How to Judge a Car Audio System by Ear, With Test Tracks
Judging a car audio system is hard, because many people have never heard a truly good one to compare with. Peter Steinbacher of Pssound, a UK installer of high-end car audio, trusts his ears. His references are live music and the best cars he has heard at meets and shows, not demo videos, spec sheets or the names on the speakers. His core idea: when a system is right, you stop noticing the speakers, and every kind of music sounds clean, dynamic and lifelike, even at high volume.
The short version
Judge by ear against music and cars you have really heard, not videos, spec sheets or brand names.
In a great system you can't pick out individual speakers, bass included, and any track sounds clean and dynamic even when loud.
Peter rates systems from 1 to 10, treats 7 as the minimum for any aftermarket install and has never heard a 10.
You can't describe the target in words, so hear cars in person and ask owners for a demo.
A few simple checks and test tracks, such as a tight kick drum, expose faults within seconds.
Demo videos are inspiration only, because microphones distort and phones compress.
You should hear everything at around 80–85 dB; loud or very deep tracks can hurt your hearing and your sub.
What a great system sounds like
Peter's target is a proper system, not a pile of speakers making a mess. Everything sits in front of you at eye level, you can pick instruments apart, and a voice in the middle is so firmly placed that it seems to come from a real centre speaker. No speaker gives itself away, the bass drivers included (watch). The signs he listens for:
Every bass note seems to come from the top of the dash. Bloated bass means the system is not spectrally balanced (treble, midrange, midbass and sub out of proportion) (watch).
It sounds good on whatever you play, and the front speakers stay composed as the volume rises, a test most systems struggle with.
Notes start instantly and stop cleanly, with no lingering tail. Drums hit hard: a snare is not a polite instrument, yet on a well-tuned, well-aimed system it isn't harsh.
A laid-back sound, which some people praise, means to Peter that the system is not transparent or detailed enough. It never tires you, but it isn't realistic (watch).
Rating a system from 1 to 10
Peter's 1–10 scale shows where a car sits and what it is missing.
1 to 3: a 1 is worse than factory (out of balance, harsh, rattling), a 2 is a factory system in factory locations, and a 3 is aftermarket gear that is merely louder, with no real balance and a sub doing its own thing.
4 to 6: a 4 has roughly equal treble, midrange, midbass and sub but no staging. A 5 adds first integration, with the sub starting to play with the front end. A 6 has decent staging and imaging, which he says most shops should reach, though the doors and boot still buzz and the stage pulls down towards the doors.
7 is his benchmark. He describes it as the point where "now we can have fun": great spectral balance, detail, dynamics and headroom, with left-right balanced staging. Every car with an aftermarket system should reach it, even with midbass in the doors, provided the doors perform well with minimal buzzing (watch).
8 has no door buzzes, controlled kick bass and an effortless feel. The speakers disappear, and most Pssound cars deliver this.
8.5 to 9 adds air on top, effortless staging and sub extension; people don't want to get out. He puts the top Pssound cars at about 9 and has never heard a 10, which would make you doubt you were hearing a recording.
Stereo itself caps realism: car cabins are acoustically dead, so even a competition-perfect stage is like a letterbox you sit outside. And self-built, untuned systems with buzzes and rattles often sit at 4 or 5, yet their owners are happy until their reference changes (watch).
Hear cars in person and ask for demos
The target is hard to put into words, like describing a proper Indian curry to someone who has never tasted one. Many people have no reference: if a car sounds a bit better than factory and they can see the new drivers, they are happy, until a proper tune shows them what was possible (watch). Peter's summary: "Everything is amazing on the internet. You have to come in person." (watch)
Ask the owner for a demo. Even 2–3 songs or 10–15 minutes gives you a reference worth more than hundreds of hours of internet research (watch). EMMA, the European Multimedia Association, runs sound-quality competitions, and Pssound cars attend most rounds; see our competitions guide.
At a meet, spend your time in the cars, not chatting; start with a reputable installer's demo car and judge how far your own system is from it.
Don't assume a famous brand's demo car is good: Peter estimates that around 80% of demo cars at big shows, even from brands, are usually unimpressive, average or worse (watch).
Short demos have limits, so also judge over everyday listening, as Peter told an RS6 owner facing a 6–7 hour drive home.
Listen before you look. After demos people only ask which speakers were used, so Peter names the brands at the end, to show that technically any brand could be used.
Why demo videos are not a reference
Peter's own demo videos are phone or binaural-microphone recordings, made for inspiration only. He says not to judge a system from them, even on reference headphones, because you lose the emotion and the bodily feel of drums and bass (watch).
The microphone distorts long before the car does, so any distortion you hear on his videos is the mic, not the system (watch). That is why he records below real levels, for example the Taycan demo at only 60% of the volume scale at the front end.
Phones never convey the stereo stage, the centre image or the depth, and after editing, uploading and recompression nobody can know what a clip really sounded like.
Even his Sennheiser binaural recordings are only recordings, and a phone video of a moving sub cone proves nothing, because a cheap sub can move a lot too.
Listening checks you can do in any car
Peter uses simple exercises to hear what each part of a system contributes.
Mute and listen. With the tuning software open, mute the front left and right to hear what the centre and rear fill play, or mute the midbass or front sub to hear what each adds. His analogy is tasting a dish with the chilli and salt left out (watch).
The midbass challenge. Mute everything except the midbass, turn it up and play something punchy with a tight kick. If there is no buzz, rattle or flex and the kick hits you in the chest, the install is good (watch). See our midbass guide.
Pink noise (a steady hiss used in tuning). On a well-tuned system, with every speaker in time and phase, even pink noise is not painful.
Snare and shaker. Can you hear the snare's body and skin, and does it make you blink like a real one? Can you hear a shaker in the background of an EMMA test song? Needing a tuning trick to bring it out is not the right fix; speaker resolution is a separate factor (watch).
Compare with the original. At the end of every tune Peter reloads the owner's old settings, and owners can't believe it is the same car.
Compare parts fairly. Tweeters are easy to compare by holding one next to the other; midranges are not. Hearing a driver in other cars tells you little, because you hear the whole system.
Test tracks that expose a system
Good test tracks are well recorded and well mastered, so a fault you hear is more likely the system's. A revealing system also exposes bad mastering; Peter lost many songs he used to love. His playlists are on Tidal (search PSsound, one word, then open the profile), and his demos start around 85 dB with jazz and acoustic recordings before moving to dynamic material.
Vocals, staging and detail
Classical is the hardest test: the hardware must disappear, with dynamics, headroom, detail and spot-on staging.
"In Your Wild Garden" (from a Dali collection CD) opens his Demo Playlist 1. About 1:45–1:50 in, the singer's voice opens up with reverb and should sound effortless; if not, the upper midrange lacks detail, and a big dip between 2 and 5 kHz makes it vanish (watch).
"Fever" (Ray Charles and Natalie Cole) tests positioning: alone, Ray should sit slightly left of centre and Natalie slightly right, and both stay clear when they sing together (watch).
"I Will Survive" (cello and female voice) is a must-have demo: the cello exposes any rattle, especially from a badly installed midbass.
The EMMA competition disc is for judging, not for fun: its technical tracks check stage width, instrument size, a tight kick and tonal balance.
Kick, dynamics and deep bass
"Blue Monday" by New Order is among Pssound's three best demo songs and his yardstick for how accurate and tight a midbass is. It opens with just a dry kick drum, so distortion, rattle or buzz shows within seconds (watch). Most cars fail: the kick, roughly 80 to 120 Hz, never reaches your chest.
Sade's "No Ordinary Love" is his go-to for judging the bass line. Angela Brown's "St James Infirmary (Live)" is probably his most-played song, but at high level it punishes a system with too little dynamic range.
Grant Hannan's binaural drum-kit recording must be played loud: turn up until his speaking voice sounds natural, as if he were in front of you, then judge the snare and hits. Most systems can't do this without stress and distortion.
A bass-heavy version of "The Sound of Silence" goes way below 20 Hz, and one track on Demo Playlist 1 peaks at 21 Hz; if you can't hear it, he says your subs don't go low enough.
Protect your sub. One electronic track has random, extremely low notes around 20 Hz that can overload a sub (watch). Without a subsonic filter (a setting that stops the sub playing notes it can't handle), be very careful at loud levels; see our subwoofer guide.
How loud to listen
In a really quiet car you hear the midbass and every note at 80–85 dB, while in a noisy one you turn up to beat road noise, and constant loud listening on long trips tires you (watch). His systems must reach at least 100–105 dB at the front, but a clean system has so much headroom (spare capacity before it distorts) that people forget how loud it is.
Even a well-tuned daily system shouldn't be played hard for more than 30–40 minutes, because of hearing damage and fatigue.
His Honda's front end peaked at 118 dB at full tilt with drum and bass, and he says you can't stay in there for long (watch).
Bass is less painful than mid and high frequencies, which are the more harmful.
Common mistakes to avoid
Judging a car from a video, a phone clip or a sub's cone moving on camera, instead of sitting in it.
Trusting badges, price or visible gear instead of your ears.
Treating loud as impressive; Peter says what impresses is everything working together as a system.
Being happy because you have never heard better; people with no reference are easy to impress.
Judging from one short demo, or from a few songs that happen to sound OK.
Playing very deep tracks loud on a sub with no subsonic filter, or listening loud for long stretches.
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
Comments