Car Audio and the High End


I am both an automotive hobbyist and a dedicated audio geek, and something that has always struck me is the difference between the two when it comes to music reproduction.

The car guys often spend a huge amount of money on 'improving' their car audio, which mostly means creating a bass heavy unnatural (usually loud) sound that gives them some sort of satisfaction.

The audio geeks like me may make some slight improvements in the stock car system (a notable one is swapping out the speaker drivers that perhaps cost the factory $5 for something that cost 10 times that and calling it done) but don't seem to be bothered by mediocre sound (by high end standards). Personally, I view car audio as having to be good enough not to annoy me while driving home to listen to some really well reproduced music on the home system.

Then of course there are the outliers of car audio who load up the vehicles with some much amplification that they win SPL level contests at levels that preclude anyone actually being inside the vehicle lest they have their hearing seriously damaged (the audio equivalent of those people that like to watch cars spin their tires on the spot until they burst, IMHO)

I wondered whether there were any that hang out on this site that overlap their interest in audio between cars and home, or whether they mostly stuck to home use.....
128x128wspohn

Showing 3 responses by wspohn

As I am a sports car guy, the small spacial volume available is a real challenge. Much easier to get decent sound in an SUV.

Oddly, some of the luxury cars with sufficient internal space have very poor sound and some have quite decent sound.

Best I've experienced in a sports car is in one of my own - a BMW Z4M coupe, which has a Bob Carver designed system. Sadly that is paired with some of the worst ergonomics I have ever seen. So mush so that the resale value of the cars with that top of the line system can be slightly lower than the same car with the lower cost system.  The other reason I hate that system is that it has a factory GPS system that pops a screen up out of the dash whenever you hit the wrong control, and that catapults my GPS stand alone unit on top of it into your lap. (Why do I not use the installed BMW GPS, you might ask - because it is a CD updatable system that is painful to actually operate).

For most of my sports cars, the sound system consists of the car's exhaust.
The whines of the different gears. The clatter of the valves. The rise and fall of the exhaust note. The sound of the wind in my ears. The roar, clop-clop and squeal of the tires. Dogs barking. Birds cheeping.

Children screaming, women fainting, old men shaking their fists......oh, that's only for old British sports cars (my specialty). 

I never install any sort of radio in my old stuff (1956-1969 or so). The symphony of the winding road is sufficient.
It seems to me that the disconnect between auto and home hobbyist is often fundamental.  The car guys seem to want volume and thump and the home adio guys want a realistic listening experience.  Car guys think home guys are wimps and home guys think that car guys are Neanderthals.

And if you are a home guy, don't dare to try and explain to a car guy that the wattage ratings for car audio are ridiculously detached from industry standards (and I have seen that inaccuracy, or rather huckstering lying, sneaking into home theatre as well)