Head units have no impact on the sound quality of your vehicle. Upgrading your head unit may increase the power output, but your car’s speakers make the most difference between a good or bad quality sound.
Anyone who listens to music in the car knows just how important a head unit is.
The head unit is literally the most essential part of the whole music system in a vehicle. Needless to say, you won’t be able to listen to the radio or connect your phone’s playlist to your car’s speakers without one.
The coolest thing about a good-quality head unit is that it can make an old car feel like they’re from this generation.
If you really appreciate listening to music while going for a drive, it’s likely you take all the steps you can to improve the sound quality in your car.
This leaves a lot of people wondering if a head unit improves sound quality in a vehicle.
Will A Head Unit Affect The Sound Quality In Your Car?
Head units have absolutely no impact on the sound quality in the car. If you’re looking to improve the quality of sound in your vehicle the source is more obvious than most people think.
Your car’s speakers make the difference between good or poor quality sound. Speakers play a bigger difference in sound than a head unit.
A head unit only controls what music or channels are being played. In order words, the head unit is the messenger. If you select a song from your playlist, the head unit is what alerts the speakers to make the sound.
Head units are more about creating functionality in a vehicle.
Most modern head units are made to make things easier for the driver. They can easily control the music, or entertainment in the vehicle, without pulling focus away from the road.
A modern head unit can improve your car’s music system, but won’t improve the sound quality.
The biggest difference to overall sound quality ranked
| 1. Replace speakers |
| 2. High-quality music files (As non-compressed as possible) |
| 3. Bypass digital-to-analog converter |
| 4. Use sound deadening material |
| 5. Add a car amplifier |
| 6. Add a signal processor / equalizer |
If a head unit doesn’t improve the sound, what does it do?
Even though a new head unit won’t improve the quality of sound coming from the vehicle’s speakers, it will be a major upgrade to the sound system as a whole.
Sometimes people believe that a head unit does improve sound quality.
That is only because replacing an old head unit with a new one improves the quality of power output.
With more efficient power going through, it seems like the speakers are doing a better job.
This gives people the impression that the upgraded head unit is sending out better audio quality to the speakers. The audio comes out sounding a lot more clear than it does with an older head unit. If you also want to power a subwoofer, not all head units will be able to do this.
All head units will use tiny amplifiers that send power to the speakers.
The newer models are capable of playing all sorts of media, including videos. They have touchscreen monitors that make it easier for the driver to select their GPS or change songs while driving.
Final Thoughts: Does A Head Unit Improve Sound Quality?
A head unit doesn’t affect the quality of sound in your vehicle, but it can improve how audio is played.
Upgrading to a more modern head unit can improve how the music system operates. However, if you want better-sounding audio you will have to look into upgrading your speakers for the best results.
There are plenty of other reasons like we have discussed earlier, why you may want to upgrade your head unit but by upgrading your stereo you may be able to play higher resolutions of audio files, by connecting your phone rather than really on radio signal or CD disks.
This will also depend on the streaming service on your phone. Services such as the Tidal Carplay app offer better quality music and are also Dolby atoms compatible.
