THE MORE YOU KNOW, THE LESS YOU KNOW

The owners of the newest generation of +General Motors Chevrolet Corvette should memorize these words, they could save them lots of money and more importantly, frustrations and disappointments.

If the typical horsepower modifications applied to the new C7 Stingrays and C7 Z06 cars are bad, the so called "upgrades" of audio systems in these cars are even worse.

The rule of thumb in car audio world is that nobody knows absolutely jack shit about laws of acoustics and even basic physics is fully applicable to the owners of C7 cars.  To be fair, they are not alone, they a part of larger crowd, competing in the everlasting car audio acoustics.

The problems with the OEM audio system in the newest Corvette was explained here.  However, there are always numbnuts out there living under misconception they can fix their audio system to sound better or more accurately, great.

The problem with these people is that not only they accomplish the opposite but spend lots of money in the process, great for audio sellers but truly revolting for owners ears.

Here is another clueless tool, set on the course of Corvette C7 audio upgrade and this one is right down fun to follow.

Right off the bat, this tool apparently decided that less is more in car audio.  As the result, the 10 inch woofers in the doors have been upgraded to SIX inch replacements, with an adapter plates filling in the rest of the opening/.

Gone is the three way system utilizing the stock large door woofers, midranges, dasboard mounted tweeters and the center channel.  In their place, there are SIX INCH TWO WAY COMPONENTS from Focal up front and four eight inch subwoofers in the cargo area.

To keep up with this idiocy, there are rear speakers installed, turds looking like 3.5 or 4 inch COAXIALS, without any doubt, Focal as well.

Ironically enough and opposite to the typical horsepower upgrades, the system downsizing is somehow considered an improvement, WTF?

Apparently, this was supposed to be a sound quality oriented upgrade?

How are the six inch woofers producing better midbass than their 10 inch counterparts?  Certainly, the Focal mids do not have enough excursion to compensate and even if they did, this would be done at the expense of the midrange.

A smart person would upgrade the woofers to aftermarket replacements and pick drivers that could perform in small enclosures, eliminating problems with door vibration.

Since the midranges are already there, a replacement consisting of high quality dome midranges would be a smart move, considering they can be low passed high enough while still not beaming while the matching tweeters could provide the upper end extension along with stage and imaging reinforcements.

The real icing on the cake are those rear speakers, with the self appointed genius failing to understand the directional nature of higher frequencies and problems related to phase and cancellations related to the same frequencies originating from multiple locations.



To top it off, there is an absolute luck of understanding how subwoofers work, regarding low end extension and low frequency reproduction.   The rule of thumb with subwoofers is that the larger the diameter of the driver is, the lower frequencies the subwoofer can play, regardless of the excursion it may retain within linear region.



A competent audio guy would use a single 15 inch driver, utilizing the enclosure volume while assuring low frequency response, without subwoofer bottoming out.  The number of these little subwoofers is irrelevant, all they can do is play louder together but still, only within the frequency response of a single driver.  Too complicated?  Certainly, it must be.  Then again, seeing how this idiot upgraded to six inch woofers up front, not surprising at all.

The final ironic part here is the elimination of the center channel while retaining those truly stupid rear coaxials.  If there is a single anti sound quality decision made by this idiot, it must be this one.

Although center channel signal must be created carefully, using a high quality processor, it can lead to great results, retaining the stage height while improving the side to side sound balance while improving the imaging.  Not surprisingly, tools like this one have absolutely no clue about this subject.

If the lack of understanding of acoustics is entertaining, so is the actual quality of the install, including this jewel.



The alternative?  Leave this shit alone, without understanding of the subject, the already shitty stock system can become considerably worse.