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Am planning to upgrade the speakers in my Honda. I have a good head unit. Is it worth adding a subwoofer amp - I want clarity, not to hear the music outside the car!!!
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A sub will give you more bass. Much more bass.
If you wish to sacrifice boot space for more bass - it's worth it.
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Wow, Trevor I'm impressed! I had you down as someone who'd think a sub-woofer was a mudproof boot mat for the dog to lie on! Yo, Dude!
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A sensible sized one can make quite a difference to how your stereo sounds, but *only* if the rest of the speakers in the car are of good quality. If not you'll simply get bass.
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IIf you want to put in a sub woofer you will have to put in an amp as i very much doubt that your head unit will have enough power to drive it.
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If you want to save as much space as possible there is a company that produces 'made to measure' boxes for the boots of various cars, they fill the space above behind and in front of the wheel arch (depending on car).
I think I remember seeing them advertised in the back of a car mag but I can't remember which !! sorry.
Look at Demon Tweeks or Carnossure.
Cheers
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ajit - glad to know that you don't intend to listen outside your car. In this weather the oafs round here seem to think the world wants to listen with them, and I don't.
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ajit - glad to know that you don't intend to listen outside your car.....
With a sub woofer fitted, it will be very hard not to hear it outside the car.
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I'm sure this doesn't apply to any of you folks but I find it strange that people who insist on driving up and down the high street with all their windows open and 'music' blaring out at 150db don't tend to do the same in their homes. Why is this ? Is it because it's not really the music they're interested in, more the attention grabbing pose factor ?
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I'm sure this doesn't apply to any of you folks but I find it strange that people who insist on driving up and down the high street with all their windows open and 'music' blaring out at 150db don't tend to do the same in their homes. Why is this ? Is it because it's not really the music they're interested in, more the attention grabbing pose factor ?
I used to have a sub in my boot and always turned it down in my own street because I didn't want to advetise the fact to the thieving masses who lived there.
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I'm sure this doesn't apply to any of you folks but I find it strange that people who insist on driving up and down the high street with all their windows open and 'music' blaring out at 150db don't tend to do the same in their homes. Why is this ? Is
They don't do it at home because Mum won't let them.
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I personally wouldn\'t bother with a sub - they tend to add pink fluffy dice to the sound of most music you\'ll listen to. I think I only have one album where the bass drops well into the range where a sub becomes useful. The best way to improve audio quality is to fit decent multi-way speakers with good crossovers inside the cabin, otherise you\'re just hearing reverberation through the body and the back seats.
I know this might stir up cries of \'nonsense, pish and tosh\' (or words to that effect..) but ask yourself this - home cinema excluded, how many people have subwoofers as part of their home hi-fi system? :)
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On a good speaker (home hi-fi) you will have three speakers, one of which will be a good low-range speaker. Might not be called a Sub, but thats kinda what it does.
My A6 has lovely deep bass tones, they really help bring out the full range. So I would say, seek the help of an ICE shop, who will match all your speakers to your specific musical needs.
Gorecki's 3rd Symphony is a good test of any system. If you can't hear anything at all for the first five minutes, then its time to get some bass in.
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I think the listening environment in a car is so compromised by engine/tyre/wind and other outside noise that it's not worth bothering with a good sound system at all - unless you listen on headphones and that's probably a bad idea in a car.
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Probably true. Although not in a Rolls Royce though.
I find the only time I get to listen to music these days, is in my car.
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I have to agree. Add in all that plastic, glass and metal and you have one of the worst places to play music. I would go for flexibility and features in a car system.
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Quite right, AG. And no part of the listening volume of a car is stiff enough to make a half-decent enclosure.
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Heh.. I use Goldie's 'Timeless' album for the same purpose :)
I suppose it's a question of definitions really - I tend to define a sub as a speaker designed only to reproduce sounds in the 200hz or less area, rather than a component responsible for the lower part of the full range.
I use ported 2 way Tannoys at home, early 80s ones, and the range is fantastic. When I first cranked them, the whoosh of air from the port blew a nearby sheet of paper 3ft across the floor :)
The bugbear with car speakers for me is that it's almost impossible to easily build a tuned enclosure for internal speakers without compromising the function of the car, so you generally have to make do with fitting shelf speakers and using the boot space as a sounding chamber. Even then, your average 6x9 isn't going to do much more than thump the back of the seats, but that's sufficient for most recordings. Unless you're a confirmed basshead, you probably wouldn't miss the extreme low end :)
But yeah - the advice about speaking to someone who can listen to your needs and then design around them is definitely top. :)
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If you are simply looking for sound quality and not a system that will set off all car alarms in your vicinity then I would look at an 8 inch sub. If you are upgrading all of your speakers then get a set of components in the front doors(a mid range and a tweeter with a crossover) and then the 8 inch sub will provide short and punchy bass to complete this. Vibe do a relatively cheap 8inch sub that has a built in amp and won't compromise too much boot space. When buying your equipment buy a copy of Max Power and go to the adverts, you will save a fortune over buying from a local shop or Halfords.
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The in car environment is exactly why a sub is a must for good sound quality in a car. Road and engine noise causes a big drop in the frequencies of the speaker you can hear, unless it is turned up which, by this time a standard head unit and speakers are wincing loudly. The sub will allow meaningful bass to be heard from as as low as 20hz up to about 150hz tops, without being out drowned out by the road din. It is fed with a lot of power as bass is the most difficult frequency to produce, thus requires the most energy, especially in a car as it needs to (usually) come through the rear seat and also counter the bass produced by road noise.
The best sound system should of course be amped with the front speakers and the sub amplified with the sub getting approximately three times the amount of power than the sub eg 50 watts RMS for the fronts and 150RMS for the sub. That will be plenty loud enough when turned up but has head room at normal listening levels which makes for excellent clarity.
If done right with the front speakers and sub amped correctly then the bass, as it is non directional, will appear to come from the front speakers and is very satisfying. A good system will have the front speakers working from about 90hz and above with the sub playing less than 80HZ, the crossover slopes and transient response of the car will fill in the 10hz or so.
An 8" sub in a sealed enclosure will take up very little space in the boot yet will make a huge difference in sound.
To make all this even better, the doors and boot should be sound deadened so that less road noise enters the car and also the door panels and boot are slightly stiffer which helps the speaker to transmit sound more efficiently. Plus you get less rattles.
Is a sub worth it? Only if you are a true music fan.
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rosco - as I hinted above, a TRUE music fan would try not to inflict it on everyone else, which you seem to suggest will happen while your system drowns out road din?
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Its a little known fact that sound deadening stops sound getting out as well! Its not the amount of road noise, its the frequency. By countering this with a sub inside the car there will be much clearer bass even at lower volumes as subs play the frequencys that normal speakers cant and which some part of the road noise is made up of. The set up above isnt a very loud one in the world of car audio, It is similar to what I have and I certainly dont go round advertising the fact that it CAN go loud. It never gets above half volume. Anyways the people who think they have a loud sytem usually have lots of 6x9 ovals run off a head unit which is a recipie for distortion and plenty of volume but no sound quality at all.
the best uk website for acr audio related matters is www.caraudiodirect.com. It is all explained there in much greater detail than I ever could.
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