I suppose my mistake was trying to 'sell' cable improvements, rather than just pointing out that there are factors that make cable A better than cable B.

Sorry.

I'm also gonna retract the thing I said about pre-worn. I had a chat with some of the professors in my EE dept at university and they all agreed that while burn-in is a real thing, it only applies to dc current, because audio is AC it is random and burn-in wouldn't have any benefit.

 

There are a few things I have to add the amp depending on how much power its using in a car and how much power it is outputting will make a difference. A class D amplifier will sound alot better if the person is to cheep to back up their power supply while on average a class AB amplifier will sound better if they have a good eneugh power source running to the amp.
Speakers... Of course they will make a difference as to Theres different rms ratings for speakers along with how big the voice coil is how the tweet is designed (inverted dome, or dome tweet) to name a few. Sound dediner is alright it will stop rattles and "increase volume" but not a huge factor. The box design is huge as to the sq of the sub(s), if it ported of course you have your slot ported boxes and your "circular" port boxes. If its sealed you want the box to meet up to the specs of the sub. Ex. My box is 1.24cube ft per sub to compinsate for the magnet and going against the original specs. And then of course you have your odd ***** the ones that built right can make almost any sub sound spectacular, your banpass box and your 4th order boxes. If you are truly into sq you have to take all the steps to make your system truly the best sounding.

 

And the deck will make a defference when your looking at 2.2 volt pre outs vs 4 or 5 volt pre- outs you will deffinatly see a difference also setting on the deck hpf's different setting like that. Cables you wont see much to any difference.

 

You might SEE a difference on your volt meter but by god you won't hear any differences unless you had noise issues to begin with....which are unlikely.

Good job debunking Dukk.... it was slightly better them my contribution hehe

 

Those are great questions Dukk, and I've been asked exactly that from many customers that wanted to know "more about sound". (Not that you or others don't know)
As with any field, there are opinions and facts, and then there's personal taste.
What I may find sounds good may not please another person.
I have sold and used audio gear from entry level to high end. In one instance I was selling MEI against brands like Kenwood and Alpine and I showed how through "blind listening" the MEI kicked butt. All I did was play around with cabling and proper selection and placement of gear.
In most cases it's a matter of perception and opinion. It's from those experiences that I discovered that a good sound system comes from putting together the right "mix" of products together for your environment. Not unlike cooking a fine meal. You can start with the finest ingredients, but if you over/under cook and over spice it, your dog won't even touch it. But if you do it right, you can have the cheapest ingredients and end up with a Cordon Bleu meal.
I found there's no one brand that makes everything perfectly, and things like cabling and tweaks can and often do make a difference. kinda like salt and pepper..,*adds dash of coriander. ;-)
Between amplifiers not so much but each amp design has it's application it's best suited for, be it Voltage driven or Current driven design.
Head units and *speakers make the biggest difference, being your source and the system's source of information.
*With speakers, the placement and cabinetry/baffle/cabling will often make or break them.
With any brand appropriate gear and care in installation is required for best results. You wouldn't get a high end car and put cheap tires and poor octane gas in it, so why do it to your own sound investment.
And there is no BETTER, there's only DIFFERENT, which different do you want?

 

Your Points:

Amps - Are important - Only us Class A or A/B in SQ systems - you will need to spend north of $600.00 on each amp - amps are very linear so most can be made to sound okay - but only a low volume levels - road noise forces use to use higher wattage in a vehicle... MTX Elite, Zapco, ARC, Audison to name a few would work fine...

Cables - Are also important, but the addition hifi that they offer are masked by road noise etc... so simply by decent cables... Streetwire...

Decks - there is major SQ differences between headunits - in the DA's and Preamps, hard to find high-end headunits these day - stay away from all multi-media head units - Highend clarion or pioneer units would worth looking at!

Speakers - Are in fact the weekest link, making post eqing a requirement - Both Clarion and Pioneer offer good eq's and active crossover sections in there top headunits... What makes speakers so weak is the fact the they are non-linear, highly mechanical devices - door cavities, boxes and air temp and humity etc create problem is there no properly eq and filter etc...MTX Elite, Morel, Boston, Dynaudio and of these would be great...

Box - Very important - go sealed... unless you know an acoustic engineer that can and will develop a few ported prototypes for you to chose from etc...

Deadening - use it only to reduce loud rattles etc... otherwide keep it light!

System Calibration is most important: It can make good gear sound poor or poor gear sound great or great gear sound hifi!

Time Alignment
6, 12, and 24dB filter sould be avaliable in the active crossover sections
you will also require at least a 3 band parametric eq for each channel and a stereo graphic eq for final unification... Most of these features are available in hiend SQ headunits like Clarion and Pioneer...

As you ajust the aforemntioned, the amplifer gains will require continues adjustment...

All in all you will need a true professional to asist you in the desigh and build in several of the stages...

Takecare

 

Hi Brad

No need for you to change your position!

Headunits and Amps output a lot of DC at times (when their power supplies clip) that’s why most VC's end up black or burnt etc... AC rarely (in properly designed and calibrated systems) does the same!

Speakers have both an electrical side and mechanical side... and they are to large extent inversely related to each other. On the electrical side we measure loss (QES) and weight them against the mechanical losses (QMS) to derive a system Qts or in a box Qtc...

It has been well documented that a speaker’s suspension is in a constant state of decay (slow death or change). The suspensions loss comes predominately from the surround and spider and their innate mechanical resistances and their bias (Kms & Cms) north or south position (bias +/-) of the cone itself etc...

As a driver moves in and out, the spider and the surround ages and loosens up - and the bias often shifts as well. In fact, gravity has a major effect on cone bias - that's why all speakers should be mounted in perpendicular (to the earth) only. It is common to see large subs that have been installed in parallel with the road (earth) that have completely sagged downward (- bias) - when this occurs all bets are off, as the drive is grossly damaged or outside of its original spec...

These shifts effect Qms Scores will direct affect Qtc scores and in fact, as the driver is used its magnet motor is also in a state of decay - the magnet becomes weaker (Bl), the suspension becomes looser and the coil winding (copper) becomes more resistive and on and on this cycle goes until one day the system requires a complete recalibration or even product replacement...

3-5 years is the max a quality car system can retain its original sonic qualities... Speakers being the weakest and quickest to shift in performance, because of a constant varying in mechanical and electrical resistances - and resistance controls all elements of transfer function...

So does break in matter for basic car audio installs - not really - the driver is in a constant state of change any way, so why use up some of its life on a test bench, rather than in your car. There is only one benefit - the speaker is less likely to fail during initial system turn on, calibration and SPL testing - 18-24 hours helps in this regard... As a designer, I often order a batch of drivers break them, if you will, in overnight and measure their T/S and average my findings and use the average scores within my design considerations...

I hope that didn't hurt too much! I can send you graphed measurements which prove these statements...

 

Hi Brad

Like a dumb ***, I didn't fully read your comments - I read burn in and when to work...

With regards to speaker wire, you are still correct.

As mentioned, from time-to-time unwanted DC enters the AC network etc...

But within the AC domain, there is in fact much more going on because there are hundreds of thousands of tone transmitting through the cable. Each tome or frequency is affect differently by the cable, in that they each see a different resistance. In AC networks we don't use the work resistance or resistances we use impedance, which describes a single or average of resistances within a bandwidth of frequencies etc...

On we bring frequency (AC) in to the mix, we must also consider phase and with phase, cable capacitance and inductance. Better cables keep these potential swings or variances under tighter control, which is to say they are closer to being transparent. Please note that no cable is transparent and that’s where the wonderful world of Hi Fi, trial and error or audition comes into place.

Speaker cables have a profound effect on phase - which in my opinion is much more important than linear frequency response scores which are typically measured at low 1/3 per octave resolution...

The speaker cables also affect amplifier damping and passive cross-over performance...

Is speaker wire important - yes - but only in truly high-end home systems and not as much in noise automotive environments fed with iPods!

If you would like a deeper understanding we could open another tread for the topic and talk a lot more about phase and speaker design as a whole...

 

Damping factor came to mind, but I wasn't sure how it is affected being that amps can see a range of input voltages/impedances. I'm assuming they've got some mechanism to handle that which might cancel out any damping benefit.

Thanks for the perspective.

 

What does pre-worn do?