Information
sourced and compiled by Daren Dhoray.
There are a myriad of things to consider when installing
music in your car. Most of us do not take into consideration
some of the more important.phpects of car audio installations
owed to the fact that these topics may not be as coluorfull
as we would like them to be but nonetheless, they are
important factors in any car installation -
speaker positioning
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building
Speaker
Positioning
Speaker installation is very critical for
performance. Whether you spent $1000 or $10,000 on a
set of speakers, if they are not properly installed,
they would not sound as they should. Even though it
may seem that the best position for most speakers are
in the stock housing's that came with the car e.g. on
the door panel near your feet, this is just not so.
You would see why such positions are still used however
along with alternative solutions. There are many factors
that need to be considered in placing the speakers in
the correct position.
Distance
The first thing to consider is distance.
If the left speaker is only a couple feet away from
your ears, while the right speaker is several feet away
from you, then the sound will arrive at different times
giving you poor sound. Since the left speaker is closer,
it sounds louder. The best solution is to figure out
a location where the difference between the distance
of the right speaker to your ears and left speaker (also
known as path length difference), are minimal. This
is where kick panels become the preferred location.
Multiple
Speaker Placement
If you have a system with two or more speakers
per side, you need to try out different locations to
obtain the best possible sound in your car. If you have
a 2-way system with a tweeter and sub per side. The
subs are mounted in the stock location at the bottom
of the door. The tweeters are mounted high up on the
front corner of the door panel. From the driver's seat,
you can see that there are 4 speakers all aimed towards
different orientations and all at a different distance
to your ears. This interaction of sound waves at different
frequencies arriving at your ears at different times
seldom sounds good. The best thing to do is to position
the woofer and tweeter on each side as close as possible
to each other. This is also why kick panels are used
so much these days. Professional installers do use some
tricks such as inverting the tweeters' polarity when
mounted for example on top of the dash while the woofers
are low. Achieving good sound with unconventional mounting
schemes is very, very hard and is only achieved after
plenty of time has been spent trying different configurations.
Aiming
Our ears can distinguish the direction of
sound more easily at higher frequencies. This means
that aiming the mids, and most importantly, tweeters
towards your ears play a critical role in sound imaging.
Midbases are not so critical, but should be also aimed
towards the listener's ears if possible. To figure out
the best aiming angle involves many hours -even days-
of work. To start, try to aim the speakers towards the
center of the car. Play around with different angles
until you obtain the best sounding position. Subwoofers
should be mounted up front for best sound. Since this
is not possible in most cars, mounting subs in the back
is not such a bad thing, since most people can't distinguish
where bass comes from. If you have good midbases going
down to 60 Hz or less and subs picking up the signal
below 60 Hz, then the bass will seem to come from the
front.
Enclosures
Subwoofers need a properly designed enclosure
to give top performance. Midbases and mids also do sound
much better if they are installed in enclosures. The
best sounding and easier to build enclosure type for
midbases and mids is sealed.
Mounting
Speakers
If you are using speakers that fit into the
stock location, make sure there are no spaces or holes.
Sometimes building a wood or fiberglass baffle helps
reduce holes and gives you much better sound. Always
be careful when using power tools around speakers. Holes
in speakers usually are not covered by the warranty.
For unconventional speaker locations, sometimes metal
has to be cut. If you have the resources, plasma cutters
and pneumatics tools work great. For most of us that
do not have these tools, a pair of metal snips (left
and right cut) will do the job.