Some say, car audio has no limit of tuning. It’s actually true, music has a vast type of genres and listening to it varies for different people. Inside a car, most of us want to have the best listening experience so we upgrade our car with advanced audio equipment like an aftermarket head unit ,amp, subwoofer, speakers etc. Tell you what, upgrading the car audio system only ensures our possibility to have a better experience but we must do some tuning to advance our car audio to its best possible shape.
No doubt it’s a challenge for anyone to learn how to tune car audio without any experience
about it. But keep your trust in us, the instruction we’ll make here is no longer a hard to read manual guide. So let’s get started.
Contents
Tuning a Car Audio with a Multimeter
For having a professional car audio tuning, you must need a multimeter to set all the measurements. Well, adjusting car audio can be done even by just listening to the audio, but we bet, this kind of listening tune process doesn’t work for all the genres of music. So let’s see how to tune car audio using a multimeter.
Setting the Gain
Gain adjustment is the most common procedure for a car audio tuning with a multimeter. In order to set a perfect gain, firstly you should set perfect volume. Most recommend 75% of the maximum volume. So, keep the volume of the both head unit and radio at 75%.
Now disconnect the positive speaker wire from the positive terminal of the amplifier. Then turn off all the EQ settings like bass boost, LPF, HPF, bass boost, etc. Also set the gain at zero.
Here, you must find out the desired voltage for setting the gain. For example, if the amplifier offers 100 watts per channel and the impedance is 2 ohm, the voltage will be SQRT(200)= 14.14 Volts. Now connecting the positive and negative wire with the amplifier, you will get a very small reading for voltage because the gain knob is at zero. Then slowly increase the gain till it is just below 14 volts. If you keep it behind 16 volts, the audio will be clipped.
Adjusting HPF and LPF
For adjusting the high-pass and low-pass filter firstly find out the desired voltage and note it down. Then set the volume to zero. Now detach the speaker wire and attach the multimeter leads to the speaker wires and set the multimeter to AC voltage. Now after turning on the head unit, play 1000hz track and set it to repeat. Now turn up the volume until it achieves the desired voltage. Now you know the perfect voltage for your sound system. So turn back the volume to zero again and withdraw the multimeter leads from the speaker wires and remount the speaker wire again.
Again, play bass heavy music. Set the desired volume and set the high-pass filter at its highest. Now slowly turn down the high pass filter and try to listen for the no distorted music. When you will reach that point where you hear no distortion, that’s the value for your HPF.
Same way, you should play bass heavy music again, turn the low-pass filter at its highest. Now slowly decrease the value and look for the non-distorted bass.
Tuning Car Audio with RTA Microphone
The Real Time Analyzer device that measures the signal and strength of various octaves. So why do you need a RTA microphone for tuning the car audio speakers? In a car, it’s very tough to understand if each of your speakers are giving the same output. You can tune the sound by using a multimeter and adjusting the amplifier settings, though in a car audio system there are various things that affect output of each frequency.
In speakers the different frequencies may sound louder than others and also in the same output settings from the amplifier, your left and right speaker may give different listening experience. Therefore, the RTA microphone is a tool that may help you to overcome the issue and play a vital role to provide the precise equalizer settings for car audio bass, mid and treble.
Adjusting Equalizer Using Car Audio Tuning App
Firstly, simply download a car audio tuning app, any app you prefer. Here, we are using an app called Mobile Tools. Now connect the RTA microphone with the phone. In order to adjust the equalizer, you must have a system software connected through your laptop or directly in the head unit screen.
Now, select the output you want to adjust, like select tweeter, mid, treble etc. and play the perfect sound frequency for the specific audio output. For a mid, you will play sound frequencies from 250Hz to 4KHz., 4KHz to 20 KHz for treble and 20 Hz to 250 Hz for bass. Then take the RTA mic near the audio output.
Now go to the equalizer option of the app. You can see the dance of different frequencies here. Keep adjusting the equalizer setting in the DSP software or your built-in audio software in the head unit. We recommend you to adjust the equalizer software in a way that the dance of the frequencies in the app comes in stable formation and the frequencies are not too tall.
Some suggest, the frequency dance should be neutralized, meaning hardly there will be any dance in frequencies. The frequencies shouldn’t be all equal in height, just keep them at a decent height like short to medium.
Adjust all other speakers and subwoofers following the exact same method, just change the audio output according to which mid, bass or treble you want to readjust.
FAQ
1. How to tune car audio perfectly?
– Tuning car audio has different methods and all of them ensure you have the best audio output from your car audio system. We recommend you to blend all these methods together and tune according to your listening preferences. But finding the best possible volume, adjusting the gain control and keeping your audio system away from distortion, clipping is the primary task.
2. Do HPF and LPF hamper the clarity of music?
– Definitely the High-Pass Filter and Low- Pass Filter play a huge role for ensuring the clean musical experience, if you don’t filter low frequencies, then the high frequencies will get into the subwoofer and the sound won’t be too pleasing. Same goes for speakers too, if the low frequencies keep interrupting the speaker, you may experience the worst musical experience.
Conclusion
You all can have expensive audio arrangements for your car audio system, but if you lack tuning experience, it means the audio system is not working to its full potential. That’s why every professional car audio specialist recommends learning to tune first and then apply it on your old car audio system. Once you know the perfect combination for you, it’s much easier to look for other car audio equipment, let alone taking suggestions blindly.
