In the ’70s, owning a van was cool. In the ’80s, Chrysler moved those buyers into its new car-based platform, the minivan, with the Caravan. This compact cargo- and people-friendly vehicle kicked off a trend that’s only recently lost momentum. When it’s time to move a large group of people, or you need the most cargo room possible, companies like Mercedes-Benz, Ford, GMC and RAM offer vans that can easily transport up to 15 passengers. In most cases, these vehicles are spartan in terms of their entertainment and creature comforts. If you want more technology, features or luxury, drop by your local mobile enhancement retailer to see what’s available.

Passenger Van Audio System Enhancements

As fun as a rousing session of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” is, being able to listen to great music while hauling your friends, family or the team across the city or the country can’t be beaten. Most vans come with a pretty rudimentary AM/FM receiver with a CD player. Upgrading to a CD receiver with Bluetooth audio streaming and a USB port that will let you connect a smartphone opens up all sorts of streaming and entertainment options.

If you plan a trip across the country, consider moving to a multimedia receiver with a built-in navigation system or that includes Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone integration. Built-in navigation systems are great for situations where the driver has limited data on their cellphone plan or plans to cross the border into another country. If you have a smartphone with even a moderate amount of data access, CarPlay and Android Auto let you use Google Maps or Waze to get directions to the destination of your choice. The beauty of these phone-based systems is that the map information is always up to date, and both software solutions include real-time traffic flow information to optimize your route. Of course, the driver can send text messages, make phone calls or choose the music he or she wants using the voice recognition capabilities of Siri or Google Assistant.

Of course, anytime you want better sound, upgrading the vehicle speakers is a great idea. Even better, add a small subwoofer and an amplifier to the system so your music will sound realistic and detailed. When your favorite song comes on, the extra power from the amplifier will let you crank it up without any worry about distortion.

Video and Interior Upgrades

If you’re hauling people across the state or province, it might be nice for them to watch a movie during the drive. The simplest solution is to have your local retailer upgrade the headrests with a replacement that includes a DVD player and screen. Depending on the model you choose, these systems include wireless headphones. Alternatively, some solutions allow you to stream the audio from the movie or show through the factory-installed radio using an FM modulator.

Of course, like any platform, some people want to take their entertainment systems to a higher level with a larger screen and more speakers. For many, these upgrades turn into complete interior restyling projects. If a limousine is cool, a limo-van must be even better, right? New seats, new wall and floor treatments, custom storage and, of course, a premium entertainment solution can turn a passenger van into an experience worthy of royalty! At this end of the spectrum, there are no limits to what can be created – it’s merely a matter of asking.

Convenience and Comfort Features

Some van upgrades are more mainstream but offer dramatic improvements in functionality and comfort. From a safety perspective, having a backup camera system on your van is a no-brainer. It’s very difficult to see what’s behind a vehicle this large when parking or maneuvering. If you can’t see out the back window because of storage or entertainment upgrades, several rearview mirror options use a camera on the back of the vehicle. For the ultimate in parking safety, several companies offer surround-view systems that use four cameras to provide a bird’s-eye view of everything around the vehicle.

Other popular upgrades for vans include options like a remote car starter. With a vehicle this large, giving the engine a few extra minutes to cool things off in the summer or to start to warm things up in the winter is a great idea. Car starters are available with a variety of control options. You can choose from one-way or two-way radio frequency remotes that offer as much as 3 miles of range. Several smartphone-based options work with Bluetooth or the cellular network to let you control your vehicle. Many of the cellular systems also offer GPS-based vehicle locating and security features.

A popular upgrade that goes along with a remote starter is the installation of seat heating pads. That’s right – even if your van didn’t come from the factory with this tushy-toasting option, your local mobile enhancement retailer can install heating pads in the bottom and back of the seats to make your vehicle more comfortable. If you have leather or vinyl seats, a seat heating system is a godsend on a cold fall or winter morning.

Many accessories are available to make your van more comfortable and more enjoyable to drive. If the vehicle didn’t come with cruise control, it’s possible to add that so that driving long distances can be more enjoyable. If your van is relatively high off the ground, a set of side steps can make it much easier to get in and out of the vehicle. The top-of-the-line upgrade in this regard is the motorized Amp Research Powersteps. When the doors are closed, these steps are tucked up close to the rocker panel. This design helps to maintain ground clearance and the aerodynamics of the vehicle. As soon as you open a door, the steps fold down to make getting in and out of the vehicle safer and more convenient.

If you use your van for work, then storage is crucial. Dozens of options are available for shelving, cabinets and even custom work surfaces. Your van can be outfitted with a high-power inverter that will allow power tools, computers or communication equipment to be used, just as if you were in a brick-and-mortar office.

Upgrade Your Van for Comfort and Convenience Today!

Whether you need new headlights to help you see farther while driving at night, a new set of speakers that will make your audio system sound amazing or are thinking about a full custom interior with lighting and a video system, specialty mobile enhancement retailers across the country can help. No wish is too big or too small.

Lead-In Image courtesy of Brandon Shuler from Driving Enhanced Solutions of Wilmington, North Carolina. This Mercedes-Benz Sprinter includes custom seating with built-in cooling, wood flooring and LED lighting. Of course, the audio system was upgraded, and there’s an electric cooler in the center console to keep beverages ready on a hot day. The van’s exterior includes an Aries bull bar with LED lighting and a roof platform with a ladder.

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.

Adding a subwoofer to your car audio system is a great way to improve the quality and accuracy of the music you hear. As we’ve explained many times, sending bass information to a dedicated amplifier and a larger speaker alleviates the need for the small speakers in your vehicle to work hard trying to reproduce low-frequency information. The result is that the smaller ones sound better and can play louder, and the dedicated subwoofer will play those low notes with authority. Thousands of options are available for adding a subwoofer system to your vehicle. Let’s take a look at a few criteria you should consider before visiting your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer.

How Much Bass Is Enough?

The most difficult part of choosing a subwoofer system for your car or truck is deciding how much bass you need. Will an 8-inch driver in a small enclosure behind the seat of a pickup truck satisfy your needs, or do you need a custom system build with a pair of 12-inch subwoofers in a bass-reflex design? The best way to decide this is to listen to examples of each solution. If you have a friend with an upgraded stereo in a similar vehicle, decide whether their solution gets loud enough and plays low enough. If you can provide your product specialist with some feedback, they can help you narrow down your choices.

Depending on the shop you’re dealing with, they may have a demo vehicle or two that you can listen to. Auditioning a shop vehicle is a great opportunity to hear how a properly configured subwoofer should sound.

It’s crucial to be forthcoming about your expectations. The cost and complexity of a subwoofer that will “warm up your music” is very different than one that can shake the rear view mirror off your windshield. If you don’t ask for what you want, well, you won’t be happy with the results.

How Much Room Can You Spare?

All subwoofers require that you dedicate some amount of space to the amplifier and enclosure. If you have an SUV and need to haul supplies for work, or gear for a sports team, then a large custom cabinet might not be a wise choice. In terms of options, compact all-in-one powered subwoofer systems will fit under a seat. These solutions are a nice upgrade to a factory-installed audio system or one that is running from the power amp built into a radio.

The next step up in terms of performance are compact enclosures designed to fit behind the seat of a pickup truck or in the corner of an SUV. Several companies offer vehicle-specific enclosures that fit under the seat or against the back wall of a pickup truck, in a center console or in the corner of the cargo area in your vehicle. Finally, generic enclosures are available for the back of an SUV or the trunk of your car. Finally, the options for a custom upgrade are nearly limitless. You can have your local car audio upgrade specialist design and build a solution that’s subtle, or crazy if you want to show it off to friends.

Powered Under-Seat Subwoofers

The least expensive subwoofer upgrade solution is to pick an all-in-one package that includes both an amplifier and the subwoofer, along with an appropriate enclosure. Most of these systems include some sort of remote level control that makes it easy for the driver to adjust the level of the sub relative to that of the other speakers in the vehicle. These enclosures will fit under the seat of many cars and most SUVs. While most are generic, companies like Alpine have developed surprisingly affordable vehicle-specific solutions.

Compact Powered Enclosures

The limiting factor on the under-seat enclosures is their output capability and low-frequency extension. If you want bass that you can really feel, then you’ll likely want to choose something with a larger enclosure and driver, and a more powerful amplifier. Most of these solutions are designed by the manufacturers to use one of their a-la-carte subwoofers and are combined with a dedicated amplifier in the 250+ watt range.

Vehicle-Specific Enclosures

Though they can cost a little more, choosing a vehicle-specific subwoofer system will typically increase the maximum output capability and low-frequency extension even further. Most of these enclosures use 8-, 10- or 12-inch drivers and are made from injection-molded plastic or fiberglass that’s contoured to fit the desired vehicle perfectly. Some of these systems include amplifiers, but most require an external amp. As important as choosing a good subwoofer is, the amplifier you choose should be equally impressive in terms of its efficiency, power production capabilities and sound quality.

Full-Size Subwoofer Enclosures

If you are looking for a way to rattle your fillings, then choosing a full-size subwoofer solution is a great choice. Options are available from a single 8-inch driver to a quartet of 12-inch subs, each designed to suit a different client in terms of output capability. You’ll want to pair an appropriate amp to this enclosure. Subwoofer amplifiers are available in power ratings from a couple hundred watts to well into the thousands. A word of advice: Be wary of those “too good to be true” deals that seem to offer significant power and rock-bottom prices. Often, these amplifiers use inexpensive components that won’t stand the test of time. Likewise, they are rarely designed to take the radio-frequency noise they produce into consideration. If you have a new amplifier installed and run into radio reception problems, RF noise is the issue.

What Else Does Your Subwoofer Upgrade Need?

Your installer is going to need power wire to connect your amplifier to the battery in your vehicle. Once again, we highly recommend shopping for the best quality solution, as opposed to one that offers the best price. Many companies package undersized conductors in a thick jacket to make unsuspecting consumers think they’re getting a great deal. Avoid amp kits and wire that use the word “gauge” to specify the wire size instead of AWG. You will likely get the best performance with all-copper conductors sized using the American wire gauge (AWG) standard.

Depending on whether you have the factory radio in your vehicle or are upgrading the radio that came from the factory, your invoice will include interconnect cables or a line-level interface (often called a line-output converter). Again, better-quality solutions offer better performance. Twisted-pair interconnects that include proper shielding will help keep noise out of your audio system. For interfaces, the technician working on your vehicle may need to measure the output voltage of the radio or factory-installed amplifier in your vehicle before an appropriate solution can be recommended.

Have a Budget in Mind Before You Shop

Of course, you’re going to need to come up with a target budget to buy the product(s) you want and then have them integrated into your vehicle. Figure on spending at least $300 for a powered under-seat solution, and at least a couple of hours, plus wiring and parts, to have it installed. Many shops will have bundled subwoofer packages available, especially around the holiday season. These packages typically include subwoofers, an enclosure, an amplifier and a wiring/installation kit. Some of these offer an impressive balance of performance and value.

Upgrade Your Vehicle with a Subwoofer Today!

If you want to make a dramatic improvement to your music listening experience, drop by your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer today and ask about the options they have available to add bass to your car or truck.

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.

In the past, we’ve looked at Class AB and Class D amplifier classes, the two most popular configurations in the mobile electronics industry. With that said, a few other classes deserve some explanation, as they can deliver improvements in amplifier efficiency without altering the sound quality. This article will review Class AB and Class D and then talk about G and H designs. We’ll also dispel some myths about device topology and how these amplifiers work.

How Does the Amp Output Stage Work?

Before we talk about output device configurations, we need to explain how the output stage of an amplifier works. When your installer connects a speaker to an amplifier, they expect a voltage proportional to the input signal to be supplied. The amplifier power supply determines the maximum voltage that can be provided to the speaker and the impedance of the speaker determines how much current will flow. Our limits are the voltage of the power supply and its current delivery capabilities.

Almost every amplifier uses what’s known as a Class B output device configuration in car audio systems. This circuit design uses two switching devices (transistors or MOSFETS) to alternate between the amp’s positive and negative voltage supplies. When both are off, no voltage is supplied to the signal. When the positive device is on, a positive voltage is supplied to the speaker, and it moves outward. When the negative device is on, the speaker moves inward. The level of our audio signal determines how “on” each device is. This configuration is often referred to as a push-pull design.

Class AB Car Audio Amplifiers

A Class AB amplifier is a Class B amp adjusted to make the transition between the positive and negative switching devices smooth and effectively distortion-free. Most amplifiers switch from one device to the other with as little overlap as possible so the amplifier can be as efficient as possible.

A few high-end amplifiers allow both devices to overlap their operation a little more than normal to ensure that the transition is even smoother and less crossover distortion is created. This configuration reduces distortion at the expense of increasing how much current the amp draws. When appropriately executed, the results can be quite astonishing. The ARC Audio SE-Series and D’Amore Engineering A-Series amplifiers are great examples of these high-bias designs.

For a more scientific look at how A, B and AB stages are configured, check out this BestCarAudio.com article.

Class G and Class H Amplifiers

A few companies that truly understand what genuine enthusiasts expect from a high-end car audio amplifier have implemented what are known as Class G and Class H designs. Unlike Class B, G and H don’t refer to an output device configuration at all. G and H are different methods of adjusting the power supply’s output to improve an amplifier’s efficiency. As such, Class G and Class H amplifiers are subsets of a Class B amp.

The power supply may be configured in a Class G amplifier to deliver two more output voltages. The amp operates typically at a lower-than-maximum rail voltage so that less heat is generated in the output devices. When you crank up the music, the amp will dynamically switch the power supply output to a high-voltage mode, so the output signal doesn’t get clipped. Some amps’ switching is based on average power level requirements, and others can change based on the audio signal’s immediate needs. A Class G amplifier’s output devices are configured in a standard Class B topology and, with proper biasing, deliver the same amazing sound quality.

Class H amplifiers are very similar to Class G, except that the power supply voltage tracks the audio waveform at high output levels. So, rather than low- and high-voltage modes, the voltage is variable. This configuration offers further improvement in amp efficiency of Class G with the same sound quality as B.

Class D Amplifiers Deliver Efficiency

A Class D amplifier still uses the same Class B output device configuration, with separate positive and negative switching devices. Where it differs is in how the devices are driven. The analog audio waveform is processed by a controller IC into a series of pulses with different widths. The pulses switch the positive or negative output devices all the way on or off very quickly. A large filter network between the output devices and the speaker smooths these pulses to recreate the original analog waveform.

The efficiency benefit comes from the output devices acting as switches rather than resistors. With little time being partially on or off, very little heat is generated.

Modern Class D driver ICs operate at impressively high frequencies. Some run as fast as 600 kHz, so delivering good high-frequency audio performance is less of an issue than for amplifiers designed a few decades ago. These same ICs include low-voltage operation features to help amplifiers work in vehicles with stop-start electrical systems.

It’s All About Amplifier Efficiency

These days, installers want the smallest and most efficient amplifiers they can find. These criteria make installations more manageable. For those who are genuinely passionate about their listening experience, the larger amplifiers with Class AB output stages still deliver the best performance. If you’re shopping for an amplifier for your car audio system, drop by your local specialty mobile enhancement retailer and ask them about the amplifier classes they offer. Based on your vehicle, power needs and performance expectations, they’ll help you choose a solution that will ensure that the music you listen to sounds great!

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.

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.