Many cars come with basic speakers that are difficult to hear. Fortunately, there are upgrade options that fit most factory vehicles without complicated wiring or having to get a new head unit.
Car speakers are designed to fill a small space, so they have an advantage over home speakers when it comes to sound quality. There are a few key factors to consider, though.
1. Sound Quality
The sound quality of car speakers is a hugely important factor when choosing which ones to buy. It refers to how natural the low and high ends of music sounds – whether the bass notes are rich and full, or if the high end sounds shrill and tinny. Investing in a good pair of speakers will ensure that you enjoy your music as much as possible.
There are many different factors that can affect the sound quality of a car speaker, from its materials to its size and power handling capabilities. The best way to test a speaker’s sound quality is to listen to it at length and bring along music that you normally listen to. By doing this, you’ll be able to hear how the speaker reproduces the sounds that are familiar to you and make comparisons to other speakers.
In addition to being able to accurately reproduce sounds, car speakers should be able to handle a range of frequency bands and provide a wide soundstage. This is important for creating a realistic listening experience and also for allowing the driver to easily locate where sounds are coming from in their vehicle.
A car speaker’s impedance is another important factor when it comes to sound quality. It determines how much power a speaker can pull from the amplifier, and it’s measured in ohms. A lower impedance means that the speaker can accept more current, which results in a higher-quality sound.
Factory-installed car speakers are usually of poor quality, but replacing them with aftermarket speakers is an easy and cost-effective way to improve your audio experience. Look for a pair of speakers that match the dimensions and type of your originals, and you’ll be sure to see a marked improvement in sound quality.
2. Bass
If you want your music to sound powerful and lively, you need speakers that can deliver deep bass. While the factory speakers in your car are good for basic sound quality, they’re not able to reproduce low frequencies with a lot of thump. This is why many people choose to upgrade to high-quality car audio speakers when they install a new stereo in their vehicle.
To produce a lot of bass, you need to have a speaker with a wide frequency response. This is because the wider the range, the more accurate the sound will be. The best bass car speakers will be able to reproduce sounds from 60Hz to 20kHz.
In addition to frequency response, you also need to consider the power-handling capacity and sensitivity of your speakers. These specifications determine how much power a speaker can handle and how loud it can play. A good rule of thumb is to purchase speakers that have an RMS power-handling rating of no more than 75 watts per channel. This means they can handle long bursts of power without overheating and blowing.
Car speakers typically have a lower sensitivity than home theater speakers. This is because they’re designed to operate in a noisy environment where the ambient noise cancels out a lot of the sound that would otherwise travel through the speakers. The result is that they need to be driven with a higher amount of power than home theater speakers.
In addition, car speakers often have a higher impedance than home theater speakers. This is because the car battery provides a lower voltage than what’s available at a home outlet. To compensate for this, they have a higher resistance, which allows the speakers to draw more current from the amplifier.
3. Impedance
Impedance is a pretty technical sounding word, but it really matters when it comes to hooking up speakers to an amplifier or car stereo. Impedance is the amount of resistance a speaker offers to electrical current, which can impact the quality and volume of your music.
The impedance of a speaker is determined by the sum of its DC resistance and inductive reactance, as well as other factors like the voice coil design. However, since the impedance of a speaker varies over frequency (think: music), it’s difficult to find an accurate value for speaker impedance. That’s why most speakers are rated by their manufacturer with a nominal impedance, typically 4ohms or lower.
For example, if you connected 8-ohm car speakers to a car amplifier that was designed for 4-ohm speakers, the output transistors would likely get hotter than they were designed to, which can result in audio distortion and damage to the speaker. Using speakers with a low impedance rating allows more current to flow through the speakers, and it also matches the nominal impedance of your amplifier, which helps ensure compatibility and minimizes signal degradation.
Think of it as a pipe, where the size of the pipe determines how much water can flow through it. The larger the pipe, the more water can pass through it with ease. The same applies to speaker impedance: a lower ohm rating allows more electricity (your music) to flow through it with ease, and an amplifier can deliver much higher power to speakers with a low ohm rating than it could at a high ohm load. This is why NVX designed our 2-Ohm speakers for home use.
4. Size
If you’re replacing the speakers in your car, it’s best to start with the larger ones first. Generally, they are responsible for most of the sound in the cockpit and will make the biggest difference in your overall sound quality. Additionally, a larger speaker can reproduce bass frequencies better than smaller ones.
You also want to consider the speaker’s cone material. It has to vibrate to produce sound and needs a stiff, low-density material that will not degrade over time. Some of the most popular materials include polypropylene, cellulose, and paper. You should also check the frequency range of the speaker and its sensitivity. The latter is an important measure of how much power the speaker can handle, and it needs to be high enough to play music well.
Many older factory speakers were made of fragile material that didn’t hold up to the rigours of the car environment. Newer aftermarket speakers typically use durable materials that will last longer and sound more crisp and clear. Moreover, they are more efficient in how they convert power to sound, meaning you won’t need as much of it to achieve the same results.
There are two main types of car speakers: coaxial and component. The former combine a tweeter and woofer in a single package, making them easy to install in most cars with little or no modifications. The latter separate the tweeter from the woofer and feature an external passive crossover to feed highs to the tweeters and lows to the woofers. Components offer more precise sound imaging, but they can cost more and require professional installation. Regardless of which type you choose, always choose a reputable brand that has a solid reputation and offers technical assistance on the phone.
5. Design
Car speakers are designed for a very different environment to that of your home. They must operate in a compact space and pressurise air for their sound to be heard at all. This means that their components are built with a more rugged design to be able to withstand the harsher conditions that they face. This is not a good thing for audio fidelity as it reduces the accuracy of the speaker.
This can be further seen by looking at their power-handling ratings which are generally much lower than that of a home speaker. This is to ensure that they can work within the limitations of the power source that they are connected to. Car speakers typically use a simple passive crossover to direct frequencies to the tweeter and woofer. This is easy to install and doesn’t require an amplifier but it can be less accurate than its active counterpart.
This means that if you were to take a set of car speakers and place them into a sealed or ported home speaker enclosure you would most likely have a large spike in the mid-bass, meaning that they would lose their ability to accurately reproduce low level detail. This is the reason that it is highly advisable to only use car speakers in vehicles and not for home audio applications. If you are interested in buying car speakers for your home system then make sure that you speak to a knowledgeable mobile electronics specialist who can advise on what the best products are. Look for brands that are known for their engineering over marketing and listen to the speakers before you buy them so that you can be certain that they will suit your home environment.