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Next to theaters, cars are the ideal speaker environment

We live in a world where lots of car brands are bragging about bespoke stereo systems from big names. From JBL to MBL.


As a hobbyist who makes speakers, and can at least sympathize with the pros I’ve been thinking that cars are probably the best single environment for speaker designers. Of course, it’s not without it’s own challenges related to noise and room acoustics, but think about it this way:


With a car audio system you are never guessing about the room acoustics.  You know exactly where the user is going to sit and how the room is going to behave.


When you design a speaker system you always have to keep in mind the end user’s most likely environment, or you pick an environment. Roy Allison with his speakers, and to some extent Snell, tried to eliminate as much as possible by making speakers that went along the wall. Not 100% room control, but certainly better than nothing.
erik_squires

Showing 1 response by avanti1960

avanti1960
1,545 posts
 
A car interior is probably the absolute worst acoustic environment for an audio system.
Consider the issues-
Road noise and vibration and bass cancellations.
Road noise, wind noise, powertrain noise vs. amplifier head room / power requirements. 
Charging circuit and voltage vs. amplification requirements.
Door cavities make poor speaker enclosures.
Greenhouse glass is a highly acoustic reflective surface and will alter the polar response from upper speakers requiring extensive EQ to tame.   
Every OEM mobile audio system has embedded EQ curves to compensate for the above.  Some do a good job, some do not. 


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