The final article in our series on understanding high-end car audio systems moves away from the need for accurate system design, integration, configuration and calibration to discuss audio product quality. If you’ve been a long-time reader of the articles at BestCarAudio.com, you know that we put a significant emphasis on identifying car audio products that perform well. Importantly, those solutions aren’t always the most expensive options. Let’s discuss what higher-quality audio products sound like and how they should behave.

What Is Car Audio Product Quality?

Depending on your point of view, audio product quality can have a lot of different meanings. From the perspective of the retailer you’re working with, it might mean that a particular brand is incredibly reliable. For example, we’ve tested amplifiers from Rockford Fosgate and ARC Audio that can run at their maximum rated power for at least 20 minutes without any issues. In contrast, in the same tests, we’ve tested other amps that overheat and shut down in under three minutes. If you play your music at high volume levels or live somewhere that’s hot in the summer, picking an amplifier with a functional heatsink design will help keep your music playing without interruption. An amp with better cooling capabilities will likely last longer than one that overheats its internal components frequently.

Another consideration in audio product quality is noise. Many low-priced source units use low-quality preamp output stages and even more amplifiers that produce audible amounts of hiss while they make a lot of power. Listen to almost any motorcycle audio system with super-small amplifiers, and you’ll hear the system hissing when no music is playing. Audible noise like hiss isn’t acceptable in a high-end car audio system. During the system design stage, part of the product selection process is to audition the products you want to use. This might be on the store’s display board or a demo vehicle. It’s crucial that you listen for absolute silence between tracks. One note: Every piece of electronics adds a tiny bit of noise. If you put your ear up to a tweeter, you’re going to hear something. That’s OK. When the noise is loud enough to be heard at the regular listening position, then it’s a problem.

Speaker Quality Characteristics

When it comes to all-out audio system performance, the difference between regular consumer-grade speakers and those that sound truly magnificent comes down to frequency response and linearity. Both are relatively easy to distinguish. Once again, part of the purchasing process is to audition the speakers before you purchase them. As we’ve mentioned, you’ll want to bring along your absolute favorite music and listen to it on several speaker options. We recommend starting with a speaker that might even be slightly above your price range. This “should” set a benchmark for how accurate your music can sound. However, there’s a problem. There are several “boutique” or “luxury” brands that, while they are expensive, don’t offer genuinely high-end performance. As such, the key to getting the most bang for your buck will be to visit several retailers and audition as many speakers as possible. After a few visits, you’ll be able to pick out the designs that offer truly accurate performance.

Here are a few tips for auditioning speakers for linear frequency response. Start with the easy stuff. Listen for unwanted emphasis in the high-frequency region. The letters S, T and P might be too loud if there are issues with a midrange or improper level-matching of a tweeter. Listen to music that doesn’t have too many instruments. We hear people talk all day. So listening to voices is a great way to audition speakers. We know a few people actually listen to movie soundtracks rather than music, as the vocal recordings are sometimes less processed. We recently started using “Into My Arms” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds for this very purpose. “Spanish Harlem” by Rebecca Pigeon is another track that will make any frequency response issue stand out. No, neither of these is a fun audio system demonstration track. They are, however, a great way to assess the quality of the speakers.

You want to listen for dynamics at lower frequencies, as would be produced by woofers and subwoofers. This is the second characteristic of speaker quality. Listening at lower volume levels doesn’t tell you much because the speakers aren’t working very hard, and, as such, the cones aren’t moving much. Inexpensive or low-tech speakers can sound fine when loafing along at these volume levels. Where features that improve linearity come into their own is when you start to really turn up the volume. First and foremost, the music should just get louder. There shouldn’t be any change in frequency response or tonal balance. Bass frequencies, in particular, should remain tight and dynamic.

If things get sloppy or boomy, the speakers you’re listening to have linearity issues. The problem could be a simple excursion issue where the speaker has run out of voice coil length. The issue could also be more complicated. Some speakers, especially larger woofers like a 6.5-inch, change frequency response depending on the cone position. When the voice coil is in its most outward or forward position, less of the voice coil is in the magnetic gap, so there is less inductance. When the speaker moves rearward, the opposite happens. With more of the voice coil wrapped around the T-yoke, there is more inductance and, as such, less upper midrange output. These position-based issues are surprisingly common in mid-priced speakers and those expensive speakers that are just overpriced mid-quality solutions. While not a guarantee of performance, woofers and subwoofers that include copper or aluminum shorting rings or a copper T-yoke cap typically exhibit less change in performance as the cone moves inward or outward.

Amplifier Quality

Sadly, there are no specifications available from reputable manufacturers that completely describe an amplifier’s sound. Of course, frequency response is a factor, but nobody provides measured frequency response under a reactive load. Further, there is no standard for a reactive load test. As such, predicting their performance is impossible, particularly in the case of Class D amplifiers.

Second, relevant distortion measurements or specifications are also difficult to interpret. Some companies that offer great-sounding amplifiers say that their amplifiers operate at less than 0.1% THD+N. I would hope so, as that’s a pretty lousy distortion specification. Others that provide really low distortion specifications, like 0.002%, aren’t clear about how they measured that number. Was it at a particular frequency or output level? Based on our extensive experience with reviewing amplifiers, it appears that intermodulation distortion performance is more relevant to the “sound” of an amplifier than harmonic distortion. Even fewer companies even test for IMD or publish relevant data.

As an aside, the lack of accurate and detailed quantification of amplifier performance allows these boutique and luxury brands to proliferate. Consumers are often misled by the higher prices, thinking that they are buying something truly magnificent. Often, the reality is that these solutions are inexpensive products with strong marketing programs. See “Lipstick on a Pig” for reference. But we digress.

So how do you pick an amplifier that sounds good? Once again, it would be best to listen to as many as possible under controlled conditions. This means using the same speakers and volume levels. Making this happen is extremely difficult, as very few retailers match the amplifiers on their displays so they all produce the same output. We have decades of experience in auditioning amplifiers, and we can pick out the ones that sound bad, good or great, often in different systems. However, expecting anyone to devote thousands of hours over decades to establish this experience is unreasonable.

The answer remains: You have to listen. Dynamics are once again a good tell. We recently reviewed a small amplifier. It sounded pretty good at lower volume levels. The reduced energy storage (because of the small size) made the amp sound softer when pushed harder. The attack of a kick-drum was mushier. A rim shot on a snare didn’t make us wince. Now, it’s really difficult to separate the difference in amplifier performance at low versus high output levels from the same changes in performance from speakers. As such, you want to audition amplifiers with genuinely high-quality speakers, even if they are better than what you plan to use.

What Does Audiophile-Grade Car Audio Sound Like?

The point of building any audiophile-grade sound system is to extract the most accuracy possible from a recording. As the previous articles have detailed, the frequency response, sound source and imaging are crucial to presenting the music accurately. Those characteristics are primarily focused on audio system design, installation and calibration.

The difference between run-of-the-mill audio equipment and those components that sound truly exceptional is revealed as accuracy. Does a performer’s voice sound authentic or like a very good audio system? Realism is the next level. When it doesn’t sound like you’re listening to audio equipment, and it sounds like the performer or instrument is out in front of you, you are experiencing something truly exceptional. Of course, it takes a complete system to make this happen. A great source unit, a high-quality digital signal processor, excellent amplifiers and truly amazing speakers are all necessary. It all needs to be installed, configured and calibrated correctly, too!

A while back, we were rewiring the test bench in our lab. We use an ARC Audio PS8-50 to power the audio system on the bench and the nearby computer. The main computer’s TOSLINK digital output feeds audio to the amp. We also use the test bench computer’s analog output. After completing the rewiring, we tested everything to ensure that it was all working. We played the same song from each computer. There was an audible difference between the two sound sources. We fine-tuned the output levels to make sure it wasn’t a psychoacoustic trick and repeated the comparison.

The TOSLINK connection sounded better than the line output on the lab bench computer. Tonally and spatially, they sounded the same. The difference was in the clarity or transparency. There was less “other stuff” on the signal from the main computer. Think of it as hearing less static from a radio station. Better, think of it like less grain in a printed photograph. The image was identical, but it was clearer. Another example we use is the difference between driving with a spotless windshield and one that needs that annoying greasy film that builds up on the inside removed. Of course, you can see where you are going through both. However, the difference is clearly visible when you get that just-slightly-dirty window clean.

Wait, I Like My Music LOUD!

So far, this series of articles on audio quality hasn’t talked much about those who want their audio systems to play louder. Now, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who think loud doesn’t sound good. More people don’t know how good loud can sound. One of the best things about an excellent car audio system is that you are welcome to play it loud. You aren’t going to bother the rest of your family or the neighbors if you crank the volume while driving to work. You are in your own little entertainment cocoon.

A well-designed audio system should sound great at background levels and at concert levels. All the features that make a speaker great also allow them to play loudly. This wasn’t the case 20 or 30 years ago. High-end speakers of that era were fragile. They used tiny voice coils that didn’t weigh much. An audiophile-grade 6.5-inch woofer might have more output capability than some entry-level 8-inch subwoofers. If the SPL guys heard what great speakers sounded like, they’d ditch that pro-sound stuff in a heartbeat. We’ve converted a few folks over to using an audiophile-grade front stage for their systems that are capable of over 150 dB SPL. Their music stays clear and detailed, even at volume levels that blur your vision and rattle your fillings.

The Four Stages of Truly Audiophile-Grade Car Audio

Well, there you have it, a series of four articles that explain what to expect from a genuinely audiophile-grade car audio system. If you are a true music lover who cares about the quality and accuracy of what you are listening to, take a drive down to a local specialty mobile enhancement retailer and start the process of designing a genuinely high-end audio system. Do your work beforehand to choose a shop that has the skills to properly execute the system design, integration, installation and calibration. Be sure to shop around. Many shops with great reputations can’t deliver on what we’ve talked about in these articles.

Associated Articles:

The Four Stages of High-End Car Audio – Frequency Response
We explain why proper system design and calibration are crucial to recreating music with realistic tonal balance and frequency response. (https://www.bestcaraudio.com/the-four-stages-of-high-end-car-audio-frequency-response/)

The Four Stages of High-End Car Audio – Part 2: The Soundstage
At a concert, the music you hear should sound like it’s coming from the performers on the stage. This article explains what to listen for to determine the accuracy of the soundstage in your car audio system. (https://www.bestcaraudio.com/the-four-stages-of-high-end-car-audio-part-2-the-soundstage/)

The Four Stages of High-End Car Audio – Part 3: Imaging
Once you’ve established a good soundstage, an audio system with precise imaging will provide the sensation of real live performers out in front of you rather than a blurred wall of sound. (https://www.bestcaraudio.com/the-four-stages-of-high-end-car-audio-part-3-imaging/)

The Four Stages of High-End Car Audio – Part 4: Product Quality
One of the most crucial components in designing a truly audiophile-grade car audio system is using excellent equipment. We explain what to look for in terms of speakers and amplifiers and why the performance difference is crucial.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

The third article in our series on understanding high-end car audio systems delves into the fascinating world of imaging. In essence, imaging is the ability of an audio system to recreate the precise location of a performer or instrument on a soundstage. While not all recordings excel in this aspect, some are genuinely awe-inspiring. Let’s explore this captivating facet of music reproduction.

What Is Imaging in a Car Audio System?

As mentioned, a truly high-end audio system, be it in your vehicle or at home, should be able to accurately present each performer’s position on the soundstage. This sounds similar to our previous discussion about the source of your music. That is the soundstage. The soundstage defines where the music is coming from. Imaging describes the positional accuracy of the sounds on that soundstage.

When two audio signals are the same in amplitude and phase in a recording, they should be reproduced from the exact center of the soundstage.

For example, let’s say we have a recording of a four-piece band. The drums are centered on the stage and are located at the back. The bassist is on the right, a few feet back from the front edge of the stage. The guitarist is on the left side of the stage at a similar distance. Finally, the lead singer is center-stage, right at the front edge.

Whether or not a recording has imaging cues depends on how the performance is captured. For this initial discussion, let’s assume the microphones on a drum kit are mixed into a single mono channel. Each performer has a microphone for vocals, and the guitar and bass also have a single audio channel. If all of these are brought into a mixer, summed together at appropriate levels to produce good tonal balance, and then recorded, all the music would seem to come from the center of an audio system’s soundstage. Why? There is no left or right information captured in the mix. All the music should seem to come from that single blue dot in the center of the soundstage.

A Stereo Microphone Mix

What if the drum kit is mic’ed with 10 microphones, and the floor tom and the ride cymbal on the left of the stage are panned left, and the hi-hats and crash cymbal are panned to the right? The snare might be panned a moderate amount to the right, with the high tom panned slightly right and the mid tom panned slightly to the left. The kick drum mic is likely to be in the center. Further, a pair of overhead microphones placed 5 feet above the drum kit might be dedicated exclusively to left and right channels. The map might look something like this.

The exact amount of panning depends on the drum technician and the recording engineer. If they want the drums to stay relatively focused in the center of the soundstage, perhaps they should be panned no more than 25% to the right or left. They’ll fine-tune this in the studio.

Next, the guitarist and bassist might have their mics panned to the left and right to separate them from the lead singer.

The image below might represent what you’d hear with some panning added to the microphones on the drums, the bassist, the guitarist and the lead singer.

Would this sound the same as what you’d hear if you stood in the studio with the band? Absolutely not. Would it sound better if all the microphones were mixed into a mono signal? Most definitely.

For a genuinely realistic stereo recording that captures more of a sense of the room, the engineer might use more audio information from the overhead microphones. Some performances, like a choir or an orchestra, might be recorded with fewer microphones. When done accurately, capturing the reverberations in the room can add a fantastic sense of realism to the listening experience. The art of creating a recording is equal in skill and talent to that of the performers themselves.

What It Takes to Create Excellent Car Audio System Imaging

For this discussion, let’s consider a stereo sound system. The alternative would be something with an upmixer that adds a center and possible side and surround channels. For a stereo system to provide pinpoint imaging, the signals from the left and right channels must arrive at the listening position at the same amplitude and at the same time. This concept can be expanded by considering that all frequencies must arrive at the same time as those from the opposite channel. Likewise, all frequencies must be at the same amplitude.

Connect a set of headphones to your smartphone and play some music. You’ll likely find that the lead performer’s voice appears to come from a spot in the center of your head, as if they were singing from the middle of your brain. Now, go into the phone’s settings and adjust the balance about 75% toward the left. All the music will seem to come from just inside your left ear. This is a perfect example of how signal level affects imaging.

Now, if one frequency is louder from one side of the car compared with the other, the source of the music that contains that frequency will seem to move its position on the soundstage. We call this phenomenon frequency steering. This is undesirable because the sound source shouldn’t move based on frequency, only amplitude and phase.

Imagine if a stage is recorded with a high-quality stereo microphone, or better yet, a binaural mic placed exactly in the middle of the stage. If the performer is directly in front of the mic, audio signals will simultaneously arrive at the left and right recording elements. Now, if the performer walks to the right side of the stage, the audio signal will arrive at the right microphone element just before the left one and be slightly louder on the right. If the playback system is truly symmetrical in its ability to recreate the recording, we’ll hear the performer move to the right.

How Human Hearing Detects Sound Sources

Our ears work the same way as a pair of microphones to detect the source of a sound. We can triangulate the arrival time and slight differences in amplitude between one ear and the other to locate a sound source. We are accustomed to the changes in frequency response that occur as sound wraps around our heads. This is how we know whether something is in front of or behind us. We can also detect reflections off adjacent surfaces to correlate height. A bird in a tree sounds different from one standing on the ground.

Companies like Harman International have invested a great deal of time in measuring how we perceive sounds from different locations. They’ve used that data to create stereo headphones like the JBL Quantum One that can recreate surround-sound effects from movies and video games. Using only two speakers, you can hear if a bad guy is walking up behind you in Halo or Call of Duty. Yes, it sounds like the person is just behind you. How do they do it? They adjust the frequency response of the sound to mimic what the helix, antihelix, antihelical fold and antitragus do to sounds. This takes some serious math, but it works surprisingly well. The headphones also include head tracking, so if you turn your head to the side, the source of sounds changes. It works so well; it’s almost creepy.

Tips for Excellent Car Stereo System Imaging

To create a car audio system with excellent imaging and a soundstage that is well out in front of the listener, there are a few items to consider. The first is speaker placement. If you want the stage to be on the dash, you’ll need the tweeters to be in line with the dash. This might require a mounting position on the dash or in the A-pillars. It’s better if you can get a small midrange driver onto the dash; this will help solidify the soundstage position at that depth. Many new cars and trucks have midrange speaker positions at the base of the windshield. This works great for depth. Combining that with tweeters in the sail panels or pillars can increase the system’s perception of width.

Next, you’ll want the tweeters installed within 15 to 20 degrees of being on-axis with the listening position. If you use a three-way speaker set with midrange and midbass drivers, angling these speakers only changes the reflections or equalizes the signal.

Next, you need a way to control the output amplitude of each speaker in the audio system. This means that you’ll likely want a fully active system where each speaker has a dedicated amplifier channel.

Next, your system must have some sort of stereo equalizer that’s precise enough to ensure that the signals from the left and right speakers are the same in amplitude across a wide range of frequencies and with enough bands to make sure nothing goes unchecked.

Finally, from a system design and hardware perspective, you’ll need a way to delay the signals going to the speakers closest to the listening position. Your system will need a digital signal processor or a source unit with signal delay features.

Finding a technician who is well-versed in calibrating digital signal processors in vehicles is the most critical aspect of creating a sound system with exceptional imaging. There’s a big difference in a vocal that sounds like it’s the size of an umbrella in the center of the car compared to a softball or even a golf ball. Once the system is calibrated precisely, you’ll hear additional information being revealed. An accurate sense of room ambiance is, for example, often only audible when the system’s imaging is excellent. You’ll start to hear reflections from the ceiling and back of the recording venue, assuming they’re in the recording at all. If the system is calibrated precisely, this information becomes confusing and unrealistic.

Center Image Position

There is one last point of discussion before we wrap up. There are two common options for where the center image should be on the soundstage. Most professionals like the center to be located equidistant from the left and right boundaries of the soundstage itself. In most cases, this would put the center in the middle of the windshield under the rearview mirror.

With that said some people like the center position to be in front of the driver’s seat. Based on our experience, this is a bit more common for factory-installed systems. We won’t say that your preference is wrong, if you enjoy this “right in front of you” calibration. However, we find that it compresses the size of all the instruments on the left side of the soundstage. If the lead vocals are in front of you, the system might have 12 inches of width to the left boundary to place all the performers on the left side of the stage. Conversely, you might have three feet on the right side. It’s your choice, and you should discuss this with the person configuring and calibrating your car audio system before work begins.

Single-Seat System Calibrations

So far, we have discussed audio systems designed, configured and calibrated to provide an exceptional listening experience from the driver’s seat. However, whoever sits in the passenger seat will likely hear all the music coming from the right side of the dash or the door. Why? The speaker will be louder and sounds from the opposite side of the car are delayed. Sadly, when it comes to listening to the music, it’s not very enjoyable to be a passenger in a vehicle with an audio system set up for a single-seat calibration.

Currently, very few digital signal processors on the market can properly extract a center channel signal from the left/right channels and feed it to a discreet output. This feature, called an upmixer, is the only option for creating a detailed soundstage for the vehicle’s driver and passenger. Your installer and the calibration technician might be able to create something that works satisfactorily using all-pass filters. Still, it might lack the precision of a truly amazing single-seat system. Make sure the signal processor you choose has several preset options. You can have an amazing single-seat calibration for those times when you are alone in the vehicle, then a two-seat tune when someone is in the car or truck with you.

Upgrade Your Car Audio System Today for Excellent Imaging

If you want to improve the realism and detail of your car audio system, visit a specialty mobile enhancement retailer with extensive experience calibrating digital signal processors. Audition several vehicles they configured and calibrated to ensure that they can deliver an experience that matches your expectations.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.