The music in your car should bring you joy.
But one of the worst things is that it sounds cranky or empty.
Maybe you’re thinking of replacing your audio system or, worse…getting rid of the car!
No worries, because It’s easy to fix this.
Let me tell you how.
Keep reading to find out:
- How to tune the front and rear speakers.
- What frequency range do the bass, mid, and treble have.
- Best equalizer settings for car audio when playing audiobooks and podcasts.
- Where you can find the equalizer panel in cars with a digital and analog stereo.
- And that’s only the beginning…
Best equalizer settings for car audio (bass, mid, & treble)
The best equalizer settings for car audio are a matter of personal taste and which music genre you’re listening to. There’s no one-size-fits-all. The rule of thumb is to trust your ears and find your preference. The bass should be filled, the mid smooth, and the treble clear.
7 tips to tune your equalizer for the best settings
#1 Understanding bass, mid, and treble
An equalizer is a great tool to improve your car audio.
With it, you can tweak bass, mid, and treble.
And here’s a short explanation of each category.
Bass
The lower or deep tones of audio are the foundation.
This is categorized as the bass.
Humans can hear between 20 Hz and 20000 Hz (unit of frequency of one cycle per second).
And the bass sits around 20 Hz to 256 Hz.
Instruments that are familiar with this range are tubas, pianos, bass trombones, and bass guitars.
Some cars have a subwoofer to give that extra boost to the bass.
But you don’t want to overdo it.
If you have too much bass, it’ll distort the music and sound like a loud boom.
As a result, you can’t hear the other parts of the music, like the mids and treble.
Rich mid
Humans can hear the most in this frequency range of around 300 Hz to 5000 Hz.
It’s known as the mid.
Vocals, guitars, and many other sounds are known to fit in this part.
Pushing the mid up will bring the vocals and instruments more to the front.
As a result, the music sounds richer and smooth in that way.
Filling treble
This one has a frequency range of 5000 Hz to 20000 Hz.
It’s called the treble.
The sounds connected to this are flutes, bells, chimes, and high vocals.
The treble gives that filling and sharp clarity to the music.
Setting this up too low can ruin the whole song and make it sound empty.
Wanna know the difference when you tweak the bass, mid, and treble?
Then check out this video:
#2: Park your car in a quiet place
While setting up your equalizer, you need to be focused.
Therefore, park your car in a quiet place.
’’Ok, I get it. But will it make that huge of a difference?’’
Yes.
First, tweaking your equalizer will take some time.
You see, it’s not like simply turning up the volume which can be done when you’re driving.
Therefore, avoid any type of distraction and focus purely on the music.
Second, you want to minimize the background noises as much as possible.
Pro tip: Close all the windows of your car. That way, you’ll hear the music much better.
#3: Choose a song
Next, choose your favorite song as a blueprint to set up your equalizer.
Select one where you’re familiar with the instruments, lyrics, tune, and melody.
Additionally, play music with a wide range of frequencies.
Examples can be songs from genres like jazz, classical, or rock.
Something that contains a lot of instruments and vocals.
You might also like: 6 Steps To Play Apple Music On An Alexa Device
#4: Change your position in the car
When you’re sitting in the back, the music can sound different.
It’s similar to the wind blowers in your car.
If they’re only pointing to the people in the front, the people in the back won’t notice it.
So, change your position to the back seat and compare the listening experience.
Pro tip: When you hardly have passengers in the back, balance the audio more to the front.
Read next: 5 Steps To Listen To Spotify Offline In 27 Seconds
Use the fade control
This will allow you to control the audio signal between the front and back speakers.
It’s called the fade control.
Turn it all the way up, and you’ll hear the music only coming from the front speakers.
If you turn it all the way down, you’ll notice the music coming only from the back speakers.
The rule of thumb here is to find a balanced, centered sound.
Play around with it until you find your preferred level.
#5: Open the equalizer panel
The EQ panel’s location depends on the type of car and car stereo.
But luckily, there’s a general guideline where you can find it in cars with:
Analog stereo:
- Power ON the stereo.
- Select the main controller and you’ll see the settings of the bass, mid, and treble.
A digital stereo:
- Select Settings.
- Choose Audio.
- Go to Equalizer.
Alternatively, select the button with the graph logo on the dashboard’s homepage.
Pro tip: Test the music with different volume levels. This can change the sound of a song.
#6: Start tweaking the bass, mid, and treble
Play the song and start listening.
But before that…
Consider the following factors:
- Music genre.
- Quality of the audio file.
- Quality of the speakers.
- Your personal hearing range.
All these 4 factors affect how you’ll perceive the music.
Now…
Back to the song and the EQ panel.
First, open it on your car stereo.
After you’ve opened it, the bass, mid, and treble may be out of place.
Then put them all back to flat-level settings.
Here’s how to do that:
- Select Custom or similar to create custom settings.
- Set all the sliders to 0 dB point (unit of measurement for sound) or the center of the slider.
Now, play the song and start tweaking the bass, mid, and treble.
As said before, there’s no one-size-fits-all equalizer setting.
The rule of thumb here is to trust your ears and find your personal taste.
And if you want to go above and beyond, you can…
#7: Use an app
I’ve found a very simple application for setting up your car equalizer.
It’s a real-time audio analyzer app called Spectroid.
This will help you to measure the song’s frequencies very precisely.
As a result, you can set up your equalizer like a true pro.
#Bonus: best equalizer settings for podcasts and audiobooks
Lately, I’m not listening to much music.
I found something else: podcasts and audiobooks.
And when listening to these genres, much more is spoken.
Therefore, the EQ needs to be tuned differently.
It can be difficult since gender, age, and tone impact the sound.
But no worries, I got your back.
Put the bass, and mid slightly up (+2/3) and turn down the treble (-2).
As a result, the vocals get to the front, and you’ll hear the podcast or audiobook crystal clear.
Try it out and see if you notice an improvement.