It's pretty obvious isn't it? It's just a simple stereo system in an automobile, you say. Although a few people like to install home stereo systems in their automobiles, sometimes it just doesn't work. Maybe prior to today's high powered systems it could've worked just fine. All you required was a radio and a cassette player (or 8 track, for those other dinosaurs out there) lug those big box speakers into the backseat and you would be rocking down the highway. But today there are things like compact disc players and mp3 players and your popup liquid crystal display panels and all that other high tech gadgetry you would believe they would like to establish a home theater system right on the console of their van. If you don't know anything about stereo systems but want to have some good sounds in your vehicle anyway, here are a few things to know about a car stereo.

As I mentioned above, back in the day head units and speakers from home audio systems and professional markets were just merely installed into vehicles. Nonetheless, they weren't well appropriate for the extremes of temperature and vibration which are a natural component of the surroundings of an automobile. Since car stereo enthusiasts were not content with the audio quality of regular car sound systems, and with the coming of the CD player, they really had to begin altering some of these home stereo systems in order to function properly in an automotive environment and now we have the modern car stereo system.

If you own a new vehicle, that you bought from about 1990 to present day, odds are you already have a factory car stereo system in your vehicle unless you replaced it with an aftermarket system yourself. Some auto makers produce their own car stereos, like BMW which includes a respectable car stereo package head unit and speakers. It is standard equipment which comes with all their cars (which isn't astonishing when you consider that BMW is included in the league of "luxury car makers"). Or comparable to Mercedes Benz or Volkswagen, they employ car stereo systems from a German audio system manufacturer by the name of Blaupunkt.

A normal car stereo receiver (also called a head unit) commonly includes an auto-reverse cassette deck, a CD player and occasionally the optional CD changer, which automatically changes the compact disk in play. On newer automobile models, the stereo may also play mp3s and additional digital audo file types like WMA and AAC, whether on a CD or a storage device which can be connected to the head unit.

These days the car stereo receiver is connected to numerous speakers. Older automobiles usually had just one speaker mounted underneath the dashboard, directing the sound through perforations towards the front windshield. The standard for automobile stereo today is a pair of "tweeters" (employed to bring out high treble) on the driver side/front passenger side dash, along with a pair of normal mid-range speakers in both doors, and sometimes even the backseat passenger doors if it's a larger car or SUV and larger speakers able to bring out low ends at the back portion of the backseats.

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About the Author

Gregg Hall is an author living with his beautiful wife and family in Navarre Beach, Florida. Find more about car stereos as well as car care products at http://www.5starshine.com