaks. Use an experienced installer that understands what you mean when you say "imaging", and try to get the distance between the speaker drivers and your ears to be as close to the same distance as possible for best imaging. This may mean mounting mids and tweeters in the kick panels by your feet, angled up toward your ears to even out the distance from your left speakers to your left ear and the right speakers to your right ear. Focus on getting the best possible speakers you can afford up front to create a stage in front of you, like a concert, before concerning yourself too much with speakers in the back of the car. Rear speakers I use to create a little more hall sound (ambience) by keeping them down in volume compared to the fronts. The hardest thing in hi end car audio is integrating the subwoofer. The best is to have woofers/subwoofers up front, so that it appears that bass is coming from the soundstage your front speakers are projecting. Unfortunately, it's not always practical in a car. So you can experiment with tricks like wiring your sub out of phase with your front speakers(works best in my setup), exotic enclosures like aperiodic designs, and crossing the sub over below 50 Hz to minimize the directional cues (a good idea in any case). I know this post is long, but I did a lot of research before leaping into hi end car audio and am very pleased with the results. One thing I think car components do BETTER than home audio is in the area of pace, drive, rhythm, and impact. If you can find speakers with audiophile refinement, and combine them with high quality class A/AB DC car amplifiers, place them well within the car in well braced/damped enclosures, I think you will be very pleasantly surprised with the current state-of-the art car audio systems! Good luck, and let us know how you make out - I'd like to see this string continue!
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- 21 posts total
- 21 posts total