Hi I was planning on getting a great system for my 68 camaro So I've been looking on allcarstereo.com and I want your opponions on what the best Speakers Tweeters Subwoofers Amplifiers to power all them I was thinking 2 or 4 tweeters 6 mids and 4 10" subs in the trunk So can somebody please explain to me how I can judge the quality of those 4 items
well obviously you can't judge the quality of car stereo equipment by looking at the pictures and specifications of them online. my recommendation is to go to a car stereo shop or a big electronic store that sells car stereo equipment. then you can actually get hands on with the gear. you can play with the head units, and actually listen to the sound quality from different brands of speakers, and hear for distortion levels from different amplifiers. once you find the brands you like in stores, then go online and shop for them there. 9 times out of 10 you can get better prices online, even after paying for shipping. here's my two cents: i've been into car stereos for about ten years now. in my opinion, then best head unit out there hands down is alpine. Sony and Kenwood make decent ones. For subwoofers JL Audio and Infinity are great. If you go with JL Audio's competition subs, you will NOT need 4, that I can guarantee. you put 4 10" w7's in your camero and you will shatter your windshield. as far as amps, i really like sony amps.
djscoop, I strongly dissagree. I use specs and price aquired on the internet to narrow down canidates to a few. I may may not listen to the equipment. I always check the specs. Specs are the only way to size your equipment correctly. In your case, you really need to listen to the package. I would make sure the CD player is an MP CD player. I would get a HD player with an AUX port. Normally MP3 CD players are HD. Being HD provides a minimum quality assurance. Specs in a glance... Speakers Humans can hear 20-20,000 Hz we can feel 4 hz but not sense above 18,000 unless you are very young. Only the very young have the full range of hearing. Guys usually blow out the ability to hear the high notes in their teens, especially the ones that listen to loud music. High frequencies are relitivly easy to make low tones are hard (expensive) to make. The lower the responce of your subwoofer, the more expensive the speaker and the bigger the amp needs to be. Size and quality are not a good indication of base quality or strength. Watts and low frequency responce is. Be careful about ohms! 4 16 ohm speakers pull as much power as 1 4 ohm speaker. Which means 1 4 ohm speaker will move the same air as 4 16 ohm speakers. Size does not matter too much. I had a 12" that could vibrate a 6 story building. That blew away my neighbor's wimpy 18" woofers. Your amp will be rated for 4 or 8 ohms. Pulling more (less ohms) than rated will fry your amp in seconds unless it is fused. The reality is a car sterio doesn't have enough power to match an indoor sterio. 500 watts blows away 50 watts. Just like a car with a 500 HP engine will blow away a 50 HP car no matter what the design. To move air you need power no matter what the design. Amps - the more watts the better. To keep this simple, more watts costs more and usually the quality is better in the more expensive units.
Thanks for the quick replies So, are there any specific specs I should be looking for that will judge the quality from?
Yes, I posted all the critical specs. Those will provide a good indication of the quality. Such as if you have a diamond ring the gold is 99.9999999% solid. Who would put a nice diamond on a junk ring? The same holds true here.
Mez I'm confused with what you disagree about. My point is that you obviously want to pay attention to specs, but if you are comparing a JL subwoofer to a Infinity subwoofer online that have the same exact specs and same price, how will you know which one to go with? thats when you need to go to a retail store and actually listen to them. many audio components will have the same specs and sound different. not saying one is better than the other, but it usually comes down to individual preference of what sounds better. don't worry about ohms too much. car subs and amps are matched up to be the same range of ohms. car subs are either 2 or 4 ohms, and high end competition amps will support down to 1 ohm. for example, connect two 4 ohms subs together in parallel and you now have a 2 ohm load. so make sure the amp you buy supports 2 ohms. its pretty simple. as i suggested above, you can read and compare specs all you want, but no specs or user reviews are as good as your own ears.
I guess I took this too literaly I agree with your last post in that you ought to hear what you are buying before you actually buy. My point was specs are important. There is too much emphasis on looks and not enough on performance these days. That is because consumers can't be paying attention to specs and may not recognise good sound when they hear it. The result is, there is too much expensive garbage out there.
