Installing mobile electronics systems is not as easy as it used to be. In the “good old days,” cars were made from thick metal and didn’t have many electrical components. Modern vehicle construction makes use of the thinnest, lightest materials possible. These body panels are held together with non-conductive adhesives, and it seems that every square inch of our cars and trucks are packed with computers, sensors and modules. Even a task as simple as wiring an amplifier can become quite complex.

In this Best Car Audio article, we look at the importance of proper wiring techniques and materials, and the effect they have on the performance of an aftermarket audio system upgrade.

Power Delivery

This article is about installing a five-channel amplifier in a vehicle with a factory head unit. There are two important tasks when it comes to installing an amp: getting a signal to it and getting power to it. For an amplifier to produce power, you need to feed it power. The primary source of power in our vehicles is the alternator, followed by the battery. Most people focus on running a large conductor from the positive terminal of the battery to the positive terminal of the amplifier. While this is important, where and how the amplifier is grounded is equally important.

Quality installers will know the best locations on a vehicle to make a ground connection. They will know how to handle a vehicle with an aluminum or composite chassis. They will know how to recognize vehicles that are assembled with adhesives instead of spot welds. If you are installing a large amplifier, they will know how to upgrade the factory wiring under the hood to handle the extra current draw.

Protecting your vehicle is a part of installing power wire. In the unlikely event you get into an accident or something bad happens to your amplifier, the wiring and the equipment installed in your vehicle need protection in the form of a fuse. A good installer will install a fuse as close as possible to each source of power for the system. In most installations, this is near the main battery.

Some systems have secondary batteries and require additional fuses for proper protection. If you have the choice, a fuse provides better protection device than a circuit breaker. Fuses offer more surface area for power conduction. Also, there is absolutely no chance that a properly installed fuse could fail in a condition that may allow current to continue to pass.

Signal Integration

The audio systems in modern vehicles are becoming increasingly complex. Manufacturers (JBL, Infinity and Lexicon) are turning to suppliers like Bose and Harman for increasingly complex audio systems. Each of these companies employs highly trained engineers who spend months tuning each new system.

Trying to source an audio signal that will work with aftermarket equipment is becoming increasingly difficult at the same time. A properly trained installer will have the knowledge and experience to measure the signals in the factory system to determine if they can be used as is. If the signals are not acceptable in level, frequency response or bandwidth, your installer can recommend the correct component to correct them.

Your installer will also know to test each signal source across multiple functions. Ensuring that factory Bluetooth, navigation prompts and parking sensor warnings continue to work as intended is important to you being able to enjoy your upgraded audio system.

Noise Prevention

Dealing with factory computers, sensors, data networks and other high-current components can cause interference with the delicate low-level audio signals we send to our amplifiers. If you are not using good-quality interconnects that offer a twisted-pair design and appropriate shielding, you leave yourself open to picking up all sorts of strange noises. Likewise, choosing the right equipment is critical. You want to ensure that each component in the signal path has differential inputs to reject any noise that might be imposed on your interconnects, or the speaker wires running to the input of your amplifier.

The amplified signal coming from your amp is still subject to noise. Passive crossover networks can be notorious for picking up electromagnetic noise. Where your installer places the passive networks is quite important. An experienced installer knows what to avoid for your system to sound great and be noise-free.

Choice of Wiring Materials

There are two options for power and speaker wire – CCA and what most refer to as OFC. CCA stands for Copper Clad Aluminum. CCA typically is an inexpensive wire that is part aluminum and part copper. Aluminum costs less than copper, but it also does not conduct as well. You will usually see CCA wiring labeled with Gauge or GA when referencing its size. It is also worth noting that, unless the wiring you have chosen says AWG on it, there is no standard for the size of the conductor within the jacket.

Combine that with not knowing the ratio of copper to aluminum, and you run the risk of starving your amplifier for power. We have seen CCA 4 gauge wires that present almost four times the resistance as a proper 4 AWG conductor.

OFC stands for Oxygen-Free Copper. The term OFC has become the accepted slang term for all copper wiring. Properly sized copper wiring (using the AWG standard) offers the best possible power delivery to your amplifier.

Working on modern vehicles has its challenges, but those challenges come with rewards regarding background noise levels, convenience and features. Trust the installation of your audio equipment to qualified professionals. They have the experience to get the job done right the first time. Visit your local mobile electronics retailer to find out more.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

Installing mobile electronics in a vehicle is a balance of technical skill and creativity. From the seemingly simple task of connecting wires to the creation of a custom amp rack or subwoofer enclosure, each task requires the car audio installation technician to call upon many different skills. When it comes to installing audio gear in your car, many retailers offer packaged solutions at different performance levels for their clients – this is often called the Good, Better, Best approach. In this article, we look at a few examples where this approach is commonly applied and examine the benefits for each.

Door Speaker Installation

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Take off the factory door panel, unscrew a speaker, connect the new one, then screw it in place. Finish up by putting the door panel back on. For the average mobile electronics retailer, this would just barely qualify for a “Good” installation. With the speakers connected and installed, the installer typically will have a listen to the system before putting it all together to confirm all the wiring is correct. If you require a speaker adapter, the shop may offer to supply one made from painted wood or crafted from HDPE or ABS plastic. Always take the plastic adapter. Wood will swell up when it gets wet.

For those looking for a “Better” installation, several companies offer speaker mounting baffle rings. These are foam rings that surround the speaker and seal the mounting surface to the back side of the door trim panel. This ring can help with the transfer of sound energy into the vehicle and is likely to reduce the chances of buzzes and rattles. Your installer may also place a sheet of damping material behind the speaker – 12×12-inch pieces are common. This material helps to damp the metal to which the speaker is mounted and ensure there is no gap between the speaker and the mounting surface.

In a “Best” quality installation, the installer will cover the entire surface of the door in a high-quality damping material. Sealing up the access holes in a door panel can dramatically improve the low-frequency response and overall efficiency of the speakers you are having installed. In fact, money spent on proper damping offers a bigger gain in performance than an equivalent upgrade in the quality of speakers.

Several companies offer composite damping solutions that combine damping with a layer of closed-cell foam. This type of damping material offers a further reduction in buzzes and rattles, and improvement in sound absorption.

You may opt to have damping material installed on the outside door skin while the trim panel is off. Damping the outer door skin will further reduce the transfer of outside noise into your vehicle, making your audio system easier to enjoy. If you are using a moderate- to high-power amplifier, you may also opt to have new speaker wires run into the doors.

Subwoofer Enclosure

One of the first upgrades you should do to your audio system is to add a subwoofer. Almost every factory audio system, even one that includes subs, sounds anemic and weak.

When it comes to the choice of subwoofer enclosure, the options are nearly limitless. The most basic of subwoofer enclosure solutions is to pick a pre-fabricated enclosure from a catalog, have your installer install the sub and plunk it in your vehicle. This solution doesn’t qualify for our standard of “Good”, but it works, and it’s better than not having a sub at all.

Choosing to have your retailer design an enclosure specifically for the subwoofer you have chosen and the exact space you require moves us up to the “Good” standard. The enclosure should be made of 3/4″ MDF and finished in a material that matches your vehicle. It should maximize the available room in your vehicle reasonably well.

The move to the Better level may take different directions, depending on your vehicle. Fiberglass or Stack-Fab enclosures can further maximize the available space in your vehicle. If constructed correctly, these enclosures can be more rigid thanks to additional bracing. This bracing results in better performance. At the “Better” level, your installer may choose to incorporate some cosmetic accents. Including a trim ring around the sub in an accent material is pretty common.

At the “Best” level, the enclosure design will be topnotch! Your installer may even choose to measure the Thiele-Small parameters of your subwoofer before starting work. The enclosure will be extremely rigid and well-reinforced internally.

Your installer may choose to line or stuff the enclosure with materials like Dacron or foam. Cosmetics will also take a leap forward at this level. Having the enclosure trimmed flush to the sides of the vehicle is a must to make it look like it came from the factory. Your installer may choose to use vinyl or leather on the visible parts of the enclosure to further improve the match with factory styling. A product or vehicle brand or logo may be incorporated into the design as well. At the Best level, anyone who sees the resulting creation should be immediately impressed.

Design and Cost

There is no limit to how creative your installer can get with the installation – it’s all governed by how much you want to spend. At the higher end, the installer may provide drawings or sketches of the finished product. You will probably have to pay for this design time. That said, many shops will credit some or all of that back to you as part of the final cost.

The top installers around the country charge upwards of $100 per hour for custom work or more. Their experience and creativity allows them to be very efficient in executing their ideas, and the work behind the scenes is often equally exemplary. Attention to detail for wiring, product mounting with Nutserts or stainless steel hardware, and proficiency in system design and tuning are all part of getting the Good, Better or Best value for your money.

Visit Your Local Specialist For Car Audio Installation

When it’s time to go shopping, drop by a few of your local mobile electronics specialist retailers. They would be happy to show you different options for your project.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

Among the most under-appreciated components in any audio system are the speakers. You could be using the best source unit on the planet, an amazing amplifier, and the most esoteric of interconnects and speaker cables – but if you don’t have great speakers, you still won’t have great sound. Your speakers are the only link between your electronics and your ears, so choosing great speakers is critically important to reproducing great sound. This article discusses what you get when you spend more money on speakers.

More Power Handling

Several factors limit the ability of a speaker to convert an electrical signal into speaker cone motion. One such limit is thermal capacity – just how much heat the voice coil, tinsel leads, former and cone can handle before one of them fails. Heat is the number-one enemy of speakers. Most of the power you send to your speakers is converted to heat rather than to sound – in fact, probably 95% or more is converted to heat.

As the quality of speakers increases, you often encounter a larger voice coil and better cooling technologies. These features, coupled with tighter tolerances around the voice coil, result in a speaker that can absorb more energy without failing.

More Excursion

Often tied directly to how much power a speaker can handle is the distance the speaker cone can move forward or back. This specification is called excursion. For most speakers, the specification for excursion is called Xmax. Xmax is the distance the cone can move in one direction without the voice coil moving out of the magnetic field, and the measurement is typically provided in millimeters.

A second and often equally important specification is Xmech or Xsus. These specifications describe the physical limit of how far the cone can move, based on the design of the suspension (spider and surround). A speaker can be pushed past the Xmax limit, but as this happens, distortion occurs. When a speaker cone reaches its physical excursion limit, distortion will spike even higher. When it comes to speakers, there is no good distortion, so operating them within their physical limits is critical to producing accurate sound.

Why is excursion important? When combined with the ability to handle more power, a “better” speaker will play louder when provided with more power. The same features also help to reduce a phenomenon called power compression. Power compression is a reduction in the efficiency of a speaker as its components heat up. The key drawback to power compression is that when the music gets quieter, you turn the volume up, thereby sending more power to the speaker and accelerating the heating effect. In no time, the speaker will fail.

Excursion Linearity

It’s one thing for a speaker to have good power handling and excursion characteristics. It is equally important that the speaker remains linear throughout its excursion-based operating range. All speakers change in their characteristics as excursion increases – a great speaker minimizes these.

Let’s look at a common problem with “simple speakers.” One of the characteristics that limit the high-frequency response of a woofer or midrange driver is inductance. The voice coil of the speaker has some natural inductance because, well – it is a coil of wire. This inductance is increased when we place the voice coil around the T-yoke of a speaker.

This is where the problem occurs: As the coil moves forward, some of it may leave the T-yoke, which will reduce inductance. As the coil moves rearward, inductance may increase. The result is that the speaker has different frequency responses depending on where it is within its range of excursion. Truly excellent speakers use technologies to minimize these effects. The result are speakers that sound just as good at low to moderate drive levels as they do when being pushed hard.

More Frequency Response

This is a bit harder to describe, because sometimes the improvement from a basic to a mid-priced speaker, or a mid-priced speaker to a high-end one, is extended frequency response. More often, it’s smoother frequency response. Better-quality speakers are, ideally, designed to reduce distortion caused by cone resonances, suspension nonlinearities and magnetic field imbalances. As you spend more on speakers, you will see that peaks in their frequency response, especially in the midbass region, are tamed.

Many great speakers still exhibit some cone resonances at high frequencies. As long as the speaker you are using in the adjacent band will play low enough, those peaks are not critical.

Reduced Distortion

When a speaker designer combines an appropriately damped and rigid cone with a carefully designed motor and suspension, the result is a speaker that produces less distortion. Some distortions are very subtle, while others are quite pronounced. Speakers exhibit both even- and odd-ordered harmonic distortions, depending on what component or design issue is to blame.

If you have read our article on distortion, then you know that it is the effect of adding content that was not in the original program material. Harmonic distortion results in even or odd multiples of a specific frequency.

When you hear an amazing speaker, the difference between it and an average speaker is clarity. Smooth frequency response and a lack of distortion make each sound the speaker produces more faithful to the recording. Voices will sound more realistic. Instruments will sound more natural. Complex passages will become easier to understand.

It is also critical to point out that distortions cannot be removed from a signal or sound once created. No amount of equalization can extract those harmonics. Yes, you can reduce their level, but you also reduce the level of original signal information at those same frequencies. The only solution is to use a speaker that does not introduce distortion.

The Right Tool for the Job

Another item that differentiates a good speaker from a great one is its design in terms of application. Let’s use a typical 6.5” midrange/midbass speaker as an example. If the speaker is designed to work in a typical door or rear deck-style installation, the Thiele-Small parameters for that transducer will be optimized for that application. If you attempt to put that speaker into a small kick panel pod that has only 0.1 cubic feet of air space, you will choke it. The low-frequency response will be dramatically reduced; typically, a bump in the midbass region will occur, and it will likely not sound very good. Most 6.5” speakers need an enclosure volume of about 0.6 cubic feet, and some want closer to 1.0 for smooth frequency response.

How do you look for a speaker designed for the right application? That is product knowledge that a properly trained mobile electronics retailer can provide. Do you need a midrange that will work in a small A-pillar pod? Do you need a woofer that will work in an infinite baffle application? Will your midbass driver be used with a subwoofer, or do you need one that will be the sole source of bass in the system? Knowing the intended application for a speaker ensures that the system designer will use it appropriately.

Are More Expensive Speakers Always Better?

Does price always determine performance? In the upper echelon of any audio industry, the rewards for spending exponentially more money diminish. That is to say, the improvement you get from spending $500 on a set of speakers as compared to $200 may not be as dramatic as the difference between $2,500 and $2,200.

Every speaker manufacturer wants you to buy their speakers. They all work hard to come up with great marketing programs to make you want to buy their products. Your goal in choosing an amazing speaker is to ignore the story and listen.

The best way is first to establish a reference. Listen to the best speakers you can find. Don’t worry about the price. You simply want to understand what is available. Then, choose your price point and listen to something in that range. If you can accept the differences, then proceed. If you can’t, re-evaluate your needs or your budget. You can’t get that extra level of clarity, dynamics and detail any other way.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.