Car Audio Extreme

A recent study by J.D. Power & Associates suggests that automakers shouldn’t ignore the trademark on the audio entertainment they put in new cars and trucks, especially if that equipment is premium.

The firm’s new “U.S. Automotive Emerging Technologies Study,” based on responses from more than 17,000 consumers in July, says branding gives a boost to the amount of money consumers are willing to pay for audio systems. But it also says certain in-vehicle technologies drop off the charts when consumers hear how much they cost.

There are many variations on the bandpass design, and the actual design possibilities are virtually endless. We’ll focus on the two more popular designs without going too deep into the isobaric setups.

The 4th order bandpass is basically a driver placed in a sealed box with an identically tuned port on the other side of the sealed section. The resulting system usually provides a lower cutoff frequency, the tradeoff being a larger enclosure. The enclosure can be reduced in size by using two drivers in an isobaric configuration.

Clipping is when an amplifier has reached its maximum output capacity yet tries to keep up with the input signal gain ratio between the signal source “HU” and Amp. The amplifyer hits an imaginary wall whereby the output signal is no longer a symetrical replication of the input signal. The wave form in, does not match the wave form out in shape or amplitude. (you can see this easily if you had a A/B channel oscilloscope; channel A connected to the amp input, channel B to amp output) The only difference you should see between channel A & B are signal amplitude values. If the signal shape varies considerably in channel B, you have a problem with clipping.

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