Car Audio buyer's guide

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Sound Advice - Car Audio buyer's guide

A car audio system can be a sound cure to your traffic jam headaches. However, choosing and buying a quality hi-fi system needs some basic understanding of the subject. Autocar India takes you on a guided tour.

Automobiles are highest on our list of objects of desire - they thrill, excite and get our pulse racing... unless of course you’re cooling your heels in a traffic jam. No set of wheels, no matter how quick, sleek or sexy, is any fun when you’re caged inside, inching forwards at three Ks an hour, be it a Merc, Honda or an Opel. With your eyes on the road and hands resting on the wheel, the only thing to keep the mounting frustration at bay is a quality car audio system.

Till the mid-’90s all hi-fi enthusiasts, keen to buy a decent car audio system, had to take the grey market route in India. This involved visiting the friendly neighborhood electronics ‘dealer’ and installing whatever system you could lay your hands on. This was the only way to obtain decent sound in your car, but choice was severely limited. Correct installation was like a lottery, and more often than not a buyer ended up with less than perfect sound due to electrical disturbances.

Today the car audio market in India, like the car industry, has undergone a sea change, with a fair number of players making up the ‘official’ market. Every type of component from tape and CD-headers to changers, sub-woofers, amplifiers and crossovers are all available from a number of internationally reputed manufacturers, with a number of them being assembled here in India.

Factory-fitted systems
Car manufacturers today have recognised the fact that in-car entertainment constitutes an integral part of a modern car. Customers expect quality and many like Opel and Honda have gone to great lengths to provide quality head units from top-of-the-line audio manufacturers like Alpine, Blaupunkt and Kenwood. Most manufacturers however cut corners due to budgetary constraints, and install much cheaper OE speakers. These poor quality speakers form a weak link in the chain, resulting in a serious deterioration in sound quality despite the good head unit (the system itself). If you have a factory-fitted car audio system, make sure the speakers are the genuine thing, or else don’t hesitate to go out and get the real stuff.

Despite car makers providing OE systems, sound quality disappoints.

Pitfalls of grey market systems
The grey market car audio systems fall into three basic categories - genuine systems smuggled into India, genuine-looking systems assembled with a few cheaper locally available parts (read poor sounding and unreliable), and outright fakes. Needless to say, none of these systems can be bought with a warranty, and you could be left high and dry with a blown board or IC just weeks after it was installed. Furthermore, the fakes available are extremely convincing and even experts find it difficult to tell them apart without a close examination. The sole benefit of buying a sound system from the grey market is the price. Systems retail for as little as Rs 5000. A major negative however is the lack of financing for these systems.

Placement of speakers has a major bearing on sound quality, hence Bose's customised setup and placement for the Cadillac Seville.

The car as an acoustic environment
Car audio engineers have a tough job. The car is far from being an ideal environment in which to set up a quality sound system. The speakers never face the listeners/passengers and the audio components have to be shrunk into a package that slots into the dash. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to make any real predictions about the reflected sound that is heard, especially with the front speakers firing onto your ankles and those at the rear getting muffled by the headrests. You also have external sound to contend with.

BUYING AND INSTALLING YOUR SYSTEM

Proper car audio installation needs specilised knowledge and tools.

Angled drills, metal-cutting 'nibblers', wire pullers, crimpers essential.'

Getting kitted out
Unlike home audio products, which merely need proper reading of the owner’s manual before installation, car audio systems are exceedingly difficult to install. One needs to have an in-depth knowledge of both the equipment as well as the automobile to be able to execute a perfect setup.

The system needs to draw the right amount of power from the electric supply in the car; therefore it is imperative that the power for the car is taken from the correct source provided. Powering the system improperly - by drawing power directly from the battery - results in various problems such as electrical shorting (arching), static disturbance through the speakers due to a loose connection, and IC failures. Improper installation could also damage your car’s electronic system, resulting in chaos under the hood or with the air conditioning system.

Purchase and fitment
We strongly recommend you purchase your car audio system from a company-recognised fitter. Supermarket purchases just don’t make sense as even they have to contract somebody to get the system fitted.

What’s more, getting back to the person who fitted your car audio system is difficult when you don’t know who’s done the job in the first place. Also make sure the person/persons fitting your system have the specialised tools essential for correct and safe fitting of the systems.

Source

April 2001

» Anatomy of a Car Audio System
» Car audio history
» Desirable features
» Car audio maintenance
» Alternative to attaching a CD player
» Installation tips
» Head to Head - Car audio buyer's guide
» In-Dash CD-Player
» Hi-Fi terms and what they mean (audio glossary)
» In-car-computers

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