Crutchfield: The Podcast Ep. 29

Hello and welcome to Crutchfield the podcast. This would be our season finale for those keeping track at home. We've got about 12 episodes this season, we've had a lot of fun doing this and we are wrapping up season two by answering a bunch of your questions. I am joined in studio today with our co host eric how you doing better than I deserve sir. I'm walking these days. It's great. Oh, that's right, yeah, yeah. Did we tell the listeners about your accident? I don't know. Give me a break. I mean, I've heard all the jokes about it already. You've made all the jokes about this is true. Eric fell out of a tree. No, not a tree. Fell off a ladder. Yes. If they didn't want you to step on that top step, they shouldn't make it look like a step. I'm just saying anyway, I'm all right and uh, my kids got to learn why we follow directions. It was good. It's fine, we're good now. Excellent. You had surgery on it, yep. Is there metal inside your ankle now? Yes, I'm a bionic man. This is something you and me now have in common. We both have metal holding our ankles together. That's not something I wanted to have in common with. Its fine. You know, luckily we live in a day and age where technology allows for that. Yes. Hey, speaking of technology, Hey, that's what this Crutchfield show is about, isn't it? It's not about broken ankles. No, that's called a transition. Got it nice segue. So instead of bringing in an employee and asking them stuff, we have put the word out there. We actually mentioned this on last, on our last episode that we would love to hear from you at podcast at Crutchfield dot com. We also put the word out to our advisors and said, hey, what questions are customers asking you guys that you thought maybe it would be cool if we answered them here on the podcast. So I've got a list of those and we went through our articles and videos and stuff on Crutchfield dot com and found some of the more interesting questions that people have been asking us over the last year or so and thought we would address them here on the podcast as well. So, uh, these are good enough questions. We think anybody that's interested in something similar might benefit from us answering the question right here on the show and let's get on with the show, let's answer some questions. Let's do that. Yeah, I think we should start with the questions we got from rodell. He's one of our sales advisors and he, he gave, he gave us some really good stuff that people are asking him on the regular customers that he's dealing with. Our curious question. Number one question, Number one is definitely not a surprise. No, it's kind of, it's kind of a big deal right now. Why are y'all out of all of these radios. I wish that wasn't the first question, but I don't, I don't think that's going to go away anytime soon. No, it's not for the, for the folks out there that might not be aware of what's going on. Uh, you know, there's a number of variables. There obviously there was a pandemic and it hit us in all kinds of different, unexpected ways. As far as supply and demand goes, there was a huge fire in a chip factories. So that obviously hurt supply of these little processors that everything needs, not just consumer electronics, but like cars, your refrigerator needs a chip. Now you're everything we sell, he needs a chip, your car needs like 600 chips. Uh and there's just not enough chips to go around when this whole thing started. The car companies, like, we don't, we don't think we're gonna need to sell as many cars. So they stopped ordering all the parts for their cars, like semiconductors and the chip companies, like, I guess we'll sell all these chips to other people now and now we're out of chips and then we had a fire and now there's not enough chips to go around. And then, even if there was, once the stuff gets manufactured, a lot of it sitting off the coast of California because of logistical issues of transportation, There's just a lot of interesting things that are still kind of working themselves out at the, hopefully what will prove to be the end of the pandemic. But you know, that that's maybe an optimistic point of view, but this one I'm taking and and we're still figuring some of that stuff out, but we're not holding back on anybody. We would love to have more product. And we work with some really good partners to try to get us that product as soon as it's available. And uh, and we do see stuff trickle in, right. If you're paying attention to Crutchfield dot com, you'll see stereos, cars, home theater receivers, cameras, all that stuff sort of trickle in. They come in, uh, people find out they're available and they snatch them up. They're not here for long, we check them in. We almost don't even need to put them on a shelf in the warehouse because we know all those will get ordered pretty quickly just because they're in stock. And so the lesson here and what rodell, our advisor is telling people and what we want to tell you is if that thing you want is in stock, buy it or even if it's just preordering ble especially, you know, now here's the plug for Crutchfield from us. You know, if we're showing something is coming, we're that's not forecasting down the road, we know it is on its way. So if something is pre ordering double then we are sure we will get our hands on them, we aren't sure when, but we know they're on their way and if you want to get in line for that product than go ahead and pre order. Yeah, we won't build anybody for anything unless it ships from here to you. So go ahead and get in line. So you can get that item, you can cancel at any time. And we fill those orders in the order they are placed. So the earlier you order one, the sooner you will get your order filled. So the lesson here, especially going into the holidays where this is probably gonna be even worse or even crazier or less predictable if that thing you want is available in any way, shape or form. And this isn't just for crutchfield if that refrigerator you want, if that car is in stock, if uh, if they have toilet paper at the grocery store, buy it, get it now. Uh, I just started another toilet paper outage. Um, but seriously, in all seriousness by it when it's available because uh for the foreseeable future, that's just how things work. All right, Randall has some more questions. How do you think Speaker X compares to Speaker Y. And is there any way for me to listen to them? Yeah. So there's there's two different ways we can kind of go to answer the first off. We've got a really powerful tool on online called speaker compare. Right. And we're the only folks that do this, this is a bill project, you know, that allows you to basically virtually listen to speakers from your house, you know, from the safety of your house, you can listen to these speakers and kind of demo on before you get them, that's super powerful outside of that. I mean I think you and I both have over the years just kind of come to the conclusion that there's certain types of materials used in speakers and we can kind of, you know, read the spec sheets of speakers and get a pretty good idea of what speakers sound like. You know, there's there's some tonal characteristics, materials that are pretty much you can generalize things like a silk tweeter in, the speaker will have some different sonic characteristics than say a titanium tweeter and you can almost just saying those words, you can almost get an idea that silk, that's probably going to make music sound a little bit smoother, a little bit warmer and titanium might sound a little bit more precise and crisp, you know, that kind of thing. And You know, you might have a preference if you listen, if you're listening to heavy metal, you might want precise and crisp and if you're listening to smooth jazz, you want, you might want silk. I mean it's not that simple, but it can be kind of that simple, 100% agree and we can get you close by knowing the materials and what it's made out, we can get you really close to reading that to a characteristic of a speaker. That being said, our advisors have heard these speakers as well. So in addition, in addition to speaker compare being something that anybody can do on our website. We also put advisors through that. So they have heard not only house speaker compare works, but how our speakers sound. And in addition to that, under normal circumstances, our vendors are continuously bringing their speakers here to play them for us. It's called vendor training. It happens twice a week, during throughout the year. So any on any given week we might be listening to uh home bookshelf or floor standing speakers or car speakers, subwoofers powered subwoofers, watching TVs playing with cameras. We get a lot of hands on experience under normal circumstances. That's been a little weird through the pandemic. So we haven't done as much of that, but it is so something we are very much eagerly awaiting the ability to do that again because it's very powerful for our advisors to have that information so they can use it to make recommendations right on. So thank you to rodell for providing all of those questions that he's hearing from our customers that he talks to on a daily basis. Let's move into answering some questions. We see come in on articles and videos. If you go to Crutchfield dot com, there's a ton of articles, things that are shopping guides buying guides. What are the best of, you know, best sound bars of 2021 is a thing. Uh and we do that for a ton of stuff. There's a ton of really, really helpful articles that are creative team puts together, they're always writing new stuff and and we, because we're not just here to sell products that I mean that's, I mean that's what makes it possible to do the rest of this, but how do we make it possible to sell those products? We want educated customers, we want to make sure you understand what you're buying, why you need it, how it's going to be installed, What will you need to make it work? We train our advisors on that and we put most of that information out there on the website and we also allow you to ask us questions and we try to answer them on the articles themselves and we thought we'd grab a couple of the more interesting ones and try to answer them right here on the podcast. Alright, let's get started here. Our first question comes from Larry, from Frederick Maryland. He was reading the article, it's actually a video. How does your home wireless network work. We'll put a link to that article in the show notes here as well. Larry's question you have given me hope, Oh, I like this. That's not a question. No, we're getting there, although I do live in a multi unit condo, I do live in the heart of the city of Frederick Maryland. We only have Xfinity service available and I do not know how to evaluate the bandwidth. My Xfinity router is rented monthly from Xfinity. I've been thinking about buying my own, but now and much more serious if you tell me that that move or any other would solve the zoom meeting transmission issues of blurred smeared or delayed images, Can he solve that with a new non rented router thing from Xfinity? It depends. There's, there's a couple of questions I'd like to ask him. Um, so many people rent this, this gear and uh, you know, they could get newer gear and save over the long run with newer, up to date gear. That's a little bit faster if they didn't rent because when you rent, I mean four or five years of running, you don't even think about it, but at that point the products kind of old and it's not going to deliver what you might be able to get access to if you had newer gear, but you're still just paying that bill, You know, you just don't think about it. It's just kind of baked in there and it's usually between like 10, 12 bucks a month, something like that. And you know, that doesn't take very long to add up over a couple of years and oh my goodness, you could have had something a little bit more robust that you owned that can take with you if you move and uh, you know, I, so, so that's, that's just a little comment on why someone might not want to rent? Um But uh in addition, in addition to that, there's no doubt. I mean I've experienced this. I was a silly renter as well up until about six months ago when I I purchased a mesh network system that so I've got three little access points. They were I had it installed in 10 minutes. Uh and so I'm still using the box that I got from Century Link. I got DSL uh No, it's all I have available. Um but I still use that as my modem and I didn't rent it. I bought it because I have to because there's no other way for DSL but Larry has Xfinity. And so we actually sell boxes that are a new modem and a new router, all in one that will absolutely perform that job better. And mainly I'm talking about the job of the router, that thing that creates the network that all of your devices connect to your tv, your Alexa, your phones, your laptops, your tablets, your refrigerator, your nest, thermostat, your light bulbs. I mean all that smart home stuff is all on the network, video streaming, which we all need a lot of us need for work these days. Yeah. So that's one of the questions we wanna ask. Right, is how how many connected devices do you have? Right, we know that this is for meetings, but are you also doing four K streaming, are you into gaming? Are you do you have a lot of smart devices right there? There's a few other things that might come to play um but absolutely, you know, give us a call, talk to an advisor here. Let us answer those questions for you. And a better router is good at prioritizing it knows that a computer running zoom is more important than a smaller tasks like checking your email on your phone. Right? So it knows to give more bandwidth to, to form a beam of internet access to that device and make it access the internet better. In addition to that larry, obviously you should be making sure you are paying for and getting the bandwidth you're paying for from Xfinity. Uh if you're doing four K streaming, if you're doing zoom meetings, you shouldn't have a weak internet signal, you should have a good strong at least 20 megabits per second, if not higher uh from Xfinity to be able to do that kind of intensive bandwidth stuff. I will also add that recently on our website, we added a filter for Xfinity compatibility specifically. So these are, you know, modems and in some case modem slash routers that you know, are made out of the box to work seamlessly with Xfinity. So the setup is a lot easier. Um so, so, you know, use our website there, we have them that also handle voice or not, so that all that's covered. Right in the filter where you can kind of easily dissect uh, maybe you know, find what's the best option for you. You can even just go to crutchfield dot com and search for the word Xfinity and it will pull up about 12 options for you. Uh, all of which are Xfinity compatible modems with routers and such. So there's a bunch of choices. Man, I hope that helped for you. Larry and I hope anybody else having questions about how to make sure their internet is better check that out. We also did a recent Crutchfield live on facebook on this. If you go to our facebook channel uh, and go back to our live videos. We've spent about an hour talking about smart home and networking and stuff like that. So, uh, we got a bunch of content out there to help you guys do all the fun stuff you can do at your home. Now, let's move on to Jason from SAN Antonio. He was looking at a different article, totally different. We're going from something very digital to something very analog, how to choose the best turntable. Jason says question some time ago. I was too, I was able to sample cds from my own collection on the Bowers and Wilkins 705 S two's. Uh those are some really nice speakers, really nice floor standing, Bowers and Wilkins speakers, They're fantastic. He was able to listen to samples from Cds on those 705 S two s in a showroom and was completely blown away since then I knew those were the speakers I wanted. But my problem now is finding impairing the best stereo receiver, Ceedee phono and cassette deck. But without over breaking the bank, I've watched many videos on comparisons and audio advice, but still feel at a loss at where to begin. You got any suggestions? So those S 0705, So thank you for showing me those are bookshelf speakers, not floor standing speakers. That is an acoustically decoupled tweeter eric, you should know better. So, these are fantastic speakers and Jason wants to listen to them and wants to build a system that makes some sense here. Uh, and uh, you know, for the, for the audio components, right, let's just start their cd turntable and cassette deck. How do you choose that stuff? And I think a lot of that has to do with availability for one because that deck, you're not going to have a ton of choices on that one right now. No, and I would want to know if he has any legacy gear that's gonna kind of bring into this. Right. That that'd be a kind of a good question to ask because right, the cassette deck, we carry some from task cam with more. Right, Yeah, and that's, that's not something we have a lot of options for these days, but players, amplifiers and turntables. Oh yeah, we've got and, and those are some products right now that we have some good inventory on. So we've got a lot of, a lot of options. Um you know, I'm just gonna go to one of my favorite as a suggestion kind of those speakers can handle some decent power but I'm looking at like uh Yamaha integrated amp, the 701. I don't actually have the model number in front of, you know, I'll talk about it while you pull it up the and the reason erIC is mentioning an integrated amp rather than a stereo receiver, the amplification is definitely better in an integrated and a stereo receiver is kind of like baseline. That's a good place to start. But if you want more powerful, more high current amplification, something that will really drive those speakers and give you all the sound, they can give you, you need some serious power and an integrated amp has less going on inside of it because it does what it does better. So it's a better quality amplifier with a bunch of inputs and a volume knob and if you really need to listen to the radio, we can get you an AM and FM tuner or you can just listen on the internet. But an integrated amp is probably the way to really power those Bowers and Wilkins speakers. Yeah and and the Yamaha ones, you know and and we carry a lot of good ones, you know, Yamaha like for this category because there's some nice step ups. The seven no one's right in the middle of their lineup um decent power. Um He's got 100 watts by two which should work really well with those BMWs and uh you know I dig that it comes in the option of silver or black. I can't ask the customer right now whether he prefers. But I like that. I've got both options. That's kind of cool. Um And then if he didn't mention anything digital but like 801 for 100 more dollars actually adds an ss saber dac. So if at some point he wants to get into high end digital, you know, that's an easy step up right there. Same power and everything. So 701. If we're gonna keep an analog might go up to 801. If we're going to go digital, he does want to play uh he doesn't want a cd player. So that's about all he's mentioned here in the world of digital, many nicer cd players will have an optical digital output. So if you have an integrated amp with an optical input that way you're using the best dac possible to convert the digital music on the cd to analog before it gets amplified. That's a big part of what makes, what makes it really sound good. So if you happen to have a cd player already that has one of those. You might be good to go if you need one. We've got a bunch of those to choose from. Uh, most of them play one disk, some of them play five or six discs. Most of them just play one. I hope that helps Jason. I think you're gonna enjoy listening to some music with a system like that. Those Bowers and Wilkins are fantastic turntable reference for turntables. I don't know that we are you and I are 100% on the same page because again, we're looking at the ones we carry, we carry some pretty darn good ones and I own a project turntable. So do I, maybe we are on the same page. Maybe. I was thinking this guy who's been into doubling might like the techniques or the Audio Technica, which kind of have that old school uh, almost more of a pro look and feel to them. They're very different machines. But um, I do really like my project turntable. Um, I like some of the cool things. They do, they bring carbon fiber into the tone arm. So, you know, bringing modern materials into a classic design of a turntable. Uh, they do some really good things with, with isolation vibration with, you know, floating the motor. They do some really neat things. So, I'm the morning of the more you spend on a turntable, the better the craftsmanship will be, the, the more isolated. Each individual part will be the motor from the platter from the spindle from the tone arm, less vibrations all of that. And what I would suggest. Yeah, there's so many little parts to a turntable. We could we could spend an hour on this show talking about upgrading and calibrating and assembling and it's just all about turntables. Um but I would stay away from the very in X. Expensive sort of entry level models. I mean those are four kids in dorm rooms and things like that. People that want to record their albums into their computer. Right, That's not what you're doing here. You've got a really nice set of speakers with those Bowers and Wilkins, you're gonna power them with a really nice integrated amp spend 45, 600 bucks or more and you will get a turntable that is leaps and bounds better than the than the very inexpensive stuff. And you will pay that will pay dividends with the the warmth, the the overwhelming joy. You will have sit there reading some liner notes listening to some vinyl. Heck yeah. Moving on, we have Matthew from Portland Oregon. How to connect your home theater subwoofer is the article Matthew was reading and here's his question. Oh did you want to read one eric. I know you are really into reading questions. I picked the one with fewer words so if you want to read this question uh your turn buddy. Thanks for the question Matthew uh So my receiver doesn't have a sub out if I run speaker wire to the sub input and then out to the mains do I have to run both L. And R. That means left and right speakers through the sub to keep them sonically balanced. Or can I have one main wire directly from the receiver to reduce the wire sprawl like that word? The wire sprawl. So um I've done this before using speaker level inputs and outputs for uh in fact I'm doing it currently uh my my setup and uh I think you're gonna want the left and the right if you're if you're gonna do it that way. Yeah let's let's talk about how a sub would normally be connected right. Normally you would use a single mono R. C. A. Cable from the output on the back of your home theater that says sub or subwoofer output. That is all that's ever gonna send to your sub as base right? And you run that to the line input on the back of your sub. And that's kind of it. It's really that simple. However if you're using a receiver that does not have that sub out but your subwoofer has in addition to that line input speaker level inputs. Not every powered sub does but if yours does it'll usually have inputs and outputs. And the reason for that is so you can take speaker wire from the front speaker outputs of your receiver. Run them into the sub and then from the sub to your front left and right speaker. But if you just do it for the left or just the right, there could be a little difference because one of those is running through the sub and the other one is not. And that sub, it's a really well built sub won't affect the sound much, but it could affect it a little bit and it could be noticeable. It could it could totally sort of play with your stereo imaging a little bit timing to the left and the right. How much output you're going to get out of the left and the right. There could be very subtle differences. And you're gonna know, you know, this every time you sit down to play songs and you're gonna be like, man, that left speaker is not quite right compared to the right speaker. Yeah, and I'm afraid it really would depend on the the music, right? Like if there is a difference differences in the base to the, from the left channel to the right channel, and that really just depends on the recording. Um There could be cases where you're just not getting the base that you're supposed to if the base was only met in one channel. Um, so, you know, some, some albums will image different. Some of them are great, uh demos for left and right stereo imaging. Uh those would be the ones that would suffer the most. So, um, yeah, I'd advise running both. It's worth it. The extra wires I mean try to get some smaller wires maybe you can put them under a carpet, get some wire wire some molding to put them on the wall or something so that you can hide them. But it will be worth it. I would advise you to have the same length of speaker wire for your left and right and the same going from your receiver to your sub and from your sub to the speakers. Uh So there you go. There is one other way to do this. Some receivers if you're using a powered sub with a stereo receiver not a home theater receiver you might have like A. And B. Speaker outputs. I'm assuming it's a stereo receiver that he's talking about right because otherwise he should have a subwoofer output. Most likely. I've never seen a home theater receiver that didn't have a subwoofer output. I have seen plenty of stereo receivers that do not have sub outs. And so in all likelihood that's what Matthew from Portland is dealing with. And if a stereo receiver Matthew if you have be outputs you could simply run speaker wire from those be outputs into your sub and then hook your speakers up directly to the receiver and you're done turn A and B on on your receiver leave them always on. And that that would work out pretty well. Two A C. Three ready Subway Home theater receivers from like 1994. They didn't all have sub out. So I started in 96 everything I've ever seen. So about. No I'm just I'm thinking back I'm trying to picture what A C. Three that's a blast from the past. That's what will be digital was called before it was called Dolby Digital. It was a C. Three. That was yeah it was either Dolby pro logic from your VCR tapes or a C. Three from your laser before that you ready. And I haven't been doing this that long but quadraphonic sound I've heard of that. I think I was alive when it was happening that's like I don't know, stereo squared. Whoa. Alright so that was how to hook up a subwoofer in a home system. Right. One way to do it. Our next question comes from Js in Centex, I think that means central texas. And this article that this person J. S. Was reading was the how to install a powered subwoofer in a car article from a home sub to a car sub. Here's the question question is there a way to daisy chain two powered subwoofers. What our options for wiring? Two of them to an O. E. M. Stereo for the best sound. Yeah there's a way it depends on which uh powered sub that what we're talking about here right powered subs I swear I was listening. Yeah so some of them have a R. C. A. Audio out right? And then you could just take the signal uh send the signal into one and then uh take it from there. Run run some patch cords over to the other one granted would need to be hooked up for power separately. Um But in those cases yeah you can do it but it really depends on what you're starting with. Absolutely depends on the specific powered subwoofers and how you're gonna get them connected to your car and if you know you want to hook up to my recommendation would be to use a really good line output converter. A line output converters job is to receive speaker level signal from your factory radio and to convert it to a line level or R. C. A output. And with one of those you can get those with it will have multiple R. C. A. Output so that you could easily send a good strong high voltage line level signal to as many powered subs as you want. Uh And that would be the best way to do it. If you're looking for less expensive ways to do it. Uh Then it really depends on the powered sub specifically whether or not it will have speaker level inputs and a R. C. A output to daisy chain to another sub. Um So it kind of depends on what you're doing and what you're doing it with but to to make it easy get a really good line output converter and L. C. Seven I from audio quest would be a solid example because that one not only has multiple outputs you can use for you subs, but it also restores the base that many factory radios sort of eq out so that they don't reveal how bad their factory speakers are. So that's the thing L. C. Seven I fix is that it makes it easy to hook up multiple subs. This next question comes from Randall from Haver Hill. That sounds like a Northeastern sort of a name. You're from like that Northeast, uh, from Charlottesville Virginia. I've spent a lot of time. It's a good chunk of my life in New Yeah. Is Haver Hill? Is that that seems like a massachusetts town or something? Um, not near where I lived, but no, thank you for playing though. Yeah, but I can't say that. I know every it sounds like Connecticut to me now. Is that more of a Connecticut sounds a little bit more like Never Hill. I think we should google that. I think I'm gonna google it right now. I want to know Haver Hill if it's if it's a south shore massachusetts, I'm in trouble, but it's not their Haver Hill. Where is a city in massachusetts know, nailed it. Western massachusetts. I'm hoping Haver Hill is a city in essex county massachusetts. United States located 35 miles north of boston on the new Hampshire border about 17 miles from the atlantic ocean. So I literally had no idea. I just thought Haver Hill sounds to me like massachusetts. All right, well I love South shore, you know this stuff way up there, you know, peabody and Salem in those places. That was what kind of toward the west. I just wanted to say to Randall's question comes on on the video inside. Crutch Fields product research team, there's a pretty cool video that shows off how Ben and wayne do their thing day in and day out. They are researching cars, taking them apart, taking pictures, taking notes and creating a database of so much information that our advisors and tech support can use and our website can use to help you get the right stuff for your car. Randall's question about that article is I'm trying to find a receiver to go into my jeep. Wrangler unlimited Sahara 2017 with a complete plug and play harness. I have no amp and just kicker speakers. A higher watt receiver would be better for under $300 total for the package. Can you help me? Huh? I think we're gonna have to pull out some tools to answer this one. I mean we're pretty good, but, but there's a big variable here, right? Like the stuff to get the radio to work in the car and what features we retain. You know, that varies greatly depending on your make and model of vehicle. You know, a lot of need to make sure we answer that were good, but I mean we don't have that big of a database. So these questions from these articles, I'm not sure how long ago Randall asked this question. Hopefully Randall has, I mean if he needs a new stereo in his jeep, hopefully he's called and talked to one of our advisors to get a really personalized recommendation. But uh in case there's anybody else listening that has a 27 jeep Wrangler unlimited sierra, maybe we can give you a better, more specific answer here today. So I'm actually pulling it up using our fancy vehicle guide. It's a program we use internally here to access our database. Uh 2017 jeep Wrangler unlimited. That is the four door version. And uh originally it came with with or without the Alpine audio system. I'm gonna assume that he doesn't have the factory alpine system because you know, I'd want to know what he's looking to add and you know, the alpine system. It actually would have sounded pretty good, but it sound alright. Yeah, not too bad. So we're going to assume for the sake of this exercise that he did not have the alpine system. And uh you know, you've given us a budget to work with Randall. So we're looking for something in the $300 range. Can you put a new stereo in there. Uh and have it be fairly easy to install because of wiring, you want it to be kind of plug in play. So uh what we'd be looking at is something probably like a double din or four inch tall radio. It'll have bluetooth, it'll look great. Uh things like that and I'm gonna see what we've got here. I'm not gonna worry about whether or not it's in stock today, I'm just gonna look and see what options we've got. So we've got multiple ways to go here in the jeep and keeping Randall's budget in mind and everything he's looking to do, we can do it pretty close to 300 bucks. I'm looking at a couple options from Sony, their higher power receivers, they're GS models, we haven't done a single din, we haven't been a double din there right around 2 32 150 bucks at least as of today. Uh And in addition to the radio, you're gonna need some installed gear. Uh Physical mounting kit, A. O. E. M. Integration adapter, some things like that, that's gonna run you about 80 bucks. Uh And then Crutchfield ready harness service, can plug those fancy adapters into the wires that came with the Sony and they'll take care of most of the connection so it's as plug and play as we can make it in a jeep in your particular vehicle but you may still have to connect a few wires on your own. And that's going to be right around 300 bucks. So 3 30 ish right around there but you could do more. Like as I'm thinking, I'm looking at this budget, I'm thinking you're limiting yourself a little bit, just a little bit more. I feel like, you know, we could get into car play as an option and so really, what I want to know is kind of what Randall's motivator is like, what is he trying to gain, what is he missing right now? Because if it's the connectivity of something like carplay, then really, you know, like 100 more dollars and we're gonna have a couple options and then um, from there you can get into wireless carplay for like another one or $200 on top of that from some really good brands. So I think if, you know, if I'm talking to him, I really just want to know his motivator is to see whether or not his budget um, is so I'm inferring from his question that he wants better sound because he's talking about, he's talking about a better, higher powered receiver. So better sound is certainly a part of it and you can do that for very close to around 300 bucks just for a little bit more. Your, your experience, I'm assuming Randall, you're like most of us and you're playing music from your phone, whether you have an iphone or an android, that experience gets better when you can use carplay or android auto and you can get that in a higher powered receiver. But to have that with a touch screen that goes with it going to cost you a little bit more than the 300 bucks you are hoping to spend. And for my money it would be worth it if you have to wait a few months to be able to save up and afford that. I would say do that because you will be happier in the long run for shore. Our next question comes from leo from porter ville California. He's looking at our article subwoofer wiring diagrams, which is, it's pretty helpful if you're trying to figure out how to wire your subwoofers to your amplifiers, it'll help you pick out the right subs depending on how many you want, how many channels of power you have. Do you need single or dual voice coil Wolfers at what impedance are you going to wire him in Parallel or series or series parallel? There's so many options. Quick story when I used to work at the retail store, I would go and print off the correct page for a customer. If they were hooking up an amp into a sub and I would let them know, look there's about 18 ways to hook this thing up. One of them is right. Do it this way just to make sure they would get it wired correctly because there is options. So so let's let's look at his. So here's his question. I have a Rockford phosphate P. Three S, two D. 12. And what that means? Uh I assume he's just got one. He says I have a rockin sub, that is a 12 inch sub with dual two ohm voice coils. So just a real quick. Those can be wired in parallel down to one of them or in series 24 of them. So we're going to use an amplifier that puts out whatever power this sub needs, which technically it can handle up to 400 watts in at either one of them or forum depending on how we wire it. And that's kind of where we're getting in this question here. Uh he wants to, I want to connect it to my Rockford phosphate P. 1000 X five. It will be the only speaker that I will be using, that amp for which is important to know because that's a five channel amplifier. Yeah, and it will actually put out 500 watts at one ohm. To that sub channel, 500 watts at one of them. Sounds like it might be a good option. But there's more to the story that amp normally would be designed to run like your four main speakers in your car plus a sub. But what he's doing is just the sub on that amplifier and he wants to know, he goes on, how do I wire the speaker and how do I connect it to the amp? Alright, so let's deal with that first because there's more to his questions. So if we can wire those two subs, those two voice coils in parallel? We're down to one Oh this amplifier, the P 1000 x five on the sub channel puts out 500 watts when you, when you're connected to a one ohm wired sub. That's a technically more power than that sub is rated to handle at 400 watts. So that's kind of over doing it. Yeah, there's a lot of opinions on this in the industry and I'm not gonna, we realize that, but I think our recommendation here, uh it feels like that sub might just be a little overpowered. Yeah, technically speaking, uh we're on record here on the tech support, listens to these podcasts and make sure we don't say anything and do people overpower their subs. I think people do it all the time. And if you know what you're doing, I mean maybe you can get away with it. We do not Recommend It. We don't recommend exceeding the manufacturer's recommended power. So that's technically not a great option. 500 watts into a 400 watt sub at one of them is not a good option. I always drive the speed limit and I know you do too. Even when no one's looking, I'm always driving the speed limit. So you know by the rules, I never get camera tickets when I drive through Iowa, that's happened to me twice in the last year? Thanks for bringing that up. So there's another option. What if we wire those two voice coils in series and present the amplifier with four OEMs. That same amp when it sees four OEMs, it only puts out like 100 and 50 watts which were underpowered. Gosh, I got a sub that can handle 400. I feel like I should be giving it closer to 400 without going over. You know, price is right rules. Yeah, I feel like uh I just don't feel like we have a great match between those two products here. Man, I got one other option that we didn't think of until I saw it just now. You know what you could do, you could take two channels of the four channel part of this amplifier and bridge them. Okay to a four ohm speakers. So you'd wire those two voice coils in series, Connect them to a bridged output of two of the four channels and you get 250 watts, not 150 watts. And that's a lot more power for that sub. That's closer to where you want to be. So with your exact existing sub and amp combo, you can do it. I think you're gonna wish you had the perfect amp for it. A perfect amp would be like a mono sub amp that puts out up to 400 watts either at 10. M. Or four a.m. Either one of those would be fine. Uh Now that being said, you can get this sub hooked up to this amplifier. And yeah, there are a lot of buttons and knobs and customization you can do on this amplifier. Rockford Foskett has made it possible for you to really tune the sound the way you need it to, you'll be adjusting your gains. That's how do you make sure you're getting the right amount of input into the amplifier In addition to that, there's crossovers, you can, you, you're gonna want to use that to make sure you're not amplifying high frequencies and sending them to the sub. Uh and there's bass boost and things like that. What I would recommend is once you get this sub hooked up to the amp and get the baseline settings done. Give us a call if you bought any of this stuff from Crutchfield, just call tech support and they can work with you to set up the exact settings that are right for you. Uh, there's also articles on Crutchfield dot com about how to set up your amp and how to make those kind of adjustments. We'll put links to some helpful resources here in the show notes. But uh well, we could spend a whole nother hour talking about how to fine tune and set up your amplifier. So, uh, this is from the article, the keys to better sound with the factory radio and it's coming to us from serena in philadelphia. Her question is my 2021 cross track sport is on the way. Heck yes serena as a fellow Subaru cross track owner you have made a wise choice, that's a cool car. Oh boy, here we go. So my 2021 cross track sport is on the way and I would like to upgrade my audio. I love that. First off doesn't even have the car yet knows she wants to upgrade that audio. That's awesome. Uh just as J. R. Did. Oh my goodness is that why you let me read this one so you could comment on it. That figures alright I intend to have an authorized professional installation done. My concern, will this avoid, will this avoid, will this void the warranty? That is a great question and we have based our business around the answer of this warranty? Yeah we've been, we've been helping do it yourselfers for a long time and you know people that want to put stuff in their car if you do it yourself, great if you have a professional do it great. The real question is, does installing aftermarket gear like this void your warranty and her new Subaru warranty. And the simple answer is no, it sure won't. And uh the reason for that is a warranty act called the Magnuson Moss warranty act, Am I pronouncing that right? You sure are eric good job reading lessons are helping buddy. Yes the Magnuson Moss warranty act. We used to have it plastered on our install bay door at, at the store. So, so yeah, that basically says they can't deprive you of a warranty when you're making small alterations to your car and audio systems are considered small. That no way should hurt your, your warranty whatsoever. You can google that if you want to read the fine print of the Magnuson Moss warranty Act, but unless the installer or yourself, whoever's doing the installation, unless you, you know, if you connect two wires together that came in your car that aren't supposed to be connected together and you really mess up something in your car that will void the warranty. Disabling safety features on a car or things like that. And, and you should be good. The proper installation of aftermarket gear will not void your warranty. Uh, and uh, if your professional installer does something that messes up your car, you might not be able to get Subaru to cover that under warranty, but you probably can get your installer to pay for whatever they've messed up. I'm sure that won't be an issue. Make sure you research your install installers out there and you'll be fine. Yeah, if you have questions about that as well, go with an installer, your trust check references, make sure other people have had good work done by them, but but yeah, you should be covered by your warranty on the car assuming a proper installation of your Aftermarket gear and I can tell you that it is not hard to make that Subaru cross track factory system sound way better as you saw from the article, I did that in mind. We did a whole episode on this podcast about it. Uh, and so it's, my car sounds fantastic. I have, I've almost put 36,000 miles on it in a year and three months. That's how much I like driving and listening to the stereo, literally, that's my favorite thing to do. All right. You know, I'm gonna take two in a row. You ready? You're on a roll. Yeah, this one about you to know they don't mention me at all in this question. It's weird. All right, this is from the article how to build the ideal car stereo system and it comes from Christopher from Edmond. So the question I'd like to see a feature on your website that helps people match head units with speakers so that I know what receiver goes with what speaker and if I need an amp or something else, ah you mind if I take the answer to this one, go right ahead, go right ahead. So, the, the only real factor you need to be concerned with when matching up a speaker to a particular car stereo is power. You want to make sure the speakers can handle the power output from your stereo or if you're using a separate amp, you need to make sure that matches up. If you might pay attention to sensitivity. More sensitive speakers will play louder with less power, but those, that's kind of it. You can literally match up any brand of speaker with any brand of cars. It's not like you can only use Alpine speakers with Alpine stereos or ken would speakers with kenwood stereo, It doesn't work that way. You can mix and match until your heart's content, as long as you're making sure the speakers can handle the power your stereo is putting out. Uh and so your speaker choice should be based on the music you listen to and how loud you want it. What, what twitter material they're using. Is it a component system with a separate tweeter and a separate wool? For how much power it can handle. Do you need a separate amp? Like how big of a system are you trying to set up? Uh and then your head unit purchase should be based on what you need your head unit to do. Does it have a touch screen? Can you see a backup camera? Can you plug your phone in or go wireless for apple? Carplay android auto? Can you tweak the sound with an Eq? Can you do all those things and doesn't have enough power to power your speakers? And if not, can you connect amplifiers to it? So it's a whole different set of things for picking out a radio that there are for picking out speakers and those are really for the most part, two independent choices. The next one, many, many words, there's more words, this one comes from Arora Philip, from Arora and Philip was looking at the article life with a factory stereo and his question, I purchased a 2013 Hyundai Elantra with a broken factory stereo and and finally having it replaced with a JBC KW R 9 40 B T s. I've been told that the U S. B and Och Sport by my automatic shifter will go dead and that they can't use the factory microphone. I hope that I will still be able to use my auxiliary power outlet. I did purchase a steering wheel kit but will I lose other functions like the seat heaters. So no, you won't lose the seat heaters, they'll be just fine. They do not connect into your radio in any way, shape or form in a 2013 Hyundai, Elantra. I'm glad you got the steering wheel controls if you have those buttons on your steering wheel, it's always a bummer when you replace the radio if you didn't get the adapter that makes them work, it's kind of annoying to have steering wheel control buttons that are useless. USB and Och Sport not working with your aftermarket radios, a fairly standard thing on a lot of cars on newer vehicles, there's fancy interfaces that can make those work but it's not usually that big a deal because the radio you're buying does have a USB and an auxiliary input and it has Bluetooth, there's many ways to get stuff connected to it and playing on it and your power outlet should still work just fine. So you can use that to charge your cell phone if you don't want to plug it directly into the radio. So yeah, all that stuff still going to work. Uh, and uh yeah, I don't know how long you've been driving an Elantra with a broken factory radio, but I'm really glad you're finally doing something about it Phillip because yeah, you're gonna be very happy and don't worry, your butt will stay warm. We have one last question from our articles and videos on Crutchfield dot com. This one is on the article called crossover frequently asked questions, crossovers. First off, just a brief explanation, what is a crossover? A crossovers job in the world of stereos is to send the right frequencies to the right amplifiers and speakers, right? You don't want subwoofers trying to play high frequencies like female vocals, trumpets, and electric guitars. And you don't want your tweeters trying to play low thumping bass crossovers. Job is to make sure that never happens, crossovers are found inside of speakers that are found in amplifiers. They're found in car stereos and home stereos, they're all over the place. And so that's just just so, you know, just in the context here for this question. Uh, Caleb from Waynesville says Waynesville Waynesville, it sounds like Virginia but I don't think, I mean we have lots of bills so it sounds Virginia. I don't think it is not far off. No West Virginia. North Carolina. Yes, Waynesville, north Carolina is the first result on google. So probably wayne is or Caleb is probably in north Carolina. I just purchased a set of component speakers. My question is, my head unit has active crossovers built in. If I put it in network mode, I can control each speaker separately. Could I use this instead of the passive crossover that came with the component speakers? I would like to tame down the tweeters and the passive crossover and the -3 DB is not enough for me. Would this negatively affect my tweeters or wolfers in any way? So he's got a set of components, which means he has separate tweeters, he's installed probably up a little higher on his doors or his dash and the main wolf down, lower in the main speaker location in those front doors and his component system came with a separate box. It's a crossover its job again to send the high frequency to the tweeters, low frequencies to the wolfers and a lot of times those systems have an adjustment. So if your twitter like really up high and kind of in your face, you might want to tone it down a little bit in your a pillar. Like so physically high like a pillar is between the window and the windshield or maybe they're facing up into the glass of your windshield and bouncing right off the glass into your face. And you might want to tone the tweeters down. You can knock them down by three D. B. So they're three Db quieter, it's a little bit quieter. Or conversely if your tweeters are mounted a little lower in your door and trying to boost them up a little bit so you can hear a little bit better. You can bump them up by three Db and Caleb needs to knock his down there a little too bright and the three D. Be setting isn't enough. So can he use the crossovers in his stereo to send the highs to the twitter and the lows to the wolf for at the right cross over point and then adjust the levels of each of those speakers. My recommendation would be, you know, if you're not going to purchase separate crossovers and amplifiers and stuff like that, if you're just hoping to power those speakers directly off of your radio, keep the crossovers that they came with in play. They were specifically designed to work with the different drivers in that system. So the tweeter itself, you're specifically made to help protect that tweeter. So we don't really want to pull out that protection and most radios, even the ones that we sell, not just factories but most aftermarket radios, even if they have crossovers usually that allows you to send, you know, basically everything but base to your front speakers and then maybe just the base to your back speakers or a subwoofer. Uh it doesn't usually let you send high frequencies like twitter, high frequencies, like, you know, cut off at 1000 hertz or 2000 hertz and up. And then all of the rest of the frequencies to your wolf. It's not usually set up to replace the crossover in a component speaker system. Uh, so it's not usually that smart. There might be some exceptions to that, but I'd say generally speaking, no, you're gonna want to keep that crossover in play. Uh yeah, but use those controls from his head unit and uh, in conjunction. Yeah. With the crossovers. Right? So maybe just simple fade. Right? Like moving some sound a little bit to the back. Maybe that pulls away that harshness that I'm imagining he's getting and the reason he wants to turn it down and a lot of our stereos have like 10 band EQ is built into the stereo itself. You might be able to tweak the EQ a little bit to find those frequencies that are particularly bright and tone those down just a little bit. So use your EQ, if you have any questions about how to do that. Give us a call, talk to tech support, those, those tech support can help you with that stuff. There you go. That was a bunch of questions. That's awesome though. Like people are reading our website. They're, they're, they're asking questions based off the articles. They're listening to the podcast. Dare I say, that's happening. We love that. We appreciate it. Serena and her Subaru, she probably listened to this podcast. Nice. How cool is that? That is so cool. Thanks for listening. Almost as cool as this next question, which came in directly from a customer listening to our podcast. You last in our last episode, we put out the word that we wanted to do this, that we wanted to answer questions. Uh, and that if we used your question on the air, we would send you a crutchfield t shirt rob s you're gonna get a T shirt because here is your question what items are needed for a basic car, stereo system. No need for specific brands and I know amp speakers and stereo updates, but I have the factory system so far Cd player, factory and factory EQ and a factory six and three quarter inch subwoofer. I'm trying to put together a good system for a ford probe circa 19 I was about to say 1964 circa 1994 94 Ford Pro 94 Pro, I think we've put systems in quite a few of those cars. Yeah, we've been around since, I don't know about 1994 maybe even a little before, maybe a little before that. We've had our research team in there. We've dealt with many customers. It's a cool car. The ford probe back in the day was awesome. Uh, and he says it's a 94 probe from back in the day, early 90s. I can remember common upgrades were of course, better receiver speakers and the addition of crossovers, amps and an EQ. I didn't get deep enough into it other than adding an amp and full range speaker boxes in my car at the time. So besides the items I mentioned, am I missing any components for a good system? Our individual crossovers are equalizers even necessary with the tech available today. That's a loaded question. And I love it. There's a lot of different ways we could go with us. I'd love to have a conversation again. But let's have that conversation between you and I. So, I heard Factory six and three quarter inch sub and wants to know if he can get make it better. Right, Was it factory six and three quarter inch sub or was that an aftermarket sub that he's added says factory in the, in the, in the, in the question. Yeah. So, so I think, uh, you know, bang for the buck. I like to start with, bang for the buck and a ford probe, which is a hatchback, an easy way. And I know you got that factory sub, but I might do a little bit more even if I'm not trying to be heard coming down the road. I feel like six and three quarter now we can do a little better than that. We can definitely do better than that. You can put in a small powered sub, you can put in an amp in a sub base control can be done. A number of ways can be very simple. I mean a six and three quarter even an aftermarket one with a good amp is only but so big. It's not really able to go super deep. And so a larger subwoofer, like a 10 or a 12 inch in addition to that factory six and three quarter maybe or maybe just the new one will get you deeper base which will help at low volumes and higher volumes more base. I think your base will certainly improve with a better newer, bigger subwoofer. And and you know, I always like to say there's two different types of bases that kind of base that you can feel that we just love. But but even subtle base helps fill out that sound and just makes everything sound warmer and richer. So, um, you know, that's that's where I'd be looking to start with the system. And then, you know, and I think we mentioned this earlier in another comment when we're replacing the head unit, we're looking at the head unit thinking, okay, well what features are we trying to add? And he talked about having crossovers and stuff like that and that's great. But was there any sources that he really would like to add to it and we might have ways to be able to do that as well. So, um, yeah, now being in 1994 this was before every car came with a dash opening large enough for a double din radio and doubled in is typically what size you go with. If you're looking to have a nice big touch screen and to integrate your phone with a carplay or android auto, you don't have the option to go doubled in in this car unless you're willing to make major modifications to your dash. But that's okay. There's plenty of single din stereos with a floating screen so you can get like an eight or a nine inch touchscreen on a single din chassis mounted into that dash. That would look fantastic. That's a new thing 34 years ago that didn't exist. That was not a thing. Love to see a floating screen. I feel like it should have come with that like an ipod or an ipad rather up in your dash. So we've got ones that make that look cool. Um, and can potentially add the features that you're, they're missing. And when you do that, you're gonna have, if you go with a really nice one, you're gonna have lots of stuff built in into the stereo that makes it so you don't need as much external stuff right? Like you can, you're still gonna, as, as, you know, rob, you're still gonna need separate amplifiers to get the level of sound you're clearly looking for right component system with speakers tweeters up high. You're gonna have to find a place to put them because that ford probe did not come with tweeters. Uh, so a good component system, It'll come with its own crossover. A good set of six by Eights and those rear seats side panels on that ford probe, that will be most of the sound. You need add that subwoofer. Use the pre amp outputs on your stereo to send the right frequencies to the right amps. And now I think I'm getting the heart of your question here is do you need like an EQ or a separate crossover to direct all those frequencies And for the most part you just don't anymore. A lot of sound control built into new car stereos. So usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 bands of graphic EQ. Sometimes they're parametric EQ. So you can really find two things that means you've got a nice display where you can see all the lines, you can move them up and down and they look cool. They give you all kinds of control, you can fade things. Some of them even have time alignment. So all these really tweak E type of things that can really get you to fine tune the sound and that comes built into today's radios, which is why you don't see, you know, external leak us as much as you once did. Um, at least not the ones that live up in the dash and things like that. Yeah. And those were really kind of necessary in a very analog world. Right? When you were listening to cassettes, when you had lots of tape hiss and things like that. Uh, and you just don't really have any more. Everything you're listening to is probably coming into your radio digitally. Uh, and all of these sound adjustments can be done in the digital domain. So it's clean, it doesn't add noise. Uh, and it's really, really effective at really fine tuning your sound. So I think the answer to your question rob is know what you, what you're describing is still the way to do it. A new radio that has all the features you want enough power, some good speakers and a subwoofer. You do that and you'll have all the control, you'll need to make that ford probe awesome. And I hope to see you at cars and coffee in the parking lot on sunday mornings showing off your ford probe. Love that wearing your new crutchfield t shirt. Absolutely. Congratulations rob. Thank you so much for submitting a pretty awesome question. It was a thinker for us and we really enjoyed tackling that. Uh, you know, uh, back at the beginning of the season we talked about, we would need some subscribers to get to the more subscribers to get to the level where we're gonna go to Bill Crutchfield and say, hey, we want you on the show. Bill, we want to interview you as the person and we're not quite there yet. So that's why season two comes to an end without that happening. But if you're disappointed in that, you can help, you can help share this out. We're having a lot of fun making this podcast where we hope that you're having as much fun listening to it. If you can get the word out, tell people about the podcast, share it on your facebook, your twitter is your instagrams and let people know that it's a lot of fun talking about consumer electronics. You don't have to be super nerdy or geeky with this stuff to hopefully get something out of it because it's just as much about the people here at Crutchfield, the people that we talk to every day, uh, as it is about the gear itself and uh, whatever dumb jokes eric and I have to share with you along the way. That's reason enough alone right there. So if you're looking for additional content and you wish there was more podcast episodes coming out, I have good news for you. There's other ways to check us out. We will be doing more Crutchfield live videos. We've been doing this for about a year now on facebook primarily, but now we're going to start doing them every two weeks on you two, youtube and facebook, the show will be called Crutchfield live. It'll probably be on like end of the week type of like friday afternoon type of stuff. And we're gonna be hanging out talking about what's new in consumer electronics, what's new at Crutchfield? What kind of deals we got going on, tech tips from our tech support. We're gonna do some really fun stuff. We're gonna do it live on Youtube and facebook. So keep an eye on our Youtube channel, Youtube dot com slash crutchfield for all the videos we put out, including where we will be going live. Also feel free at any point to submit questions podcast at crutchfield dot com. We'll keep an eye on that and we'll be looking forward to answering any of your questions or addressing your needs in a future episode. And uh, you got any parting words, eric everybody be safe out there, Go ahead and shop early for the holidays. And uh, yeah, yeah, I can't wait to see you guys in season three. And once again, if you just want to hear the sound of my voice Three things with J. R. Uh, the band big dot com for the, for our music for our theme song. Uh, this is a lot of fun doing this. We'll be looking forward to making some bonus episodes, have a wonderful rest of your 2021.