Rock Out While Driving Around Town
A sound system that accurately renders the lows and highs of your favorite tunes can enhance your drive. Standard car audio systems generally come base model speakers, so updating yours with aftermarket 2.5-inch tweeters helps round out the overall sound in your car for a better listening experience.
What Are Tweeters?
You're probably familiar with woofers, but tweeters are just as important to any audio system.
- Tweeters are named after birds, largely because they are responsible for emitting higher frequency sounds. This is in place of woofers, which give off lower frequencies.
- They cover sound waves ranging from 2.5 to 20 GHz.
- There are many different types of tweeters, such as dome, horn, Piezo, thin film or foil, ribbon, and air motion transfer (AMT).
Which Type of Tweeter Should I Get for My Car?
- Dome, or cone, features in many car audio systems for good reason. Built with an integral suspension and aluminum wire voice coil, it offers a very smooth response, good dispersion, and average sensitivity.
- Piezo speakers are traditionally used as car speakers. They are not ideal as an upgrade to base model ones.
- Electrostatic speakers produce the purest sound at the highest volume, but because they run on voltage, they need to be plugged into an outlet. This makes them an impractical solution for the car.
What Are Some Important Considerations for Speakers?
Bigger is better, so the saying goes; however, with speakers, this is not always the case. Keep in mind size doesn't only refer the physical dimensions of the speakers.
- Most car speakers are 2.5-inch (63.5 mm) models. You can get larger ones, but considering you will be using them in an enclosed space, you may not hear much of a difference in sound quality with bigger options. Also, car speakers need to fit into the dash, so avoid anything too big, as you may end up running out of space.
- You need to make sure your speakers have the appropriate resistance, which is measured in ohms. If resistance is too low, then they can blow out when they receive power from the amplifier. Typically, speakers for cars have around 8 ohms of resistance. Anything less might not be enough.
- Make sure your pair of speakers has the right power rating. Most will come rated for 100 watts, but you can find some for 150. Find out how much power your system emits and only consider models that can handle this load without getting overrun.
- Look for speakers with crossover capabilities. Your current system may not have this feature, and having it helps your audio system cover the complete range of frequencies in the music you listen to.