Surround sound has become all the rage in home entertainment and movie theaters. Now some car audio manufacturers are offering surround-sound components that are specifically designed for cars.
Instructions
Consider Things Before Buying
1. Consider your car. Is it a two-seater? If so, the rear speakers may have to be too close to the listeners. Is it a convertible? If it is, you won't be able to achieve the proper staging for a true surround-sound effect. If you are putting surround sound in a two-door or four-door sedan, you need to consider the size of the car. The rear speakers may be too close or too far away from the listeners in the front seats, and passengers in the backseat may not get the true effect of the center channel. If your vehicle is a sports utility vehicle, then you are dealing with a room that is rectangular, not square, and the people in the backseat may not get the true effect of the center channel.
Designing a Surround Sound System
2. Select a head unit that can wire into a surround-sound processor. Because the processor is digital, the head unit needs to supply a digital signal. Commonly, fiberoptic cables are used to transmit digital signals between components. If your head unit cannot supply digital signals, include a CD changer with fiberoptic connection and connect the processor to the CD changer. If you do this, you need to remember that if you play a CD on the head unit you will not get a surround-sound effect. You will get the effect only when you play CDs from the CD changer. If you do not want to connect the processor through the CD changer, select a surround-sound processor that can accept RCA signals from the radio and convert them to digital.
3. Include a high-end CD changer and/or DVD unit that can play the software that carries the surround-sound signals.
4. Purchase a five-channel amplifier that can serve the front speakers, the rear speakers, and the subwoofers. You are feeding sound to the four corners of the car, plus the subwoofers. Each corner and the subwoofers are separate channels.
5. Include a 4- to 6-inch midrange speaker and tweeter to serve as the center channel. This speaker combination needs to be in its own enclosure and should be placed in the center portion of the dashboard.
6. Select an amplifier to run the center-channel speakers. A modest two-channel amplifier played bridged mono will suffice.
7. Include an electronic crossover. The crossover can be outboard, or it can be built in to the amplifiers.
8. Speaker locations should be in the four corners of the car. Some cars have speaker locations that are well-placed for a surround-sound environment. Car manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche actually offer surround-sound systems. However, in other and older cars, you may have to improvise speaker placement to get the best effect. You may have to add a tweeter high on the door or pillar at about shoulder height, while placing the midrange speaker in the factory-made opening in the door. Use a passive crossover to compensate for the distance between the midrange speaker and the tweeter.
9. Set the electronic crossover (see "Set a Two-Way Electronic Crossover for Car Audio"). When setting up the crossover point for the center channel, keep in mind that you don't want to play it full range. Set the crossover point for the center channel at about 80 Hz and up.
10. Adjust the system once everything has been installed. Set the processor's adjustment in the middle, and first play with the amplifiers' gains. Turn the gain up until you just start to get distortion, and then turn it down just a little. Once the amplifiers' gains are set, you can fine-tune the system by setting the surround-sound processor.
Tags: center channel, head unit, midrange speaker, rear speakers, surround-sound processor, amplifiers gains, backseat true