"If it sound good in your car..."

[Blue Jinn]

it'll sound good anywhere."

heard this adage a few time in the 80s. Is it still (if it ever was) true? Then you were talking a cassette usually through a set of coaxial speakers on the rear dash, and maybe a subwoofer. Now you have multi speaker systems playing either CDs, or more likely mp3s or low bitrate Spotify/Sirius.

Assuming mp3 and cassette are roughly equiv on the level of shittiness, does the adage hold true?

 

[DM60]

I have found this to be true, but not because it only sounds good in the car. It sounds good everywhere. Car, big great systems, phone, crappy computer speakers, doesn't matter, it holds up. I was listening to one of my mixes I was playing to my dear old mom, because I wanted her to hear something in my music. I just had my phone, the important parts of the song could be heard, it was a good mix. PS. sounded good on a BAS as well. That is a good mix.

 

[RFR]

I have found this to be true, but not because it only sounds good in the car. It sounds good everywhere. Car, big great systems, phone, crappy computer speakers, doesn't matter, it holds up. I was listening to one of my mixes I was playing to my dear old mom, because I wanted her to hear something in my music. I just had my phone, the important parts of the song could be heard, it was a good mix. PS. sounded good on a BAS as well. That is a good mix.

BAS??

Big ass stereo?

 

[Blue Jinn]

BAS??

Big ass stereo?

I just picked up a pair of SpeakerLab 6. Have a c1978 55W Pacific Stereo receiver I need to adjust the bias and then it's going to be a Big Ass Stereo.

 

[TAE]

Speaking of car audio systems...I have an older 2003 Dodge Ram and the audio system was OK. My neighbor had the same model / year and put a new system in it and added new speakers, tweeters and amps around 15 years ago and it did sound better but not a $800 better. I chose to just live with what it came with.. Flash forward to 2025, IOS and android and car audio systems. We also have a 2019 Traverse with all the new zippy zoomy features like apple car play and man that stuff is really convenient. Hey siri route me to XYZ and off I go. Hey Siri play some classic rock ( Who needs satellite radio?) . So I got a cell phone ticket in my truck ...lazy bastard cop..( I fought it and won) but it motivated me to take a look at what retrofit possibilities were out there that would have hands free phone, mapping and car play...For under $100 and an hour of fiddling with some plastic parts and wires I was in business...No new speakers or tweeters, no new amps...LOVE IT! But the craziest thing is the stereo system sounds WAY better and when I am playing amazon or apple music the separation is much more distinct almost like quad or something.. The new eq is much more sophisticated as is balancing and that kind of stuff. Now I have a little 7" screen that maps where I am going, hands free and apple air play. Kind of crazy and weird how much better the system sounds for a $100 system.

On the OP if it sound good in the car thing... It is definitely an old school adage and IMO an important thing to consider when settling on that final mix and master....all things considered. Bottom line though is this. It seems we all get wrapped up in perfection of the recording. Far more important than the finished audio product is the song and the performance itself. A great song performed well and recorded "just OK" has a far better chance of success than a mediocre song performed sub par, recorded, mixed and mastered perfectly. The meat and potatoes is in the song and performance you are presenting in that recording... But it should sound good in a car.

 

[Gtoboy]

The latest infotainment stuff in cars have the same sort of software enhancements as cell phones and HDMI setups, etc. It's been some time that 'radios' in cars were replaced with digital computing devices with converters and specialized digital audio processor IC's. They chnage the sound of even older recordings considerably.

IMO the car listening thing has always been about noting imbalances. Too much of too little of this or that is often noticible in the car mostly because we have all spent so much time listening to music that way and have preconceived expectations making differences seem obvious

 

[ecc83]

I would challenge the idea that "MP3 and cassette are on a par of the same shittiness" ? Whilst in car cassette was never 'hi hi' (rarely had Dolby*) it did reproduce most of the audio spectrum losing some extreme HF** to be sure. MP3 on the other hand removes/masks certain parts of the spectrum...why it is called a "lossy" medium!

*But since you are immersed in an ambient noise field of certainly not less than 50dB SPL striving for a low noise floor is a bit pointless?
**Then again, how many here can detect 15kHz?

Dave.