Cutting Edge Technologies

After buying your car audio system, you may think the decisions are over. In reality, it is far from that, as you need to decide where to fit your car audio speakers.

Placement of car speakers has quite an effect upon sound quality. Rather like a home sound system, the sound changes as you move speakers around. Thus, it’s important to get the speakers in the correct place so as to produce the optimum sound quality.

You can place speakers in your car through one or two ways, by custom fit or manufactured fit. You may have already noticed in your car, usually in one of three places (the dash, the door and the rear deck), that there is a space for speakers. These are created when the car is manufactured; however, they are created as an afterthought, rather than incorporated as part of the design. Because of this, speakers are not usually placed in the best places in cars, thus this inadvertently affects the quality of the listening experience in your car.

Custom speaker placement is often the way to go, if you want quality sound. Even though, this can be an expensive option if totally custom built, it does provide an overall better quality sound. There are, however, cheaper ways you can fit speakers into your car and still get high quality sound.

Always bear in mind that your home audio system has speakers placed an equally distance apart from each other. This is because an equal distance produces a much better sound quality. So to produce a similar effect, place your car audio speakers the same distance apart from one another.  Moreover, make sure that your speakers are above floor level as lowly placed speakers have a significant dampening effect on sound quality. For optimum sound quality, it is recommended that you place them just above the ear or on level footing with your body.

Speaker placement is vital to getting the most out of your music in your car, so really think about it before you make any decisions.

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The fame of the home audio systems is growing day by day since people are crazy over music and it’s bound to grow even more in the coming future as they need their audio systems to be fashionable and in match with the latest sound system in this digital world. Knowing this, Sony has launched a new home audio system — Sony Ericsson MBS-900, a complete wireless speaker system.

This home system is touted with high quality, dual speaker and sub-woofer system to produce great audio effect. Moreover, the users can adjust the music settings from the other side of the room with their phone. This speaker system also has a monochrome OLED display with smooth touch controls, which are used to control the select options and volume levels. Users can make use of the built-in radio that can play audio from FM and can also make a phone call simultaneously. When listening to music, this speaker system will automatically mute the sound when the call comes in, thereby offering convenience to the users before they attend the call.

With the aid of Bluetooth, the MBS-900 speaker works wirelessly and can play music from others devices using the 3.5mm line-in function. The OLED display in this MBS-900 home system shows the track names as well as music settings like bass and treble. So, it’s all you need is to plug the Wireless MBS-900 Home Audio System into a power socket for enjoying the good music. In short, Sony Ericsson MBS-900 audio system has most of the necessary features that suits perfectly for the music lovers.

When it comes to digital audio, you have two options when it comes to choosing cables: optical digital audio cables, or digital coaxial cables. Either of these cables will let you set up your home audio or theater system in digital high quality that will transmit audio signals in digital, rather than analog form. The quality that they provide will invariably be much better than RCA audio cables.

What Are Digital Coaxial Cables and How Do They Work?

Like other coaxial cables (for example, the cable TV cable that is connected to your TV), these cables employ the same basic principle. They have an inner conducting layer that is usually made of copper. This layer is surrounded by an external conductor along with rubber insulation that wraps around the outside of the cable. The digital audio signal travels through the inner conductor, while the outer conductor (usually an aluminium foil) prevents interference and loss.

Unlike RF coaxial cables which transmit both audio as well as video, digital coaxial cable has just one purpose only: to transmit digital audio between two components. Obviously, this single function delivers much higher quality over RF coaxial cables, while minimizing signal loss and interference.

What Are the Benefits of Digital Coaxial Cables?

Besides the much higher quality that digital coaxial cable delivers, it has several other benefits too. In the typical scenario, a digital signal from a component such as a DVD player is first sent to a Digital-To-Analog converter (DAC) that, as the name suggests, converts the digital signal to analog. This analog signal travels through the medium (i.e., the cable) to the other component (say, a TV or speakers) which has an Analog-to-Digital converter (ADC) which turns this signal back to analog. Needless to say, this double conversion of the signal from digital to analog and back results in significant quality loss.

With a digital audio cable (i.e., both digital coaxial cable as well as optical digital audio cable), the audio signal can travel through a digital medium, thereby saving the use of the DAC and the ADC. Thus, the signal can bypass the receiver and deliver a clear, high quality digital signal.

You can find such cables on virtually every modern entertainment appliance, from home theater systems to DVD players to HDTVs.

If you have a home theatre system or a pair of loudspeakers then you will want to get the best possible sound quality and maximum potential from your speaker system. The good news is that you can get a noticeable sound quality difference from your speakers with a minimal investment in good quality speaker wires. In this article we will show you the benefits and explain, in understandable language, the reasons for you to decide if you want to upgrade to the optimum speaker cable to enhance your audio listening experience and overall system sound quality.

Choosing home theatre speaker wire is not an exact science but there are simple rules that you should follow when selecting speaker wire for your audio and hifi system. Many high street hifi shops are happy to sell you expensive speaker cables which may or may not suit your audio system and it is possible to waste hundreds of pounds or dollars on wiring that is certainly unjustified in making any audible difference on most home hi-fi and home cinema systems.

So what should I look for when choosing home theater speaker wire – best tips ? Firstly, you should know how to choose the right gauge of speaker wiring and this is easily done by understanding that a thickness of wire is relative to the gauge or size of the copper conductor/s inside the speaker wire.

The gauge number, which is available by the standard AWG or American Wire Gauge, identifies the cable thickness. However, you should note that the lower the gauge of the wire the thicker it will be. The lower the AWG gauge number of a speaker wire indicates the capacity or ability to more better pass the electrical audio signal through the speaker wiring conductor.

The general standard or accepted range of wiring is from 12 to 18 gauge. When selecting the right gauge speaker wiring for your home theatre, cinema system or hifi then you should take into consideration the general reputation of a supplier and cable manufacturer and the level of sound quality you wish to achieve within your own budget. You will also need to work out the length of your speaker cable installation and how much cable is required to connect the speakers.

If you are installing a home theatre and require surround sound system at the back of your room then longer cable runs will be required and you should understand that a long wires runs cause their own problems in relation to loss of sound quality due to electrical current loss through the cable. As a rule of thumb it is advisable to select speaker wire gauge from the following guideline of distance vs cable gauge: (1) Distance from hi-fi / home cinema system to loudspeaker (Less than 60 feet)=16 gauge. (2) Distance from hi-fi / home theatre system to loudspeaker (Less than 60 to 180 feet)=14 gauge. (3) Distance from hi-fi / home audio system to loud speaker (More than 180 feet)=12 gauge.

With home theatre speaker wire it is worth considering thicker gauge cable as it can really help you achieve good sound quality results and also as thicker wire handles the electrical signal much better it reduces the resistance of the cable and therefore puts less strain on your amplifier or audio visual receiver thus giving longer life of your amplifier component and providing a better quality sound output which is delivered more easily to your speaker / surround sound system.

Thinner speaker wiring, generally less expensive, is obviously easier to work with when installing around skirting boards or under flooring and choosing a good quality 16 gauge speaker wire will still achieve fantastic results for rear surround sound speakers providing that the cables are made from good quality components and this extends also to the correct use of cable terminators on both amplifier and speaker ends.

With so many common components like the LCD flat panel TV and a surround sound home audio system, it can sometimes be confusing when additional equipment such as an A/V receiver is needed to tie home theater equipment together.  A good A/V receiver is essential to having a good home theater system since it is literally the piece of equipment that serves as the command center for the entire system and gets all of the audio and video components working together in sync.
The functionality of an A/V receiver relies on everything being connected together properly. Once you’ve properly set up your receiver, home theater problems will generally vanish.  In order to make sure that you can connect your various home theater components to your A/V receiver properly, here is some basic information on how the receivers work and what sort of components can be connected to one.

Function of an A/V Receiver
An A/V receiver is what could be considered the “command center” of your home theater system.  This means that it receives input from some of your home theater devices, organizes that input, and sends it as output to other devices that are attached to your home theater system.  This allows you to use your home audio system with surround sound in conjunction with your HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player and your LCD flat panel TV, all while controlling only a single home theater component.  An A/V receiver sorts through all of the audio and visual signals that are sent by your devices, organizing them so that the appropriate output devices receive only the signals that they need and eliminating the mass of wires that can be required to try and manually connect all of these components without the use of a central receiver.
Perhaps more important is that A/V receivers generally work as a digital amplifier for your audio system.  This means that you’ll be able to watch movies, play games, and listen to music in digital surround sound.  To further improve your listening pleasure, many modern A/V receivers have built-in wireless service or USB ports so that you can stream music wirelessly from your home computer or plug in an external hard drive so that you can enjoy saved music and movies in their digital format without having to burn them to a CD or DVD.

Home Theater Components that Attach to an A/V Receiver
A variety of home theater components can be attached to an A/V receiver.  In addition to your television, DVD player, and advanced disc formats such as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players, you can include a stereo CD player, satellite television receivers, a digital video recorder (DVR) or similar device, and in many cases some older components such as an analog record player.  Popular gaming systems such as the Nintendo Wii, the Sony PS3, and the X-Box 360 can also be connected to your receiver with ease so that you can enjoy surround sound to enhance your gaming experience.  If your computer is nearby to your home audio system then you can attach the sound outputs to the receiver as well so as to take advantage of your existing surround sound system instead of having to rely on smaller computer speakers.

Using Your A/V Receiver
Once you’re ready to make use of your A/V receiver, setting it up is relatively easy.  Using standard A/V cables, connect the outputs on your DVD player, stereo, satellite decoder, DVR, or similar components to the corresponding inputs on the back of your receiver.  From there you simply need to attach your TV and speakers to the receiver’s outputs.  Once everything has been properly plugged in and set up, you should be able to control many if not all of the functions of your home theater system directly from your A/V receiver.
If you are uncertain about installing your home theater A/V receiver and the corresponding components yourself, consult a professional to make the job simpler.  They can get you on your way to enjoying your new home theater system in a hurry.

~ Ben Anton, 2007