Essentially, a tweeter is a loudspeaker that is designed to operate at very high frequencies from about 2,000 hertz to 20,000 hertz, which is about as high as humans can hear. However, some tweeters go as high as 45,000 hertz. The reason it is called a tweeter, is because the high pitch sounds it make are similar to that of birds, while the subwoofer is similar to that of a dog bark.

Most tweeters use a voice coil that is suspended within a fixed magnetic field. These operate due to the current from an amplifier to a coil, and the magnetic field works against another magnetic field, which forces the voice coil of the tweeter to move. Most tweeters are now dome shaped and made of silk, or titanium. The tweeter design is intended to convert the signal of the amplifier into air movement with nothing taken in or taken out. This creates challenges with the tweeter design, like keeping the tweeter dome centered as it moves, as well as the problem of handling large amounts of power in a very small voice coil.

Types of Tweeters

The cone tweeter is the basic design and works like a woofer but with optimizations to operate at higher frequencies. Some of these changes are to have a small and light cone made of stiff materials that have good damping properties. The voice coils need to be very small as well, only about three-quarters of an inch usually.

The dome tweeter is made through attaching a voice coil to a dome, which itself is attached to a magnet. There is usually no frame or basket in this type of tweeter. Sizes of the tweeter can range between one inch and one and a half inches.

Tweeters are also susceptible to being damaged and dome tweeters are often dented due to movement in a car. Thankfully, that can be repaired by simply using sticky tape to pull the dome back into shape, using a vacuum cleaner nozzle or by removing and refitting the dome assembly.

Most people do not think too much about the tweeter but for some genres of music, a poor tweeter would result in horrible sound. That is why you need to think about the tweeter you are getting to ensure it is going to work for you. If you listen to a lot of Whitney Houston or Celine Dion, then the tweeter is very important. If you listen to a lot of Barry White, perhaps not so much.

If you are into music that needs very tight and accurate bass, then this is your best option because it provides the most accurate bass in the audio world. However, if you are into very deep and powerful (bass-speaking) music, this may not work well for you. This is because the bass from here comes out rather flat with not much boom, but there is a deep bass extension and excellent power handling.

Sealed enclosures need to have more power running to them to power the subwoofer, and many people do not seem to realize this. They will install the subwoofer, with a normal amplifier and not think about the quality of the bass coming from an inadequate amplified signal. As a result, you need to ensure you have more power going to the box so an amplifier with lots of wattage will create the best performance.

Many cars will have a sealed subwoofer enclosure because it is by far the easiest to install. You can simply put it in the trunk or even under the back seat and have excellent performance from it. There is nowhere on the box that needs to be open, so no matter where you put it, you are going to get very accurate bass performance out of it. For many who care about the performance of their subwoofer in their car stereo system, this is incredibly important and something they endeavor to perfect with a sealed subwoofer enclosure.

Making this type of enclosure is actually quite easy as it is simply a tight box around the bass. All you have to remember is to ensure it is airtight and made of a material that is going to create the best bass experience for you in your car. However, there are plenty of places to get great bass enclosures.

Elsewhere in the website, we will talk about some of the other types of bass enclosures that may, or may not, work better for you.

When you start pushing buttons on the front of the head unit, you are using the preamplifier part of the car radio system. This is because when you press something like the FM Button, the circuitry in the preamplifier needs to direct the signal that comes from the tuner to the power amplifier. This is also the case with any type of signal from CD to MP3s in the car stereo system.

In addition, items like the bass and treble, balance, fade, and more are all controlled by the preamplifier. In the higher-end car stereo systems, there can be as much as a seven-band equalizer that has been added into the head unit. This is an expanded tone control and that signal is fed through the preamplifier, then back into the equalizers with the signal altered per the adjustments. Then, the preamplifier will send the altered signal out to the power amplifier.

In most car stereo systems, the back of the head unit will have a group of wirings, called the wiring harness, and these carry a signal to the components of the system. In the better setups, the custom stereo systems, there will be a power amplifier at the rear of the car. Therefore, there will be a lead that goes directly into the preamplifier and exits to carry an inaudible signal to the power amplifier, where it is boosted and sent to the speakers.

The preamplifier is a very important part of the overall setup of the car stereo system. It is what directs the signals to the amplifier, and without that signal directed to the amplifier, there is no sound. Just because people don’t think about the preamplifier, it does not mean it is not important. If you can get a good preamplifier for your car stereo system, then you will have better quality sound going to your amplifier, especially if it is located at the rear of the car.

The preamplifier may be small, but it is mighty, and it should not be forgotten when you are putting together a custom car audio system. Doing so will only hurt the quality of your system.

In the amplifier stage, you will have the preamplifier section, and the power amplification section. We have talked about the amplifier in detail in another part of this website, but here we will go over the one of the two stages that make up the amplifier stage.

When the signal gets to the amplifier stage, it is routed to the power amplifier by the preamplifier. This then boosts the signal into the range that we can hear it, and sends that single to the speakers.

When you think of the amplifier, think of it as a big shot of steroids. Various power amplifiers will differ in quality, but they all do the same. When the weak signal gets to them, they jack it up with power so that we can hear it, and so that the overall sound level increases far beyond what the original system used to do.

Everything with your car stereo system will be thought of in watts. The higher the wattage, the higher the sound. Therefore, your power amplifier will increase the wattage of the car stereo system so you can get a better sound. Most car stereo systems have very basic amplifiers that do not do much but get the sound to what we can hear.

However, for many that is simply no good and they need an added hit of power for their car stereo system. So, they will get a large amplifier that receives the signal from the preamplifier and increases the wattage massively. That then translates into the louder sound heard on the speakers.

Power amplifiers are very important in basic and custom car stereo systems because it allows people to hear what is coming through the speakers and it allows car owners to increase their pride in their car stereo system with the amplifier that dwarfs all others.

As for the car’s preamplifier, we will get into that in another article on the website.

How is it able to do this? Well, as the name of the enclosure says, it has a small vent that it uses to reinforce the low bass response. Because the bass is pushed through that small vent, you get much more output than you do in sealed boxes, and it is able to do this at any amplifier wattage. That means you don’t have to buy an amplifier for the subwoofer because it is using the principles of physics to do it for you.

This is a very popular type of subwoofer box in cars because it really gets things booming in the car. For the car stereo system that wants to rattle windows, the ported subwoofer box is what is key to doing that. As a result, you will not be disappointed when you listen to Led Zeppelin or any other hard rocking band with a ported subwoofer box.
However, there is one drawback to this design, and it comes in the form of space.

Ported boxes need to be much larger than sealed enclosures because they have to allow the sound to move in the box and out thse vent to create the deeper bass. This means it can be hard to fit them in cars except for a few select locations, like the backseat or the trunk. However, in the trunk you may lose some of the quality you were hoping for from the bass because it is so far behind you. In the backseat, you may not have anyone sitting there because of space restrictions or simply because the bass is too deep for someone sitting three inches away from it.

These are things you need to take into consideration before you go with a ported subwoofer box. However, once you do find the space for it, there are few other types of subwoofer boxes that are as good as this for getting that really deep bass that will rattle the windows of people around you as you cruise down the street with the bass cranked.

The free-air subwoofers are great because they are able to save a lot of space in a car that may not have much of it. They sit outside of any real box, and they can be placed in a variety of areas as long as the back of the speaker is against something hard and not allowing sound to flow freely out of it.

The trunk of the car is the perfect enclosure for this because it will house the subwoofer and isolate the sound from the back of the speaker because it is pressed against the rear seat. This then fixes the problem of the sound being cancelled out, which is an issue with other subwoofers that are not in an enclosure.

Typically, these types of free-air systems will have a flat frequency response, and you need to ensure that you buy a subwoofer free-air system for your car stereo system that is built specifically for free-air use. If you fail to do this, you could be sacrificing your sound quality and bass quality since you may have a subwoofer that is designed for a ported subwoofer box, in a free-air enclosure.

Many car owners love having a free-air subwoofer enclosure for their car stereo system because it is much more convenient than other types to install. There is no mounting it in the back seat, moving seats or anything like that. The most you have to do is put something for it to rest on in the rear deck, or place it properly and secure it in the trunk.

One thing that should be noted of these free-air systems is that they have lower power handling levels than those that are housed in an enclosure. This means that you won’t quite get as good as a level of bass as you would from the others, but the convenience and ease of install of these more than makes up for it for some people.

Well, when you really want to take things up to 11, then all you have to do is get a bandpass subwoofer box. This is the subwoofer box that provides the maximum in power and “slam”. The woofer itself is mounted inside a dual-chambered box. One chamber of the box is sealed, while the other is ported, so it is actually combining the best of both worlds. Then the sound waves from the sealed chamber, come out the port side and are extra loud in a narrow frequency range. This creates the precise bass of the sealed subwoofer box, and adds it to the extra power of the ported subwoofer box.

Bandpass subwoofer boxes are highly efficient within their range and they will really boom in the car. Those who own cars and have custom car stereo systems setup love these because they have so much power to them, but the precise bass is not lost. They cost more than either of the previous two types mentioned in this website, but the price is well-worth it when you want the perfect listening experience.

The aggressive sound that is created with the bandpass subwoofer box is perfect for rap, reggae and hard rock. However, you have to ensure that when you buy the subwoofer, that it is going to work well in a bandpass box. This is because not all subwoofers work well in these boxes and you could end up sacrificing performance if you choose an open-air subwoofer and put it in a bandpass subwoofer box.

It is of little surprise that these are so popular, given the quality and deepness of the bass, and you are able to put them in most places in the car. You can put them in the trunk, which is advisable because of their size. However, if you can, put them in the backseat. This will keep them equalized in the car and that will lead to greater subwoofer performance for you.

That being said, no mater where you put these types of subwoofer boxes, they will be an added bonus to your car stereo system because of their high efficiency and excellent bass sound.

Front-firing subwoofers have a speaker that is mounted in the front of the subwoofer so that the sound radiates from the side or front of the subwoofer enclosure.
Down-firing subwoofers use a speaker that is mounted so that it radiates downwards to the floor of the car. For these types of subwoofers, you will find that some enclosures will actually use an additional port to force more air out, which then increases the amount of bass you feel and it does so in a more efficient manner than sealed enclosures. This means you don’t need an amplifier to boost the signal to the subwoofer.

Passive Radiator subwoofers use a passive radiator with a speaker instead of a port. This increases the efficiency of the subwoofer and gives it much greater precision as a result. In terms of what a passive radiator is, it is usually just a speaker that has had the voice-coil removed, or in some cases, is just a flat diaphragm. Systems that use a passive radiator are very similar to ported subwoofer enclosures. If you want the quality of the ported subwoofer enclosure, but you don’t have the space, then a passive radiator subwoofer will work great because it expands the car stereo system’s ability to hit the low frequency sounds, without the extra space needed by ported subwoofer enclosures.

In terms of what will work best and have the best quality for audio and bass in your car, there actually is not too much difference between front and down firing subwoofers. What you should consider is the placement of the subwoofer. If it is an free-air subwoofer, then you will have to think about the speaker accidently being punctured or hit if it is on the rear rack, and in the trunk. Therefore, having a down-firing subwoofer may work best for you to keep it from getting damaged.

There is so much to consider when you are picking out a subwoofer, that knowing what you want before hand in terms of quality and placement will go a long way to ensuring that you don’t get something that does not work exactly as you had hoped.

There are also many types of subwoofer enclosures that you can choose from, some of which may, or may not work for what you want.

Sealed boxes offer a very deep and precise bass because it is an airtight enclosure that houses the subwoofer. This is best for any music that uses a tight and accurate base. There will not be a booming response in the bass, but there will be a deep bass extension. Amplifiers are needed for this to achieve optimum performance.

Ported boxes offer forceful bass and use a vent to reinforce the low bass response of the subwoofer. You get much more output out of this than you do in a sealed box, and this works excellent for rock, heavy metal and any other hard music.

Bandpass boxes offer an extra shot of bass because the woofer is in a dual-chambered box so that the sound waves emerge from the ported side to create an extra loud sound within the very narrow frequency range. These types of enclosures tend to cause the subwoofer to boom and it is perfect for rap, hip hop, reggae or hard rock.

You can also choose a free-air subwoofer if it is going to be in the trunk against the rear seat. The trunk of the car will actually act as an enclosure for the subwoofer and it will isolate the sound from the back of the speaker for you. These save space and have a very low frequency response. However, if you are going to do this, make sure the subwoofer is designed for free-air use, otherwise you may not have the best sound that you could.

When you are putting together your car stereo system, you need to ensure you take into consideration the enclosure. It is just as important as the other items we have talked about in this website, including the tweeter, amplifier and the types of speakers you have.

How the classes come into play, is to do with the efficiency of the amplifier. The efficiency is measured by how much of the input power is applied to the output of the amplifier. Therefore, how much of what goes in, is actually used with what goes out.

Now, you will probably assume that Class A is the best kind you can get, but the truth is that they are the worst. This is because Class A amplifiers operate with a range of about 10 to 20 percent efficiency, with the best Class A amplifiers topping out at 25 percent. That means that usually, less than one quarter, and often only one-tenth of the power that goes into the amplifier comes out of it in the form of sound.

Class B amplifiers are extremely high in their efficiency, but they have huge levels of distortion which makes them completely impractical. Therefore, there is a design of amplifiers that are AB. This means that they have the low levels of distortion of the Class A amplifiers, with the high efficiency of the Class B amplifiers. These car stereo system amplifiers commonly range between 35 and 55 in their efficiency, but some really good ones can top out at 78.5 percent.

Class D amplifiers have an efficiency of as much as 97 percent, which makes them extremely sought after for car stereo systems. All the classes from C to F have very high efficiency, but that high efficiency results in lower power output available. This is because the high efficiency can limit that the power output that is usefully available. However, one good note of extremely efficient models is that they run much cooler and do not always need to have cooling fans. Less energy loss means less heat loss.

While Class T may seem like a different class of amplifier, it is in fact a trademark of Tripath and its amplifier technologies. It uses Class D amplifiers with a sophisticated control scheme to provide extremely high quality in the audio amplification. They do not use digital signal processing, and instead use an overall loop modulator. It is almost entirely analog and feedback is taken directly from the switching node rather than through a filtered output, and the higher order loop provides a much higher loop gain at high audio frequencies.
The future of the Class T amplifier is in doubt since Tripath filed for bankruptcy in 2007.