Rated power
Rated power of the speaker system. Most often, the average (rms) sound power is indicated as the nominal one.
The most obvious point associated with this characteristic is sound volume: the more powerful the sound system, the louder the sound it can produce, all other things being equal. In addition, compatibility with an external amplifier depends on this indicator: its power should not exceed the power of the sound system, otherwise overloads and damage to the speakers are possible.
Max. power
The maximum power of a short-term (up to several seconds) incoming signal that the speaker can withstand without physical damage. Just like the nominal power, it matters for the selection of acoustics for an amplifier (or vice versa): it is believed that the maximum power of the speakers should be at least 2 times higher than the maximum power of the signal source.
Frequency range
The total audio frequency range reproduced by all speaker speakers.
Obviously, this range should not be too narrow, so that the acoustics do not cut off the lower and/or upper frequency limits of the reproduced sound. At the same time, the human ear perceives sound within 16 Hz - 22 kHz, and it simply does not make sense to provide speakers with a wider frequency range. We also recall that in
mid-frequency acoustics and tweeters, reproducible frequencies are limited due to specialization (for more details, see "Type"). And the overall sound quality will depend not only on this indicator, but also on a number of other features.
External crossover
A crossover is a part of the speaker system that divides the overall signal into separate frequency bands that are fed to the corresponding speakers (for more details, see "Number of bands"). All multi-band speakers have their own crossover (component and coaxial, see "Type"); it is usually placed directly in the speaker cabinet. However, in some models, usually the most advanced, the crossover can be made as a separate device, in its own case. It is believed that such crossovers provide better sound quality and introduce less distortion into it; in addition, they often provide the possibility of fine tuning the sound.
Mounting depth
The mounting depth of car audio is, in fact, the size of the speaker in depth. Note that for component sets (see "Type") this parameter is given for the largest speaker, and for case models it is generally irrelevant.
The mounting depth, along with the diameter of the speaker (see above), determines the amount of space needed to mount the speaker — in this case, how deep a niche would be required for normal mounting. At the same time, the larger the speaker, the larger, usually, the installation depth. And with similar diameters of equal size, a more powerful model is likely to be more “deep”.
The smallest amount of space —
up to 15 mm deep — is required by some tweeters. A depth
of 16 – 30mm is normal for tweeters and very shallow for general range speakers, most of these models have a depth
of 30mm or more. At the same time, full-range speakers are usually "recessed" by
less than 60 mm, component systems — by
less than 90 mm, and
more depth may be required only for some coaxial and mid-range models and, oddly enough, tweeters.
