How To Get an Better Sound In your car Welcome to car audio

An car audio system from the factory if not the fancy bose or harman kardon, will not have the best of equipment. In most cases, you will have an cheap factory radio, no amplifier and cheap speakers made from poor materials such as papers. If your car is an older vehicle from an very old generation, then the weather conditions such as wind and rain would cause the speaker to degrade over the years. If your car audio system is lacking clarity and bass, the the best thing would be to looking into first upgrading the car speakers. Usually, component speakers are applied in the front, they contain an separate tweeter and mid range speaker. Component speakers are more simpler to install, as they contain the tweeter already integrated into each standalone speaker. 

Applying sound deadening material is also key to bring the best out of your car speakers. This is because adding this stuff to all door cards and within the metal parts behind the speaker, will reduce rattle. It can also be used to seal up any holes or air leaks around the speaker you may find. This can increase the amount of bass your car speakers produce. Buying an used car it is essential you do all the relevant checks, such as VIN search and VIN look. This can help you identify any real problems with the cars service history amongst other things too.

An upgraded headunit if possible will provide more RMS power to your car speakers to provide them with clarity and reduce distortion levels. You will also notice more features on an aftermarket car stereo, such as an parametric car equaliser, DSP settings such as time alignment and high pass filter and low pass filter settings. You can also add an car amplifier to your car door speakers, an four channel is recommend if you have also upgraded the front and rear of your car speakers. 

Adding an car subwoofer will allow you to have more bass of the low frequency spectrum in your car. An car subwoofer can be setup to play anything below 80 HZ. This is deep low bass that you can feel as well as hear that car door speakers simply lack to deliver due to the low cone area they have. An 300 rms subwoofer in an sealed box will provide you with an small punch without taking too much space.

How To Fix Pioneer Car Stereo That Keeps Shutting OFF

If you are experiencing problems with your AVH Pioneer car stereo and it keeps shutting off, it could either be related to overheating or a wiring issue. If the car stereo internals overheat, the car stereo will automatically turn itself off to prevent it get damaged. When it comes to a wiring issue with your Pioneer car stereo, it could be anything such as the wires moving around from vibrations such as going over bumps on a road. Overall, there could be many different possibilities that can cause your Pioneer car stereo to turn off randomly. This useful guide has been created for you guys so that you can troubleshoot this problem at home. If your car stereo only turns off when you turn up the volume really high, then thats a different issue that is mostly linked to voltage drop.

1) Overheating. Most pioneer car stereos that have a dvd feature will have a very small internal fan placed at the back. This draws out all the hot air that is created inside to stop the car stereo from overheating and blowing up. Power on your car stereo and check to see if the fan is moving at the back. If it is not you will need to open it up and replace it as it is failed, could be a wiring issue or the actual fan itself. If the fan works but is running slow and loud, clean the fan using a soft pain brush.

2) Make sure the power wires are connected firmly. Insulation tape is not good enough, what you want to do is solder the connections and heatshrink them. That way they are secure from vibrations and will not come off.

3) The speakers could be shorting out. If you have installed some new speakers, the magnet will be bigger in most cases. If this touches the back of the metal panel of the door frame, it will cause a short shutting down your pioneer car stereo. Best way to pin point if any speakers are causing this is to unplug them all from the rear of the wiring harness. Then individually connect them one by one to see which one gives you problems.

4) Could possibly be a firmware issue. If you have a fairly new Pioneer car stereo, it will have the option to update the firmware. This can be downloaded off the official Pioneer website and transferred onto a usb or memory card. Sometimes old firmware has problems that can cause your car stereo to freeze or shutdown. This might work but it’s something that you should give a try.

If you are still experiencing problems with your Pioneer car stereo shutting off, then you will need to replace it. If it’s still under warranty, then send it back to the car audio shop and get a replacement or a refund.

How To Connect Subwoofer To Pioneer Headunit Using Direct Sub Drive

If you lucky enough to own a Pioneer car headunit that has the direct sub feature, it allows you to power a small subwoofer without connecting an external amplifier. This saves you the time installing an aftermarket amp for a subwoofer and also money if you are not after big bass. How the direct sub drive feature works on a Pioneer car stereo is it bridges the two channel together on the rear. It also applies a low pass filter onto the rear channels to play only bass and stop vocals. So your front door speakers are playing the vocals and the rear channels are used to drive either 6x9 speakers or a small 10 inch small powered subwoofer to play bass. So vocals in front and bass coming from the back of the car. Its easy to setup up the direct sub drive feature on your Pioneer car stereo to power a small sub. I didn't know about this feature until today, so i decided to do a full guide for you guys to setup your own system at home.

1) You will need to bridge the rear channels to a subwoofer. The best way is to disconnect the wires from the speakers that go into the rear parcel shelf. If they are not long enough its best to extend them using speaker wire so that it can reach the terminals on the box.

2) To bridge the rear channels for one speaker, simply take the negative from the left and the positive from the right and wire it into the terminals on the subwoofer box. Bridging is just another terms for adding two channels to make one. That way it takes power from both giving you one more powerful output usually doubling the rms output.

3) Now you done the hard part making the connection you have to setup direct sub drive on your Pioneer car stereo now. Get into the sound settings and enabled Rear SP :S/W. This will increase the power and add a LPF filter onto the rear channel. You can now control the subwoofer through the equalizer to increase the bass further to your liking.

The pioneer direct sub drive feature is kind of cool i think, i only discovered it today when flicking through the manual and tested it out to drive a 10 inch sony Xplod subwoofer. With the right song i could move the front mirror, so its definitely something worth a try if your after big bass but would like to add a little more punch in your car audio system.

How To Fix Aftermarket Radio Overheating That Gets Too Hot To Touch

An overheating aftermarket car stereo that gets too hot to touch can cause problems in the long term.  The heat created can blown out the mosfet transistors inside the car stereo, they provide sound to the speakers inside your car, its the mini car amp. Not only that, it can provide a weird plastic smell in your car and can switch off if the car stereo gets too hot. Overall, its not ideal to allow an aftermarket overheating. Shorts can cause overheating problems with a car stereo, basically two wires that are possibly touching each other. Its ideal to remove the car stereo from the din slot and check to see if all the wires are securely taped off and that there are no exposed wires. If there are no wires touching, then you will need to upgrade the power and ground wires. They are most likely too small for an powerful aftermarket headunit, more amps are being pulled than what thin small wires can handle. So in this case your best bet would be to upgrade the power and ground wires with 16 gauge wire. Also if you have a double din or flip out in car dvd stereo, check the fan on the back if its blowing air. In some cases they can fail causing your car stereo to overheat.

1) Remove the car stereo using din tools or a flat head screwdriver into both ends to pop it out of the cage.

2) Unplug the wiring harness from the car stereo that is overheating. 

3) Pop the hood to the front near of the car. Look for a area in the firewall that you can push wires through. If there is isn't one that you can see, you might need to drill a hole and apply a rubber washer grommet around the connection, feeding the wire through there.

4) Connect red 16 gauge wire to the + positive terminal on the car battery. Connect black 16 gauge wire to the negative terminal on the car battery. Now that you have got the connections push them through the hole you found or made.

5) Run the new wires inside the car, you might need to remove the glovebox or the carpets to access them so that you can pull them through. Feed the wires into the din slot. 

6) Attach the new thicker power and ground wires to the connections of the wiring harness, disconnecting the old ones. You can either remove altogether or tape off the old power and ground connections the choice is yours.

Upgrading the power wires will fix overheating problems regarding small cheap stock wiring. This is because there will be more copper inside the thicker wires to provide a higher current at high volumes. You could also add a fan onto the back heatsink to give things extra cool if its a tight spot.

How To Connect Subwoofer To Amp Without Sub Out

When you connect a car amplifier to a 12 inch subwoofer, in order for it to produce sound it needs some source of music to be provided to it. Then the amplifier can take ownership of the input signal and transform it into a more powerful stronger signal so then the subwoofer can play bass. Now if you are keeping the factory radio or its a very standard plain basic aftermarket headunit in most cases you will not have any kind of sub out for the preamp output. This can be a problem but thanks to clever technology you can converter the signals coming from the speaker wires using a cheap little converter box. This can be picked up from placed like Ebay or Amazon for under ten pounds. Its easy to wire and doesn't require and additional equalizers or processors even no external power is required. It can take around 10 minutes to fit and install into the car stereo with no sub out.

1) Remove the car stereo from the din slot.

2) Look at the back connections for the rear speaker wires.

3) Disconnect them from the wires that are going into the rear speakers installed into your car.

4) On the speaker to rca converter box you will see two input speaker wire terminals or wires on the box. Insert each speaker wires that you have just disconnected from the CD players wiring harness into the left and right to their own dedicated inputs on the box.

5) Now all you need to do is connect RCA cable into the converter box outputs and plug the other end into the RCA OUTPUTS on the car amp. This will then feed the signal from the car stereo which is being sent down the rear speaker channels and into the amplifier so that you subwoofer can now work successfully.

How To Use Heat Shrink Wrap For Car Stereo Wiring

If you are considering installing a car stereo into your car its very important that you insulate the wires to prevent them coming in contact with each other. If this does occur, it can possibly blow the fuse in your car stereo or create further damage to the vehicles internal electrical system. This is something that you want to avoid at all costs so its best to cover the exposed copper strands of the wire. Now there are also sorts of methods that you can use to get the job done. You have the choice to use PVC electrical tape, however it can look messy and unprofessional. The best method that we use to protect the wires when our car audio technicans install a car stereo into a vehicle is using heat shrink. This is a small plastic tubing that shrinks when heat is applied providing a tight secure fit over the wires that need covering. They come in all sorts of colors, the most ideal size for most car audio installations is 3/16 shrink ratio. The best recommend company that we always used in our trade is by 3M cheap junk from Ebay is a no no.

The best method is to twist, solder and heat shrink the connections for a proper long lasting install. You will need a portable source of heat to tighten the shrink wrap. You can use anything from a cig lighter or a girls hair dryer. But the best tool to get the job done the most effective way is to use a heat gun, as it will take less time for it to shrink around wires of the car stereo.

1) Slide over heat shrink tubing across the wire you want to cover.

2) Make the connections with the other wire by unstriping the insulation off both ends and twisting them together tightly.

3) Get a low powered soldering iron that is made for electrical wires and solder the connections to ensure that it doesn't come undone from any movements. This can happen when you push back all the wires into the din slot when finishing off.

4) Now that you have soldered the connection, slide the heat shrink tubing upwards until it covers that area where you can see the two wires being connected. So that you are covering up any bits of naked wires.

5) Get a heat gun or a similar relevant source of heat and apply it around for 3-5 seconds. Stop as soon as you notice that the heat shrink has tightly fitted onto the wire.

How To Fix Pioneer Car Stereo That Keeps Resetting Itself

All car stereos including the Pioneer ones have an internal memory. This is used to remember settings such as audio, radio presets and equalizer information to store them in. So that ever time you turn off your car the settings are still saved and should not been wiped off. If you notice that your Pioneer car stereo keeps resetting itself each time you take the key out of ignition, you have wired the power wires incorrectly found on the rear wiring harness that is plugged into the CD player. If your car stereo wont save settings and the radio resets when starting the car or with the ignition turned off, you will find these instructions useful to help you fix this common car audio problem.

1) Remove the negative terminal from the car battery. This is because you will be making changes to the power wires on the car headunit, you don't want to create any sparks leading to shorts and blown fuses later on.

2) Using din tools or a screwdriver from the car headunit from the slot.

3) Look at the back find the wires that come out from the harness that plugged in. Find the yellow and red wires and disconnect them from the location its connected to at the moment.

4) Connect the red wire to the one coming from your car that controls the ignition switch. This can be checked by putting a multimeter into reading volts and keying the ignition each time you check the different wires. As soon as the voltage goes to 0 on the wire you are checking when you turn off the ignition you found the correct wire and needs to be connected to the red accessory wire.

5) The yellow wire needs to be connected to a constant 12 volt source that always providing power inorder to allow the Pioneer car stereo to save its settings. This wire usually leads right from the car battery on the positive terminal.

How To Connect GPS Sat NAV To Car Stereo Via The Speakers

Sometimes you will find it easier when the GPS volume comes out of the speakers rather than the sat nav itself. In order to connect your GPS sat nav to the car stereo to play through the car speakers, your mobile navigation device needs an audio line out output jack. If it has bluetooth then you can connect it wirelessly but the CD player radio needs to support A2DP technology. The best method we recommend for you to use is the aux cable, its quick and simple and sometimes bluetooth can cause problems.

1) Plug in one end of an aux cable into the audio output socket on the GPS sat nav.

2) Plug the other remaining end of the cable into the aux port on the front of the car stereo.

3) Now that the connection is made, switch the mode on the headunit to aux so that it can output the sound that is being provided from the GPS sat nav to your car speakers.

How To Wire LED Neon Lights To Your Car Amp

You can connect LED neon lights to your car amplifier so that it syncs with the bass. This allows the lights to pulse with the beat and not just always be fully bright all the time. Now the best way to do this is to connect the lights to the speaker directly. So when any kind of music signal is sent to the speakers and down the light wires, it will be transferred into electrical energy making the lights pulse with the beat. The only problem with this is if you have a really powerful amplifier or its bridged, you can blow out the LED lights at high volumes. So the best way to overcome this problem is to use a small voltage regulator to stabilise the power going to them. They cost about 10p the one that we recommend is the 'LM2940CT' that has three metal legs. But in most cases you should be fine and if they are cheap LEDS then they can be easily replaced.

1) Un strip insulation off the LED positive red and negative black wires.

2) Locate the speaker terminals on your car amp and loosen up the screws on a channel.

3) Insert the red positive wire into the + terminal on the car amp and the other black wire into the - terminal. Once you have made the connections, tighten up the screws to stop the wires from moving.

4) To test if they are working, play a track from your car stereo and turn up the volume half way. Head back to the trunk and check if the lights are pulsing with the bass. If they are not turning on recheck your connections as you might have wired them backwards. Now all you have got to do is mount them onto the amp or enclosure to style your trunk.