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Car HiFi Online

Whatever your car, whatever your music there is a car hifi that's right for you.

If you've got a beat up old runabout you hardly use then may be something a little less extravagant will do but you certainly don't have to have a super car to have a sweet audio system!

If you do a lot of miles it doesn't matter if your ride's a wreck or modified perfection you need a great audio system.  If you deeply love your music and can't bear to be away from it, or hate to hear it poorly reproduced are another great set of reasons for having something a bit better than factory fit in the way of car hifi.

If you love bangin' bass then you'll defiantly want to consider the purchase of a sub-woofer, in fact it's a must!  If you can fit one in a bass tube might meet your needs nicely, amazing bass in a compact package. 

May be you like crystal clear mid-range definition, in that case you'll need a great set of mid-range speakers, how about a set of the near ubiquitous 6"x9" oval speakers?  These are most commonly mounted in the parcel shelf and/or the doors.  A small set of piezo tweeters will set your system off nicely for the high pitched stuff.

Once you've invested in quality speakers you want them to remain that way so you'll want a good set of grilles for them.  Plastic ones are cheaper but they won't protect your precious cones as well as metal ones and they can tend to vibrate with high volumes which will make any music sound bad.  If your budget can stretch to it metal grilles are highly recommended.

Those are the speakers but you need something to produce the sound or they're just going to collect dust!  The amplifier unit is often referred to as a "head unit" which will contain the amplifier, almost always a radio tuner, in days gone by a cassette deck but nowadays a CD player (more on them in a moment), and today will often have an input jack for an MP3 player such as an iPod.

You might have a single slot CD player in the head unit but some can take more than one disc, this is called an "auto changer".  Some single CD units have an input on the back of them for a separate CD auto changer which can be located elsewhere in the car, eg. glove compartment or boot.  Some car hifi CD players can actually play MP3 files that have been burned onto a CD, this can allow you to have something like 10 hours of music on a single disc.  Suddenly a single disc player doesn't sound such a bad idea!

If your chosen head unit has an input for an MP3 player simply plug it in and off you go, others have a USB socket on them that you can plug a Flash drive into and play MP3's from that.  Car audio technology certainly isn't standing still.  However, as with most things, the more features you require the higher the price tag is going to be.

Unless you regularly exhibit your car at shows or engage in "sound offs" then a 40W per channel head unit will usually be more than adequate to deafen all your passengers at once!  You don't want to be left wanting for power when you really want to blast your favourite tune out or the road is really noisy but you probably don't need to spend the money on a "weapons grade" head unit for normal use.  You could save some money on power and go for extra features or better speakers.

Hopefully this quick rundown on various aspects of car hifi will assist you in choosing the correct setup for you, your music and your car.