Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Car Stereo

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.