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Home audio drivers vs. car audio drivers


Just kinda curious,

Drivers seem to be specifically made for either Home Audio or Car Audio.

What exactly is the criteria that seperates these>

I see alot of good speaker manufacturers making home audio AND car drivers. Focal, Infinity, ETC, ETC.

I hear alot of problems from DIY'ers about matching tweeters and midrange drivers, was curious if anybody ever messed around and tried building a set of 2 way speakers using infinitys $200 Reference Kappa Component sets.

Is there an actualy difference between car audio and home audio? Is there a different approach to design? Ive seen car audio drivers that run in the thousands of dollars, i know enough about car audio to know that they put ever bit as much of engineering in those products.

or is it basically the fact that most car audio speakers run at 4 ohms while home audio speakers run at 8ohms?
slappy
slappy OP
903 posts
 
"Is there an actual difference between car audio and home audio?"

Duh...

Just noticed my typo. I know there is a difference between car audio and home audio, what i meant is "is there a different standard or different criteria for each...."
lugnut
1,190 posts
 
Slappy,

Car audio isn't designed for anything that resembles flat frequency response. All listening is nearfield. The amps used in car audio are, for the most part, junk compared to home audio amps. There is perhaps 50 cubic foot of volume in the automobile environment versus a couple of thousand cubic feet in a modest home audio room. Engineering challenges for car audio include road vibration, temperature and humidity extremes and the ability to survive clipping to name a few. And, talk about terrible electrical supply. Air conditioning, turn signals, fuel injection, headlights and countless other electrical stuff is going on all the time. This electrical environment makes a homes circuits look incredibly stable in comparrison.
ed_sawyer
588 posts
 
Car audio actually has way more hype and BS, if you can believe it (!) than home audio. More of it is crap than the equivalent home audio stuff. I've built stuff using car audio 2-way separates before - they were ok, but really nothing outstanding for the $ and effort involved. Like high-end home audio, most of the truly good/exotic/well done car stuff is about custom one-off type of things, including installation and modification. Not many truly good sounding cars just use off-the-shelf stuff that you can buy at Tweeter. In fact some of the high-end car stuff I have seen/heard used high-end home drivers (e.g. Focal, horn drivers, etc.) instead of the car stuff.

most of it is designed around marketing and BS and ruggedness. (tons of it gets returned so making it stand up to abuse is one of the high priorities, esp. for woofers... e.g. able to handle being plugged into a wall socket (AC) with that connected to speaker driver, and nonsense like that.)

I think a lot of (young guys?) folks go through a car-audio phase. Many outgrow it. Or at least settle to something good but sane.

-Ed
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