Upgrading a car audio system sounds like tossing out the old gears without looking at them again and jumping on the fanciest car audio gears money can buy. Well, hold your horse’s man! It’s not upgrading, it’s more like replacing the whole sound system in your car.
But we can guarantee you this process is not entirely satisfying, yeah the sound quality will be more than expectations, yet let’s be real. Who doesn’t want to know what they would lack if they didn’t change the head unit, speakers, amplifier etc. Upgrading bit by bit always allows you to find your sound preferences and doesn’t empty your wallet at once.
So here we have recommendations on how to upgrade car audio systems step by step and no doubt the quality of the audio system is our maximum priority.
Contents
How to Single Out the Signs Your Car Audio Requires Upgrade
Before, listing out what needs to be upgraded you must perform a check to understand if this audio system really requires an improvement. This test is a must for both a new and old car. After evaluating the music in this existing sound system, it’ll become much easier to decide the flowchart of the upgrade.
Lack of Clarity
If the sound system needs more than 75% of the total volume to be able to listen clearly it means your speakers are compatible for high volume.
Distortion and Clipping
These two come when you don’t do any tune in your car audio or you don’t have any amplifier. So the upgrade requires you to have an amplifier and later learn the tuning process of car audio.
Lack of Bass Presence
If your existing car audio system doesn’t provide the vibe of bass you get from other sound systems, it is probably because your subwoofer is not competent enough or the amplifier is not good enough for the subwoofer. That’s why we mentioned the amplifier before the subwoofer.
There are some other upgrades needed, but obviously they are not the primary requirement.
How to Upgrade Car Audio System – Step by Step Guideline
When considering how to upgrade your car audio system effectively, taking a step-by-step approach allows for deeper insight into what works best for you. Here is a description of the steps required to update the car audio system below;
Replacing Old Speakers with New ones
Replacing the speaker is the first upgrade if you don’t have any good amplifiers in your car audio system. We recommend you to have aftermarket speakers from some renowned brands. In this case choosing the sensitivity of the speakers is important.
Low-powered Factory Stereo: low power means the speakers require 10-15 watts RMS per channel. So upgrading car speaker without an amp requires more than 15 watts RMS per channel and sensitivity must cross 90 Db.
High power Audio System: so your car audio system has an amplifier and speakers are more powerful. In this case if you have clarity problems, in most of the cases it’s because of bad tuning. Still if you are confident about the tuning in the car audio system then get some moderate power rated speakers.
Furthermore the size of the speakers, full range or component speakers it all depends on various factors and on your budget. We recommend you research car audio speakers before.
Adding Amplifier in Your Car Audio System
Having the best car audio setup for sound quality always requires an amplifier. Amplifiers assist the speakers and subwoofer to get the extra power they need thus the speakers and sub reach their true potential. Choosing car audio amplifier depends on two factors
Number of channels: 2 channel amplifiers are the basic when you have a single pair of speakers in your audio system. When you have more than two speakers and you want to experience front-to-rear fade control then a 4 channel amplifier is required. So according to your number of speakers the channel of the amplifier varies. Also if you have a subwoofer, then get a dedicated channel for subwoofer only.
RMS Power Rating: Ensure the highest RMS power rating of the amplifier’s each channel doesn’t exceed the Highest RMS rating of each speaker.
Installing Bass
When you have your new speakers and amp installed, then the time comes for having a subwoofer even though you’re not a fan of bass. In this instance the amp’s capabilities like RMS watts and ohms should match with the subwoofers RMS watts and ohms.
But if you have no amplifier but you want to have a subwoofer and amp at a time, we would like to recommend you at least 250 watts for a 5 channel amplifier. 4 channels for speakers and 1 dedicated channel for subwoofers. To know more about subwoofer and amplifier combinations, you can do some research on matching subwoofers and amplifiers for car audio.
Upgrading the Head Unit
The head Unit that comes by default with your car is called a factory head unit. For older cars the factory head unit doesn’t provide the convenience like Bluetooth, USB ports, EQ, Steering Controls, navigation system and many more. So, learning about how to upgrade car audio systems must include the upgradation of the existing head unit.
Replacing the old factory head unit with a new aftermarket stereo sometimes becomes more than necessary for your current sound audio system. Upgrading the car radio to touch screen is game changing because you can do some tuning looking at the EQ settings, also connecting the stereo with apple carplay becomes much easier.
Factory stereos always have bass roll-off means the higher you turn the volume the more it turns down the bass. It puts a stop to people from blowing their speakers. So ensure the head unit you are looking for compensates for bass roll off.
FAQ
1. How do you know the aftermarket head unit is compatible with your car?
– You will find websites where inserting the model of your car or the factory head unit will help you to search for another aftermarket head unit according to your factory headlight compartment size in the dashboard.
2. What is the first thing to upgrade car audio?
– We recommend upgrading your speakers at the beginning if you have never done any upgrading before. The reason behind it is, car brands have a tendency to put low RMS powered speakers and subwoofers in the audio system. Yet hardly they offer a bad head unit.
Conclusion
Hopefully we have successfully managed to set a tone for you; even upgrading car audio has some rules. You can’t simply upgrade whatever you want. Otherwise that upgrade will lead you to a situation of no clue means if any problem happens to your car audio system; you may not find the reason why it is happening. Moreover, once you do an upgrade like we endorsed here, now you can do random upgrades like installing a soundproof sheet on the car’s inside body or adding a mono amplifier for the subwoofer etc. People get many random and innovative car audio upgrade suggestions from reddit.
