What happened to car audio?

Mark Villifana: Nothing has change in the audio for cars, it's the audio manufacturers way of advertising the product they want to sell. Mainly you'll see this on off brand products that are low in quality and reliability. Young kids think to have a good system they need alot of watts in the system, reliality is it's only part of the equation. If you are using a 500 watt RMS and the bass note doubles you amp has to produce 5,000 watts to properly produce the sound, if not you burn your amp or speaker. A speaker with an 89bd (normal speaker) uses more power than a speaker at 91bd (can't remember what 1db equals to in watts, but it's high). Young kids buy amp with 1000 watts for $200, and all this amps are off brands, if you look at a name brand like JL and JBL a 1000 watt amp will cost you $800 to $1,000. They think it's cool blasting there subwoofer around the neighborhood, and not knowing that they are also losing there hearing if they are lessening to it for a long time! . The numbers have not changed, it's the manufacturers ad thats changed....Show more

Rheba Cockman: I use to have some large amps years ago, a Orion 2250 and a PPI 2300 that were extremely powerful. I think that 1 reason is their power supplies are regulated, so you have the same wattage at 12 volts as 14.4 volts. Many newer amps will give a 14.4 volt rating and if they drain the power below 12 volts, the wattage falls really fast. In some cases, ( car audio review PAS ) I have seen a 50 watt difference between 12v and 14.4v Another reason may be the subwoofer themselves, almost all subwoofer are now made for small boxes. These require a stiffer surround, spider and heavier cone which kills the DB's. Many are 85db at 1 watt and less. So having a "Old School" woofer that may have been greater than 90 DB's would have been a huge advantage....Show more