Home audio drivers vs. car audio drivers

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

Ignorance is bliss,I'm told. But I know from personal experience, back around '96-'97 Soundstream made an amp that was designed by Krell and to their standards. I took the amp apart once to see if it was up to high standards of home audio and beleive me, it was built to a pretty darn high standard, Looked to beat out the mid-fi equiptment we have on hand today. It would run all day on a one ohm load. I ran two channels of it bridged into a 2 ohm load for almost 2 years and never had a problem or any over heating. It was one a thousand made. But still, your statement is way off.

Their were other companies that built some high quality car audio, also.

Of course $1800 for a car audio amp, or any amp is a bunch of money. But to make the statement that 12 volt amps are junk, is not a smart statement. But, if you buy from Tweeter or other appliance stores you most likely will get junk car audio equiptment.

I can't imagine 'car audio' has all gone to the dogs since I messed with it.

Btw, in the late 80's Bob Carver and one of the hi-end mags did some comparisons of amps (12v vs. 110v) with a pr. of Maggie's and the 12 volt amps didn't do too badly. Held their own in some respects. I remember back in the mid-late 90's Wes Philips had a 'car audio' column in Stereophile every 3 months . I doubt they would have given 'car audio' an editotial spot if it wasn't worth a darn or if it wwas junk.

Fs, Qts, and impedance.

When you put a bass speaker in a rigid enclosed area you experience 12dB of gain per octave you drop below where the longest dimension equals half a wave length. So to get flat bass inside a car you need the sub woofer to roll-off at a high frequency.

Power = V^2/Z. In a car you're starting with 12VDC vs. 100-240VAC in a house; so it's easier to make power when you're driving a lower impedance load.

Slappy, www.audioxpress.com did a DIY for Infinity 462.5CFP and Boston Acoustics FX5 car coax. Article was 5/03 and shows freq. responses. They modded the Infinity and improved sound to the best of the lot.

Drew: To those that understand what Fs, Qts and impedane mean, they will understand exactly what you're getting at. For those that are reading this, it probably went right over their heads : )

Speakers are designed very differently as they have very different atmosphere's ( acoustically and environmentally ) to deal with.

Amplifiers are designed very differently as they have a very different power source to deal with.

Having said that, you can get "pretty decent" car audio gear for not that much money. Just like in home audio, you have "pretenders to the throne" who rely on hype, cosmetics and fictitious spec's and then you have "the real deal" type of components that are built and designed around real world operating conditions and environments. Guess which type of product is most likely to be found in the majority of "boom boom" vehicles heading down the road. If you're not sure, just think about how much Pioneer / Sony / Kenwood type stuff you see in home audio as compared to even Parasound, Adcom, NAD, etc.. type gear. This is not to mention the likes of "audio standards" such as ARC, Krell, Pass, etc...

Cheaper junk that promises you the best for the least amount of money is what keeps the economy alive. People buy cheap junk, find out exactly how junky it is and then sell it to buy the next higher level of junk. Without all of the low grade junk and the learning experiences involved, we wouldn't have a "High End" in either home or car audio. It's just too bad we can't to how "junky" the low grade "junk" really is : ) Sean
>

PS... Most car audio subwoofers are designed for maximum output at higher frequencies with little concern for extension and / or linearity. This results in more apparent bass, which is why you hear "boom, boom boom" or "thud, thud, thud" rather than musical notes. Then again, most of the recordings that have that "boom, chukka, splash" on them isn't very "musical" to begin with : )