When it comes to upgrading your car audio system to deliver amazingly realistic performance, many people choose what’s known as a three-way front stage. In the simplest of terms, this refers to there being three speakers on each side of the vehicle. As we explained in our article about the need for different speaker sizes, your audio system requires woofers and tweeters to reproduce your music properly. The question is, why add dedicated midrange drivers to the mix? Read on to learn the answer.

The Source of Sound

One key advantage of using a dedicated midrange speaker with a woofer and tweeter is that the small speaker can be placed on the dash or at the top of the door. These locations can deliver the perception that the voices are coming from a point higher in the vehicle than if you were relying solely on a woofer mounted in the door. Ideally, your audio system should — when designed, installed and calibrated properly with a DSP — seem to reproduce a soundstage that spans the middle of your windshield from pillar to pillar, or beyond.

In a two-way speaker system with a woofer and a tweeter, audio frequencies below 3,500 Hz may seem to come from the doors. This causes the height of the soundstage to be stretched vertically in the vehicle, and it detracts from the sense of realism. Adding a set of midrange speakers can raise the soundstage.

Consistent Frequency Response

Every speaker in the world, from every manufacturer, experiences a phenomenon called directivity. Directivity refers to the shape of the sound being created by the speaker with respect to the frequency of the sound. Take, for example, a 6.5-inch woofer. At low frequencies, the sound created by a speaker emanates in a spherical pattern that would, if possible, extend behind the speaker itself. This characteristic is part of why the shape of the mounting surface for a speaker is so crucial to its performance.

As the output frequency increases, the shape of the sphere moves from being equal in a 360-degree circle around the speaker to a ball in front of the speaker. The sound created outside this ball doesn’t cease to exist, but it is definitely attenuated (quieter).

A further increase in frequency results in the ball narrowing to what would be perceived as a spotlight shape. Unless you are in front of the speaker, these audio frequencies will be quieter.

Directivity is an issue because, in almost every vehicle, the speakers aren’t aimed on-axis with the listener. For a door-mounted woofer, we may be at as much as a 70-degree angle. If this speaker is operated with a tweeter and filtered at 4,000 Hz, we may be sitting in a position where there is very little output.

The chart below shows, in general terms, the maximum frequency you want to use for a given size of speaker in order to maintain smooth frequency response throughout the listening environment.

Increased Low-Frequency Output

For the product specialist designing your audio system, selecting a woofer, midrange and tweeter for a three-way front stage may, depending on the brand being used, allow for a slight improvement in bass performance from the woofers. Since there’s no need for the 6.5- to 8-inch woofers to produce midrange frequencies much above 400 Hz, the cones can be a little heavier, so they play deeper than a similarly sized speaker that needs to play to 4,000 Hz.

Some companies switch from using a phase plug on their midrange drivers that play higher frequencies to adding a dust cap. The dust cap adds mass to lower the resonant frequency of the driver.

Another advantage, especially for those audio systems without a subwoofer: Your installer can turn up the output of the woofer relative to the midrange to increase bass output.

Though the image below doesn’t exactly follow the laws of physics, it shows how the output of a three-way speaker system delivers even sound distribution at the listening position.

The image below shows, in the same artistic fashion, how upper-midrange audio information from a door-mounted woofer may not be clearly audible at the listening position.

Three-Way Front Stage System Design

Many companies offer three-way speaker sets that include passive crossover. Passive crossovers allow all three speakers on each side of the vehicle to be powered by a single amplifier channel. In most cases, the crossover points are fixed with passive networks, though some do include options for midrange and tweeter output levels.

To optimize the performance of a three-way front speaker set, it’s best to use a six-channel amplifier along with a digital signal processor. The features of the processor allow your installer to fine-tune the output of each speaker to deliver accurate and natural frequency response at the listening position.

Upgrade Your Car Audio System Today!

If you’re after the most realistic, detailed and accurate car audio system performance available, drop by your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer and ask about upgrading your vehicle with a three-way speaker set. Once it’s installed and calibrated, the results will be amazing!

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.

A while back, we took a look at the difference between single and dual-voice-coil subwoofers. In a nutshell, there is no benefit or drawback to either choice. The options exist so you can present the amplifier you have chosen with a load impedance that allows it to make power reliably. There have been many instances where consumers bring a subwoofer into a car stereo shop in hopes of using it in their vehicle only to find out it’s not the right impedance. They need a 4-ohm sub instead of a dual 4-ohm. The question then becomes, can you use just one of the voice coils? That’s a fair question, and it deserves a detailed answer.

Can You Use Only One Subwoofer Voice Coil?

If you look at the voice coil former and the winding of a single-voice-coil sub, you’ll find a single positive and negative connection. On a dual-voice-coil sub, there are two pieces of wire and two sets of connections. The coils can be wired in series, in parallel or individually to power the subwoofer.

Car audio installers can use a set of specifications called Thiele/Small parameters in conjunction with modeling software to predict the performance of a subwoofer in a specific enclosure. All subwoofer manufacturers provide these specifications with both coils in use.

The short answer about using one coil is no. Using one coil not only affects the thermal power handling capabilities of a subwoofer, but it also changes the strength of the magnetic field and alters the Thiele/Small specifications. Rather than explain the math involved in the change, let’s use an example.

Thiele/Small Parameter Changes

Let’s start by measuring the parameters of an inexpensive 12-inch dual-voice-coil subwoofer. We measured the subwoofer with both coils wired in parallel, then we disconnected one coil and repeated the test. The results are in the chart below:

Sealed Enclosure Performance

We modeled the subwoofer performance using both voice configurations in VituixCAD 2 software. We started with a simple sealed (acoustic suspension) enclosure with a net internal volume of 1.08 cubic feet. Graph 1 shows the output of the subwoofer with 2.83 V (which is 8-watts into a 4-ohm load) applied to the coil. The response is nice and smooth, with a good transition from the midbass region and very little ripple. The Qtc (Total Q Factor) for the system with both coils connected is 0.8. This is a good balance between low-frequency extension, efficiency and low-distortion operation. The black trace that slopes down on the left shows predicted SPL.

Graph 2 shows the response of the same driver when only one voice coil is connected. You can see that the overall output of the system has decreased significantly and that there is a lot more ripple (a big bump in the response around 57 Hz. It’s also worth noting that the total system Q has jumped to 1.18. This Qtc value is quite high and will add resonance and distortion to the system.

Vented Enclosure Performance

Next, we designed a vented (bass reflex) enclosure using the specs taken with both coils in parallel. We simulated a 2-cubic-foot enclosure with a vent tuned to 35 Hz. As you can see from Graph 3 below, using both voice coils results in relatively smooth performance across the entirety of the operating range. The system efficiency has increased dramatically as compared to the sealed enclosure, with a jump in predicted output from 87 dB to 94 dB with the same amount of power.

Finally, we can see in Graph 4 how poor the performance of the subwoofer is with only one coil connected. Output at 40 Hz has dropped by 4.5 dB, and the overall response definitely isn’t as smooth.

Make Sure Your Subwoofers are Wired Properly

The above simulations clearly demonstrate the importance of using car audio subwoofers as they were designed. Your installer will need to wire both voice coils to your amplifier to ensure that the subwoofer maintains its power rating and functions the way the manufacturer designed it. If you have any questions, work with your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer.

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.

When it comes to subwoofer sizes for car audio systems, many people think that bigger is better. While we won’t argue with the fact that a speaker with more cone area can be more efficient, the output capabilities of a subwoofer depend significantly on the enclosure it’s installed in. In this article, we are going to look at a sure-fire way to make sure you get the bass performance you want from your mobile audio system.

Why Do You Need a Car Audio Subwoofer?

Making good bass that is clear and loud requires a lot of air movement. A small 4-inch speaker in the dash of your car or truck simply can’t move far enough to pressurize and rarify enough air to make acceptable bass. Subwoofers are speakers that are designed to play frequencies below 100 Hz. These speakers feature large voice coils to dissipate large amounts of heat, with suspension designs that allow for lots of cone movement. When installed in a properly designed enclosure, subwoofers relieve the smaller speakers from having to try to play bass frequencies. Being able to focus on midrange information reduces cone excursion requirements and decreases distortion.

Subwoofer Size Versus Low-Frequency Extension

When buying a subwoofer, you need to determine how much space you’re willing to assign for the enclosure. Larger subwoofers require a larger enclosure to produce the same amount of low-frequency output as smaller-diameter subwoofers. To begin to understand this concept, let’s use a few examples. Say we have enough room to have an enclosure built with an internal air volume of 2 cubic feet. This is a very flexible size in that the options for subwoofer are extensive. We could use a pair of tens with the enclosure sealed, a pair of tens with a vented design, a pair of twelves sealed, or a single 12 in a vented design. Which is loudest? Which is best? Let’s have a look.

The graph below shows the predicted free-field output of a pair of ARC Audio Black Series 10-inch V2 subwoofers in a sealed and vented design with a total volume of about 2 cubic feet. The red curve is the sealed design and the orange curve is the vented design.

The vented design increases the total system efficiency at all frequencies from 20 Hz to beyond 100 Hz. In this simulation, the dual 10-inch vented design is the winner. What about using larger woofers? Let’s compare the performance of a pair of Black 10’s to a pair of Black 12 subwoofers. The yellow line in the graph below represents the predicted output of a pair of Black 12V2 subs.

As you can see, in this simulation, the response curve of the 12-inch subwoofers mimics that of the tens, but with an increase in efficiency of more than 3 dB.

Here’s where things start to get tricky. What about a pair of tens in a vented design as compared with a pair of twelves in a sealed enclosure? The graph below tells the tale.

Down to 25 Hz, the tens in the vented design are more efficient than the twelves in a sealed design. What if you want good efficiency and want to fill in that deficiency in efficiency below 25 Hz? How about throwing a simulation of a single twelve into the mix?

The green line added to the previous graph shows the response of a single ARC Audio Black 12V2 subwoofer in a 2-cubic-foot vented enclosure. It’s not as loud as the pair of tens or twelves above 30 Hz, but it’s the loudest at 20 Hz. It all depends on your choice of music and how much low-frequency extension you’re after.

More Subs Isn’t Always Better

We are going to add one more graph to our article. This graph shows the original pair of 10-inch Black-series subwoofers in the 2-cubic-foot sealed enclosure in red and the predicted response of using three of those subs in the same enclosure. Up at 70 or 80 Hz, there is some increase in output, but down around 30 or 40 Hz, where the fun bass exists in most music, the output is almost the same. So, is there an advantage to running three subwoofers in this enclosure? Not really.

What About Subwoofer Power Handling?

The final consideration in this discussion of the best subwoofer choice for a given amount of space is power handling. There are two types of power handling to take into consideration with subwoofers: thermal and physical. Thermal power handling is determined primarily by the size of the subwoofer voice coil. Larger coils can handle more heat. In the case of the Black subwoofers in this article, both subs have a 3-inch coil, but the 12 has a 500-watt RMS power rating as opposed to the 400-watt rating of the 10.

In terms of physical power handling, that’s something that needs to be evaluated in simulation software. The graph below shows how far the woofer cones move relative to frequency. The chart below shows the sealed tens in red and the vented tens in orange. With an Xmax spec of 16 mm, the vented enclosure is good to just around 22 Hz. At that point, the cone might bottom out. Adding an infrasonic filter at this frequency would help prevent damage. In reality, unless you’re deliberately playing music with lots of extremely deep bass, you should be fine.

Upgrade Your Car Stereo with a Subwoofer

If you’re heading to your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer to talk about adding a subwoofer to your audio system, start by planning how much space you can allot to the enclosure. This information will help the product specialist determine what size subwoofer and how many are best for your listening preferences.

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.

For decades, companies have touted the benefits of high-end car audio RCA interconnect cables. When it comes to noise rejection, environmental stability and cosmetics, better cables are a great investment. In terms of improving sound quality, accuracy and detail, do more expensive cables sound better? Let’s take a look at the physics behind cable differences.

Are High-End Car Audio Cables Better?

If you look at the top car audio RCA interconnect offerings from Audison Connection, Wirez, Stinger, JL Audio and T-Spec, to name just a few, you’ll find that all of them share one common trait: they have features that help with noise rejection. The audio signals being passed from your source unit or processor to your amplifier are typically under 50 millivolts, even at moderate listening levels. If the interconnect cable passes by a computer module or a cable carrying significant amounts of current, it may pick up electrical noise. Shielding the signal cables is important to keeping noise out of your audio system.

More expensive cables often include more than one layer of noise shielding. When designed properly, this shielding can help to prevent noise in the form of electromagnetic interference (EMI) from being added to the audio signal. If you are worried about noise, look for a cable design that is shielded from one end to the other without interruption.

Can You Have Too Much Shielding?

Any time two conductors are adjacent to each other, the magnetic fields from one impose a current flow in the other. Depending on the geometry of the cable, extensive shielding around a conductor can act as a capacitor, potentially affecting the perceived frequency response of the cable. We’ve heard minute changes in the top octave when switching from an unshielded cable to one with significant foil or mylar film wraps. Ultimately, keeping noise out of an audio system is far more important than having to add a tenth of a dB to the tweeter settings on your digital signal processor. Is it worth worrying about? Not at all.

What’s the Hype About Twisted-Pair Cables?

Invented in 1881 by Alexander Graham Bell, twisted-pair cable geometry was originally designed for telephone systems. The act of spiraling the two conductors together reduced electromagnetic radiation from the pair, reduced crosstalk between the pair and improved the rejection of unwanted interference from other sources. While these benefits sound great, specific circuitry is required on the receiving end of the wires in order to make this cable geometry beneficial. You can read our article on differential inputs for a full explanation.

Home Audio Guys Upgrade Their Cables, so Shouldn’t I?

If you have been lured into the dark and murky waters of high-end home audio interconnect cable discussions, you can easily fall prey to strange and often mythical explanations about long-strand oxygen-free copper, silver conductors, ceramic connectors, high-voltage DC bias solutions and hundreds of other strange features.

There are two huge differences between home and mobile applications that need to be taken into consideration. First and foremost, car audio systems need frequency response calibration with an equalizer in order to sound good. The reflections from windows, plastic, vinyl, wood and leather wreak havoc with the frequency response of the system. It is this tuning that determines the frequency response of the system.

Second and of similar importance is that cars and trucks are not stationary. Vibrations from the engine, bumps in the road, and cornering, acceleration and braking forces put a lot of load on electrical connections. Car audio interconnects need integrated strain relief to prevent the conductors from work-hardening and breaking. While there may be exceptions, most home audio interconnects are not suitable for mobile applications.

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Good Cables Help Ensure Great Sound

If you already have a car audio system that sounds good, chances are that upgrading the interconnect cables won’t affect the overall performance enough to make the investment worthwhile. If you have noise issues, then using the right kind of cables for your equipment can help a lot! Cables won’t fix ground-loop problems, but they can help with EMI noise.

As a final thought, you will garner more benefit from upgrading your speakers than you will from upgrading any other part of the audio system. You can learn about what differentiates mediocre speakers from great ones in this article about car audio speaker upgrades and this one about speaker technologies.

If you want better sound from your car audio system, drop by your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer today and talk with them about your existing system and your goals. They can help you navigate through the thousands of options to make your system sound better.

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.