Thursday, March 26, 2009

Make A Subwoofer Sound Better

Placing a subwoofer in your car is one way to dramatically improve your stereo's audio quality. However, simply buying a sub and hooking it up is not enough to ensure your music gets the best possible treatment. If you want to maximize your sub's audio quality, you will need to take a few additional steps to ensure optimize your sound system. Car owners in a hurry to bump up their sound often overlook subwoofer optimization; you can take your system to the next level with a bit of fine-tuning.


Instructions


1. Upgrade your amplifier. Subwoofers require power to operate and every sub will have wattage recommendations. If you want to boost your sound, you will need to pick an amp that can output at your sub's highest wattage range to ensure you get full-force bass.


2. Change your equalizer settings. Turn up the bass and use the fade function to push more of the audio towards the rear of the car. This leaves the high and mid-ranges up front while the sub does the heavy lifting.


3. Buy a new set of speakers for your car. Do not expect a sub to be a one-stop method for fixing audio quality. Subwoofers help with your bass output but cannot mask low quality stock speakers.


4. Build or buy an enclosure for the subwoofer. Enclosure design is just as important as the sub itself, with a well-shaped enclosure sharpening your woofer's sound and boosting its output.








5. Install sound deadening material around exposed metal on your car's interior. In addition to reducing the amount of exterior noise you pick up, this material helps control nasty rattles caused by powerful subs.


6. Install a separate sub amp that does not provide power to any other speakers. This ensures your sub receives as much power as possible. Another amp should power your other speakers.








7. Add a crossover unit to your music system. A crossover splits different frequencies and directs them to different parts of the system; the crossover routes low frequencies to the sub and the mids and highs to your main amp. This relieves the main amp and speakers of the low frequencies, allowing them to work more efficiently.

Tags: audio quality, other speakers, system crossover, will need, your music, your sound