Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Car Stereo

Don't think I'd posted about this before I took my short leave...

I bought my grandfather's car off my dad... kind of a sentimental thing... I couldn't stand watching it rot away in his garage. Replaced the GM AM/FM/Cassette with an Alpine CDE-9843 head unit, the stock fronts with Alpine SPS-460A 4x6s and the stock rears with Alpine SPS-690A 6x9s.

I got the car back from the install at 5:00pm on a Monday... the head unit was stolen that night. Arrrgh... and they damaged the dash insert, the heater controls and cracked the dash in the process.

Got a new one installed and an alarm now... but... I'm not a big fan of really expensive car installs because they ARE so easily stolen... but... not even 24 hours?!?

Bren R.

That really bites.

Removable faceplates, my friend. The flippy ones don't do jack... if someone's stealing car radios, they kind of know about that stuff. Take the faceplate off wherever you go.

The faceplate is removable and WAS removed... it was in the house... so I now have two faceplates...

The "theftproof" design of a removal faceplate is a sham... a new faceplate is $20-$30 on eBay... and they're not "assigned" to any unit like some of the original ones were... where they'd be programmed to only work with one head unit.

I am, however, impressed by the quality of the current aftermarket alarms. No nuisance alarms even during the heavy windstorm here that tore an entire square (4' x 8') of shingles off my house... yet a good rap on the car sets off the warn away and a solid hit sets off the alarm. Also had them install a battery backup siren that uses an internal lead-acid battery to wail away anytime it sees an anomily in the car battery voltage (including washing the battery with a pressure washer - created a half-second or so short - that hurt my ears and everyone else's in the car wash)... and since I'm cynical and don't necessarily trust that since someone knows how to install the stuff, they know how to defeat it, I personally added a VERY well hidden third DC backup plan that I showed off to quite a few buddies who weren't able to find it even with full access all over the car.

Bren R.

I stand corrected. That really blows. I has assumed that they were all assigned to a unit.

They haven't been since about the second generation since the pull-out cassette decks in the early 90s... of course, they dont publicize that fact... removable faceplate... it's nearly unstealable! No one would ever think of actually just trying to buy a new faceplate!

Also, another little thing you might want to be wary of... the rest of the deck is secured into a mounting bracket in the dash, as you probably know. But did you know, there are little thin straps that you slide down each side of the head unit and it unlocks the deck from the mounting bracket?

So total time to steal the stereo...
~10 seconds to slimjim the door
~7 seconds to unlock the head unit from the bracket
~4 seconds to unhook the leads to the unit
~2 to lightly close the door to turn the interior light off

So just over 20 seconds to steal it.

Bren R.

I install my own radios. I know about the little slide out bits... Of course, it seems like the theives who have stolen my radios didn't. They just tore off the center console, like yours. Both times.

BrenR
Sorry to hear about your bad luck. Those Alpine head units are nice, expensive too. I have a Clarion from their Pro line. It has a removable faceplate. Lately I have gotten lazy about removing the it when I go places. People suck sometimes. I can't believe it happebed right after the install. Hope you have better luck this time.
oz

I've had a somewhat different life......my cars have usually either been open top or generally too noisy to enjoy a good sound system.

Had a similar situation though.

Had a noisy(they all were)'67 Bug that was very dear to us back in the early '70s.

I was updating it with a few frillies over in my Dads garage for convenience. When I was done it was a really nice Bug

I understand and sympathize with your trauma.

The evening I brought my beloved Bug home.......

That really sucks.I thought the faceplate would only work on one specific deck too.I guess we learn something new every day.I just got done putting some aftermarket peices in my S10.Maybe an alarm should be in order.

It sounds like you put together a nice sytstem.Alpine gear is some really nice stuff.

That stinks, Bren. I'm sorry to hear about that. My son had a similar incident, with an eclipse deck he had installed, but it took a couple of months, at least. He replaced it with a Pioneer deck and nobody seems to have any interest in that one.

F107plus5, I had a '69 VW Bug for about 8 or 9 years. Those little engines are loud! When I took girls out on dates in the summertime conversations were a little rough with the engine droning and the windows rolled down--we almost had to shout to each other. After a few years I finally got around to putting a radio/stereo in the car, but again I had to crank it way up to hear over the engine.

I miss that car. It was a lot of fun to drive. Plus, it was a great litmus test--if I could get a second date out of a girl after she rode in my rusty little bug, she was a keeper. Not all girls are materialistic!

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That really sucks.I thought the faceplate would only work on one specific deck too.I guess we learn something new every day.

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I figured it took me by surprise, and while they never out and say it, the "theft-proof" adjective kind of makes you think that way. I learned the hard way, time to go public and debunk that myth.

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It sounds like you put together a nice sytstem. Alpine gear is some really nice stuff.

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I can be honest even though I did sink some money into it - it's not bad, but it's no paragon of audio enjoyment, either... I'd never find myself saying "wow, this is a great CD, can't wait to see what it sounds like in the car!" the speakers are 2-way (fronts) and 3-way (rears) and being an older car, fire straight up from the dash into the windshield and straight up into the rear window from the rear deck. If I were looking for a much better sound, I would have gone with a custom separates install, with tweeters aimed more towards the passengers' heads. Car audio is just such an afterthought, takes a lot of work and money to try to turn a passenger mover into an audio showroom.

For the most part, I play MP3 discs that I rip from my albums (after seeing how bro's CDs looked after two years of travelling in his Jeep, cases frosted from scratches and discs left in the sun warped)... I usually make comp CDs of all of an artist/genres' discs from my collection.

I may be an anti-MP3 snob at home, but in the car, who can tell it's a 256Kb/S rip? Saves me swapping discs all the time or having a changer in the trunk.

My $0.02.

Bren R.

I don't do the mp3 thing for my truck but I do make copies of anything I want to have in there.I have 4x6s in the dash and 6.5s in the door panels.Also I put in a 12" sub powered with an Mtx amp behind the back seat,it seems to fill out the system pretty nice.

I use a Sony Walkman mini disc player that I'll use in the vehicle as well as my work plane, pretty darn nifty!

That’s a pisser about the theft. I hate thieves. I’m very fortunate to live in a small town where one doesn’t “need” to lock vehicles or the house even. Plus, I have three cops that live in my neighborhood. But the downside to small town living is that everyone knows your business, good or bad. And you don’t loose your woman, just your turn.

But regarding car stereos, with enough time and money, you can get one to sound pretty darn impressive nowadays. I spend a fair amount of time driving to / from work and long road trips, so I have to have a good system in my vehicles or I’d go nuts. That being said, Alpine is my HU of choice. I installed the 9855 in my last truck. Took me a week to figure out how to set it up, but it was a real nice unit. That particular system had three amps (1500 watts / 2 ohm), 6 ½” components in the front door panels, 6” X 9” three ways in the rear doors for fillers, and twin 10” subs under the rear seat in a pro-box. I ran dynomat throughout the truck too (spendy to do right, but well worth it). Everything was geared toward SQ and not SPL. It sounded pretty amazing. Point being, I actually looked forward to hearing CD’s in the truck as much as at home. In the truck, it’s just me, the road, some loud metal and a kick ass quad shot mocha. Great way to start the day….

Now I’ve got a new truck with friggin Bose system in it. Sounds like crap and it’s killing me. So now I’m in the process of putting a system together for it.

Strangely enough, I seriously considered after the first theft just installing a set of RCAs on the dash that would feed an amp to the speakers from a discman/portable MP3 player... realized that that would leave me without a few controls... plus gain staging would be all messed up adjusting "line" voltage through the headphone out for volume.

MDrew - I don't think for a second it's impossible to get good sound in a vehicle... but since I spend 0-30 mins in it a day and 14 hours in front of my computer, it's money best spent elsewhere... elsewhere less stealable.

Bren R.

I actually just put a new head unit in my subaru. I've been taking the face plate with me whenever I park it outside my driveway or my work parking lot. (Both are quite safe.) The car has a factory alarm, but I'll admit I get a bit nervous about someone stealing it anyway. I took it out of the sliding bracket it comes with and screwed it into the factory bracket in my car. So someone couldn't just slide in the two strips and pop it out in my case. There's something like 10 screws they'd have to remove before the sucker would come out. (Not that they couldn't just do that.) What I really want is a fake faceplate. Something I can clip on where the removable plate was that roughly matches the trim color on my dash. But I don't think they make such a thing... Might have to do it myself.