{"id":2199,"date":"2012-08-10T08:46:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T20:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abtec.co.nz\/blog\/?p=2199"},"modified":"2015-06-26T16:36:29","modified_gmt":"2015-06-26T04:36:29","slug":"sq-vs-spl-whats-the-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/sq-vs-spl-whats-the-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"SQ Vs SPL, Whats The Difference?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the difference between SQ<\/a> (Sound Quality)<\/strong> and SPL<\/a> (Sound Pressure Levels)<\/strong> ? What is better? And what do you as a music lover prefer?<\/p>\n

These are questions I get asked all the time and in the end of the day it all comes down to personal\u00a0preference. In this blog I am going to try explain it as well as I possibly can and also give my own personal opinion on this subject!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First of all, SQ (Sound Quality)<\/strong> is about having clarity and fidelity while being able to hear every single frequency of the song nice and clear.<\/p>\n

SPL (Sound Pressure Levels)<\/strong> on the other hand is about being loud & measuring cabin pressure in dB’s (Decibels)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The usual trade off in most cases is that you can either have an insanely loud SPL<\/strong> car or a beautiful sounding SQ<\/strong> system, it is possible to build a SQ<\/strong> car-audio system that will be loud but it will never be as loud as say a SPL<\/strong> setup.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SPL<\/strong> car-audio systems are built around what people call a “Burp-Box”<\/strong> which is a Sub-Woofer Box built to get the highest dB<\/strong> rating possible and usually sound absolutely horrible for music! They are designed to do a frequency “Burp”<\/strong> which in most cases is between 50-hz to 80-hz and in some case’s can damage Sub-Woofer’s if music is played on them.<\/p>\n

Also there are companies that make SPL Sub-Woofers<\/strong> made for such “Burps”<\/strong> but I am yet to hear one that sounds nice on music!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

SQ<\/strong> car-audio systems are built around having a overall equal sound without being Treble\/Mid\/Bass heavy and usually will take a lot longer to set-up to get everything sounding just right! SQ Sub-Woofer boxes<\/strong> usually will be tuned lower than an “Burp-Box”<\/strong> which\u00a0sacrifices its total SPL<\/strong> output but that isn’t important here, because in the end of the day we don’t drive around playing 1\u00a0frequency\u00a0“Burps”<\/strong> (Well I don’t) .<\/p>\n

There are companies out there (Digital Designs<\/a>, JBL<\/a>)<\/strong> that make SQ Sub-Woofers<\/strong> that are truly\u00a0capable of doing SPL<\/strong> and still sound beautiful on music but this is dictated by the Amplifier, Sub-Woofer and box design!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What is better?<\/strong> Well, that depends on who you talk to really. I myself like to listen to my music (Even if it is loud at times) clearly and appreciate it, others like to have the loudest SPL<\/strong> car and I truly believe that is just for bragging rights.<\/p>\n

What do I prefer?<\/strong> Well I think I’ve made it pretty clear, I will always choose SQ<\/strong> over SPL<\/strong> any day of the week but this is my opinion and preference.<\/p>\n

Overall as I stated at the\u00a0beginning\u00a0it comes down to personal preference and I’m going to end this with a question…<\/p>\n

What do you prefer? (SQ or SPL) And why do you prefer it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now here is Ashley ‘Mad Bass’ Burrell’s<\/strong> opinion on the subject!<\/p>\n

Ashley<\/strong> has been building SQ boxes<\/strong> since 1982 and even now his\u00a0concentration is still on SQ boxes<\/strong>,\u00a0he has even said that he doesn’t understand why some people would want to “Burp”<\/strong>\u00a0their set-ups as a “Burp”<\/strong> is not Music.<\/p>\n

In the last 6 months or so he has made a few SPL<\/strong> boxes with\u00a0multiple 150+dB<\/strong> results\u00a0but this was more to see what entry level Sub-Woofers were capable of. All of this though has birthed Ashley’s new SQ & SPL<\/a><\/strong> Sound-Off Class “SOUNDS ALIVE”<\/a> (Music Only Class)\u00a0<\/strong>and as Ashley<\/strong> explained, its like demoing your set-up to your friends but it is a SPL<\/strong> microphone and the feed-back from this has been great!<\/p>\n

I myself have entered a “SOUNDS ALIVE”<\/strong> event and netted a 147dB<\/strong> while sitting inside the truck and it seriously\u00a0messes with your head so I say KUDO’s<\/strong> to people that claim they can sit in a car at 150+dB<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the end of the day we all have our own preferences and ABTEC<\/a><\/strong> as a whole have always been about SQ<\/a><\/strong>, however we are willing to help anyone with there SPL<\/a><\/strong> needs! So if you want a SQ<\/a><\/strong> box made or even want a SPL<\/a><\/strong> box with a little bit of SQ<\/a> <\/strong>to it feel free to pop-in to the store or even call us on 0800 10 10 81<\/a><\/strong> to have a bit of a talk!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is the difference between SQ (Sound Quality) and SPL (Sound Pressure Levels) ? What is better? And what do you as a music lover prefer? These are questions I get asked all the time and in the end of the day it all comes down to personal\u00a0preference. In this blog I am going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2199"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5906,"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions\/5906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abtec.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}