Car Audio Myths and the Most Common Mistakes
Car audio is full of beliefs that sound sensible and quietly cost people a lot of money. Peter Steinbacher of Pssound hears the same ones again and again, and his most repeated correction is that a car sounds good because of its installation, its speaker locations and its tuning, not because the gear is expensive or exotic. This post reviews the whole series through the myths he keeps busting and the mistakes he sees most.
The short version
Installation, speaker location and tuning decide how a car sounds, not price tags or famous brands.
When a system sounds wrong, check the installation and the tune before you blame or swap the gear.
A bigger amp, more speakers or a DSP (the box that shapes the sound) rarely rescues a poor location or a poor install.
Many popular beliefs fall apart once you understand a car's acoustics, from doors being fine for midbass (the punchy bass range) to metal tweeters being harsh.
Tuning is a skill built by practising with someone who corrects you, not a tool you can copy.
Budget for installation as well as equipment, because that is where most people get the ratio wrong.
Myth: the more expensive the gear, the better the sound
Gear installed in the wrong place is worth no more than it looks sitting in its box, so price says little about how a car will sound. An owner said a pricier brand is not always better; Peter said it is never the case. A cheap Porsche Boxster system shows you do not need crazy money, and the result is even more impressive because the speakers were cheap (watch).
Do not choose speakers by price, looks or a spec-sheet number such as 200 W RMS. Check sensitivity and the Thiele/Small parameters (standard measurements of how a driver behaves), whether the driver suits your use, and then listen.
Factory speakers are not garbage. Peter says that idea is "never really the case". Once amplified and tuned, factory rear door speakers are perfectly good for rear fill (the speakers that support the front sound from behind), which keeps the budget down (watch).
More speakers do not mean better sound. As was pointed out in the Porsche Taycan intro video, a five-speaker car can win competitions, while carmakers fit 13–17. The same video adds that one DSP amplifier and 5–7 speakers would beat pretty much every factory premium upgrade.
Hi-res stickers are marketing. A faster SD card will not improve instrument or left-to-right separation, and CD quality is enough (watch). Peter also thinks good HD Bluetooth straight into the DSP is fine, and would spend power-cable purifier money on good connectors and soldering instead.
Installation first, and why swapping gear rarely helps
Peter says a system is not all about the equipment: installation comes first, then tuning. The best speakers installed in the wrong place are pointless, and a poor installation cannot be tuned away (watch). Gavin of Subtronix says a £150 system fitted correctly would easily beat £1,000 of speakers and amp put in the wrong place and aimed wrongly. Because the car and the speaker location decide so much, swapping speakers does not fix what they cause.
A DSP and going active (each speaker on its own amplifier channel) do not rescue a poor install. After a second shop added a Helix DSP and active running to one Golf mk8, it sounded worse than the factory system (watch).
When it sounds wrong, ask first whether it was installed and tuned properly, or tuned at all. One van owner wanted to replace his gear. Peter kept every component, fixed only the installation and the tune, and the result was stunning (watch).
The swap cycle never ends: another speaker, a new amp, the DSP that must be better. One friend changed amplifiers five times in two years. Buy the right gear once.
A bigger amp cannot fix a big dip around 160 Hz. It is an acoustic cancellation (sound waves cancelling each other at your seat) caused by speaker location and seating position, so if it appears at one watt, it will appear at 100 watts too (watch).
Budget for installation. With £3–4k, many people spend £3,900 of £4,000 on equipment, then are surprised the installation needs more.
What a DSP and tuning can and cannot do
A DSP (digital signal processor) can filter, EQ (turn parts of the sound up or down) and delay each speaker separately. The myths run both ways: that it can fix anything, and that tuning is pointless because it cannot fix a car's acoustics. Peter's view is that EQ and time alignment (delaying some speakers so all the sound arrives together) correct the car's environment, and only cancellations need the speaker moved. See our tuning guide.
Old-school advice says many filters ruin the phase (how well the speakers' sound waves line up). Peter says phase and an even response go hand in hand: with a perfect response the phase will be perfect too (watch).
People think that if a tweeter crosses over at 3 kHz (the point where one speaker hands over to the next), nothing below it matters. Peter says to EQ at least an octave (half the frequency) below the crossover, because a peak there still plays with the midrange (watch).
Peter says one tune is not enough. A judged car is quiet and needs less bass lift below 200–300 Hz, while on the road noise calls for more low end, so separate competition and daily presets make sense.
Copying the tools does not make a tuner. After his COVID-era videos using a real-time analyser (RTA), many people declared themselves experts, yet three years on he sees no better cars, only more frustration. Peter says the magic is "not in the tool that you use, it's in the knowledge" (watch). You learn by practising with mistakes corrected on site, not from videos or remote sessions.
Midbass and subwoofer myths
The midbass range that matters is roughly 60–70 Hz up to 200 Hz, where snares, toms and the low end of vocals live. Peter's view is that good midbass is accurate, with enough output, and sounds like heavy, sturdy floorstanders at home. Subs, short for subwoofers, have their own myths. See our midbass guide and our subwoofer guide.
Doors are not fine for midbass just because the speaker was designed for them. A small 6.5-inch speaker goes into a 50–60 L door that is leaky, flimsy and rattly even after lots of deadening (damping material that stops panels vibrating), nothing like a home speaker's rock-solid cabinet (watch). A door works only when boxed, or high-passed (cutting the lows) around 80 Hz.
Good midbass is not bass that plays down to 30 Hz and shakes your clothes. Peter calls that uncontrolled bass. Using a 6.5-inch or 8-inch speaker for big, punchy kick-drum bass is a big mistake, because large instruments need large cones (watch).
A front sub is not all you need. Front subs can struggle to play really low, and effortless extension needs the rear sub. The goal is seamless blending, so the bass seems to come from the top of the dash (watch).
True IB (infinite baffle: a sub in a sealed wall, with the boot or outside air as its box) subs can play higher notes. The limit is the far-rear location: the sub would play those notes, but the car does not carry them to the listening position (watch).
IB subs do not need stiff suspension. Peter says it is the opposite: better IB subs always have soft parts.
Tweeter and treble myths
Many people think a tweeter's magic is in the super-high frequencies. Peter points out that most people hear nothing above 16–17 kHz, and some nothing above 12–13 kHz. You can test yourself by raising a tone from a signal-generator app until it disappears. See our tweeter guide.
A super tweeter is not there for content above 20 kHz. Not much musical information sits above 15 kHz, and the real difference a high-resolution tweeter makes is between 8 and 16 kHz (watch).
Most cars have loud peaks at 3–6 kHz, but that does not mean you must cross tweeters at 6–8 kHz to make them bearable. The cure is learning to tune.
Metal domes, or Focal speakers, are not inherently harsh. Once the response is flattened, a metal tweeter sounds just as soft as a soft dome. Very transparent drivers simply show a bad tune (watch).
Speaker placement, aiming and building myths
Many people think good sound needs big pillar builds and custom pods, everything they can see. Peter says that is not how sound works: even factory locations can sound amazing, and hidden hardware lets you focus on the music (watch). Competitors are still fussy about positions, for good reason. See our fabrication and mounting guide.
Aiming on-axis does not remove reflections in a car. Peter says they happen anyway, so use them, and that response and detail matter more than reflections.
Peter says a 6.5-inch midrange in the A-pillar (the roof pillar beside the windscreen) will not play lower, because that location cannot reproduce about 100 Hz. A 4-inch does the same job.
The idea that you do not need rear speakers fails once you carry rear passengers: with only front speakers and a rear sub, they struggle. Peter wants rear speakers tuned so they do not distract the front listeners yet still serve the rear seats.
Peter says an airbag will not throw a pillar speaker into your face. In most cars it reaches only about halfway down the A-pillar, and a clip at the top lets the pillar move out a couple of inches while the bag deploys down the side (watch).
Power and electrics worries
These myths are about burning out speakers and draining the car's electrics. Peter's answers are mostly reassuring.
A clipped signal, not power as such, burns speakers. A square signal can burn one even at very low power, but with a clean signal you can send as much power as the excursion (how far the cone moves) allows. Likewise a big amp will not fry an IB sub, because the real limit is excursion, not heat (watch).
You do not need hundreds of amps of supply, because music draws about half what people expect. In the Crazy SQ System E-Class on its old battery, the whole system with the sub at full excursion on music drew 70–90 A and never went above 100 A.
An audio system will not noticeably cut an electric car's range. In the Taycan, playing the system for 8 hours took only about 4% of range, and since you cannot drive more than about 4 hours before charging, the real loss is about 2%.
Common mistakes to avoid
Spending nearly the whole budget on equipment, leaving too little for installation.
Blaming or swapping gear before checking whether it was installed and tuned properly, or tuned at all.
Assuming a friend can do it in the back garden. Peter says that is when things go wrong.
Building a pillar pod onto the trim with only a small hole for the speaker cable. A 3–4 inch midrange speaker then breathes into roughly 0.3–0.4 L, will not play low and shows a big peak from about 300 to 600 Hz. Leave the back open so it vents to the side of the dash behind the pillar (watch).
Putting deadening under the driver, where it squashes out and can wreck the speaker.
Relying on deadening alone. It stops a panel vibrating, but a blocker (mass) layer is what blocks noise.
Watch Peter explain it
This is an independent, plain-English summary of Peter Steinbacher's public YouTube videos, written by VA3 Car Studio. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Pssound. The links jump to the moment in each video where he makes the point.
Part of our series: Car audio lessons from Pssound, start here
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