Showcasing the Best in the Mobile Enhancement Industry
We spend significant time pondering helpful content that will educate consumers about the options available to upgrade their car audio system. We’ve written dozens of articles explaining how various features and designs can improve a subwoofer’s performance, and we realized that this would be a perfect time to summarize all that education in a single document. Welcome to the Read more
If you live in or around Conway, Arkansas, Audio Innovations is a car stereo shop you should know about. The shop owner, Jim Rogers, isn’t just a business owner. He loves car audio as much as we do. Whether his team is delivering top-quality solutions to his clients or hosting a sound-off, his goal is to ensure that everyone can enjoy their favorite music while commuting to Read more
Every genre of car audio enthusiast looks at amplifier performance differently. The SQ guys worry about distortion and noise. The bass heads focus on power. The keyboard commandos and know-it-alls talk about slew rate or something equally irrelevant. Despite all this, an audio system's frequency response matters the most regarding the perception of quality. The folks at KICKER Read more
Speaker power ratings are among the most confusing and misleading specifications in the car audio industry. Once you understand the process used to test speaker power handling, you’ll quickly realize that the information doesn’t always translate to information that’s helpful in choosing an amplifier. Let’s dive into the science behind choosing the best amplifier for your car Read more
If you wanted one word to describe the best upgrade you can make to almost any factory-installed car stereo, that word would be subwoofer. For 50 years, the folks at KICKER in Stillwater, Oklahoma, have known that a subwoofer system is the first, best upgrade. When it’s a priority to maximize audio system performance while balancing cargo space, KICKER’s PTRTP powered Read more
When it comes to car audio, KICKER easily ranks highly among brands with the highest recognition rates among enthusiasts. Many brands go on to become the de facto name for an entire group of products. Kleenex is what almost everyone calls facial tissue. A Band-Aid is the common name for an adhesive bandage. To Xerox something is to make a photocopy. For decades, car audio Read more
Soon after I entered the car audio industry in 1988, the shop I worked for purchased the Term-CAD enclosure design software for our DOS-based computer. I used to spend hours entering specs from the Rockford Fosgate, Kicker, MTX, Pioneer and Alpine subs we carried and would simulate hundreds of vented, bandpass and isobaric designs to learn how enclosure volume and tuning Read more
When it comes to car audio subwoofer upgrades, infinite baffle installations have been around for as long as subwoofers have existed. The science behind a subwoofer installation that doesn’t use a compact enclosure is quite simple. As with any subwoofer system design, some benefits and drawbacks need to be considered. Strap on your thinking caps; we’re diving in! What Is an Read more
There seems to be some misunderstanding about the relationship between subwoofer mounting depth requirements and performance relative to enclosure volume. We constantly see enthusiasts talk about having a 10-inch shallow sub mounted under a car or truck seat. Their expectation is full-size subwoofer performance without the need for a large enclosure. Let’s do a few simulations Read more
