Budget car audio – what should you do first?

Budget car audio with this phrase alone can cause skepticism among audiophiles, however. The world economy is catastrophically plunging into frantic rates of inflation, local economies are not lagging behind. Car audio has never been a prime necessity, and now the desire to improve the music in the car for most car owners is even further away.

Even in our practice, we have noticed this trend based on the requests voiced by clients who come to our car audio studio. And the trend is that more and more often people want to improve the car audio in a budget. And here we are faced with two budget options:

Clients want to make a full-fledged audio system right away (audio preparation + replacement of all speakers + processor amplifier + subwoofer). In order for the car audio to be budget-friendly, all components are budget-friendly. In this case, the highest sound quality is impossible, that is, you have to sacrifice quality for the sake of cost and deadlines.
Customers do not want to sacrifice sound quality, but are not ready to immediately spend the entire required cost on a full-fledged audio system. In such cases, we break down the installation of new car audio into stages.

This article will discuss the second point, when there is no money for car audio right away, but you don’t want to compromise on quality. And if you have already agreed to several stages of improving the car audio in your car, what should you do first?

Audio preparation

Wherever we start, it is critically important to prepare the surfaces where new audio components will be installed. If we are talking about high-quality car audio. If you plan to install speakers in the door, you need soundproofing of the doors). This is also relevant when installing powerful mid-range speakers and when installing a subwoofer.

So where to start? What needs to be done first to make sure the music sounds happier, brighter, more alive, and all this remains budget-friendly?

Budget Car Audio – Speaker Replacement

When our client wants to save money without losing sound quality, we almost always recommend starting with replacing the stock speakers. Firstly, this will immediately give a noticeable result. Even if everything else remains factory, properly selected speakers will create a completely different sound picture.

It is important to choose the right speakers! What does this mean? If you have decided to gradually build car audio in your car, it is important to immediately decide on the level of the audio system that will be in the end. And when choosing speakers, start from the amplifiers and subwoofer that will be installed in the end (here it is important to decide on the level of equipment, and not on specific brands). It is important that in the end the entire audio system sounds harmonious and coherent.

The second stage is the installation of the processor amplifier

The second stage in the gradual improvement of the standard car audio in our practice is the installation of a processor amplifier. We do not even remember the times when we recommended our clients to install a regular NON-processor amplifier. Only if these are not the cases when the audio system is supposed to include both a separate processor and several separate amplifiers. In modern realities, when hidden installation is in trend and at the same time there is a lack of sufficient space for installation, a processor amplifier is the most adequate solution.

Another step is installing the subwoofer.

And one more stage is installing a subwoofer. Interestingly, this stage can be either the first or the last. Sometimes our clients don’t have enough bass in their car. We offer to install a subwoofer. But when high-quality low frequencies are added to the factory audio system, all the others are lost. And then the client says – let’s change everything else.

But sometimes the subwoofer installation is left for last, as they say. When the first step was to replace the speakers, then add a processor amplifier, and then a subwoofer.

Questions about budget car audio

Here is a list of questions we encounter when clients want to save money:

If you add a processor amplifier to the standard audio system, will the sound improve? Often this is simply not even possible, because the factory speakers have low power and can burn out when working with an external, more powerful amplifier. But if the factory speakers allow you to connect an external processor to them, then in practice we realized that we will not get a noticeable improvement in sound.
If you change the car radio – will the sound improve? In most modern cars, changing the standard head unit is either impossible or pointless. But even in those cases where we could install a new car radio, this did not provide a noticeable improvement in sound.
Is it possible to make a full-fledged audio system for under $1,000? It’s practically impossible. We don’t take on such things, so that we don’t have to blush for the result in front of you)