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Car stereo?


oscarsear

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I wandered thru that minefield a couple of times with my Chevy CD/bose 6 speaker system. In my case I found that replacing the stock head unit with a Kenwood double din unit and adding the PAC adapter to use the steering wheel control and connect the RCA line outs to the factory "B" amp made a significant improvement even with the stock speakers. Cost of adapter was more than the head unit and you don't have crossover control of the sub as that is internal to the "B" amp unit. But it is an improvement and I use either Bluetooth from my phone using Amazon prime and a thumb drive plugged into the head unit. I came close to picking up new speakers, sub and amps a month or so back but couldn't pull the at a price of about $3k for improvement.

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I'm a Pioneer guy myself.  If I ever use after stock (have no need in my Fusion), I usually go to Pioneer.  The double DIN units they have a pretty reasonable, and put out some decent power.  They look nicer too in my opinion, which is a must in a car system.  They even had a few that played nice with SYNC, so I'm sure they have some that'll play nice with Chevy's door chime and voice operation.

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Pioneer car speakers used to be very good (maybe still are?).  

Right after I graduated HS ('78), I put Pioneer speakers and Jensen electronics in my '72 Impala (my "college car"). When my mom borrowed my car to make a trip to the supermarket, the bag boy asked my mom if the car belonged to her son.  She answered "yes, how did you know?".  He said "because the stereo is worth more than the car".  A guy must get his priorities right.

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14 hours ago, oscarsear said:

What are the better products?

Any of the older Panasonic HU's sporting Tripath hardware. I have a CQ-C9901U in my car and it is no joke. Even today, very few can touch it. Amazing SQ and power on tap.

 

See: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20040109005047/en/Tripath-Chosen-Panasonic-Car-Audio-TA2041A-Family-Featured

 

and

 

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20060106005105/en/Tripath-Powers-Panasonics-High-Power-In-Dash-Car

 

 

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7 hours ago, JJkizak said:

How do you guys get the new radio to work with the computer system of the vehicle?

JJK

 

That's the sensitive issue today.  It's why you need to make sure above just dimension and DIN size that you get a system that was designed to work with the car. Like I said, Pioneer makes some units that have Sync support, which then in turn enables them to be used in cars with Sync and still retain those features.  Otherwise, several have a "mode" where the car's computer becomes available, but I don't know anything about how effective those are.

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3 hours ago, Mighty Favog said:

Be careful yanking out Bose speakers from cars and replacing them with something else. The ones in my Acura are (I think) something weird like 1 ohm. Means I'd have to replace the whole shameel. IIRC the factory head unit is a Pioneer.

 

Wow, I've never heard of that, but I am way out of touch with car audio.  The last decent stuff I had was a Blankput head unit with Alpine speakers.  It had an incredibly accurate sound for a car setup.

 

Now I have a stock radio in a Toyota Rav4 and it just grates on my ears.  How is it possible to have a sound band that has no low end, no midrange and no top end?

 

OTOH the stereo in my wife's Honda CRV sounds pretty good for an OEM radio.

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25 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

This is why I tend to get cars that have a nice sound, and listen to them instead of the radio. 

I have LaScalas in my media room, KG 5.5's in my office and KSB 1.1s in my bedroom. My car stereo speakers in my front two doors dont even work. :unsure2:

 

I do drive a manual though and enjoy listening to the rpms, especially on the downshift blips.

 

As for the OP. I would check out PartsExpress.com. They have a great selection on car audio equipment.

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