Car Tweeters: How They Affect the Speakers, Types, and More

A car’s audio system can make or break road trip enjoyment. Whether you’re driving alone or with friends, nothing beats driving on the open road while listening to your favorite hits. Tweeters can take this experience to the next level. With such a simple upgrade, ordinary drives become memories filled with good music and superb sound quality.

What Is a Tweeter in Car Speakers?

Tweeters are specialized loudspeaker drivers designed to produce high-frequency sounds in an audio system. They’re an essential part of speaker systems, even ones used in vehicles. 

Tweeters are typically used alongside woofers to produce high-quality sound and accurate music or speech. In short, they improve the sound system’s quality.

What Does a Tweeter Do in Speakers?

Tweeters work by converting electrical signals through a process that involves a voice coil, diaphragm, and magnets. While the steps might be different per tweeter type, the general process is the same.

A signal is sent to the tweeter before passing through the coil attached to a diaphragm. The signal causes the coil to move back and forth, causing the diaphragm to vibrate at the same frequency as the audio signal. The vibrating diaphragm then creates sound waves that radiate from the speaker cone.

As such, the diaphragm’s size and shape can affect the pattern of the sound wave and the frequency of the tweeter. Similarly, a diaphragm made from different materials can also impact sound quality. 

Some tweeters also have acoustic lenses or a waveguide to help control the direction and dispersion of sound waves.

Tweeter Types and Advantages

There are a lot of tweeter types, all with varying characteristics that affect the sound quality of a speaker system. Here are some of the common types and their advantages:

Dome Tweeters

Dome tweeters got their name due to the dome-shaped diaphragm. The dome is made of materials like silk, polyester, or aluminum. Its design makes for excellent sound dispersion to create consistent and clear sound quality. 

Dome tweeters are also relatively cheaper than other types, which makes them the most popular tweeter type. One disadvantage of domes is the diaphragm is prone to damage if you play music at high volumes.

Ribbon Tweeters

Ribbon tweeters have a metal ribbon between two magnetic fields that provide detailed sound reproduction. They deliver smooth and extended high-frequency sounds, making for detailed audio even at high volumes, unlike dome tweeters. 

This also means ribbon tweeters are more expensive and are easily damaged. There’s also a chance they don’t disperse sounds as widely as dome tweeters.

Planar Magnetic Tweeters

Planar magnetic tweeters have a flat diaphragm placed between two magnets that vibrate when an electric current passes through to produce sound. This type produces precise sound reproduction and lower distortion to provide a high-frequency sound. You can also find planar magnetic drivers in hi-fi quality headphones.

However, these tweeters are more expensive than other types and are more fragile. Like ribbon tweeters, they might also not disperse sound as widely as dome tweeters.

Thousands of happy customers choose CarParts.com. Shop Now

Horn Tweeters

A horn tweeter’s diaphragm is horn-shaped and is made of titanium or aluminum. They’re known to produce loud and clear high-frequency sounds. Horn tweeters are efficient, as they produce a lot of sound while not needing too much power. They also fill large spaces with sound, making them ideal for live music performances.

However, horn tweeters are big and aren’t recommended for car speakers. They also don’t produce accurate sounds, unlike other tweeter types.

Electrostatic Tweeters

Electrostatic tweeters have a thin diaphragm coated with conductive material like gold or aluminum. It’s placed between charged plates and uses electrostatic forces to move the diaphragm, as opposed to a voice coil and magnet. 

Electrostatic tweeters deliver transparent and airy sound with a low distortion rate, even at high volumes. However, because of their premium-quality sound and materials, these tweeters are expensive and fragile.

Air Motion Transformer Tweeters

Lastly, air motion transformer (AMT) tweeters use a folded diaphragm made from pleated polyester film and a neodymium magnet to produce sound. 

AMTs are known to reproduce even the most complete musical passages to produce high-quality sound, making them popular with sound engineers. Unfortunately, this also means AMTs are expensive because they need complex designs and construction to get optimal performance.

How to Find the Right Tweeter for Your Car Speaker

There are three things you need to keep in mind to find the right tweeters for your car. 

First, you need to know your speakers’ size. Knowing the speaker size makes it easier to pick out the right tweeters. 

Secondly, you must know and have in mind what type of tweeter you need. As mentioned above, there are a handful of tweeter types, all with pros and cons. Consider what you’ll be using the speaker for, how often/loud you plan on playing music, and how much your budget is. 

Lastly, you should know what speaker you can put in your vehicle and their wattage. Modern cars usually have coaxial speakers, meaning they have two or three drivers to produce woofer and tweeter sounds from the same speaker unit. Meanwhile, knowing the wattage is important because you can only plug speakers with the right wattage into your car.

How to Install Tweeter in Car Speakers

To install tweeters, you’ll need to have the following tools and materials on hand:

• Tweeters
• Speaker wire
• Wire strippers
• Screwdrivers
• Electrical tape
• Base blockers

The installation process might vary depending on the tweeter, but here’s how it usually goes:

• Step 1: Turn off the car and disconnect the battery’s negative terminal (black wire) to prevent electrical shorts.
• Step 2: Use the screwdriver to remove the screws and clips holding the door panel and disconnect any attached wires.
• Step 3: Use the mounting hardware that comes with the tweeters to secure them in place on the dashboard or the door panel.
• Step 4: Connect the speaker wires to the tweeters and run them through the door into the interior. Ensure it doesn’t interfere with moving parts.
• Step 5: Find the front speaker wires behind the stereo and connect the tweeter wires. Ensure correct polarity (positive to positive, negative to negative).
• Step 6: Reconnect the battery and turn on the stereo to test the tweeter.
• Step 7: Reattach the door panel and reattach the screws and clips you removed.