When you look at auto sound systems it is important to pay close attention to the speakers on the system you are considering. You will find that there are all kinds of components, pieces, and parts that go along with a proper sound system in the world of today’s music systems.

Pay special attention to every single detail along the way of choosing the system that will meet your needs, your budget, and your lifestyle with the most bells and whistles to spare.

Bigger is not always better

Some things that are important to remember about selecting proper speakers is that bigger isn’t always better. As a matter of fact, bigger speakers are often quite inferior no matter how that might have been different in the past. As technology improves, better things are coming in much smaller packages. You do not have to have a huge set of amplifiers in order to receive good quality and big sound.

I can honestly say that the days of having to remove the backseat of your car in order to install speakers is long gone. Those days of having speakers occupy more than half of the available trunk space in a car are also long gone. While I am not a big fan of loud thumping bass music, I do realize that it is very popular and has been for the last twenty or so years. The good news for fans of this type of sound is that you don’t have to have all the extra space that was once required for the equipment in order to achieve a far superior sound in the Auto Sound Systems of today.

You can still achieve the very same bone jarring bass thumping music without sacrificing every inch of real estate within your car to speakers and amplifiers. Good speakers can be purchased separately from your auto sound system, but perhaps your best bet is to buy the speakers that are sold as part of the sound system rather than hoping you will be getting a good deal on speakers that are not quite up to the standards of the sound system you have invested in for your car, truck, or SUV.

Decide what you want the speakers for

Of course the best speakers for your car will largely depend on what you plan to do with the speakers. There are some who plan to enter their cars into competitions to see which car has the best thumping bass sound around. If that is your goal for your auto sound system, then by all means add all the speakers you need. Keep in mind that the less space you have inside your car, the less people you fit inside. This can be a somewhat disheartening thing on occasion but it is your car and your sound after all. You should get what you want for your money. You are, after all the one paying for the sound you are getting.

Speakers aren’t the most important component when it comes to big sound but they are vitally important when it comes to sound in general. Just remember it makes no sense to go big and bulky on the speakers and amplifiers when it comes to the overall quality of the sound system you are buying for your vehicle. The best equipment on the market is only as good as its weakest part. It doesn’t matter how wonderful your speakers are if your system is substandard or even only average. Try to keep even quality throughout your auto sound system whenever possible for the best possible overall sound.

Check online for your Auto Sound System and get the best value for your money.

If you’re looking into buying a new car stereo system, you have to realize that the costs of having it professionally installed can almost double the cost of your new system. But there is always the other option: Do It Yourself.

Get Informed First

While a car stereo installation can be complicated, there is nothing in particular that prevents you from doing it yourself, as long as you are willing to put in the time and effort to learn how, before you dive into the project. Not only you will learn a lot, but there is always a sense of satisfaction when you fire it up for the first time, knowing you did it all yourself.

Patience and caution are of the outmost importance. Some car stereo equipment is quite expensive, not to mention the price of your car to begin with! So be careful, proceed slowly, and if you have doubts, find out the answer to whatever is bothering you before you continue. Not taking it slow and carefully can lead to a botched install or even broken equipment or a damaged vehicle.

Beginners are advised to keep it simple the first time around. Don’t try to install a full car theater system with LCD displays and DVD players or video games for your first installation. Start with the head unit. This is both the easiest and the most critical thing to get done right the first time. Often the wiring harness that plugs into your factory stereo will need an adapter to get the correct electrical connections to the power and speaker system already in your car.

Use Your Factory Wiring Whenever Possible

Being able to reuse your factory wiring makes things much easier down the road when replacing the factory speakers. Don’t just cut the harness off! Use an adapter. If you ever want to replace the head unit again, things will be much easier if you can simply unplug the old adapter and replace it with a new one for the new head unit.

Fitting The Head Unit In The Dash Hole

The head unit will also probably require an adapter kit of some kind to fit properly in the factory dash hole. Most factory systems are either custom or what is called “Double DIN”, whereas most aftermarket head units are single DIN form factor. Sometimes, filing away parts of the trim surrounding the mounting area will be needed. Do some test fits before you bolt everything down.

Replacing The Speakers

Speakers are a very important part of any quality audio system. While you may be able to get sound from your factory speakers with that new head unit, replacing those factory speakers with high quality aftermarket ones can make a huge difference in the quality of your sound.

For your first speaker installations, you should try to replace the speakers in the factory mounting holes. This is a fairly simple procedure, but can require removing interior panels to access the speaker mounting locations. This method is advantageous because you can use the existing brackets and wiring.

More complicated is mounting speakers in locations that didn’t originally have speakers, or putting larger speakers in existing mounting locations. This will often require metalworking and building boxes and baffles to accommodate the new speakers. But if you don’t have any factory speakers, or they are in bad locations, this may be your only option. Just be careful, and if the project requires a lot of reshaping of the cars metal locations, you should consider having it professionally done; this kind of work is best done with specific tools that most home enthusiasts don’t have. such as plasma cutters and pneumatic sheet metal formers.

Want more info? Check the Car Stereo Related Videos where you can see installation videos.

Shop Online For The Best Car Stereo Systems Available

Unless you have a truly awesome factory car stereo system, you will want to replace that head unit and speakers. The difference, even using factory mounting locations, can be the difference between night and day. Your mid-ranges will have more punch, your highs will be clearer and brighter, and the bass will have that bone deep thump everyone loves. Adding at least one amplified subwoofer will make a huge difference as well. You just can’t get the same bass out of a 7″ woofer as you can out of a 12″ subwoofer.

Amplifiers are the driving force behind your car stereo system. Skimping in this area is extremely dangerous, not only to your sound quality, but to your speakers as well. An underpowered or cheaply made amplifier is prone to what is known as clipping. Without getting too technical, what this does is send a large amount of direct current through your speaker, causing the speaker coil to overheat and melt. This leads to the infamous “blown speaker”. Coil overheating is the single biggest cause of speaker failure.

Putting a too large amplifier on a speaker can cause the same thing to happen. Always match up your speakers’ power handling ratings to the output of your amplifier. For instance, let’s say you have a 4 channel amplifier that provides 1000 watts total power. That is 250 watts per channel (1000/4), so your speakers should be capable of handling that much power, or you risk blowing them out.

Having a killer car stereo system is something your can be proud of, and dramatically increases your cars coolness factor and resale value, no matter what vehicle it is installed in.

Check Online The Best Selection Of Car Stereos

If you are new to the car stereo market, you may find yourself overwhelmed at the sheer number of parts and accessories that can make up a top of the line car stereo system. In this article, we’ll explore the basic components that make up a functioning car stereo system.

The Head Unit

You may have seen the term “head unit” before and not known what exactly it was. Simply put the head unit is the part of your car stereo that actually produces the music from radio, tape, CD, or other device. Nowadays you can also get head units for your car stereo that can play DVDs or music and video from USB flash drives and memory cards. Head units have sure come a long way and they are now sofistaicated pieces of electronic equipment.

Amplifiers

While your head unit may provide its own internal amplification -which may be enough for most of people-, at some point most car stereo enthusiasts will want to add amplifiers to the mix. Simply put, and amplifier takes a signal coming out of the head unit, and makes it louder. Be careful when shopping for amplifiers, as some of the large amplifiers can draw over 100 amps; this may be well over what your alternator and battery can provide, and can cause damage to those components.

Speakers: Woofers and Tweeters

The best head unit and amp is completely useless without speakers. Speakers, regardless of size, all do one thing: take the electrical signal coming from either the head unit’s internal amplifier or your external amplifier and turn it into sound, usually loud sound. The different types of speakers are classified by the range of sounds they can reproduce. Tweeters, for example, only reproduce high pitches, while woofers reproduce the upper bass ranges. Midranges make midrange sounds, strangely enough, while subwoofers cover sounds from the low bass all the way down to sub sonic (those sounds you can feel but not hear). Subwoofers are usually the first candidate for external amplifiers, since they require large amounts of current to make that bone shaking bass.

Putting It All Together

In summary, head units take your CD or tape and convert it to electrical signals. The amplifier makes this signal larger, and finally the speakers take that signal and make sound out of it. These are the base components you need for any car stereo installation. Accessories, such as crossovers and signal isolators, may or may not be needed for your particular application.

These are the basics you need to know for all car stereo systems. Now that you have a better idea what all these different terms actually mean, you should be able to shop intelligently for your new car stereo system. Just remember, as always, while you get what you pay for, you don’t necessarily have to have the absolute best (and most expensive) parts for a good sound. More often than not, a midrange product will provide the best bang for your buck. And remember, it’s all modular! You don’t HAVE to buy every piece all at once. You can start with the head unit, and simply wire it’s built in amplifier into your factory car stereo speakers. Add a sub and an amplifier later if you want, or replace the factory speakers with higher quality ones, it’s all up to you.

Check Online The Best Selection Of Car Stereo Systems

While everyone would like to have a top of the line JL Audio competition speakers or the like, the prices on the very best auto sound system components can be astronomical. On the other hand, buying a cheap car stereo perhaps is not a good idea.

You could easily spend over $500 on a single speaker at the very top end. But there are plenty of quality midrange products from companies like Kenwood, Alpine, and JVC. Check our Featured Car Stereo Products.

Stay away from the absolute bottom of the barrel parts, though, as they can often sound worse than your existing factory system. You do not want to spend a bunch of money only to have it sound the same or worse than your existing system. The midrange products are usually the way to go for the best price vs. performance. And with some careful product selection and shopping online, you can build a kicking system for under $400 if you do the installation yourself.