If your in the market for new speakers for you vehicle your may want to stick around for this video.    Weather completely building a system with all new speakers, amps and subs or just a simple speaker upgrade we’ll be going over how to pick out a good set of speakers while making sure you get everything you want out of them. So stay with us.
This is the second video in our series called “How to pick out a car stereo system.” This of course is the speaker episode. If you missed the headunit episode and your replacing your head unit make sure you watch that one too.

So a lot of people ask which should you pick out first the speakers or the amps and we at breakers say pick out the speakers first and then match the amp to your speakers. You want to make sure you pick out the speakers you’ll like the most and mold around that.

We’ll go over what to look for in a good set of speakers, what a lot of the specs mean and what characteristics you should be looking for bases on how you like to listen to your music. Now picking out speakers online can be problematic! How can you possibly know if you like or don’t like a set of speakerS if you can’t hear them??  Sure you can read reviews but sound is so subjective and what sounds great to someone else may not sound great to you… Well weve provide a solution at breakers stereo that may have solved this problem. We have made a couple videos that compare side by side a few speakers using a high quality, wide frequency range mic and when listening to the video with a set of good headphones you can Experience what the speakers sound like. Now currently we have demonstrated only a hand full of speakers and with hundreds if not thousands of speakers out there it would be tough to demo them all so until we are able to comprise a larger library of videos show casing more speakers as an alternative we put this!!! video together to help you navigate this tricky subject so without further a due here are the 5 top things to consider when buying speakers for your vehicle.

Rms power handling Frequency range Woofer Materials Tweeter material Sensitivity

So let’s define these then we’ll show you how to put it together so don’t go anywhere even if you know what these things mean stay tuned Bect it’s a good reminder. stating with _#

Rms power handling… now rms by definition it root means Square but in essence it means the amount of power measured without clipping or distorting at a continuous rate. So when matching speakers with amps look at this number and ignore the peak power. Frequency range. Now every speaker set will give a range of frequency it can reproduce. Now if we look at the alpine type r as an example. These are a set of speakers we show cases in that video I just mentioned were we demonstrated speakers. it lists the frequency range from 65hz -40k hz. So really quick if we look at  frequency spectrum the lower the numbers represents your bass or lows. And the higher frequencies repress the treble or highs. And your middle frequency around 1000 Hz are your mids. So let’s take a look at our example. These alpine will reproduce frequencies as low as 65hz and as high as 40k Hz.  Now if your looking for lots of mid bass then these don’t play as low as some other speakers and although you may be saying 65 is pretty low especially for mid bass keep in mind that number doesn’t indicate how well they will produce that 65 Hz frequency which really can only be determined two ways. By a spectrum analyzer or by actually listening to them. Now in the video we produced entitled good, better best for 6.5 components. We demoed these speakers and there were on the thin side as far as bass is concerned. But as a side note if you are running subs one can Argue that you might crossover at 100hz anyway and the sub will fill those lower frequencies. True and in some cases that will work perfectly fine but if your not running a sub or want a beautiful rounded system mid bass from your mid bass speakers is a absolute must!! So if your looking for good mid bass look at speakers that are able to play lower frequencies. Now on the other end of the spectrum 40k is extremely High and the human ear can only hear frequencies not higher than 20k so if these speakers can play as high as 40k then they can definitely play  20k fairly well. And if you watched the video in the demo you can really see that these alpine speakers shine when it comes to the tweeters. Woofer material. Just like subs the stiffer the cone the more bass it will produce the lighter the cone the more accurate it will be.  so if mid bass is what you want then look for stiff  cones made of woven materials like carbon fiber or fiberglass which is strong but light. Cones made of plastic like polypropylene are light but not stiff so the mid range is good but not necessary the mid bass.

Tweeter Material. So this is pretty simple. There are two main type of tweeters hard dome and soft dome. Hard dome are normally made of metal material like aluminum and titanium which produce loud bright frequencies. And soft dome are made of materials like a synthetic plastic such as polypropylene or are made of textile like silk or Teteron on which is Polyester/Rayon mix. Now these will produce sounds that are not as bright as hard dome but are smooth sounding because of soft roll off at higher frequencies vs the sharper hard dome tweeters. Sensitivity …so this refers to what decibels the speakers play at 1 watt 1 meter. So using the alpine again as the example these produce 88 db. Now here is how that translates. the higher the sensitivity the more efficient the speakers are which is ok if your running off the power of the radio or are limited in the power you are running. But To get Higher sensitivity you must reduce the weight and mass from the motor section of the mid of the speaker. Which is the voice coil and cone. But a light cone results in less bass and a voice coil that has less mass can’t handle a lot of power. So speakers that have high sensitivity don’t have as much bass and speakers with lower sensitivity.  So in this case our options is lower is better.

Ok now let’s put this together.
Because these  5 things by themselves do not indicate  great speakers they only give you clues to what the speakers are capable of doing.. You must combine them together with your objective …that is where the magic happen.

Ok so let’s do it. Let’s say you really wanted to get really good mid bass. Here is what you want to look at.

Great mid bass = high rms, Lower frequency reproduction in the frequency range, stiff cone, large magnet and low sensitivity

Great mid range = low to mid rms, decent bass reproduction in the  frequency range, light cone, smaller magnet, high sensitivity Bright highs = hard dome tweeters made with metal like aluminum or titanium. Smoother highs = soft dome tweeters made of synthetic plastics to fabrics like silk or polyester.  Weather bright or smooth highs pay attention to the higher frequency on the range.

Mounting kit and wiring adapter These are needed to properly install your new stereo and integrate it into your car’s electronics. We’ll help you find these when you tell us what you drive.

Steering wheel audio control adapters You need one of these adapters to keep those handy buttons working with your new stereo.

Backup cameras If your new stereo has a video screen, why not add the convenience and safety of a backup camera when you install the new stereo?

Auxiliary input cable or USB cable You’ll need these to connect your music player or smartphone to the stereo.

Phone mounts Keep your phone handy and secure while you drive. Car audio installation tools We offer a wide selection of tools that’ll make the installation process much simpler.