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Beginner’s Guide to Installing Car Audio Systems – DIY

Speaker Positioning

Speaker installation is very critical to performance. Whether you’ve spent $1000 or $10,000 on a set of speakers, if they’re not installed correctly, they won’t sound the way they should. Although it may seem that the best position for most speakers is in the original housing that came with the car, for example in the door panel near the footwells, this is not the case. You will see why such positions are still used, however, along with alternative solutions such as center channels for 5.1 dolby, LCD screen, in-dash DVD players. There are many factors that need to be considered when placing your speakers in the correct position.

Distance

The first thing to consider is the distance. If the left speaker is only a couple of feet away from your ears, while the right speaker is several feet away from you, then the sound will arrive at different times and will give you poor sound. Since the left speaker is closer, it sounds louder. The best solution is to find a location where the difference between the distance from the right speaker to your ears and the left speaker (also known as the path length difference) is minimal. This is where kick panels become the preferred location.

Placing multiple speakers

If you have a system with two or more speakers per side, you should try different locations to get the best possible sound in your car. If you have a 2-way system with one tweeter and one subwoofer per side. The subs are mounted in the original location at the bottom of the door. The tweeters are mounted high on the front corner of the door panel. From the driver’s seat, you can see that there are 4 speakers, all facing different orientations and all at different distances from your ears. This interplay of sound waves at different frequencies hitting your ears at different times rarely sounds right. The best you can do is place the woofer and tweeter on each side as close to each other as possible. This is also the reason why protection panels are used so much these days. Professional installers use a few tricks, such as reversing the polarity of the tweeters when they are mounted, for example, on top of the dash while the woofers are down. Achieving good sound with unconventional mounting schemes is very, very difficult and is only achieved after a lot of time has been spent trying different setups.

aim

Our ears can distinguish the direction of sound more easily at higher frequencies. This means that pointing the mids and, more importantly, the tweeters towards the ears play a critical role in sound imaging. The middle bases are not as critical, but should also point toward the listener’s ears if possible. Figuring out the best aiming angle takes many hours – even days – of work. To start with, try to point the speakers towards the center of the car. Play around with different angles until you get the best sound position. Subwoofers should be mounted in the front for best sound. Since this isn’t possible in most cars, mounting subwoofers in the rear isn’t too bad, as most people can’t tell where the bass is coming from. If you have good mids that drop to 60Hz or below and subwoofers that pick up the signal below 60Hz, then the bass will seem to come from the front.

enclosures

Subwoofers need a properly designed cabinet to deliver maximum performance. Middle bases and mids also sound much better if installed in cabinets. The best-sounding and easiest-to-build cabinet type for mid-bass and mid-bass is the sealed.

speaker mounting

If you are using speakers that fit in the original location, make sure there are no gaps or holes. Sometimes building a baffle out of wood or fiberglass helps reduce holes and gives you a much better sound. Always be careful when using power tools near speakers. Holes in speakers are generally not covered under warranty. For unconventional speaker locations, the metal sometimes has to be cut. If you have the resources, plasma cutters and pneumatic tools work great. For most of us who don’t have these tools, a pair of metal scissors (left and right cutting) will do the job.

Take your time planning your system and don’t just buy the brand and product for the sake of popularity. Sometimes the simplest system is the most effective.