Crutchfield: The Podcast Ep 57

[Mullins] (0:00 - 0:03)

The bigger the tweeter can be, the bigger it should be.

[J.R.] (0:21 - 1:00)

Hello and welcome to Crutchfield the podcast. We are excited to be back. This show has been renewed for a fifth season.

So once again, thank you to Bill Crutchfield for paying us to talk about the coolest stuff on the planet. We are here, episode one of this season, this year 2025. Our plan is to do one episode a month.

This is our January episode and I am joined in studio, which is my office, which is kind of small, which means tight quarters for Eric and Mullins, but we are for the first time ever, all three in the same room recording this podcast. How are you guys doing today?

[Eric]

I'm doing great.

[Mullins] (1:00 - 1:09)

I'm doing fantastic. It's been a great week. I've been here at HQ all week and laying down some training content and we've had a lot of fun.

So I'm wrapping up today and headed back to Southwest.

[J.R.] (1:10 - 1:24)

Yeah, Mullins is typically stationed in our Southwest Virginia contact center in Wise County, Virginia. You know, if you look at a map of Virginia, it's all the way down there. It's almost the last county in that southern western tip of Virginia.

[Mullins] (1:25 - 1:39)

That's it. Yeah, there's a few below us, but yeah, I can be in Kentucky in about 25 minutes, maybe even 20 minutes, and Tennessee in about 40 minutes, North Carolina in about an hour and 20 minutes. So yeah, we're real close to the tip down there.

[J.R.] (1:39 - 1:48)

Isn't there a spot down there right there in like the town of Norton where you can go up to the top and there's like an overlook and you can look out and see five states from one spot?

[Mullins] (1:49 - 1:53)

Yeah, that's the rumor. But yeah, you can definitely see a long way from there.

[J.R.] (1:53 - 2:02)

It's got to be a clear day, but you can see obviously you're in Virginia, but you can see West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

[Mullins]

That's it.

[Mullins] (2:02 - 2:02)

Because they all sort of converge right down there.

[Mullins]

Yeah.

[J.R.] (2:02 - 5:23)

It is beautiful in Southwest Virginia. I love going down there. I love it when Mullins comes up here to visit us at Crutchfield Headquarters in Charlottesville, Virginia, and we're taking full advantage of him being here and recording a podcast with all three of us live in the studio.

We're excited. So we continue to evolve Crutchfield the Podcast. It kind of grows and learns from itself each year, and this year is no different.

We really want to focus as much as possible on interacting with you, the listener. Those of you out there paying attention to Crutchfield the Podcast, you might have questions about anything Crutchfield sells, consumer audio of any kind, car stereo, home stereo, drones, headphones, anything and everything. If you can find it on crutchfield.com or it's adjacent to that, we'd love to talk with you about it and answer your questions. And that's part of what we're going to do today is we're going to be answering a lot of questions because we had our social media team put out that Crutchfield the Podcast wants to hear questions and talk about them, and we got some questions. So we've actually got some stuff to talk about today. If you have any questions you would like us to address or talk about on Crutchfield the Podcast, here's how you can do that.

Hit us up via email if you like that sort of thing, podcast@crutchfield.com. Those will come straight to me. You can also post up on any of our posts on Facebook, on Instagram, comment on a YouTube video.

We have people always looking at those comments, replying to them, but they also funnel the good questions to us so that we can discuss them on the pod. You guys excited to answer some customer questions? I can't wait.

So we've got some fun stuff planned. We're going to answer those questions that came in on our Facebook and Instagram posts. We've got our favorite customer reviews that we're going to read to you because it's one of our favorite things we do is getting customer reviews.

A lot of people submit pictures, and a lot of people are very funny when they're reviewing products, and we're going to take full advantage of that here. And to finish the show out, we've got some ideas for you for Valentine's Day gifts, so stay tuned for that towards the end of the show. You ready to get into some questions here?

[Mullins]

Let's do it.

[Eric]

Yep.

[J.R.]

So here's what we put out on Facebook and Instagram.

Crutchfield the Podcast wants to answer your questions about anything and everything related to any consumer electronics gear in our next episode. Drop your questions in the comments below, and we got some. We're going to start with Rick.

Rick asks, I'd really like to hear a nice segment on the difference between tweeter styles, not so much the material type, but the designs. So let me get some basic info out of the way because I don't know, those of you out there listening, you might all know what tweeters are, but there might be some of you that don't. The tweeter, when you hear tweeter, it is a small speaker designed to reproduce high frequencies.

So think trumpets, electric guitars, female vocals, any of those high register, high frequency sounds. When you are listening to home speakers or car speakers, those sounds specifically come out of the smallest speaker in the system, which is called the tweeter. There's mid-ranges and woofers for all of the other frequencies, but in this case, Rick wants to know about different tweeter styles, designs.

You guys got any thoughts on this?

[Mullins] (5:24 - 5:35)

So the first thing I'd like to know a little bit more about is if we're talking about car audio tweeters or home audio tweeters. Not that it makes a huge difference, but there's some trends with what's being used in car versus home, I would say, wouldn't you?

[J.R.] (5:35 - 5:45)

That's a great point. Rick doesn't really tell us if he's asking about car or home speakers with tweeters. I think we should try to answer Rick's question in both places.

[Mullins] (5:45 - 5:48)

I think so too, more of a broader answer that covers both.

[J.R.] (5:48 - 5:57)

Yeah. So I think car is the easier one to answer. Let's do that one first.

I think there's more to talk about in the realm of home speaker tweeters.

[Mullins] (5:57 - 5:58)

I do too, yeah.

[J.R.] (5:58 - 6:19)

There's a lot of limitations in a car, right? Like the tweeters kind of have to be a certain size, generally a certain shape to make them easy to install or easy to replace the factory tweeter in a car. So typically, tweeters made for car audio are kind of small, about an inch in diameter, sometimes smaller and round.

[Mullins] (6:19 - 6:19)

Yeah.

[Eric] (6:20 - 6:22)

That's consistent, yes.

[Mullins] (6:23 - 6:42)

The size, they are small, but really the bigger the tweeter can be, the bigger it should be, right? Because blending is way easier when you're using a little bit larger tweeter that has a wider frequency response down towards the mid-range frequencies. You know what I mean?

[J.R.] (6:42 - 6:43)

100 percent, yes.

[Mullins] (6:43 - 6:51)

So you know, a half-inch tweeter, you know, that's usually done for a reason so that it fits in a location that you want to put a tweeter, right?

[J.R.] (6:51 - 6:51)

Yeah.

[Mullins] (6:51 - 7:12)

But if you have the opportunity to put a larger tweeter, then you get more surface or cone area perhaps, because we call it a diaphragm and a tweeter instead, right? But you get more area, more surface area. So you know, that's going to allow the tweeter to play a little further down in that sweet, sweet spot of the frequency range where our ears actually work, right? You know what I mean?

[J.R.] (7:12 - 7:31)

And you'll typically find that if you're looking at one brand of speakers, you know, they'll typically, they'll have multiple lines in that brand. Kind of a good, better, best thing.

And this is usually one of the things that gets better as you spend more money and get the better speakers is the tweeter gets bigger.

[Mullins] (7:31 - 7:31)

Exactly.

[J.R.] (7:32 - 7:34)

Half-inch, three-quarter-inch, one-inch.

[Mullins] (7:34 - 7:40)

Yeah, I mean, if you look at like the Audio Frog tweeters, I mean, we all know those are kind of some of the best tweeters that we carry.

[J.R.] (7:40 - 7:43)

And they're larger than almost every other tweeter we sell.

[Mullins] (7:43 - 7:51)

They sure are. Go check out the frequency response on one of their best tweeters they have and compare that to, say, another one in the $100 range.

[J.R.] (7:52 - 8:10)

All right, I'm looking them up now. Audio Frog tweeters, the GB10, one-inch. They also have the GB15, one-and-a-half-inch.

[Mullins]

That's the one to zone in on. Let's talk about that one.

[J.R.]So the GB15, one-and-a-half-inch, soft dome tweeter with a frequency response of 1300 to 20k.

[Mullins] (8:11 - 8:14)

So now what do we compare that to in a typical one-inch tweeter?

[J.R.] (8:14 - 8:32)

Let's just compare it to the Audio Frog one-inch tweeter and see, because that's a pretty fair comparison. What do you get for that larger size? And the one-inch tweeter only goes down to 1800 hertz.

So you're getting 500 more hertz or frequencies that that tweeter can play.

[Mullins] (8:32 - 8:51)

That's huge. 500 hertz makes an enormous difference in the way that's going to blend and image and sound stage. So 1800 hertz, though, that's still really, really low, because when we train our new hires, we try to embed the number 3500 hertz into their minds.

[J.R.] (8:52 - 8:55)

It's a good sort of crossover point when you're going from tweeter to mid-range.

[Mullins] (8:55 - 8:56)

Yep, exactly.

[J.R.] (8:56 - 9:03)

So if any of this sounds like Greek to you, what we're talking about is the lowest frequency a tweeter can play.

[Mullins] (9:03 - 9:04)

Yes.

[J.R.] (9:04 - 9:13)

Right? Tweeters can all do high frequencies. That's their job.

But how low can they go? And if it can go lower, it blends nicer, and your overall speaker system sounds better.

[Mullins] (9:13 - 9:28)

That's right. So now go compare that to, say, JBL Club 194T. This is a more, it's a $100 pair of tweeters.

Great sounding tweeter, by the way. JBL Infinity, both of those are major players.

[J.R.] (9:28 - 9:40)

Yeah, great sounding tweeter, but limited by its size. It's a three-quarter inch tweeter, so smaller than any of the AudioFrog tweeters. Its frequency response bottoms out at 3000 hertz.

[Eric] (9:40 - 9:58)

And, of course, the listeners at home don't have video to support this, but these are standalone tweeters sold kind of a la carte that would be, you know, you would complement it with full-range drivers and crossovers. So it's kind of an a la carte solution. So it really allows us to try to drill in just on that one component.

[J.R.] (9:58 - 10:24)

I'm wondering if that was actually a part of Rick's question, talking about component tweeters in a car versus the tweeters that can be built into, like, a six-and-a-half or a six-by-nine two-way or coaxial speaker. I mean, there's just no doubt this is an easy one. Separate the tweeter from the coax whenever you can.

That's why so many factory radios include separate tweeters now. And so now you have a tweeter location. Replace it with the biggest tweeter you can put in there.

[Mullins] (10:25 - 10:42)

Yeah, so that concept of separating the tweeter and the woofer like you were talking about, that plays really well into why we use the words like imaging and soundstage and things like that, right? I mean, if you don't separate it, then that's going to hinder your ability to create a good stereo image and a good soundstage.

[J.R.] (10:43 - 10:51)

Yeah, if the tweeter is in the six-and-a-half inch down at the bottom front corner of your door, you got a soundstage that your feet will really appreciate.

[Mullins] (10:51 - 10:51)

Yeah.

[J.R.] (10:51 - 10:59)

But your ears, however, will be missing out, and if you raise those tweeters up, it sounds like your band is playing on the hood of your car.

[Mullins] (10:59 - 10:59)

Right.

[J.R.] (10:59 - 11:00)

Like, that's what you want.

[Mullins] (11:00 - 11:17)

That's what you want, yeah. You want your vocals to be centered basically over where your receiver is, and it should sound natural. That's what we're going for.

But it's interesting that we landed on this JBL specifically because one of the unique characteristics of this one is that it's an edge-driven tweeter.

[J.R.] (11:17 - 11:20)

Edge-driven, I'll bet many of our listeners might not know what that means.

[Mullins] (11:20 - 12:00)

Probably not, and I was actually surprised by the frequency response on this one until I recognized the size on it, because while we're talking about crossover points and the ability to play lower frequencies, that is the benefit or one of the big benefits of an edge-driven tweeter is that you get the, if you're looking at a three-quarter inch tweeter that's edge-driven versus a three-quarter inch tweeter that's traditional, then you basically get a larger quote-unquote cone, or like I said in tweeter talk, that's called a diaphragm.

So within the same area of three-quarters of an inch, you get a larger surface area, right?

[J.R.] (12:00 - 12:04)

Which is what moves the air and makes the sound you can hear.

[Mullins] (12:04 - 12:18)

Which then in turn allows it to play a little bit lower. So my point is that a three thousand hertz beginning frequency response on a three-quarter inch tweeter is pretty remarkable, and that's only achieved because this one is an edge-driven style.

[J.R.] (12:18 - 12:33)

And edge-driven, the real fundamental difference behind that is the size of the voice coil, right? Instead of having a tiny little voice coil right in the middle of a three-quarter inch tweeter, the voice coil is three-quarter inches in diameter too, because it's driving the speaker in and out from the edge instead of from the center.

[Mullins] (12:34 - 13:09)

Nailed it. Couldn't have said it better myself. So edge-driven, one of the things about that is there's really no drawback to an edge-driven tweeter from an audio standpoint.

The only drawback is cost. They're more difficult and more expensive to make. So if you search for edge-driven tweeter on our website, you'll only see three results.

And two of the three are going to be JL Audio, a really nice high-end brand. And of course, JBL with that coming in for the win at $100 for an edge-driven tweeter. That's a good bargain.

[J.R.] (13:10 - 13:19)

Nice. All right. I think there's not much more to talk about with tweeter styles and designs in car audio.

Rick may have been asking about home audio. So what do we got there?

[Eric] (13:20 - 13:32)

There are some designs that are maybe a little bit more specific for home. So I think of like a folded motion tweeter, and I haven't seen that yet implemented in a car audio situation.

[J.R.] (13:32 - 14:01)

Yeah. Home speaker tweeters are a whole different animal from car because of the space available, right? In floor standing and bookshelf speakers, they're physically larger and manufacturers and speaker designers can go hog wild, right, with creating new and different styles of tweeters that we can take advantage of in home audio.

You specifically mentioned folded motion. Right. You just don't find that in the car.

What is a folded motion tweeter?

[Eric] (14:01 - 14:19)

So you basically will have a piece of material. It's more of like a soft dome material type of material, and it's energized and it's folded. If you look down close, it kind of looks like corduroy.

It's just a very different looking thing. Typically, if you're looking at it from across the room, it'll appear square opposed to circular.

[J.R.] (14:21 - 14:33)

Talk about size, right? It's a much larger piece of material. It's not simply a one inch or one and a half inch.

It's physically very much larger than that, but then folded down accordion style.

[Eric] (14:33 - 14:36)

Exactly. It looks to me, I've always thought it kind of looked like corduroy.

[Mullins] (14:36 - 14:38)

It kind of does. I never thought about that.

[Eric] (14:39 - 15:39)

And the idea there is it has more surface space than if it didn't look like corduroy or if it wasn't folded. And not just a little bit more surface, but a lot more surface area.

[Eric]

Right. So and then everything that we just talked about, you know, with the larger dome tweeters, larger surface space, now we're using, you know, folding that piece of material to gain surface space. So all those things are still true. It can handle more power, typically can blend a little bit nicer.

To me, it's one of my favorite tweeter designs is that folded motion design. I find that it's got all the smoothness of a soft dome tweeter, which I've always kind of leaned toward. And yeah, I really like it.

Usually a really large sound field, those little folds, each little surface space projects sound out. And since it has those folds, it typically has a very wide dispersion of that sound, which to me, translates to really good imaging and a big open sound. So I really dig it.

[J.R.] (15:39 - 16:06)

And you'll see these, if you're looking through like our speakers on the site, you'll see these as folded motion. Some of them call them air motion transformers. Some of them are called ribbon tweeters, right?

That's actually, if you're looking through speakers, looking for a filter to find all the speakers with this style of tweeter, we call it ribbon tweeter. Yep, there you go. And you'll find them from Wharfedale, from Martin Logan, Golden Ear, Monitor Audio, Elac.

There's a bunch of really, really nice speakers with folded motion tweeters.

[Eric] (16:06 - 16:37)

Yeah, about 15 years ago, we saw them here. I think first with Martin Logan came out with their motion series. And then after that, you know, a lot of companies started offering them.

They've really saw the benefits and we're seeing more and more. Wasn't a thing all that long ago. You know, I don't think about speaker design, maybe changing as quickly as say, TV or home theater, you know, with the electronics, things seem to evolve very quickly.

Speaker design, good speakers from 20 years ago, still good speaker today. But 20 years ago, we didn't have that tweeter, at least I didn't see it in anything.

[Mullins] (16:38 - 16:51)

And yeah, for me, folded motion tweeters are the least fatiguing tweeter styles that I've listened to over the years. So if you listen to music for any length of time, that's a very important thing to consider.

[J.R.] (16:51 - 17:06)

Yeah, they're very smooth, very warm in general. They're generally made of a softer material, not a, you know, a rigid metal type of material. So you get that warmth, you get the lower frequency response because of their size.

So a lot of benefits to the folded motion tweeter.

[Mullins] (17:06 - 17:17)

Another thing that we should consider when we talk about folded motion is that we have headphones where there are folded motion drivers in there that cover the full frequency range, right?

[J.R.] (17:18 - 17:18)

Yeah.

[Mullins] (17:18 - 17:38)

So I mean, that's a testament to what that folded motion tweeter is capable of as we, hopefully you're identifying a trend at this point. If you're listening that, you know, the surface area and the design of the tweeter, the goal here is to design it to produce the results as if it were way larger than it actually is, right?

[J.R.] (17:39 - 17:39)

For sure.

[Mullins] (17:39 - 17:40)

Yeah.

[Eric] (17:40 - 17:50)

Size does matter. As much as we love those ribbon tweeters, we're not seeing them in the car environment because they haven't quite figured out how to make that work yet in those extreme variances.

[J.R.] (17:50 - 18:02)

So speaking of tweeters that you really only find in like home audio, and that would be horn tweeters. Like you see them on Klipsch, you see them on JBL, but you don't really see them much in car audio.

[Eric] (18:02 - 18:08)

I think we actually do. We are starting to see some creep into car audio. Let's check.

[J.R.] (18:08 - 18:09)

There's a few outliers. They're certainly not mainstream in car. Yeah. And imagine they're there because you're going to use them in situations where you want it to play really, really loud, right?

So like on a motorcycle or on a boat or something like that. It's like cicada audio.

[Eric]

Yeah, that's it.

[J.R.] (18:23 - 18:25)

Mullins, you got any thoughts on horn tweeters?

[Mullins] (18:26 - 18:39)

I do actually. Yeah. Transitioning from talking about edge-driven tweeters into home and talking about car tweeters, we kind of have to talk about dispersion a little bit too.

I mean, that goes hand in hand with horn tweeters, doesn't it?

[J.R.] (18:39 - 18:44)

You mean like how pinpoint accurate is the tweeter versus how wide does the sound come out of the tweeter?

[Mullins] (18:45 - 19:11)

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, just a real brief thing on the edge-driven tweeters. You know, one of the big advantages also of edge-driven tweeters, in addition to the higher power handling Eric alluded to earlier, and you know, of course, the lower frequencies, but dispersion in car audio is a really important thing because the environment that he was talking about, we have a lot of reflective surfaces in a really small area, right?

[J.R.] (19:12 - 19:12)

Yeah.

[Mullins] (19:12 - 19:21)

So the wider dispersion in the car is a really, really good thing, of course. And then in contrast, the horn tweeter kind of, you know, brings it into focus, doesn't it?

[J.R.] (19:22 - 19:24)

For sure. And amplifies it.

[Mullins] (19:24 - 19:36)

Exactly. Yeah. So it's, you know, the same concept as a megaphone.

You know, if you're going to talk to a large crowd, the megaphone is sort of shaped like a horn tweeter or the horn around a tweeter is what I'm trying to say.

[J.R.] (19:36 - 19:59)

Exactly. So if you look at a megaphone, there's like a tiny little speaker in the back and then this huge horn. And the reason a megaphone is loud is because of the combination of loading that tweeter into the horn and then the sound as it comes out of the tweeter, it's just amplified.

So a horn loaded tweeter or any horn loaded speaker is significantly more efficient, meaning you get more sound with less power.

[Mullins] (19:59 - 20:01)

Yeah, because you blast it out of the megaphone essentially.

[Eric] (20:01 - 20:35)

Yeah. If you stand right next to that person with the megaphone and you're standing beside them, not with the horn focused on you, it's not that loud, right?

[Mullins]

It dissipates quickly.

[Eric]

But if you're standing right in front of or 10 feet away from, you can be way closer to someone beside the megaphone than you would be out in front of them, right? So that has to do with the focusing that sound, you know, projecting that sound out, which then also plays into things like imaging. And, you know, sometimes that's a great thing to be able to focus that sound, but then other times it might not be as desirable.

[Mullins]

So are you saying that it depends?

[Eric]Depends.

[Mullins] (20:35 - 20:36)

Depends.

[J.R.] (20:36 - 21:05)

I've made no secret of the fact that I am a huge Klipsch speaker fan and Klipsch is known for their horn loaded tweeters. Most of their speakers have it. And there are plenty of people out there that don't love how bright and loud that sounds.

Now Klipsch has done a lot of wonderful things over the years to sort of soften the Tractrix horn. They've got a patented design that makes that very pleasing to the ear yet also retains the benefits of a horn. So I think that's one of the reasons I love them so much.

[Mullins] (21:05 - 21:17)

In the home atmosphere, we're able to point those speakers exactly where we need in order to get that sound dispersed in the way we need to. So we do that with towing in our speakers a little bit and, you know.

[J.R.] (21:17 - 21:19)

And placing your chair right in the sweet spot.

[Mullins] (21:20 - 21:29)

Right, right. So, you know, you can't do that in the car. You know, you'd be driving the car from sitting on top of the console and nobody really wants to do that, right?

[Eric] (21:29 - 22:10)

Yeah, I think that actually when we talk about placement and, you know, it's a lot easier in the home than it would be in the car. But, you know, whether or not it's home or car, one of the features we often see, you know, that relates to tweeter design is if it's a pivotable tweeter, right? We see that in, you know, in-wall and in-ceiling speakers often.

We also see that in coax style car speakers as well with that idea. So that if your speakers, you know, in the car environment, if your speakers are down by your knees, which I love that that's, one of the most popular places to put speakers is down by your knees in a car, you can pivot that tweeter back up towards your ear holes to have maybe a chance at a little better imaging.

[J.R.] (22:10 - 23:12)

Yeah, and anytime you can aim the tweeter, it will help compensate for poor speaker location, right? Which is important in ceiling, in-wall and in cars, not so much with floor standings and bookshelves because you can place them where you want them.

[Eric]

Right, right.

One last tweeter design I think we should hit on here. If you look through our floor standing speakers on crutchfield.com, you can't help but notice Bowers & Wilkins is doing something different than everybody else. There's a thing on the top of some of their speakers like the 703 series of speakers has a tweeter on top of, like separated from the rest of the cabinet where the mid-ranges and the woofers and things like that are, and they call it their decoupled carbon dome tweeter.

So it's a round tweeter design, so kind of typical what we've already talked about, but it is acoustically separated from the rest of the cabinet. So the vibrations from the bass and the mid-range will have almost no effect on the tweeter's ability to accurately reproduce those high frequencies.

[Mullins] (23:12 - 23:16)

I think it looks like a space rocket docked on top of the speaker.

[J.R.]

It does look pretty cool.

[Eric] (23:16 - 23:25)

I've definitely seen customers back in my retail days go up to those speakers and try to turn the tweeter because they think that's a volume knob.

[Mullins] (23:25 - 23:27)

Oh wow, yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

[J.R.] (23:27 - 23:43)

And when they put them on bookshelf speakers, it almost seems like a handle, like don't grab the speaker from the tweeter on top. That's not what it's for. When you do grab it, you'll notice it feels a little loose, and that's because of like the rubbery mount that it's on.

That's the thing that acoustically decouples it from the rest of the speaker.

[Mullins] (23:43 - 24:07)

So it's a pretty brilliant design, really. And the rubbery thing that we're talking about is, it's essentially, well not essentially, it's literally a suspension system, right? And that's in our cars, our suspension system decouples us from the road so that we don't feel all the vibrations.

So it's not, it's a brilliant design, although it's a simple concept and it works fabulously.

[J.R.] (24:08 - 24:15)

Dang, I think we just made an entire episode out of one question from our Facebook post, and we've got more questions to answer.

[Mullins] (24:15 - 24:15)

All right.

[J.R.] (24:15 - 24:17)

Shall we move on?

[Eric] (24:17 - 24:19)

Maybe the answers will be shorter if they're a little more specific.

[J.R.] (24:19 - 24:43)

I have a feeling this next one won't take as long. Okay. John on our Facebook posts asks about the Bose systems in 2007 to 2013 Chevy Yukons and Suburbans, and his specific question is, do I have to do anything special to replace the head unit for it to work with the existing speakers and amps?

[Eric] I think I'm going to let you guys take this one.

[Mullins] (24:43 - 24:52)

Well, we've definitely covered this range of vehicles in training with new hires no less than, what, 100 times?

[J.R.] (24:52 - 25:15)

I mean, there's so many of these out there on the road. They've retained their value. They look cool.

There's, I mean, there's still a bunch of these out there, and this is right there in that sweet spot where if you own one of these, the stereo in it has no modern conveniences that you are used to in all newer cars. No car play, no touchscreen. It might have navigation, but none of the modern, like, integrated with your phone type of features.

[Mullins] (25:17 - 25:36)

And yeah, and you know, Chevy and Chevy GM has not historically been known for high quality audio components in their vehicles, right? I mean, you know, even with the Bose system, there's still some stuff going on in there that Bose does not control 100 percent, so that's just part of the game.

[J.R.] (25:37 - 25:47)

I mean, car audio is a tough environment to put a system like that in, and those Bose systems, I hear people typically love them until maybe they stop working over time, right, because of that tough car environment.

[Mullins] (25:48 - 25:54)

Yeah, so this one is actually, it should be a short question, because frankly, we're pretty big experts on this category.

[J.R.] (25:54 - 26:05)

Oh, we've got all the info. We have so much research on this. I looked up every year of the Suburban from 2007 to 2013, the years that John is asking about here.

[Mullins] (26:05 - 26:11)

Yeah, so I can kind of sum this one up if you want to, and then if you want to go into more minutiae about it, then that's fine.

[J.R.] (26:11 - 26:13)

What you got, man? Let's do it.

[Mullins] (26:13 - 26:24)

So this vehicle, we definitely have a dash kit for it, so we can put a receiver in it, and we'll look at the limitations of what touchscreens and stuff, but I'm sure it's wide open. Like I said, we've done these 100 times.

[J.R.] (26:24 - 26:33)

So yeah, it's not one of those cars where you have to buy like a $200 integrated panel with buttons for your HVAC. It's just a simple $16 kit.

[Mullins] (26:34 - 26:34)

That's it, yeah.

[J.R.] (26:34 - 26:35)

Great.

[Mullins] (26:35 - 26:50)

You know, we pick a receiver out, and then from there, we just need, we will need an integration harness. We've got some part brake wires and things like that that are going to need to be plugged up. From there, we would just go to one of our interfaces, and I've got one in mind when we get there, but...

[J.R.] (26:50 - 27:00)

Well, there's several companies that make them, right? Like this is such a popular vehicle that PAC and Scosche and iDatalink, they're all making solutions that make it possible to do what John is asking about.

[Mullins] (27:00 - 27:48)

Yeah, yeah. So if you want to go into those, you're free to, but from my standpoint, the IDatalink Maestro is going to be the choice to go with in almost all cases like this, because we're able to make as many of the connections as we can here in-house, and this one allows us to make most all of them for you in some cases, even all of them for you. So it's a smart interface, it's really easy to program, and it'll retain the most features in this vehicle, and it'll let you integrate with the factory Bose amplifier.

So you get a good, you know, DSP type controls depending on the radio you use, which that's the part that will allow you to enhance what Bose did. Because if you're not replacing the entire Bose system, then the only thing you can really change is like things like EQ curve and stuff like that, which a new receiver will allow you to do.

[J.R.] (27:49 - 29:48)

And speaking of the new receiver, if you do go with the iDatalink Maestro interface, which will give you the most retention of factory features, part of that equation is using it with a radio that has a serial port on the back made specifically to work with the iDatalink Maestro interfaces. Now they'll work with any radio kind of universally, but you get more cool stuff when you replace the radio with a iDatalink compatible radio and the iDatalink Maestro. And in this car specifically, it'll retain your steering wheel controls, the Bose amp, which powers the Bose speakers, your warning chimes, the OnStar, the backup camera, retained accessory power, you know, when you turn your car off but the music's still playing until you open your door, that'll still happen.

It will make the connections for your parking brake, your rear seat audio controls, and it'll even add gauges to the system so that you can see more information about what's going on with your car. All of that is facilitated by that iDatalink Maestro, especially when you use it with a compatible radio. One real specific note, there's also a little USB retention harness.

If you use that, it will retain the USB that's in your center console, not the one on your dash. The one on your dash, there's no way to retain that one with a new radio. If you just enter your vehicle on crutchfield.com and go to the radios and choose one, you can choose a filter that will show you only the radios that have that iDatalink Maestro compatibility, and then it'll show you exactly what you need to retain all of those features. crutchfield.com is pretty cool in that way. And of course, you could just like sit back, relax in your recliner, and call us and talk to any advisor, and they can take you through all of your options and find you the right radio that works with all of your factory stuff. All right, our next question comes from Mohammed.

He says, if the speakers distort at high volume with the aftermarket head unit, then how come it sounds better when you add an amplifier?

[Mullins] (29:49 - 29:49)

Nice.

[J.R.] (29:50 - 29:56)

I can see it on your face. You've got things that you want to say. Go for it, buddy.

[Mullins] (29:56 - 30:08)

Man, I love and also, on the same hand, despise talking about power. But it's definitely a great question and one we deal with a lot here.

[Eric] (30:08 - 30:11)

Okay, okay, okay. One word, control. Okay, now your turn.

Go.

[J.R.] (30:12 - 30:25)

All right, so Eric says it's control. Mullins, you're talking power. And those two are actually pretty well related, right?

Because the amplifier moves the speaker in and out, and it needs to do that with precision and control.

[Mullins] (30:25 - 30:27)

That's the name of the game.

[J.R.] (30:27 - 30:32)

And the amplifier that's in your head unit, not the greatest amplifier in the world.

[Mullins] (30:32 - 30:34)

No, no matter the head unit.

[J.R.] (30:35 - 30:46)

So adding or upgrading the power that's going to power your speakers, whatever speakers they are, if it is a better quality amp, that will make a difference. I think that's where you're going with this, right?

[Mullins] (30:46 - 31:39)

That's exactly where I'm going. Yeah, so control is definitely the name of the game. And you know, more power, better power equals more control.

And one of the things that I use when I train new hires to understand this is a term I call, or not I call, I didn't come up with it, but it's a term called power before clipping. So if we look at a receiver that has an IC, integrated chip amp, built into it, and it's advertised at say 22 watts RMS, for instance. Power before clipping in an integrated chip amp, just by design, this is scientific, it can only produce roughly about 20 to maybe 25 percent of the actual power before the signal starts to clip.

And we don't have to go into clipping here, there's tons of information out there on our website, in fact, to check out.

[J.R.] (31:39 - 31:44)

But clipping is the distorts at high volumes that Mohammad is picking up and asking about here.

[Mullins] (31:44 - 32:28)

Yeah, so when you exceed the power before clipping, the amplifier starts to clip and that's where your distortion comes in. So then comparing that to adding an amplifier, an aftermarket amplifier, you know, most class AB designs, D-class is even a little better, but they can actually use upwards of 70 percent of their actual power before they begin to clip. So if we analogize that with the same exact power numbers, if we had an actual class AB or a class D amp built inside a receiver, then we would get 70 roughly percent of the 22 watts versus 15 percent of the 22 watts in the IC amp.

Follow me?

[J.R.] (32:28 - 32:46)

Yeah, so it sounds like the space that it takes to put a separate amplifier is used by better quality components, better heat dispersion, right? Like those types of amps being able to be more efficient and more effective than the tiny little integrated circuit in a radio.

[Mullins] (32:46 - 33:06)

So in comparison, one watt of receiver power versus one watt of amplifier power, if we look at the actual percentage of that one watt that we're using, the amplifier far exceeds what the receiver is capable of, which then means that you can turn it up to louder volumes without distortion because the clipping is not there, which is the distortion.

[J.R.] (33:07 - 33:25)

And to simplify it even further, your head unit simply doesn't have as much power, and you want more volume, so you're turning it up past the point where it can effectively give you good sound, whereas you won't have that problem when you have more power in reserve with a separate amplifier.

[Mullins] (33:25 - 33:31)

Yes, power in reserve, that's a good term. That's the way to think about it. That's where headroom and stuff like that comes into play.

[J.R.] (33:32 - 33:48)

All right, we've got one more question, guys. This one comes from Instagram from Instagram user ooogay_andrewfarm, and Andrew asks, how can I get more bass out of my dual 12-inch subwoofer on low volume?

[Eric] (33:49 - 33:50)

Want me to run with that one?

[Mullins] (33:50 - 33:51)

I do.

[J.R.] (33:51 - 34:31)

You want to? Sure. You got this one, Eric?

[Eric]

Sure. This is one of those times where it's hard to answer a question without more info, right? Because he might have two awesome subs.

He might even have the right amplifier. I've seen time and time again where just things aren't wired up the best they could be, or maybe it's not getting the strongest signal to that awesome amp. There's so many variables.

Maybe the box is too small, right? It's important that when you're building a system with two subs that all of the ingredients, not just those two subs, are optimized. And whether or not that's the box style or even the placement, you know, the placement inside of the car can make a difference.

[J.R.] (34:31 - 34:51)

So let's give Andrew the benefit of the doubt here. Let's say Andrew's subs are perfectly matched to the enclosure, the box, right? Sealed, ported, airspace inside the box.

All of that, he figured it out, got it right.

[Eric]

Yeah, and you can figure that out on our website because we list that information. There you go.

[J.R.]

He wired up the subs to the amplifier, so he's at the right impedance, getting the most out of that amplifier.

[Eric] (34:52 - 34:53)

You can find info on that at crutchfield.com.

[J.R.] (34:54 - 35:32)

And the amplifier might even be as much power as those subs can handle. Let's say Andrew did that as well. Well done, right?

So let's say he's got everything in place and has done it right. We don't know if he's done it on a budget or if he spent all the money in the world on this. I would guess from his question, I would infer that he's probably not using the highest, most expensive, best subs and amps on the planet, right?

He's describing a problem you typically get when you're using entry-level stuff, less expensive stuff, stuff that looks good, but under the hood, it really isn't built the same way, right?

[Eric] (35:32 - 36:19)

Yeah, so yeah, his question specifically, how can I get more bass out of my dual 12 subwoofer at low volume, right? Yeah. The way our ears work, right, we're less likely to hear bass at lower volume levels.

Even if you put a microphone on and it's lower volume, it might stay consistent as far as the output, you know, compared to the other frequencies, but our ears perceive bass less than mid-range and highs at lower volume levels. It's just the way our ears are engineered, right? So you know, there's different ways to compensate for that.

You know, there's different listening modes that maybe if he's listening to something at a lower volume level, he could select a different listening mode. So there's like so many different ways to kind of unfold this, but you know...

[J.R.] (36:19 - 36:48)

Would it be safe to say that if he does indeed have sort of an entry-level lower quality, not that expensive amplifier, that if we simply step up the quality of the amp, right? Sure. So let's say his subwoofer system can handle 500 watts of power, and he has a 500 watt amp.

Yep. Could he get a different 500 watt amp, a nicer one? Would that make the difference that he's looking for?

[Eric]

Specifically at low volume levels?

[J.R.]

Yeah

[Eric]

maybe.

[Mullins] (36:49 - 36:49)

Yes.

[J.R.] (36:50 - 36:55)

It might. Mullins is gonna argue with you on this one. I like it.

We got a fight. Ready? Go.

[Mullins] (36:55 - 36:56)

Mullins.

[J.R.] (36:56 - 36:57)

Mullins says yes. Tell me why.

[Mullins] (36:57 - 37:00)

Well, you know, Mullins is power obsessive, so...

[Eric] (37:00 - 37:01)

Well, it's the same power.

[J.R.] (37:02 - 37:12)

It's the same number of watts. There's stuff going... I mean, a Maserati and a Chevy Chevette both go 55, but is it the same experience?

[Eric] (37:13 - 37:22)

No, because they don't have the same power.

[J.R.]

Hey, now. Do you guys actually agree without agreeing?

[Mullins] (37:22 - 37:47)

Yeah, yeah. We probably agree on this one.

We do agree on this one. I could go into the weeds for the sake of argument, but I'm not going to. But the fact is the quality of the amplifier, the circuitry of an amplifier, there's a reason why Rockford Fosgate amps bring a premium price, right?

Yeah. So, point made. You know, it's better power, which equals better sound, which equals better low volume performance.

[Eric] (37:48 - 39:05)

Yeah, that can absolutely be part of it. Yeah, I just wish we could ask him questions.

[Mullins]

Me too.

[Eric]

So we could drill in a little bit more. I think I'd want to know... Yeah, I always want to know the why.

Well, and I want to know, is he happy with how loud it can be? Does it sound accurate when he's playing at loud volume levels? Because then he might already have a great amp.

Hey, he might even have that Rockford, right?

[Mullins]

In which case, we have another way to do it.

[Eric]

Yeah, then there's another thing.

And, you know, that's where my questions would go. And in those cases, it can just be more of an EQ setting or a DSP where we're bumping up those lower frequencies a little bit just so that our ears are more likely to hear them at those envelopes. I tell you, what this brings to mind is a bass knob.

Goodness gracious, how convenient is it? I'm going to turn the volume down. Oh, let me just go and reach over to this other knob right beside it and just tweak that up a little bit.

And that is not as great of a solution. Like you don't want to just add gain to the bass, right? For the sake of doing that, you know, there's a little bit of risk reward there, certainly.

But boy, oh boy, if everything else is right, that's such a great way to just be able to quickly access that and be able to, you know, base it on the song you're listening to.

[Mullins] (39:07 - 39:16)

Yeah, and that's kind of leading me into the other solution I was going to talk about too. I wasn't sure if you were going to go with bass knobs or if you were going to go with like DSP.

[Eric] (39:16 - 39:20)

Oh, I love a knob. So definitely going knob over DSP for me.

[Mullins] (39:21 - 39:56)

Fair enough. To each their own. But, you know, I'm a DSP guy too.

So, you know, I feel like I would be able to, like you said, if all other things are taken care of well and all the equipment is done right, then sure, adding a DSP. Or if you have a DSP, just take some time to actually really dig in and research how to get it set correctly. And, you know, you can bring those low bass frequencies to life a little bit more that way too.

But then still yet your bass knob is much quicker and convenient and easy.

[Eric] (39:56 - 40:13)

And heck, you can combine the two. You can get the control of a DSP and really be able to fine, you know, fine control those frequencies throughout all the speakers and blend that perfectly and then still get a bass knob that's connected directly to that DSP and now just tweak where you need that extra little bump.

[J.R.] (40:13 - 40:16)

Wait, so now you're saying a DSP and a knob?

[Eric] (40:16 - 40:17)

There are no rules. There's no rules.

[J.R.] (40:18 - 40:46)

A good amp, a DSP, and a bass knob. All right, guys, that does it for answering questions that we received on our social medias, on our Facebook and Instagram posts.

We will be doing that again. And comment on anything that you see on our socials and direct. If you mention the podcast, they'll funnel it our way so we can talk about your questions on an upcoming episode.

I'd love to answer some questions. Like you just did. You did it so well.

You're so good at this.

[Mullins] (40:46 - 40:46)

Thank you.

[J.R.] (40:46 - 41:56)

Now we're going to move on, though, and we're going to read our favorite customer reviews that we have found on crutchfield.com. Customers write reviews, sometimes they upload pictures, sometimes they're very fun to read, and we've all found one that we would like to read. I'm going to go first here.

This is a weird little product. It's like kind of like an amp installation product. It's called Nine Wire.

If you've ever installed a four-channel amp, you probably have seen or wish you had Nine Wire. It's nine wires wrapped up in one bundle so it's easier to run from the front to the back of your car. And Mort from Filler or Filer, Idaho says about Nine Wire, Nine Wire is the greatest invention since sliced bread.

Don't know where it has been all my life. This made my custom installations so much easier. Will definitely use again on my next build.

I mean, this is like a $20, $30 product that's really just an amplifier installation thing, and Mort says it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Where has it been all of his life?

[Mullins]

That's high praise.

[J.R.]

That's an emotional connection to a very boring product. You know what I'm saying?

[Mullins] (41:56 - 42:04)

It kind of is. Yeah. What's his name again?

[J.R.]

Mort. Mort from Idaho. Yeah.

[Mullins]

Well, I share Mort's enthusiasm for Nine Wire, frankly.

[J.R.] (42:05 - 42:06)

Yeah, I do too.

[Mullins] (42:07 - 42:07)

Yeah.

[J.R.] (42:07 - 42:09)

All right, Eric, it's your turn. What do you got for us?

[Eric] (42:09 - 42:16)

All right. So I got one for some... Do I need to say the product first?

[J.R.] (42:16 - 42:18)

I mean, it would be helpful to understand.

[Eric] (42:18 - 42:52)

Maybe put it into some context. First off, this was tough. This was incredibly hard because of how many wonderful reviews we have on our wonderful products.

So I spent time trying to find something, kind of a gripping, maybe a fun story. I came up with this from Bobby from Yuma, Arizona. So Bobby said about the Sony WH-1000XM5s.

We own these in my family as well. Some really good noise-canceling headphones from Sony, said...

[Mullins] (42:52 - 42:58)

My daughter's girlfriend actually uses those headphones too, and she is a little bit low-key obsessed with them, actually.

[J.R.] (42:58 - 43:02)

I am not shocked at all, Eric, that you picked these. I know how much your family loves them. Yes, yes.

[Eric] (43:03 - 43:19)

So Bobby's review, great product that met my needs. Man, that's great, isn't it? I mean, that's the same to the point.

I love it. That's wonderful. I mean, that's what we're going for here.

This is an exciting product, and that was an exciting review.

[Mullins] (43:19 - 43:26)

Hey, but you really could say enough said, but those headphones are that good. Doesn't that tell the whole story?

[Eric] (43:26 - 43:36)

It really does. It is a premium product. It's not inexpensive.

I won't pretend it is, but that's a great product that met their needs. Oh my goodness. It just gives me chills.

[J.R.]

Well done, Eric.

[Mullins] (43:36 - 43:37)

Thank you. Thank you.

[Eric] (43:37 - 43:38)

All right, Mullins, what do you got?

[Mullins] (43:38 - 44:14)

Okay, so the product is the Mophie Power Station Pro, and the review is from Robert from Katy, Texas. Robert says, I was forced to replace another branded power station due to continued issues, so I bought this Mophie. First use, it charged my iPad Pro from 41% to 89% in one hour and still showed a full charge.

Very impressive. I'm quite sure I made the right choice with Mophie, and I couldn't agree with Robert more. I've used Mophie products for probably a decade now.

Really solid, and as a segue here into probably our next segment, I believe.

[J.R.] (44:15 - 44:53)

Yeah, I think that does it for customer reviews that we liked a lot. Yeah, yeah. That's the name of this segment.

I don't know. Maybe it'll have a better name in the future, but I'm digging this, reading our customer reviews. So if you write a fun review or really good review, we might find it and read it on the next show.

So just know that, and hey, let us know if you do write a review. Our next segment to finish out this first episode of 2025 is, you know, we're coming up on Valentine's Day. And it seemed like maybe we have some good ideas for things you might buy for your significant other for Valentine's Day, and Mullins, I think you should go first.

We'll go in reverse order on this one.

[Mullins] (44:54 - 45:22)

That works. Yeah, so I like Robert and what he's got going on here with this little Mophie power station, and I think these could be great gifts for people for Valentine's Day. Because the way I use these, I have one myself, like I said, I've used the Mophies, and I have another one now that's a MagSafe that I use for my phone. And then I've got one that I kind of feel is almost a necessity at this point, is one of the battery boosters that you can stick in your car that lets you boost your battery if it dies.

[Eric] (45:22 - 45:24)

Those are lifesavers. I love those things. Yeah.

[Mullins] (45:25 - 46:03)

Yeah. So, you know, I live in a log house and I don't have a lot of outlets throughout my house. Yeah.

So I use, like, I've got a USB lamp that I have at my table beside me where I sit in my living room. And, you know, that USB lamp has to be charged occasionally. And if I have to charge it, I got to take it off of my table, move it to another table, and charge it up, and then bring it back to the table when it's ready to be used.

But I use my power bank sometimes. If I'm in the middle of using the light and it starts to get dimmed, then I'll just plug a USB power bank up to it. And now I've got power again for a little while.

So I use it for the light. I use it for my phone. I almost always have one with me, and you should, too.

[J.R.] (46:04 - 46:11)

So what you're hoping for here is that your wife is listening and gets you one of these. That's, I think, what you were going for.

[Mullins] (46:11 - 46:16)

That checks out. That checks out.

[J.R.]

Are you going to get her one of these?

[Mullins]

Most certainly will if that's what she wants.

[Eric] (46:16 - 46:30)

Beautiful. Beautiful. We have one of those, too.

We use it when traveling. Just a little peace of mind to be walking around. Absolutely.

Yeah. If it's a place we're not familiar with, kind of exploring, it's nice to have that little peace of mind knowing that you can always get a quick charge.

[Mullins] (46:30 - 46:32)

So I have one right here in my bag.

[J.R.] (46:32 - 46:41)

You know, chocolates and flowers are the quintessential Valentine's Day gifts, but I think nothing says love more than I want you to be safe. Yeah.

[Mullins] (46:42 - 46:43)

That's a good point.

[J.R.] (46:43 - 46:57)

Certainly some truth to that. All right, Eric, what do you got for Valentine's Day, buddy? Oh, I typically go with the chocolate and flowers.

However-

[J.R.]

Nothing wrong with that. We're not saying don't do that, right? Maybe they should accompany whatever else it is you're about to suggest.

[Eric] (46:58 - 47:45)

Well, you know, how about the gift of music, right? People love music. That can take on all kinds of form factors.

Clearly, we carry thousands of products that can deliver on that. But I'll just lean back to those XM5 Sony headphones that I was just looking at. There's so many situations that might require a different type of headphone.

Having a nice set of headphones is pretty darn cool. And even if there's not a perfect set of headphones for all situations, those Sony XM5s are darn good for a lot of different ones. I got my wife a pair of them last year, and she now uses them when working from home for even work meetings.

So she can turn on the noise canceling or turn off the noise canceling to either be aware of what's going on in her environment or shutting it out. They're really comfortable to be able to wear for long periods of time. So yeah, they're great.

[Mullins] (47:46 - 47:53)

And not only can you just turn the noise canceling off, but if I remember right, those have like an ambient mode where it actually has a microphone that picks up the stuff you want.

[Eric] (47:53 - 48:07)

Yeah, that's what I meant by being able to be aware of what's going on in your environment because it'll push it right through as if you weren't even wearing headphones. So yeah, they're awesome. And it comes in three colors, black, silver, and pink.

[J.R.] (48:07 - 48:20)

All right, guys, I have seen your ideas for Valentine's Day gifts. I've seen the Mophie. Great idea.

I've seen your one pair of headphones that you're recommending.

[Eric] (48:20 - 48:21)

Well, technically it was a gift of music, but... It's the gift of music.

[J.R.]

I got it.

[J.R.] (48:21 - 48:50)

I'm going to raise you one though, because my idea is to get your significant other and yourself matching headphones. Two sets of headphones. Now here, I've thought this out.

I've looked it up. You can do two sets of headphones wirelessly, Bluetooth, from one phone. This is a thing that can be done.

You do got to pay attention to the particulars. For example, if you have an iPhone, you need to be using either Apple AirPods, any version of those, or Beats headphones.

[Eric] (48:51 - 48:53)

Owned by Apple.

[J.R.] (48:54 - 49:26)

That's why they work. You can't just pick any random pair. So those Sonys wouldn't work for an iPhone. But if you have compatible headphones, you can have two sets of them.

You go into the iPhone and do share audio. Your iPhone does have to have iOS 13.1 or newer. But if you do that, two sets of headphones on the same phone.

So let's say, you know, in a few months, my girlfriend and I are going to take a train from here in Charlottesville up to New York, and we're both going to want to watch the same show or the same movie while we're on the train. We can now do that from my iPad and have it send out audio to both of our headphones.

[Eric] (49:26 - 49:27)

I love that.

[J.R.] (49:27 - 49:56)

And we're watching the same thing, and we're cuddled together, and we're enjoying the trip together even more. And we're not bothering all of those around you.

[Eric]

I love it.

[J.R.]

If you want to do it on an Android, you can using any set of headphones, but it does have to be a Samsung Galaxy phone. Those are the only Android phones that support dual audio. The beauty of that though is that you're not limited to a certain brand of headphones.

Any Bluetooth headphones should work. So you can do it with iPhones or Samsung Android phones.

[Mullins] (49:57 - 50:18)

I love that. Let's evaluate these Valentine's Day gift recommendations for a second here, okay? Okay.

So if our three recommendations were, if we analogize it to rock, paper, scissors, I win.

[J.R.]

How do you figure that?

[Mullins]

Because Eric gave the gift of music, right?

Yeah. And we could also say kind of you gave the gift of music.

[J.R.] (50:19 - 50:26)

I gave the gift of togetherness. Shared experience, I was thinking. Yes, togetherness, shared experience.

I gave the gift of togetherness.

[Mullins] (50:26 - 50:28)

Okay. Gift of togetherness.

[J.R.] (50:28 - 50:30)

What did you give the gift of? We have the... Safety, I think.

[Mullins] (50:31 - 50:31)

Safety.

[Eric] (50:32 - 50:32)

Peace of mind.

[Mullins] (50:32 - 50:37)

I gave the gift of energy. You can't play your headphones without a battery.

[Eric] (50:38 - 50:39)

I'm going to plug them in before I leave home.

[Mullins] (50:40 - 50:46)

To what? I can plug it into my battery while I'm away from home. I win.

Rock, paper, scissors, win.

[J.R.] (50:46 - 50:58)

Heck, if you are out there as a Samsung phone owner, you can get Mullen's Mophie battery pack for the energy. You can get one set of Eric's XM5 headphones.

[Eric] (50:58 - 51:03)

Which lasts for 40 hours, by the way, which is more than Valentine's Day, but continue.

[Mullins] (51:03 - 51:06)

But with the Mophie, they could last 140 hours.

[J.R.] (51:06 - 51:19)

So you could get one set of headphones to give your significant other the gift of music, or you can do what I did and get two pairs of those and get togetherness. Energy, music, together. What is better than that?

[Eric] (51:19 - 51:21)

I think I'm going to go with the chocolate and flowers actually, but yes.

[J.R.] (51:21 - 51:23)

Will you let us know how that goes?

[Eric] (51:23 - 51:23)

Okay. Yeah.

[J.R.] (51:23 - 52:20)

Thank you so much for listening to Crutchfield, the podcast. On behalf of Eric and Mullins, I am JR. We are excited to be here each month of 2025. We have 12 episodes planned.

We're going to be doing a lot of fun stuff. We're going to be talking to tech support. We're going to be talking more with our listeners, our friends on social media.

If you want us to talk about your topic, comment on our stuff, send us an email, podcast at crutchfield.com. We'd love to do more interaction with the people listening to this show. This episode of Crutchfield, the podcast is hosted by Eric, Mullins, and myself.

Big thanks to Abby and Alexis from our social media team for collecting a bunch of great questions for us to answer. Crutchfield, the podcast is produced, engineered, recorded, mixed, mastered, and edited by me at Crutchfield headquarters right here in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. And as always, thank you to Bill Crutchfield for paying us to talk about the coolest stuff on the planet.

[Eric]

Thanks, Bill.

[Mullins]

Thanks, Bill. We'll see you next month.

[Mullins] (52:33 - 52:34)

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[J.R.] (52:35 - 52:38)

Hey, you're the one that want to get out of here. You're slowing things down.

[Mullins] (52:38 - 52:42)

But I told you I also don't want to leave. So I'm still finding that little paradox.