While it may seem like shameless self-promotion (which it is), my latest book, “How to Design and Install In-Car Entertainment Systems” is finally on the shelves. After months of hard work, late nights and several purpose-built systems, the book is done and on the boat from China. Yeah, they print them in China. Don’t worry, I am sure the paper is lead-free, at least I hope it is.

In case you are wondering, the book covers everything car-audio and then some. The first chapter is all about the fundamentals of car audio and electronics, which is to say a brief primer on automotive acoustics and basic electrical theory. It is presented in a way that is easy to read and understand, so you don’t get bogged down in the mire of technical jargon. The next two chapters are about planning and basic installation tools and techniques.

From there the book gets into the nitty gritty details of installation. Covering all the basics like head units, amps, subs and speakers to MP3 players and GPS. Many of the techniques shown in the book are cutting edge, things you won’t find ANYWHERE else. These are the tips and tricks that make installing car audio much simpler for the novice and may even provide the pro with a few ideas too.

Want to know how to blend a TV into the dash of your ride? It’s in here.

Always wanted to understand how cancellation and reflective waves work inside a car? Read it here.

Need some guidance for GPS navagation systems? Find your answers in the book.

If you are a beginner in car audio, spending $26 bucks on this book can save you hundreds in mistakes and installation costs. You need this book.

Drop us a line if you want one. We will be selling a few through the site as soon as we get our grubby little hands on them.

Pre-fabricated: Enclosures such as the universal Q-Custom from Q-logic is a great way to add some tight punch in a tight spot. Behind the seat, tucked away in the trunk, these enclosures come as small as 8”, so you can likely find one to fit your car.

Loaded compacts: There are quite a few of these on the market now, one in particular is the Rockford Fosgate Overload. The Overload is a 12” powered subwoofer mounted in a fully-enclosed (read protected) housing that is plug-and-play, featuring a remote bass control. This is an easy sub add-on for a factory head unit too.

Transducers- This is a really cool product that has been around for decades, but has recently made a big jump into modern car audio. A transducer is a motor that gets a signal from a low-powered amplifier and produces vibrations, emulating a subwoofer. You won’t win any SPL contests, but a transducer greatly increases the wow factor for any system and you don’t lose hearing . Couple a transducer with a small 8” sub and you have an incredible system that will knock your socks off and you won’t get any noise tickets.

Custom- The other solution is to go custom. Building something custom for your car is always an option, and when done well, will look great too. There are two camps for custom work- factory integration or in-your-face style. Factory integration requires just as much skill, if not more, than building a wild enclosure, because you have to work within the confines of the factory panels and design, incorporating the factory look into the new design. When done well, most people will think it was a factory option.

Everything else is designed to stand out. Take this 2007 Z06 Corvette system with gear from Rockford Fosgate for example. The owner of the car wanted a compact system that was loud, looked great and had audiophile sound. Built with laminated aluminum, PVC tubes and some serious airbrush skills, the system looks as good as it sounds.

Either way you go, you need to do some research and know what you want before you buy anything. Asking your local dealer what they would do with your car and your budget is always a great place to start.

I grew up using Apple computers. In 1985, when the Mac came out, my parents bought one. I loved the Mac, even though all of the games I wanted to play were IBM-based. So when the iPod came out you would think I would love it, right? Incorrect-amundo my friends, I hated it. I called it back in 2001, when it hit the market- iPod will kill the car audio industry. Flash forward to 2008, the car audio industry as a whole held a 12-volt summit to discuss what the hell happened to car audio. I was there and when that mic was passed around, I was the first to grab it and I proclaimed “It’s all our own damn fault!”

There were MP3 players before 2001. I had one, it was a Creative Labs Nomad HDD player. It was cool, I didn’t have to worry about skipping or scratched CDs, but I didn’t use it in the car. I had a competition system and I was not going to play crappy MP3s through it. That is paramount to buying a Formula 1 car and trying to tow a trailer with it, it just doesn’t make sense. I knew it was all over the day I saw Alpine come out with an iPod adapter for your car- the industry killed itself in one fell swoop, giving up its precious market share to a $200 device. Now iPods are a billion dollar industry by themselves. That used to be car audio money.

The problem is that the industry saw the iPod as the next big thing, which it was, but we lost sight of what built this industry- good audio, not integration of an iPod. When you plug an iPod (iPods in particular) to a car audio system, it is the equivalent of playing a tape through an FM radio station. You are taking compressed audio (even if you use FLAC or other lossless codecs), playing it through a small device that was designed to output to .25” ear bud speakers into the radio. iPods castrate music. The software in the unit cuts out the low frequencies so that the earbuds don’t pop. This kills bass output when you plug it into your car.

When I listen to my Samsung P2 while mowing the lawn, exercising or whatever, I use Skull Candy full-size headphones with the built-in bass shakers. This emulates the feeling of bass frequency output. I really like the headphones. Occasionally I will plug my P2 into the wife’s minivan while on a road trip, the stereo is bone stock and sounds like crap anyway. Plug an iPod into a high-end car audio system and you quickly become aware of the differences. Try this- play a song through you iPod and then play the same song through a real CD (not a burned MP3) the difference will likely amaze you, even on a stock system.

By kowtowing to the iPod generation, the car audio industry forgot how to market quality sound to today’s youth, the bread and butter of car audio. We exchanged quality audio for a few tie-in sales of adapters. The manufacturers have started to realize this and are now trying to show what car audio is all about- QUALITY SOUND. Too many young kids have never heard a really impressive car audio system. Their friends don’t buy amps and subs, the local shops are not out there with demo vehicles and flash rides trying to get kids to hear what audio SHOULD sound like. That leaves the rest of us, the last generation of true audiophiles to teach the younger kids what their music could and should sound like.

So what are you gonna do? Crank it up til your ears bleed or plug that iPod back into to your dash and listen to Englebert Humberdink while you grow old and your soul dies?