Whether you are ordering your new car, or retro-fitting your current car, if you are in the market for a car stereo system, there are two web sites that are enormously informative: CNET.com and Edmunds.com
CNET.com offers its take on the 5 best overall car audio systems, the 5 best car stereo systems for iPods, and the 5 best Bluetooth car systems.
According to CNET, with many consumers opting for digital downloads over CD purchases, in-dash receivers must be compatible with an increasing array of portable digital audio players and formats. Car audio manufacturers are moving away from the standard auxiliary input, and instead implementing USB inputs and iPod connections.
As the standards for Bluetooth begin to solidify and the technology takes hold, reviewers are also seeing a few receivers that support A2DP stereo streaming, creating a convenient, no-wire experience for the car audio enthusiast.
Here is CNET’s current take on the five overall-favorite car stereos.
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-car-stereos/
The five best car stereo systems for connectivity with iPods:
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-car-stereos-for-ipod/?tag=rb_content;contentNav
The three best car stereo systems for connectivity with Bluetooth:
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-bluetooth-car-stereos/?tag=rb_content;contentNav
If you have a good ear, and just want to test out various car stereo options on your own, Edmunds.com recommends these seven basic subjective sound-quality criteria to test an audio system:
(Excerpt from Edmunds.com)
Frequency response: The range of human hearing is roughly 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, although you feel more than hear the lowest frequencies, and people start to lose the ability to hear higher frequencies as they age. A good sound system should be able to not only re-create frequencies throughout this range, but do it in a balanced manner.
When Edmunds.com tests a system they listen for tonal balance or how well it smoothly reproduces the frequency spectrum, without bass overpowering the midrange and highs and vice versa.
Clarity: This is the ability of a system to reproduce music without distortion (unless it already exists in the listening material). You've probably heard the fuzzing boom of bass from the neighborhood kid's car stereo, but a good test for clarity is listening to cymbals and high-pitched female vocals. Cymbals will sound overly brassy and "sizzle" when distorted, whereas female vocals sound shrill.
Timbre: This is a system's ability to re-create the lifelike sound of instruments. Acoustic instruments are good for assessing timbre since almost everyone knows what they sound like. Vocals are also a good test of timbre since listeners know what a human voice sounds like.
Tonal accuracy: This describes how faithful a system is in general to the original recording, and applies to instruments and vocals as well as a recording's ambience or the space in which the recording took place.
Staging and imaging: These two related concepts date back to the heyday of stereo and don't necessarily apply to modern recordings. The idea is that when you're listening to a stereo recording, the system should create the illusion of a stage in front of you on which the performance is occurring, and you also should be able to pinpoint the sonic images of the individual performers and/or instruments within the stage.
Ideally, a car should have a "sound stage" that is at least dash height, as wide or even wider than the car (in the best cars it extends beyond the A-pillars) and deeply layered so that it's almost three-dimensional.
Dynamics: Some systems reproduce the loudest parts of a piece of music with ease but have trouble with the softer passages, or vice versa. Think about when you're at an intimate live performance and you can hear the drummer lightly brush the cymbals just as well as you can feel the visceral thump of the kick drum, or the singer's whispered lyrics have the same emotional impact as when he or she belts out a tune. A great system can reproduce both extremes with equal ease, and dynamics refers to a system's ability to re-create this wide range for a vibrant, live-like sound.
Linearity: Related to dynamics, this refers to a system's ability to retain detail despite the volume level; when a system is very linear, it has the same level of detail at low volume as it does at high volume, which is very difficult for most systems to achieve.
Together, these concepts relate to how "close" a system gets the listener to the actual performance and how the producer intended it to sound.
For systems that play surround formats such as DVD-Audio, many of the same sound-quality concepts apply. But with surround formats we look for an enveloping, immersive sound.
How Edmunds.com Listens
When we critically evaluate an audio system, we listen to it under the following conditions:
• Sitting still with the engine at idle
• The volume set at moderately high levels
• All tone controls set to "flat" or at the center-detent position, including the fader and balance
• All surround or other signal processing turned off, if possible
While we also evaluate systems while driving and take into account road, wind and other noise and the overall quietness of the cabin, because of variables in road surfaces we test audio systems while sitting still to level the playing field. This also ensures that we give the listening task our full attention, without being distracted from the music while driving and vice versa. Likewise, when reviewing an audio system, we may comment on the presence and usefulness of the signal processing available, but for critical listening we switch it off.
What We Listen To:
We have a library of roughly 50 music tracks we use to evaluate sound quality, as well as test tracks for staging, imaging, linearity and absence of noise. In addition to music tracks, we also use technical tracks on IASCA's Official Sound Quality Reference CD to test imaging, linearity and absence of noise.”
(End Excerpt)
For even more information on car stereo systems, visit Edmunds.com’s Car Audio and Electronics Center at:
http://www.edmunds.com/technology/
And Cnet.com reviews at:
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-car-stereos/?tag=rightColumnArea1.0
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