Hybrid and all-electric vehicles are a great platform for stereo system upgrade. While your local specialist mobile enhancement retailer can’t tap into the main battery pack, the electrical system on these cars or trucks is more than adequate to power an amplifier to drive new speakers or a subwoofer. There are several options for upgrades and accessories that can transform your vehicle – let’s check them out.

Limitations of Factory Sound Systems

As with most new cars and trucks, the limiting factors in the performance of the factory audio system are weight and cost. While companies like Harman, Bose, Bowers & Wilkins and Rockford Fosgate are more than capable of delivering listening experiences that can rival a live performance, they are limited by the budget for each vehicle and the amount of weight that can be added. Weight negatively affects the handling, braking, acceleration and fuel economy. That results in audio systems that sound acceptable, but not great.

Upgrading Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Stereo Systems

In almost every case, adding a subwoofer to your car or truck will make the biggest impact on the overall performance of the sound system. Right now, look at the bass setting on your car radio. Is it turned up? Even one or two notches require the factory radio and speakers to work a lot harder. Imagine if you could turn the bass down and dedicate an amplifier and speaker to reproducing low-frequency information. Your speakers will sound better and the overall system will be more lifelike, play louder and deliver better clarity.

Subwoofer systems come in all shapes and sizes, from compact solutions designed to fit into the corner of a cargo area to unique cylindrical subwoofers that fit inside a spare tire. These all-in-one bass upgrades offer great value.

If a product isn’t already available for your vehicle, talk to your local specialist car stereo shop about building a custom solution. The salesperson and installation team can design a solution that uses one of the many shallow subwoofers available to create an enclosure that fits your vehicle perfectly and delivers amazing bass.

DSP and Speaker Upgrades

Modern audio systems often include incredibly advanced system tuning, and many vehicles include a center channel with an upmixer to ensure that the sound delivered to every seat in your vehicle sounds great. Understanding how to work with these systems and incorporating a digital signal processor requires specific training and experience. Make sure the shop you choose to work on your vehicle understands your needs and the complexity of these factory systems before they dive in.

Speakers are, without a doubt, the most important aspect of any audio system. Imagine spending thousands on a home audio CD transport, a stand-alone DAC and an amazing amplifier, only to connect a set of speakers that your uncle or cousin rescued from bulk recycling day. Upgrading the speakers in your vehicle with something truly awesome, then re-tuning the system with a signal processor to work with those new speakers, is a truly night-and-day experience.

Can I Upgrade the Radio in My Hybrid or Electric Vehicle?

In almost every case, the answer to “Can I upgrade my radio in a hybrid or electric vehicle?” is no. Does this mean you can’t upgrade the audio system? Not at all. Many companies make interfaces that are designed specifically to work with factory-installed source units to make adding amplifiers and new speakers easy and reliable.

Choose Your Installer Wisely

Upgrading the audio system in a hybrid or electric vehicle isn’t much harder than in a conventional gasoline or diesel-powered car, truck or SUV. With that said, be sure that you choose a mobile enhancement retailer who is knowledgeable about the requirements for your specific vehicle and has the training to deliver the results you want.

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.

One common misconception about speakers is that underpowering them can cause damage. This fallacy is supported by minimum power ratings from several manufacturers, which adds to the confusion. Never fear, we’re here to explain why you simply can’t damage a speaker by providing it with only a little bit of power, and we’ll clarify how this myth originated.

What Damages Speakers?

Other than poking a dust cap or punching a hole in the cone or surround with a screwdriver, only two things will damage a speaker: too much power and too much excursion. Too much power will cause the adhesives that bond the voice coil winding to the voice coil former to fail, subsequently allowing it to unravel and get jammed in the motor. Too much excursion can cause the spider to be damaged or the voice coil former to smash into the backplate and become deformed.

Why Do Speakers Need Power?

If you want to produce sound, you need to send some amount of power to your speakers. How much power you send determines how much sound is produced. More power is fine, up to the physical or thermal limits of the speaker design.

If you feed a speaker with 1 watt of pink noise, it will play pretty loud. Depending on the size and design, a pair of conventional coaxial speakers getting 1 watt of pink noise can easily produce more than 95 dB of output in a typical vehicle. From a theoretical standpoint, an additional watt of power will increase the output to 98 dB, and doubling the power again to 4 watts produces roughly 101 dB. The process continues until the speaker cones can’t move any farther or the driver fails.

Going the other way, those same speakers will provide 92 dB with 0.5 watts of power, and 89 dB with 0.25 watts. With only 0.125 watts you get 86 dB, 0.0625 watts would be 83 dB and 31.25 milliwatts produces 80 db. That’s about the same noise level as a modern sedan cruising at 65 mph. Power and output levels continue to decrease at a logarithmic rate until you simply can’t hear the music. Clearly, less power won’t cause any damage to your speakers.

What About The Myth of Not Having Enough Power?

The myth about not having enough power and damaging speakers is based around what happens when you drive an amplifier into clipping. Let’s say you have a radio with a 20-watt amplifier rated at 1% distortion. You “can” get a lot more power out of that amp, but it will include a LOT of harmonic information. If you were playing a 1 kHz tone at a total output level of 30 watts, you would hear significant 2 kHz, 4 kHz, 8 kHz and 16 kHz energy being produced. This addition of high-frequency energy can strain the thermal capabilities of the tweeters in your system.

If you don’t have a powerful enough amplifier to reach the volume levels you want, you can damage the speakers by feeding them too much high-frequency energy by driving the amplifier into clipping. It’s the extra power in these harmonics that damages speakers.

Choose the Right Amp for Your Speakers

If you’re considering upgrading your car stereo system, visit your local specialist mobile enhancement retailer so you can audition different speakers for your vehicle. Choose speakers with a smooth and accurate response and an amp with excellent noise and distortion specs and that can produce as much power as the speakers are rated for. This combination, when installed and configured properly, will sound amazing and last for years.

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.

If you enjoy cranking your music, the SPL Show Neo speakers from Hertz might be the perfect solution for your car, truck or motorcycle. Designed with ultra-compact, high-flux neodymium magnets, these speaker solutions are capable of delivering rock-concert volume levels to ensure you hear every part of your music loudly and clearly.

More-Powerful New Magnets

The Hertz SPL Show line has been upgraded with new, stronger neodymium magnets. These N38H magnets are rated for high-temperature applications to ensure the speakers will continue to sound great for years, even after prolonged use at high output levels.

Hertz has designed each of the new SPL Show speakers with weather-resistant materials and properties to ensure they can withstand prolonged exposure to rain and the sun’s UV rays. The motor assemblies are treated with a corrosion-resistant electro-coating using a process called cataphoresis.

High-Efficiency Bullet Tweeter

The ST 25A Neo is a compact, high-efficiency, high-frequency compression driver that features an aluminum diaphragm mated to a 1-inch copper-clad aluminum ribbon voice-coil. The unit has a nominal impedance of 4 ohms and an amazing efficiency of 107 dB. The driver is rated to handle 100 watts of power when filtered at 5 kHz with a 12 dB/octave crossover. These same drivers are available in the ST 25K Neo kit version with inline passive crossovers and thread-on metal mesh grilles.

SPL Neo Midrange Drivers

The new Neo line includes 6.5- and 8-inch midrange drivers. Both speakers use a lightweight pressed paper cone that has been treated with a water-repellent coating. Compliance is provided by a double-roll cloth surround and a flat linear spider.

The 6.5-inch SV 165 NEO features a 1.5-inch voice-coil former that is wound to a nominal impedance of 4 ohms. Continuous power handling is rated at 150 watts, with peak power at 400 watts. With a resonant frequency of 120 Hz and an Xmax specification of 1.5 mm, high-pass crossover points around 250 to 300 Hz will ensure maximum output with minimal distortion. Efficiency is specified at 97 dB and the compact neodymium magnet allows for a mounting depth of only 2.25 inches.

The larger 8-inch SV 200 NEO uses a taller 1.5-inch-diameter voice-coil to increase Xmax to 2.7 mm and power handling to 200 watts continuous or 500 watts maximum. Efficiency also jumps to a mind-blowing 100 dB. Mounting depth for the 8-inch driver is a manageable 3.3 inches.

Coaxial High-Efficiency Speaker Solutions

Hertz developed a set of high-output two-way speaker solutions to make upgrading motorcycle audio systems easy, efficient and reliable. The solutions start with the 6.5-inch SX 165 NEO coaxial driver. This two-way speaker features the same weather-treated pressed-paper cone material as the SV 15 NEO. A large-diameter 1.4-inch PEI-dome tweeter provides excellent high-frequency output to beyond 20 kHz. The tweeter is protected with a resettable solid-state protection device to ensure years of reliable operation.

Hertz rates the speaker at being able to handle 100 watts of power when filtered with a high-pass crossover set to 150 Hz at a slope of -12 dB/octave. Peak power handling is 200 watts.

For saddlebag speaker applications on touring bikes, the Hertz SX 690 NEO is a great choice. This 6×9-class speaker features a three-way design with a 0.8-inch super-tweeter and a 1.4-inch tweeter. Both high-frequency drivers use Tetolon dome materials and feature the same resettable protection circuit used on the 6.5-inch driver. A rubber surround at the top edge of the weather-treated pressed-paper cone ensures reliability.

Efficiency is specified at 94 dB and Xmax at 5.5 mm. With lots of excursion capability available from the woofer, the SX 690 Neo can easily play down to 100 Hz or lower, depending on your output expectations. Power handling is listed at 130 watts continuous and 260 watts peak.

Great Sound with Less Weight

One of the key features of the new NEO speakers is their weight. Compared to their ceramic-magnet brethren, they have much less effect on the handling of your motorcycle. For example, pair of SV 165 NEO weighs 3.96 pounds. A pair of the SV 165.1 comes in at 8 pounds. The SV 200 Neo is 5.3 pounds per pair compared to 12.4 pounds for the SV 200.1.

Turn Your Next Drive into a Concert with Hertz SPL Show Neo Speakers

When it comes time to upgrade the sound system on your motorcycle or side-by-side, or the one in your vehicle, if you want the system to play at extreme volume levels, drop by your local Hertz retailer and ask about the new SPL Show Neo speakers. For more information about Hertz products, visit their website. You can follow them on social media by liking their Facebook page, following their Instagram feed and Twitter, or subscribing to their YouTube channel.

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.