Installing a car graphic equalizer will improve the tonal quality of your car stereo by leaps and bounds. The installation process isn’t really that difficult either, just prepare to try to to a touch work. It should take about 1.5 hours to try to to if you’ve got everything you would like to try to to it.
No car is acoustically perfect. this will mean that your stereo doesn’t sound as good in your car because it did once you heard and bought it in the shop. Furthermore, ordinary car stereos are often drowned at high road speeds by engine noise and therefore the rushing of wind. The answer to both problems is to suit a graphic equalizer/sound booster.
A graphic equalizer can be thought of as a really sophisticated tone control. While a stereo has just one or two knobs to permit you to boost either treble or bass sounds, the graphic equalizer features a series of controls that allow you to adjust different parts of the tone individually. for example, you’ll boost both bass and treble without affecting the center part of the tone spectrum.
Equalizer features
The more tone controls (sliders) the equalizer has, the more control you’ve got over the sound. Even the most cost effective models have five sliders, while the costlier ones go up to seven or nine slider controls.
The top-of-the-range equalizers don’t have slider controls. Instead buttons control the various tones electronically, the positions of the controls being indicated on an LED display. These models can also have a memory feature allowing you to program in several settings for your favourite tracks.
Sound boosters
Even a well-designed graphic equalizer tends to reduce the volume of the standard radio-cassette unit because a number of the amplified sound is lost by the equalization. So most graphic equalizers have a boosters built-in. A typical equalizer will have a 30 watt boosters , but more or less powerful ones are available. you’ll probably got to buy a new set of speakers to enrich the graphic equalizer – your existing ones are unlikely to be ready to take the facility.
Installing a graphic equalizer
1. Mounting position
Find an edge where you’ll reach the equalizer easily. Most units are designed to be hung under the dash on the bracket provided. If your car is one that has an extra DIN squeeze the dash or centre console to take an equalizer, you’ll be ready to fit it there instead.
2. Fit the bracket
offer the mounting bracket (and the rear support bracket if used) to the underside of the dash and mark the position of the screw holes. Use masking paper to guard the world round the holes. Check the size of drill bit needed to suit the screws provided, and make the holes. Take care to not drill too far.
3. Secure the unit
offer up the mounting bracket to the dash and secure it with screws. Position the equalizer between the legs of the bracket and secure it there with the screws or bolts provided. If there’s a bracket to support the rear of the unit, attach it to the dash then to the equalizer— stop any excess bracket.
4. Connect input wires
Follow the speaker wires from the radio-cassette, and disconnect or cut them near to the equalizer. Join the right- and left-hand positive wires from the radio-cassette to the acceptable input wires on the equalizer. Join the negative radio-cassette wires to the remaining equalizer input wire(s).
5. Connect output wires
Identify the equalizer’s output wires, ensuring you know which are the left-hand channels and which the right. Connect them to the left- and right-hand speaker feed wires you cut or disconnected in step 4. If you’re fitting a four-speaker system, confirm you connect the front and rear pairs correctly.
6. Connect live feed
Disconnect the battery earth lead. Find the live feed wire to the equalizer (it usually has an in-line fuseholder fitted). you’ll wire the equalizer to an ignition-controlled feed or, if it’s more convenient, to the live feed of the radio-cassette unit. Finally, connect the unit to a good earth point.
Wiring a graphic equalizer
How to wire up a graphic equalizer for a two-speaker system.
If your present system has only two speakers you may be thinking of converting it to four speakers in the future. If so, make sure you buy a graphic equalizer that has a four-speaker capability with built-in fader control. This allows you to drive four speakers from the equalizer and to bias the sound between the front and rear pairs of spe
