Car stereos are the newest addition in the world of stereos. Previously there were only home stereos. Home stereos first emerged in the 1930s. But in the 1950s, home stereos started becoming affordable for the people. But the 21st century saw the emergence of car stereos. With the help of new technologies, the 21st century enabled car stereo systems supporting new audio formats.



There are various new formats available for car stereos now. In this article, we will discuss about all these new audio formats.

Previously, a car used to have just one radio in its dashboard and two speakers in the front doors. But now the times have changed. Today the technology has advanced so much that car stereos are competitively as good as home stereos.

Dolby sound

Dolby sound is a brilliant audio format used by car stereos. Dolby sound actually influences the audio signal and reduces background hiss or noise prevalent in low quality systems. This can be effective for tape cassettes, because of the background hiss prevalent in tape players.

Surround sound

Surround sound is actually an effect that makes the listener feel that the sound is coming from almost every direction. Gone are those days when sound used to come from only left and right speakers. Now, sounds come from left, right, center, up, down, almost from every direction.

DSP

The full form of DSP is Digital Signal Processing. DSP creates a special kind of effect, which is called psycho acoustic effect. This special effect is created by delaying and influencing the audio signals. This effect actually creates an extra sound that does not exist originally. Actually the delays give birth to a series of echoes. All of them are pre-programmed. And these echoes create the special effect. Many models contain different settings, like, jazz club, stadium, concert hall etc.

MP3

MP3 is one of the most acclaimed audio formats nowadays. Previously MP3 was made only for home stereos. But now car stereos also contain this format. MP3 is a special format that allows the CD to hold a huge number of titles/songs. If you have got this in your car, then you can compress plenty of music or other data into one CD and you will be able to play them in your car stereo.

Sometimes, the MP3 format harms the quality of sound due to the compression. But if this small drawback can be excused, then MP3 can help you in many ways. The best thing about this is it saves a lot of space. Previously, you would've had to carry plenty of CDs in your car. But now, you can listen to all of your favorite songs by playing just one CD.

There are some modification of the MP3 format that have occurred recently. Now, car stereos consist of a small computer, which is capable of reading the MP3 format. And this computer does not need any MP3 CD. The data can be loaded onto this computer directly from the home PC. It contains a portable hard drive, through which this job can be done. The hard drive has to be attached via the USB port.

RDS

RDS or Radio Data System is a highly equipped car radio set up. It allows you to listen to all the radio stations in your city. It also offers some special features. If you want to listen to any special kind of song, say country song, then you can choose the category and the radio will find the particular station that plays that kind of song. You can even choose traffic updates. If you save TA or TRAF, then the radio will automatically shift to the channel in the time of traffic updates.