I’m stoked about a photo i just saw browsing through some articles on some recent model Audis.
http://images.leftlanenews.com/content/june2007/4-2007-audi-s8.jpg
I’ll just do a link, cuz its pretty wide. Beauty, comfort, class and general sexyness aside one small aspect caught my eye. I didnt see it right away, but if you look just above and left of the steering wheel(about where the number 3 on the tach is) youll see a little cylinder with a triangle in it poking up from the dash.
That small item makes me very glad. Allow me to explain this. That seemingly useless little part makes a HUGE difference to us audiophiles. What it does is widen the soundstage and brings it to a proper height. When you want your car to sound great you want to have a nice and wide sound stage. This means spreading the speakers as wide as you can using what youve got. Sometimes the widest point is on the dash edges. Some of you may remember my eclipse and the small tweeters i had poking up from my dash edges. This is why i did that. The wider you spread it, the more balanced it ends up sounding(provided youve got proper tuning). You also want your speakers elevated slightly. This helps reduce the amount of vibration going into the floor of the car, because its just a large piece of sheet metal that can distort sound. Some people prefer their speakers and tweeters to sit on top of the dash. So far I’ve had great luck with my speakers in the doors and my tweeters elevated.
You dont want to lower your speakers down to the floor unless theyre in kick panels. If they are very low, it will just sound like the music is coming from underneath and its just plain weird. The subwoofer can sit on the floor just fine because its a nondirectional speaker. This means that you will still hear it normally no matter where it sits or where you point it. If you could see sound waves, you would see concentric circles coming from your subwoofer. It basically looks like a stone that fell in water. Regular speakers and especially tweeters need to be pointed. It took me about 2 weeks to figure out a good position for my tweeters and set them up the way they were to get the sound i wanted out of them. Some cars put theirs in the pillars to widen it further, this is also a strategy SQ people use to widen and elevate the sound stage to about ear level. Some car manufacturers(toyota for example) place tweeters on the small triangle piece of plastic behind the sideview mirror if its electric. This is also a great spot to widen your sound stage. One thing you dont want to do is mount it above your head, it just comes out sounding strange.
The fact that a factory car has that makes me very glad. This means that theyre trying to bring the best audio possible to the consumer in a normal production car. So if you want premium sound you wont have to all that much to get it other than to ask for the package at the dealer. Also the fact that theyre not just using some run of the mill Bose speakers in the car makes me glad. They still use those, but the premium package 07+ Audis have some nicer speakers and they include a sub. This doesnt mean that you will be getting license plate and teeth rattling bass, but it will sound more balanced and complete. To people like me, thats key. SQ people dont have to blow out windows or make eardrums bleed to enjoy sound.
A very important aspect of SQ is for a car to reproduce sound as it would be heard live. You want to be able to hear exactly where the musician is just by listening to the car. I dont use just any random CD to tune my car. They have special CD’s with a small booklet that has a small diagram of where all the musicians sit in the orchestra pit or on stage. Its recorded with multiple microphones so you can distinguish instruments by location. I’m not simply speaking front, back left or right. This gets very complex and a proper sound stage helps reproduce that depth of sound.
There are not many cars with premium audio systems that are all that premium, but i could just be slightly biased. I remember reading an article that last year Lexus took first place. It wasnt a simply “yea it sounds clear” judging. They tried the convertible version moving at good highway speeds and it still had excellent sound reproduction.
A lot of the premium audio systems now come with about a dozen speakers(like my A6). Personally i think its overkill, but I am a minimalist, so my word is not the end-all judgement. It does make me glad that each year the premium equipment gets better and better, so for the people that dont want any fuss its a win-win. In general, I advise to not get the premium and use that much money to get something aftermarket put in. You would think that premium from the factory is good for say 2K extra, but for 2K you can grab mid grade aftermarket equipment and it will sound better than top of the line OEM equipment. This is especially true in cheaper cars(cheaper is relative and im using the brand new S8 in the photo for comparison). Overall, there is no “best system evar”, theres what you can afford. Theres really whats best for you. If you feel that a single 10" woofer is enough, then youre all set to go. Some people prefer to get more attention and go with a twin or a triple 12" setup, because they want that super intense bass. People like that also compete, its called SPL. Quality makes no difference in SPL competitions, its all about whos loudest in class. I tried SPL at one point but I got out of it right quick. Theres no finesse in SPL and most cars look like crap. Theyre always unfinished, boxes are not wrapped, theyre covered in fresh glue and reek of fiberglass and such. Theres a lot of sawdust and the like in the trunk because they finished the new box last night and are now testing it. There is some engineering to it, but thats only on a professional circuit. Most SPL people dont go that far. SPL also seemed too easy for me and I like a challenge.
I will be making more posts in the section. Some will be “how to” style posts in which I will cover things such as sound stage more indepth. I will also be posting about how to pick out equipment, keeping budget in mind.
If you would like to widen or lift your sound stage you will need a component set of speakers. If your car does not come with that, you will need to arrange for some time and purchase a set. I will cover advantages of those more in depth in future posts. In the meantime, you can email or PM me if youve got questions or just post right here.
If youre insinuating that its a large post, hold off for a while. You’re goin to see some large ones in the future 
I’ll be doing a write up/walkthough/pictorial on my audio build :lol THATS gonna be a large one. I doubt more than 3-4 ppl will actually read thru the entire thing.
i read the first two lines and looked at the picture… good enough for me.
at one point i was considering motorizing my tweeters in the mitsu
well that info was helpful but my audio knowlege extends as far as " wow my stock sound system is actually pretty nice" or “wow this sucks i should get a new one”
Let me know if you need help with something. You can improve what youve got, get just a couple of new pieces or build a full new system, either way youre gettin better sound.
yea its on the to-do list right after i build the engine haha but seriosly its on there somewhere
my friend has a very nice sounding GTI. He’s been slacking lately, but I keep pushing him so he does work on it every now and then ;D