Showcasing the Best in the Mobile Enhancement Industry
Though I’ve written it a dozen times across many articles, it’s always worth repeating: The most critical component in any audio system is the speakers. You may have invested thousands of dollars into a source unit, a digital signal processor and premium amplifiers, but without precision-engineered speakers, all of that quality is wasted. The car audio fanatics at Rockford Read more
Can you learn much about a speaker set by looking at a feature list and spec sheet? In the case of the Rockford Fosgate T3652-S 6.5-inch audiophile component speakers, the answer is a resounding yes. From the sizeable 1.5-inch voice coil and integrated induction management to the liquid crystal polymer woofer cone and intelligent mounting hardware for the tweeter, we’ve already Read more
I often see people on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Craigslist or Kijiji (in Canada) selling the passive crossover networks that came with their car audio component speaker sets. In most cases, these people have likely opted for an active system installation that uses a DSP and four dedicated amplifier channels to power their speaker system. An issue that many do-it-yourself car Read more
Last week I offered three people advice on how the physics and science behind car audio concepts work. In all three cases, these people refused to accept my scientific explanations as fact and chose to argue with me. Baffling. Science Is Simple Seemingly unbeknownst to many car audio enthusiasts and amateur installers, the laws of physics are pretty set in stone when it comes Read more
You’ll find thousands of options when choosing upgraded speakers for your car audio system. Rockford Fosgate's Power Series fits the bill perfectly for those looking for a solution that delivers great sound quality with impressive efficiency and output capability. In this spotlight, we’ll look at the T1650 and the T1693 speakers – two of the most popular sizes in the Read more
In the last five years, the popularity of six- and eight-channel car audio amplifiers has increased dramatically. These amplifiers are often equipped with integrated digital signal processing, making them a perfect solution to power an entire car audio system. When analyzing power ratings, it’s crucial to know how these amplifiers are tested. Let’s look at the “all channels Read more
I should stop looking at posts in car audio groups on social media. I’m not opposed to answering a few questions to help enthusiasts, but the constant barrage of untrue statements and misunderstandings about what matters in choosing a product like speakers is overwhelming. Let’s look at some typical speaker specifications made by companies that don’t understand speaker Read more
For decades, car audio installers have used capacitors to reduce the bass that small speakers would reproduce. I vividly remember installing 47-microfarad capacitors inline with a set of 3.5-inch speakers in the dashes of Fox-body Mustangs back in the ’80s and ’90s. Passive crossover components like these are still an essential part of the car audio industry, even with the Read more
Over the past few years, I’ve written several articles about harmonic distortion. While ideally they’re pretty clear in their message, I might have jumped over the need to define the term harmonic itself. So, let’s look at what harmonics are in terms of audio signals. What Are Harmonics? In reference to music, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word harmonic as “an Read more
It’s time we start putting together the information from a selection of the articles I’ve created to help sound quality enthusiasts get the most from their car audio systems. In this article, we will discuss why it might be best to choose a low-power, high-quality Class AB amplifier to power your tweeters. We’ll look at this from both a noise and distortion perspective, as well Read more
So, as a longtime car audio guy, I have peers and friends who cover every conceivable genre of car audio enthusiasm. I have friends who are installers, own and run stores, work at distributors and at manufacturers. I have tweaky friends that think high-end interconnects and low-efficiency wideband drivers are the way to go for sound quality. I also have a ton of friends who are Read more
I remember being at a car audio trade show about a decade ago where I overheard a conversation between a manufacturer rep and a customer about why a set of tweeters didn’t sound good on a particular amplifier. A few weeks later, I did some research on that amp to begin learning about what might have produced the customer perception. The amp in question uses a Class D output Read more
