A car can be a great place to enjoy music, but many travelers still endure extremely poor sound quality that they would not tolerate at home. The magic formula for the best car stereos is simple: that the product and materials are of quality, and that those who use them do so with knowledge . For this reason, in this article we have put together some suggestions for improving the sound settings in your vehicle (and on your devices, when you stream music through them), and a list of the best equipment that you can buy today.
How to get the most out of your car stereo
Avoid the built-in digital-to-analog converter in your music player
A digital-to-analog converter, or DAC, has the job of converting digital information – 0 and 1 – into analog music signals. In most cases, your music player is probably your smartphone. Its built-in DAC is usually good enough for listening to music with headphones, but it doesn’t offer the same level of performance that you can get from the more advanced DACs found in many of today’s best car stereos.
Fortunately, if you can connect your iPod or stereo via a USB cable, you may be able to bypass your device’s DAC . It depends on each stereo, so be sure to check your information to find out if this option exists.
Control the bass filter
Many of the best car stereos now include frequency filters that work with the preamp and speaker outputs. If you have a sub, use the high-pass filter to remove the bass from your car’s full-range speakers. You’ll get a cleaner volume out of them, especially if you’re driving them on the receiver’s built-in power. Or maybe the sub sounds really loud, but the bass seems to be coming from behind. Experiment with raising or lowering the crossover point on the low-pass filter, and you can turn the bass forward with the rest of the music.
Set the amp gain right
Brand new equipment, many people do not understand why their new audio system sounds so bad. Problem number one? Most people believe that the gain control (the “gain” button) controls the volume level. Naturally, they turn it all up, which makes the sound messy. The gain actually adjusts the amount of input signal that goes into the amp. When you turn it too high, you will hear a very unpleasant distortion.
The general idea is to turn up the volume control on your receiver about 3/4 of the maximum volume, and then turn up the gain of the amplifier until you hear distortion. Lower it a bit after you’ve reached that point and you’re good to go . Each amp manufacturer has specific suggestions, so check the manual for the best way to adjust the gain on your new amp.
Select a higher quality for your music files
Yes, you can store more music files on your music player if you use higher compression, and they will sound good when listening through headphones. But when you compress the music, you lose information about the high and low frequencies, as well as some details that make the music interesting . And, in a good car audio system, you can really tell that something is missing.
Don’t settle for the default settings when creating your files. If you want to use your iPod, smartphone, or MP3 player in your car, try to use as little compression as possible. The higher the bit rate, the better the music will sound through the car system. And if you’re streaming music, explore the settings of your favorite music app to improve the audio quality. You can also use a music service that streams in a higher resolution, such as TIDAL, instead of using Spotify, YouTube, or your phone’s player.
These are the 7 best car stereos you can buy on Amazon
Once we know how to get the most out of listening to music in the car, we can move on to see what are the best stereo systems for the car. These meet all the necessary characteristics to provide you with the highest quality, since they have the necessary elements (speakers, subwoofer, high-pass filters, 2, 4 or 6-channel amplifiers and their respective corresponding cables) to offer you a powerful sound from the maximum quality. You just have to choose the one that best suits your needs.
