Turn It Up!

     Throughout the entirety of our lives we spend a significant portion of our time doing the same “activities” repeatedly.  For the purposes of this post I’m going to assume that the majority of us spend a very large percentage of that time listening to music while either driving or riding in a car.  Let’s face it, we listen to music all of the time and being in a car without music can be, well, boring.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some pretty deep conversations during car rides, but there are also those very awkward, music-less rides as well. 

      I for one am very adamant about the quality of the music that I listen too.  In fact, I have invested what most would consider being an unreasonable amount of money to ensure that I am constantly listening to the best sound quality possible.  The most important, and most expensive of my audio playback devices would without a doubt be my car.  For those of you who are still riding around with your factory system, I’m going to introduce you to the world of car audio.  I’ll teach you the basics so that you can enhance your listening experience if you so desire.  First things first, car audio can be an addictive hobby and run up a pretty price tag but like most things in life, you get what you pay for.  That being said, you can still upgrade any component of your car’s audio system for a reasonable price, and will still hear a tremendous improvement in the sound quality of your music.

      The first upgrade to consider is a stereo.  While you may think by turning up the bass level on your stock stereo you get “bumping” sound, you’d be mistaken.  Truthfully, the only thing that cranking the bass up on a stock stereo does is distort the rest of the playback levels, and can even destroy the little paper speakers in your doors.  Aftermarket stereos have a much better output levels that what comes standard in all vehicles, even standard Bose stereos.  This means that the highs come out crisper and lows deeper, even from those standard paper speakers.  Unfortunately, unless you know proper wiring techniques installing an aftermarket stereo on your own is rather tricky.  There are a few extra pieces and parts that need to be purchased as well, which is important to consider when shopping for stereos.  Since vehicle manufacturers do not want anyone tampering with their masterpieces, they make it more difficult to swap the stock radio out than just “plug-and-play.” 

      The next thing you should consider swapping out are those paper speakers I mentioned that are located in the door panels of your car.  While you can go ahead and swap out the speakers and keep your stock radio, they will sound better than what comes standard, but will be much better when receiving the quality outputs from an aftermarket stereo.  The benefit of adding aftermarket speakers to your car’s audio system is the wider range of sounds that can be produced from these speakers.  Aftermarket speakers are designed to be able to produce much higher, and much lower sounds than stock speakers.  Once you swap out your stock speakers for aftermarket ones you will immediately notice a dramatic difference, and you may be surprised to find that you are hearing sounds that you’ve never heard before from your favorite songs that you’ve heard millions of times.  Now swapping out speakers is much less difficult than installing a new stereo and can be done by the average Joe.  All you need to do here is go on the Internet and look up what size speaker your car takes, purchase a new set either online or in store, pop off your door panels, unplug the old ones, and plug in the new.  I know I make this sound pretty easy, but I must always recommend that you take your vehicle to a specialized car audio shop in order to get any of these upgrades.  Yes, you will have to spend a little more cash, but you won’t be liable for anything that might go wrong.  Plus, you will generally receive a lifetime warranty on products and installations from these shops.

The last upgrade I’m going to discuss is amplifiers.  Now for those of you that just want to hear your music clearer and crisper, you can go ahead and leave this item out because I’m sure your budget may be running thin at this point.  For those of you who want everyone else to hear what song you’re listening to or just get those new speakers to reach their full potential, this is a must have.  Amplifiers pretty much explain themselves.  What they do is amplify the outputs from the stereo, sending more power to the speakers, which makes them louder and drastically, improves the sound quality.  For amplifiers, I highly recommend that you consult a car audio shop before purchasing or attempting to install because if the amp is not properly installed it could cause your car’s battery to drain unexpectedly and even destroy your new, awesome speakers, trust me on this one I’ve had my fair share of blown speakers due to improper amp settings; even a small fire once, so this is a serious matter. 

      I hope that those of you who took the time to make it through that extensive explanation have learned something that you didn’t already know, and maybe are starting to put a little thought into upgrading your listening experience.  For me it is important that my car audio is of very high quality, seeing that I spend a whole lot of time driving.  Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

Jeremy Bugbee