I stand by everything I said.........and thanks but I don't need advice on electronics, I retired from teaching it for 35 years, I hold an Extra class FCC license. I also made a good living writing 26 training courses for customers like the U.S. Navy, Lockheed and AT&T on electronics. I have had a 5 page article published in QST on designing a switchable bandwidth speaker system. I built my first speaker system in 1965......we used a slide rule back then for the T/S parameters. I have designed tube type audio amps and custom speaker systems for customers for many years. Been in audio too long listen to some of your sales rhetoric with out a chuckle. Like many you are so wrapped up in digital corrections and fixes to make a car interior sound "good". Learn something about how audio actually works, not how to use digital toys to create a certain sound in a space that colors the sound like crazy. Nothing changes the fact that humans do not hear the same nor like the same "sound" as others.
You use the word "tune" lots, what are you "tuning for", the sound you like or a response curve? Why would you do this for a source like radio, mp3 and CD. As to tuning a car that is a joke other than competition. In real life the tuning in a car is only valid in one configuration. Open a window or Moon roof, put the back seats down, removing the rear shelf or adding one or more passengers, carrying stuff in the car all drastically change the acoustics and so called "tune". Garbage in garbage out.
Just because you feel one way and I another does not matter, what matters is the obvious. People prioritise things differently and some have zero desire to do anything but make some changes in the audio that they can afford and like. Take some time and look up response curves for 6 1/2 " speakers currently available to fit our cars, start with the stock one, then take an average response curve and prove how much negative difference it would cause in the car, I bet you can't your back your statements. The stock sony speakers are trash, you know that. I am sure some junk speaker can make the stock system sound worse if you buy the $19.99 800 Watt speakers. But if you spend $100 a pair for quality speakers you will improve the honky mids. You can't deny the audio chart. Almost all the custom amps I have made have tone and contour filters per the customer's requirements.
I put the info out there for people to see there are alternatives to spending thousands.
Good chance I sold my first speaker system before you knew what a speaker was. As to vinyl that is what is in my listening room, linear tracking turntable, 18 Watt per channel class AB2 with US made tubes and iron running a modified Altec Lansing speaker system. You are telling people they are wasting money unless they do it your way, that is wrong! Many people will be in love with a bazooka in the back. Or just plain want loud over quality. This debate has not changed since the 1960's when you had the East Coast and West Coast sound speaker battles and endless debates on the same old which one sounded better and to who. The technology before reaching the speaker has changed much in 100 years, other than acoustic suspension almost nothing has changed in the drivers or acoustics.
You use the word "tune" lots, what are you "tuning for", the sound you like or a response curve? Why would you do this for a source like radio, mp3 and CD. As to tuning a car that is a joke other than competition. In real life the tuning in a car is only valid in one configuration. Open a window or Moon roof, put the back seats down, removing the rear shelf or adding one or more passengers, carrying stuff in the car all drastically change the acoustics and so called "tune". Garbage in garbage out.
Just because you feel one way and I another does not matter, what matters is the obvious. People prioritise things differently and some have zero desire to do anything but make some changes in the audio that they can afford and like. Take some time and look up response curves for 6 1/2 " speakers currently available to fit our cars, start with the stock one, then take an average response curve and prove how much negative difference it would cause in the car, I bet you can't your back your statements. The stock sony speakers are trash, you know that. I am sure some junk speaker can make the stock system sound worse if you buy the $19.99 800 Watt speakers. But if you spend $100 a pair for quality speakers you will improve the honky mids. You can't deny the audio chart. Almost all the custom amps I have made have tone and contour filters per the customer's requirements.
I put the info out there for people to see there are alternatives to spending thousands.
Good chance I sold my first speaker system before you knew what a speaker was. As to vinyl that is what is in my listening room, linear tracking turntable, 18 Watt per channel class AB2 with US made tubes and iron running a modified Altec Lansing speaker system. You are telling people they are wasting money unless they do it your way, that is wrong! Many people will be in love with a bazooka in the back. Or just plain want loud over quality. This debate has not changed since the 1960's when you had the East Coast and West Coast sound speaker battles and endless debates on the same old which one sounded better and to who. The technology before reaching the speaker has changed much in 100 years, other than acoustic suspension almost nothing has changed in the drivers or acoustics.
I am surprised that you asked about what I was tuning for? Back in your day, they didn't make any of these cool electronics. I have seen a record player for the car though. I started recording my own stuff on 8 Track. You were probably using reel to reel. I am tuning to match the acoustics of the car to the speakers. It could just be that you have never experienced anything that well done with electronics, so you snub your nose at it and I am ok with that. I too have an extensive album collection, but as I cant put that in the car, I have use what's available and just because technology has made advances in the reproduction of audio for the car, doesn't make it bad.
I not telling anyone to do anything. I am stating a fact. While you have taught audio for over 20 years. Teaching and practical application is not the same thing. I have judged over 1200 vehicles running what I would call high end car audio systems. I mean you no disrespect, but I can sit here and with a straight face, listen to your vehicle and tell you if it is right or not. And I can tell you based on what I know about the electronics industry today, not 40 years ago, I can tell you that you can just replace the speakers in your car and it will sound louder and if that is what you like, I am happy for you, BUT I can also say that if you just replace the speakers in your car, that it will not sound as good as it could.
Having sold, judged, installed not taught audio, again practical application, most people don't have the first clue. They buy some head phones, and an hook them up to their phone and play their mp3's and think its the best thing ever. Or, they run some MP3 through this FORD S&&& system, and replace their factory speakers and add a sub, and think they have moved to another planet. The reality is, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best it could be, if the factory system is a 1, replacing the factory speakers gives you a 2 out of 10 of what it could be. How could I be so arrogant to say that? Easy, its a fact. Sony tuned this car based on the location of the speakers. Where you as the teacher should know that speaker placement is everything in a system, home, theater, arena, car, doesn't matter. Placement comes first. The better the placement the less fooling around with the system you have to do. Ford gave the car to the audio guys last. That means the speaker locations were an afterthought. How do I know that? Easy, where is the tweeter installed? As close as it could be to the driver and passenger in the door, not even forward in the door. Why is that? Because it would have cost a lot more money to move the tweeter to the dash, and then there would have been no way to move the mid, because then it would have had to been in the kick panel. The tweeter and woofer have to be no less, than 7" from each other when measuring the distance from the tweeter to your head, and the then the woofer from your head. So now, without any time alignment (WHICH I AM AGAINST), Sony uses time alignment to correct for poor location, screwing with the phasing of the drivers. Then they EQ the piss out of the system so that it gives a somewhat balanced sound. All of that tuning that Sony did, doesn't go away when you replace the factory speakers. Now, the replaced speakers which perform differently than the stock ones, are not setup to work with the tune in the car. For all the teaching you did, I am not sure what part of this you are not getting. Get out your slide rule, and take your measurements. This is basic Acoustical physics 101. Yes, by just replacing the speakers you get sound. Yes, just by replacing the factory speakers you get louder sound. Is it the best you could get, NO. If you retune the system using your new speakers will it sound more accurate, YES.
To be honest, unless your using a Concentric Speaker not coaxial, where the tweeter is ahead of the voice Coil, but the tweeter is mounted in the voice coil of the driver, then you have to use tuning in the car, to correct for the acoustics in the car. Even with the concentric driver, for those that don't know what that is( it is a time correct speaker). That means the highs and mids are more in alignment with time because the tweeter is sitting behind the woofer. Higher frequencies travel faster than lower frequencies. This is why systems like the Wilson Audio Sophia's and Watt Puppies, have their tweeters on an angle behind the plane of the woofer. If the highs and mids reach you at the same time, the system becomes transparent, and the speakers disappear, leaving only the image of the musicians, and instruments. I have witnessed this first hand, and it is extremely impressive. It is near impossible to achieve in the car, although I heard it almost once in all of the cars I have judged.
Let's not fight. I get that your are old school and that's cool. But try to understand technology has changed and changed for the better, there is nothing wrong with using technology to achieve better sound. And until the others have heard what it can be, I have to continue sharing what I can so that they can experience incredible sound reproduction as well as much as it can be. Not just getting by.